And Now My Love French Toute une vie , Released as A Whole Lifetime in Australia is a film released in 1974 by French writerdirector Claude Lelouch, starring Marthe Keller, Andr Dussollier, Charles Denner, and Charles Grard. The American title derives from the use of the Gilbert Bcaud song Et Maintenant at the films climax the song title literally translates as And Now, and the song became a worldwide hit when it was recorded with English lyrics as What Now My Love.
The story begins in France with a blackandwhite, silent filmstyle sequence in the preWorld War I era, where a woman Judith Magre meets a man Charles Denner operating a prototypical Lumiere movie camera in a park. After charming her into taking a turn operating the crank on his camera, she is next seen bearing his child while he is enlisted in the French army, documenting soldiers in a trench. He receives a telegram announcing the birth of his son, but is killed by enemy fire quickly after. His widow and young son are given posthumous medals for his service by a general Daniel Boulanger. The general later takes a fancy to a chorus girl Marthe Keller, whom he quickly marries. His wife bears him a daughter, but is previously shown cheating on him with his younger aidedecamp. The general kills her upon discovering her infidelity. This scene is omitted, but flashed back to later on, in the U.S. release version. On the same day as her death, the shooting of the Romanov family takes place, and a brief montage of the succeeding Russian leaders is shown.A film clip announcing the breakthrough of sound recording on film and promoting the release of The Jazz Singer transitions to sound clips of Hitler and World War II events, and then to a train carrying Jewish concentration camp survivors, including the now grown daughter of the cuckolded general, named Rachel Stern Marthe Keller again, and the son of the filmmakers widow Charles Denner again, named David Goldman. They are drawn to each other, exchange photos of their deceased parents, and are next seen conceiving a child with the film switching to color. Rachel, weakened by her camp imprisonment, dies in childbirth, but successfully bears David a daughter, whom he names Sarah. Over a series of birthday scenes, Sarah Marthe Keller once more is depicted as growing into the image of her mother, and being lavishly spoiled by David, who has now become a millionaire from manufacturing shoes. On her 16th birthday, he hires French
Source: Wikipedia