The Musical Style of France’s Claude Sautet : Movies: Director sets his latest, ‘Un Coeur en Hiver,’ in the world of music out of his deep love for the work of Maurice Ravel.

At 69, Claude Sautet is one of France’s most esteemed filmmakers, a director with an acute sensitivity not only to the intricacies of relationships but also the particular worlds in which they exist. With his latest film, “Un Coeur en Hiver” (“A Heart in Winter”), which is now playing at the Music Hall, Sautet was able to combine his passion for film with his next greatest love, music. For before he became a filmmaker, Sautet was a music critic.

Shortly before he commenced shooting his 1989 release, “A Few Days With Me,” he was given 19th-Century Russian novelist and poet Mikhail Lermontov’s “A Hero of Our Time,” a collection of short stories. One of the tales in particular, “Princess Marie,” captured his imagination.

“It was a story of two Russian officers who were in the army of occupation in the Caucasus in 1815,” explained Sautet during a recent interview in a West Hollywood hotel. “When one of the two friends, a disenchanted romantic, learns that the other has fallen in love with a princess, he decides to get her to fall in love with him instead. His maneuver succeeds so well that the princess becomes sick with love.”

This turn of events proved to be the very loose inspiration for “Un Coeur en Hiver,” in which Sautet said he was able to comment on the tendency of men today to become self-protective in the face of women concerned with accomplishment and self-fulfillment.

Sautet was further inspired to set the story in the world of music out of his deep love for the music of Maurice Ravel.

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“One day I was talking to a screenwriter, and the idea came to me that the men (in the story) could be turned into the proprietor of a violin manufacturing and repair shop, Maxime, his employee Stephane, a master craftsman, and the princess could become a young violinist, Camille. Stephane would be the kind of man who feels very comfortable in his position, very respected by soloists, who are always very fearful about their violins having the right sound.”

It is Stephane (Daniel Auteuil) who possesses a cold heart, toying with the beautiful Camille (Emmanuelle Beart) when he fears her involvement with the complacent, self-satisfied Maxime (Andre Dussollier) will upset his well-ordered existence. However, he is totally unprepared for the passion he unleashes within Camille, who is so respectful of him and also dependent upon him.

“Making this film demanded a lot of concentration,” admitted Sautet, a silver-haired, stocky man who is best known for such films with Yves Montand as “Cesar and Rosalie” and “Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others.” Not the least of the challenges was the fact that off-screen Auteuil and Beart are a couple, and they would be playing two individuals caught up in an exceedingly volatile emotional predicament.

“At the beginning it was a great problem, but first and foremost they are actors. They looked at each other like two cats. In playing such roles actors can discover a lot about themselves and each other that remains hidden in their everyday life together. I believe--I don’t know for sure--that they almost broke up when I told them they both had roles in the film; after the film, they had a baby!”

In “A Heart in Winter” Auteuil plays the complete opposite of his character in “A Few Days With Me.” In the earlier film he plays a man plunged headlong into a grand passion, in the newer film he triggers such an avalanche in a woman.

“Stephane was a much more difficult role for him,” said Sautet. “He had to internalize everything, he must always seem ambiguous. With very little, he must express a whole range of emotions.” Sautet knew both Beart, who is best known for her title role in Claude Berri’s “Manon of the Spring” and Jacques Rivette’s “La Belle Noiseuse,” and Dussollier but had never before worked with them.

“Not until I saw her in a restaurant, sitting very straight, her hair pulled back, looking like a student, did I think it was possible that she could play Camille. It took her one year to learn to play the violin. She had never before played an instrument but had been a dancer.” (Sautet deliberately chose demanding passages for Camille to play in order to show that playing a violin is work.)

“With regard to Andre Dussollier, I had already seen lots of actors, but none of them had the self-assurance and dignity he has. How does Maxime not look like an imbecile? Andre had to make sure Maxime never seemed ridiculous. With Dussollier it was just a matter of fine-tuning.”

Music is obviously very important in “Un Coeur en Hiver.” Erato Records is re-releasing in connection with the film the 1974 original recording “Ravel: Trio and Sonatas,” the source of Sautet’s inspiration. The violin soloist is Jean-Jacques Kantorow, with Philippe Muller on cello and Jacques Rouvier. “Only when I made my choices did I discover that Ravel, like Stephane, lived all his life alone, with no evidence of his involvement with women or men. All those terribly passionate crescendos in his music, but in his life--nothing.”