Swims on Screen: Bonjour Tristesse

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'That summer I was seventeen and perfectly happy. At that time "everybody else" was my father and his mistress, Elsa... he had rented a large white villa on the Mediterranean, for which we had been longing since the spring. It was remote and beautiful, standing on a headland jutting over the sea, hidden from the road by pine woods. A goat path led down to a small, sunny cove where the sea lapped against rust-colored rocks... From dawn onward I was in the water. It was cool and transparent, and I plunged wildly about in my efforts to wash away the shadows and dust of Paris. I lay stretched out on the sand, took up a handful and let it run through my fingers in soft, yellow streams. I told myself that it ran out like time. It was an idle thought, and it was pleasant to have idle thoughts, for it was summer' (Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse, 1954).

The 1958 film version of Sagan's story includes many seaside scenes filmed on the Côte d'Azur/French Riviera, including Jean Seberg (as Cécile) in swimsuits of various hues rendered in glorious technicolor.




In one scene, Cécile describes her swim to her father (played by David Niven) as 'marvellous, like swimming in cool velvet' to which he replies 'velvet's always hot'  and she responds 'cool silk then'.


The sunburn-averse Elsa (played by Mylène Demongeot) carries off some fantastic hats:



And of course Jean Seberg is the epitome of cool going for a run in a stripy t-shirt.



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