In praise of Romy Schneider’s back­less dress­es in The Swim­ming Pool

There is a moment in Jacques Deray’s 1969 film The Swim­ming Pool where Mar­i­anne (a stun­ning Romy Schnei­der) lounges in a pool­side chair, gaz­ing up at a star­ry sky. It’s late; she’s dressed for the evening. Her boyfriend Jean-Paul (an equal­ly stun­ning Alain Delon) talks to her soft­ly. The cam­era scru­ti­nis­es Mar­i­anne close­ly: the thick black of her eye­lin­er, the red­dish blonde curve of her French twist, the line of her neck. At the nape, two or three but­tons close a white mock neck.

“You’re stu­pid,” Mar­i­anne tells Jean-Paul, and as she takes long strides toward the pool the shot widens and her dress is revealed to be back­less. For a few sec­onds, all move­ment halts: the expo­sure of her tanned, slim back con­fronts the audi­ence like a hard stare.

Jean-Paul isn’t any less impressed. The scene ends in sex, his fin­gers dex­trous­ly undo­ing Marianne’s but­tons. The sex itself, though, doesn’t lead any­where in par­tic­u­lar, oth­er than the upkeep of the sex­u­al ten­sion that ris­es and wanes between the cou­ple, an eter­nal tease. There are many moments like this in The Swim­ming Pool. In a hot flash, pas­sion flares and then cools unceremoniously.

The film fol­lows the cou­ple on vaca­tion in St Tropez. They are joined by their friend Har­ry (Mau­rice Ronet) and his daugh­ter Pene­lope, played by a 23-year-old Jane Birkin. The arrival of Birkin is rea­son enough to cause sex­u­al dis­ar­ray any­where, but com­pound­ing it is the fact that Har­ry is Marianne’s for­mer – and pos­si­bly cur­rent – lover. The ménage à qua­tre stum­bles and slips pool­side for a few days until it all becomes too much for Jean-Paul, who breaks the illu­sion of idyll to enact a sin­is­ter revenge.

The Swim­ming Pool is often described as an erot­ic thriller or a psy­cho­sex­u­al dra­ma, but it lacks the heart-pound­ing com­po­nent that defines these gen­res. Besides, as far as erot­i­ca goes it fea­tures only a very mod­est amount of sex scenes. It seems that what is being referred to is not Jean-Paul’s even­tu­al crime, or even the sex­u­al entan­gle­ments of this pre­pos­ter­ous­ly attrac­tive cast, but the viewer’s unshake­able inkling, from the moment Har­ry and Pene­lope step foot into the vil­la, that some­thing bad is about to happen.

It’s not the kind of sus­pense that will keep you on the edge of your seat, though: more the kind that will set­tle in a cor­ner across the room, leave, then sneak back in, mak­ing itself felt but nev­er vis­i­ble. This ten­sion is a lot like the game of seduc­tion. The sex­i­est thing is nev­er to reveal total­ly and all at once, but to keep rais­ing the sug­ges­tion. Like a dress with a mod­est neck­line and an open back.

A few days after the white mock neck, Mar­i­anne shows up for din­ner wear­ing a long green, blue and yel­low dress with a high neck­line that pleats at the base of her neck and falls toward the floor in folds, cre­at­ing a tear-shaped slit per­fect­ly mould­ed to the curves of her back. With its bright pat­tern, the dress calls atten­tion to itself, its folds pick­ing up the wind to reveal Marianne’s back as if they could con­trol the weath­er. ​“Will you hook me in the back?” Mar­i­anne asks Harry.

At this point in the film, the sex­u­al ten­sion in the vil­la reach­es fever­ish heights, and Har­ry reach­es into the folds of Marianne’s dress to touch her back, break­ing the fever into a sweat. From here on out, every touch could end in death. Maybe one of the rea­sons why it is Marianne’s back that is often exposed, instead of, say, her midriff or even her long legs, is that her back cre­ates a dis­tance between per­cep­tion and touch, always poised to take one more step for­ward and away.

The con­tours of her half-exposed fig­ure – which Har­ry and Jean-Paul fight over – sug­gest an edge that refus­es to reveal itself com­plete­ly but is loath to go unper­ceived. An exposed back can sym­bol­ise vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, except when the expo­sure is cal­cu­lat­ed to empha­sise impe­ri­ous­ness, as if to say: there it is, my exposed back, would you dare?

Mar­i­anne takes equal dis­tance from the crime by being not mur­der­er or vic­tim but cat­a­lyst. She floats on the sur­face of the events with the non­cha­lance of a cool girl who indulges secret­ly in the boys’ lethal fight for her com­pan­ion­ship. Pool water droplets bead her back, when not show­ing through a dress then inter­rupt­ed by the string of a biki­ni top, or entire­ly naked, reflect­ing the white glim­mer of the pool.

In the film’s very first line, Mar­i­anne pleads with Jean-Paul soft­ly as she lies on top of him: ​“Will you scratch my back?” The ten­sion of the entire film rides on this line; on Marianne’s back, on the way it is nev­er soaked but always damp, attract­ing a dart­ing look, being irre­sistible to touch. It begs you to come close, then turns on you and walks away.