SOURCE: "Elective Affinities: Aspects of Jules et Jim," in Sight and Sound, Vol. 32, No. 2, Spring, 1963, pp. 78-82.

In the following essay, Greenspun discusses the cinematography in Jules et Jim and the way in which the film's images illustrate the problems in the characters' lives.

The forms of life flourish within the protective circles of François Truffaut's Jules et Jim. Whatever is reflected in the kindly eyes of Jules "comme des boules, pleins d'humour et de tendresse," tadpoles squirming in a round bowl of water, the slow sensitive circling of a room by hand-held camera taking careful inventory of the pleasant labours of a reflective and observant man's life—circles enclose to promote and enhance the abundant vitality of this film's world and its creatures. Files of dominoes meander across circular tables. A young woman imitating a locomotive triumphantly puffs her way around Jules's room with a cigarette...