That Most Important Thing: Love

Directed by Andrzej Żuławski, L'important c'est d'aimer (That Most Important Thing: Love) is a 1975 French-Italian-West German drama adapted from Christopher Frank's novel La Nuit américaine. After his earlier film was banned in Poland, Żuławski moved to France, where he made this picture. Nadine Chevalier (Romy Schneider) is a struggling B-list actress trying to survive the brutal, unforgiving world of French show business. Photographer Servais Mont (Fabio Testi) meets her on a film set and falls passionately in love with her, but Nadine's marriage to Jacques (Jacques Dutronc) turns their connection into a tragic love triangle. Klaus Kinski and Claude Dauphin appear in notable supporting parts. The film was a major hit in France with over 1.5 million admissions, and Romy Schneider won the inaugural César Award for Best Actress for her performance, a role later partly honored in Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother.