As an under-appreciated part of a fascinating career, Joseph Losey’s Eva is notable for several reasons. The first is that in the exiled American director’s extensive body of work it sits between the hard-nosed melodramas he made as a matter of necessity when McCarthyism chased him out Hollywood and all the way to London, and his latter, better known artistry, when he often had Harold Pinter as his scenarist, such as The Go-Between, Accident and The Servant. It represents a potent middle ground; emotionally brutal, technically adept, no overt pretensions.
Secondly, it boasts one of the few great performances he drew from a female protagonist, with Jeanne Moreau as the title character, a Roman escort who systematically ensnares, fleeces and then rejects a Welsh novelist, Tyvian Jones (Stanley Baker), enjoying the first flush of success at the Venice film festival ('the book made me famous, the film made me rich," he observes). With her square, cruel jaw, and a gaze as austerely cold as the modernist Italian décor, Moreau’s Eva seduces Tyvian, who is engaged to the trusting Francesca (Verna Lisi), with her mere presence. As she retreats, he follows; as she says nothing, he confesses his many failings.
Even as he pays her, and blindly drives away colleagues, friends and eventually even Francesca, Tyvian pursues Eva’s love, even though part of him is aware she’s incapable of it. It’s worth wondering what Baker’s friend and fellow Welshman, Richard Burton, might have done with the part, but the two leads are finely matched. Losey shoots their first kiss from above, at an awkward angle – it’s the perfect reflection of how self-destruction demands a fuse.
