Save the date(s): April 10-26, French film at the High
April 4th, 2008 by David Lee Simmons in Film
(Photo courtesy of Amazon.com)
One of the local cinematic highlights of the year is the High Museum’s French Films Yesterday and Today, with its self-explanatory examination of various generations of French film. First up is La Moustache (April 10 & 12), Forever (April 11), Gabrielle (April 18) and finally Jules and Jim (April 24 & 26).
There’s an excellent article on 50 years of the French New Wave in general and the relationship between its twin towers — Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut — in this week’s New Yorker. Unfortunately the article is unavailable online. But what is available is a 15-minute podcast interview with the author, Richard Brody. Great stuff unto itself, and a great way to get excited in particular about Truffaut’s Jules et Jim.
In the Village Voice film critic Ed Gonzalez’s excellent review (linked above), there is a superb take on the character Catherine, played with brio by Jeanne Moreau…
A woman is a woman to Godard, but Truffaut saw deeper. Catherine is autonomous, using her sex as leverage to claim a man’s sense of freedom. Truffaut doesn’t typecast Catherine as a feminist or a repudiation of one. She is wild, passionate, maybe even a little mad, but always straight — which is to say, she is more real than anyone in the film’s carnival of souls.
There are scads of clips from the movie, but here’s an interview with Truffaut …
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