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Breathless Aug. 8, 11
A Woman is a Woman Aug. 9, 12
Band of Outsiders Aug. 9, 14
Vivre sa Vie Aug. 10, *13 (*7:15 Reel Talk w/Chris Funderburg)
Contempt Aug. 15, 18, 21
Masculine Feminine Aug. 16, 19
Two or Three Things I Know About Her Aug. 16, 20
La Chinoise Aug. 17, 21
It would not be unreasonable to divide the history of cinema into two eras: pre-Godard and post-Godard. With his philosophically fierce, aesthetically adventurous, and frequently hilarious reinvention of...well, everything, Jean-Luc Godard changed the game, and there was no going back. This eight-film sampling of the highlights of the controversial director's early career runs the gamut from lighthearted musical comedy to edgy crime thriller to ruminative cinematic essay. After seeing these films you'll never be able to think about movies the same way again.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS
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BREATHLESS Aug. 8, 11
1960. 90 min. NR. France, in French/English with subtitles. New Yorker Films.
"Modern movies begin here....No debut film since Citizen Kane in 1942 has been as influential." (Roger Ebert)
Jean-Paul Belmondo stars in his signature role as a winsome thief on the run after killing a police officer. Jean Seberg is the American student living in Paris whom he wants to enlist on his flight to freedom. An epic in terms of imagination and intelligence (if not story), Breathless is about the differences between men and women, the impossibility of commitment, and the fragile bonds between lovers—and a complete reimagining of the possibilities of cinema. It takes the twisty noir thriller beyond what anyone thought it was capable of expressing. |
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A WOMAN IS A WOMAN Aug. 9, 12
1961. 84 min. NR. Italy/France, in French with subtitles. Rialto Pictures.
"Deliriously kooky...Godard's playful side pops out in subsequent pictures, but in Woman his mischief is front and center." (Time Out New York)
This playful film does for musicals what Breathless did for film noir. Anna Karina stars as a stripper who wants to have a baby with boyfriend Jean-Claude Brialy. He balks, so she moves on to his friend Jean-Paul Belmondo, and a love triangle ensues. A winking mishmash of camera tricks, catchy songs, verbal sparring, endless puns, and '60s glamour filmed with an ebullient, colorful stylishness. |
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BAND OF OUTSIDERS Aug. 9, 14
1964. 97 min. NR. France, in French/English with subtitles. Rialto Pictures.
"A masterpiece of mood, nuance, and emotion." (Newsday)
Another off-beat tale of smalltime criminals and the women who love (or don't love) them, Band of Outsiders resembles Godard's seminal Breathless more than any subsequent film. And many cinephiles would argue it's actually the better—or perhaps just the more irresistible— film: Anna Karina is at her most utterly charming as a student duped by two fun-loving, movie-obsessed hoods into helping them with a robbery. |
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VIVRE SA VIE Aug. 10, *13 NEW PRINT!
1962. 85 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Janus Films.
The peak of Godard's seven collaborations with his first wife, Danish model-turned-actress Anna Karina, Vivre sa Vie demonstrates the best both had to offer. A carefully balanced concoction of ornate camerawork and plaintive philosophy, the film follows a middle-class woman's descent into prostitution. But the real focus here is Karina: Godard trains his camera on her with a loving intensity that elicits an exquisitely delicate performance and results in his most human, poetic film.
*Aug. 13 at 7:15: Reel Talk w/JBFC programmer Chris Funderburg |
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CONTEMPT Aug. 15, 18, 21 NEW PRINT!
1963. 102 min. NR. France/Italy, in French/English/German/Italian with subtitles. Rialto Pictures.
"Radiant, ambiguous, serenely perverse...it's beginning to look like one of those movies we can't do without for very long: a classic." (Terrence Rafferty, New York Times)
The filmmaker who redefined cinema comes together with the actress who redefined glamour, and the result is surprisingly intimate, wistful, and beautiful. Brigitte Bardot plays a woman who accompanies her screenwriter husband (Michel Piccoli) to the south of France where he's working on an adaptation of The Odyssey to be directed by Fritz Lang (playing himself). Tantrum-prone producer Jack Palance comes between them. Godard and his legendary cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, capture the disintegrating marriage amid gorgeous locations in stunning CinemaScope. |
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MASCULINE FEMININE Aug. 16, 19
1966. 103 min. NR. France/Sweden, in French/Swedish/English with subtitles. Rialto Pictures.
"For the children of Ronald Reagan and Red Bull as much as for their precursors. This document of youthful confusion has not aged one minute." (New York Times)
In the words that appear at the beginning of the movie, this is a film about "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola." Jean-Pierre Léaud—best known as François Truffaut's alter ego in The 400 Blows and other Antoine Doinel films—steps in front of the camera for the first of his several collaborations with Godard as a young man perpetually out of sync with an increasingly Americanized France. He pins his hopes for the future on a shaky romance with real-life pop star Chantal Goya, playing a variation on her celebrity persona. |
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TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER Aug. 16, 20
1967. 90 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Rialto Pictures.
"Its virtuoso display of confession and analysis, the sublime and ridiculous, show Godard's deft grasp of the subversive nature of laughter and passions. Too good to miss." (Time Out London)
Godard's first film in the "cinematic essay" style (his films more concerned with philosophical inquiry than plot) that would define his later career is loosely organized around the story of suburban, middle-class housewives so desperate for designer brassieres and the latest innovations in kitchen technology that they turn to prostitution in their spare time for spending money. This bitterly comic film contains many of Godard's most iconic images, such as an intense close-up of a cup of coffee that resembles a cosmos swirling with celestial creamer. |
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LA CHINOISE Aug. 17, 21 NEW PRINT!
1967. 96 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Koch Lorber Films.
"An integral part of the '68 juggernaut. Guerilla-theater agitprop disrupts the action like the Busby Berkeley numbers in an old Warner Brothers musical. Not just a period film, a chunk of the period." (Village Voice)
Re-teaming with Jean-Pierre Léaud for a story about a group of Maoist students and their increasingly violent revolutionary tactics, Godard created a film that hit the zeitgeist perfectly in stride. An unexpected hit in its time, La Chinoise is often rumored to have inspired the protest riots at Columbia University in the month after its New York release. And as with all Godard films, a wry sense of humor mingles with revolutionary politics and cinematic inventiveness. |
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