Claude Lelouch’s Vivre pour Vivre (“Live for Life”) tells the tale of a torrid affair between Robert, a famous—and philandering—war correspondent (Yves Montand) and Candice, a volatile 21-year-old American fashion model in Paris (Candice Bergen, looking incredibly gorgeous here) and how it causes the disintegration of his already shaky marriage to Annie Girardot’s gentle, sorrowful Catherine.
 

 
It’s a beautiful film—lensed by Lelouch himself—with scenes shot in Paris, Nairobi and Amsterdam, but even so, it’s Bergen’s incredible face that steals the attention each and every time she appears onscreen.
 

 
Vivre Pour Vivre was one of the most successful French films of all time and nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film in 1968. Today the film is probably best remembered—at least outside of France—for its lush Françis Lai soundtrack, in particular the title theme which has become something of an instrumental easy listening “standard” and the themes for each of the three main characters.
 

 
The composer stayed close to the formula he’d established for his previous collaboration with Lelouch on A Man and A Woman: “la la la” scat singing, briskly pounded piano, organ and clavichord, electric guitar and histrionic strings. It’s very easy to find this soundtrack, and other Françis Lai soundtracks cheap in used record stores. The next time you see this, or his soundtrack to Lelouche’s A Man and a Woman, don’t pass them by.
 
“Vivre pour Vivre” title theme

 
“Thème de Candice”:

 
“Thème de Catherine”:

 
“Thème de Robert”:

 
In this short behind-the-scenes documentary, Claude Lelouch, the then 29-year-old French writer, director and cinematographer, is seen directing his second feature, Vivre pour Vivre with Yves Montand, Candice Bergen and Annie Girardot: