"FRENCH NEW WAVE 101" Seminar
Thurs. July 12 at 7:00
Take a crash course on the New Wave with JBFC Programmer Chris Funderburg. Using clips from films in the series, Chris will talk about the origins of the movement, the filmmakers, significant cinematic techniques, and the New Wave's gigantic influence on contemporary cinema.
Free bonus screening of Breathless follows!
Tickets: $6/members; $10/nonmembers.

BREATHLESS July 13, 16
Jean-Luc Godard. 1960. 90 m. NR. France, in French/English with subtitles. New Yorker Films.
"A chunk of raw drama, graphically and artfully torn...out of the tough underbelly of modern metropolitan life." (New York Times)
With its revolutionary cinematic techniques and deconstructionist philosophy, Godard's À Bout de Souffle represented nothing less than the birth of modern filmmaking. It has been a prominent, undeniable influence on just about every significant filmmaker of the past 47 years. Fortunately, its archetypal story of a young car thief on the run from the law and the American girl entangled in his web is also loads of fun—and incredibly charming, thanks to its two endlessly charismatic leads, Jean- Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

LES BONNES FEMMES July 14, 19
Claude Chabrol. 1960. 100 min. NR. France/Italy, in French with subtitles. Kino International.
"One of Chabrol's most individual—and most satisfying— works." (Los Angeles Times)
The story of four young women who dream of moving on to bigger and better things than selling toasters, Les Bonnes Femmes achieves a remarkable vibrancy with its attention to small, telling details, and a deep sympathy for the aspirations of the memorable lead characters. Chabrol himself considers this film, which wasn't shown in the US till four decades after its release, to be one of his best.

MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S July *15, 17
Eric Rohmer. 1969. 110 min. PG. France, in French with subtitles. Genius Products.
"Beautifully played...almost as if it were music." (New York Times)
Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Conformist) stars as a Catholic mathematician torn between a devout college girl and a seductive divorcée—and his unorthodox views on religion and free will certainly don't make his situation any easier. Constantly defying expectations, Rohmer's razor-sharp screenplay garnered an Oscar nomination, while the film itself was nominated for Best Foreign Film.
*July 15 at 4:30: Reel Talk with Ara Osterweil.

CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7 Wed. July 18
Agnès Varda. 1961. 90 min. NR. France/Italy, in French with subtitles. Janus Films.
"Varda transforms the typical French cinema gamine into a complex, tragic figure." (Village Voice)
A lone female voice among the boys' club of the New Wave, Agnès Varda explores the world of a narcissistic pop singer as she awaits the results of a biopsy. Varda's best-known film brings a thoughtful existential perspective to the "young folks tooling around Paris" scenario that was de rigueur for the New Wave.
*7:15: Reel Talk with Ara Osterweil.

PARIS BELONGS TO US Fri. July 20
Jacques Rivette. 1960. 140 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. BFI/Janus Films.
"A hermetic time capsule from a lost world." (Slant Magazine)
A sprawling, messy, and charmingly bohemian film about the intersection of art, politics, and youth in 1960s Paris, Rivette's debut feature embodies the ideas and passions driving the movement: It seems to want to reinvent cinema through the sheer force of its exuberance—and not just in terms of technique, but also in its subject matter, political capacity, and authenticity. And Godard shows up in a hilariously lecherous cameo.

THE SOFT SKIN July 21, 23
François Truffaut. 1964. 113 min. NR. France/Portugal, in French with subtitles. Janus Films.
"Ripe for rediscovery." (Salon)
The subject matter—a married, middle-aged man hesitantly carrying on an affair with a stewardess— is quintessential Truffaut. And so is its treatment: The Soft Skin is an unusually emotionally sensitive film punctuated with moments of incredible wittiness, a singular mixture of charm and heartache.
with
LES MISTONS
François Truffaut. 1957. 18 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Janus Films.
A group of schoolboys fall for a local teenage girl and spend the summer spying on her and her boyfriend in this early Truffaut short with a Jean-Luc Godard script.

LA COLLECTIONNEUSE July 22, 24
Eric Rohmer. 1967. 89 min. NR. France, in French. Genius Products.
"Strong, sensually lush." (Philip Lopate)
Featuring gorgeous cinematography of the French Riviera by Academy Award– winner Néstor Almendros (Days of Heaven), the fourth of Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" depicts the disruptions to a handsome businessman's "empty-minded" vacation—the main one being a beautiful teenage girl who may or may not seek to add him to her collection of lovers.

THE 400 BLOWS Wed. July 25
François Truffaut. 1959. 99 min. NR. France, in French/English with subtitles. Janus Films.
"In a class by itself....We sense that it was drawn directly out of Truffaut's heart." (Roger Ebert)
The project that brought Truffaut together with actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, The 400 Blows is the first of five films the duo made chronicling the adventures of Antoine Doinel. Part autobiography and part homage (to Jean Vigo's classic Zero for Conduct), this is a story of youthful longing for freedom from an oppressive world of egomaniacal teachers, oblivious parents, and drab conformity.

THE NUN Fri. July 27
Jacques Rivette. 1966. 135 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. BFI/TAMASA.
"A beautiful, calm, austere movie." (New York Times)
Starring Godard's former muse (and ex-wife), Anna Karina, Rivette delivers a surprisingly faithful adaptation of La Religieuse, Denis Diderot's caustic epistolary novel, which was originally an elaborate practical joke. Karina is arresting in the lead role, and the New Wave's characteristic freedom of technique is, surprisingly, a perfect fit for Diderot's notoriously idiosyncratic style.

LES COUSINS July 28, 30
Claude Chabrol. 1959. 112 min. NR. France, in French/German with subtitles. Janus Films.
"A fine, richly detailed tableau." (Time Out)
Reuniting the director with the principal cast of Le Beau Serge (see opposite page), this uniquely Chabrol-ian psychological thriller follows his archetypal protagonist (a provincial so extremely ordinary as to be almost deranged) who's studying law in the big city and living with his debauched cousin. It also happens to be a perfect set-up for Chabrol's favorite theme: moral rot.

ZAZIE DANS LE MÉTRO Sun. July 29
Louis Malle. 1960. 89 min. NR. France/Italy, in French with subtitles. Janus Films.
"An elaborate French exercise in cinematic Dadaism." (New York Times)
Louis Malle wasn't a member of the Nouvelle Vague per se, but this hilarious, silly farce about a twelve-year-old girl exploring Paris is a prime example of the movement's instant impact on cinema. Jam-packed with kaleidoscopic visual effects, idiosyncratic editing, and pointed, self-reflexive satire, Zazie is part parody of children's films, part parable about fascism.

LE BONHEUR Wed. Aug. 1
Agnès Varda. 1965. 79 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Janus Films.
"Constantly captivates the eye and mind." (New York Times)
The essential lushness of this film—of its photography, beautiful settings, perfectly selected music—is a direct counterpoint to the emotional murkiness and fragility of its main characters and their collapsing marriage. As in Cléo from 5 to 7, Varda delivers an incisive critique of egotism, middle-class self-satisfaction, and rationalization.

TWO ENGLISH GIRLS Aug. 3, 6
François Truffaut. 1971. 130 min. NR. France, in French/English with subtitles. Janus Films.
"Filled with wonderful things." (New York Times)
Based on a novel by the author of Jules and Jim and re-teaming the director with Jean-Pierre Léaud (The 400 Blows), Truffaut's story of a young Frenchman's shifting relationship with two English sisters features some of his most flat-out beautiful filmmaking and the elegiac tone that was the hallmark of his best work: It's a wistful sigh about the instability of young love.

LA GUERRE EST FINIE Sat. Aug. 4
Alain Resnais. 1966. 121 min. NR. France/Sweden, in French with subtitles. Harvard Film Archive.
"A powerful study of a man's commitment to a consuming and bewildering belief." (New York Times)
Resnais applied cutting-edge New Wave filmmaking techniques to a standard spy thriller, and the results are gripping. Yves Montand stars as a member of the Marxist underground fomenting revolution in Fascist Spain. When eager Parisian student Genevieve Bujold enters the picture, the situation quickly gets complicated.

THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG
Sun. Aug. 5
Jacques Demy. 1964. 91 min. NR. France/West Germany, in French with subtitles. Zeitgeist Films.
"An operatic masterpiece of romanticism." (Washington Post)
On the surface of things, director Jacques Demy's candy-colored musical is just about as far from the grit and political urgency of the New Wave as it possibly could be. However, Demy couldn't have created this charming film about the romantic foibles of a shopkeeper played by Catherine Deneuve if the movement hadn't opened the door for its playful stylistic experimentation.

JULES AND JIM Wed. Aug. 8
François Truffaut. 1962. 105 min. NR. France, in French/German with subtitles. Janus Films.
"There is joy in the filmmaking that feels fresh today and felt audacious at the time." (Roger Ebert)
One of the icons of the New Wave, Jules and Jim disentangles a love triangle between two best friends and their ideal woman. Jeanne Moreau is captivating as the object of their desire in a film that effortlessly balances romance, joy, heartache, sentimentality, and cynicism. It's the movie that rightfully cemented Truffaut's status as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

LE BEAU SERGE Aug. 10, 13
Claude Chabrol. 1958. 98 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Janus Films.
"Cries out passionately against the decay and despair of the rural life for youth in La Belle France." (New York Times)
Upon returning from Paris to his provincial hometown, François (played by New Wave regular Jean-Claude Brialy) resumes his disquieting relationship with a childhood pal, the handsome malcontent Serge. The first feature-length film completed by any of the Cahiers du Cinema critics, Chabrol's psychologically complex debut is generally considered the official start of the "Nouvelle Vague."

WEEK END Aug. 11, *15
Jean-Luc Godard. 1967. 105 m. NR. France/Italy in French with subtitles. New York Films.
"A fantastic film." (New York Times)
Pauline Kael called Godard's expansive satire—involving Marxist garbagemen pontificating on Algeria, an armed guerilla group forming a rock band, impromptu musical numbers, and Emily Brontë getting set on fire—the highlight of his career. The film's signature sequence, an unbroken 10-minute shot tracking past a traffic jam, is a perfect miniaturization of the whole: a marvelous technical achievement that starts off dazzling and hilarious, but melts into a scathing critique.
*Aug. 15 at 7:00: Reel Talk with Chris Funderburg.

SUZANNE'S CAREER Aug. 12, 14
Eric Rohmer. 1963. 54 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Genius Products.
"Rohmer's elegant wordplay and his exquisite attunement to the vagaries of the human psyche are evident even at this early stage in the director's career." (Time Out)
When two college pals decide to bankrupt a woman with a crush on them, their motives bounce from cruel to pathetic to strangely goodnatured— but, in the end, Suzanne may enjoy the best kind of revenge.
with
THE BAKER OF MONCEAU
Eric Rohmer. 1963. 23 min. NR. France, in French with subtitles. Genius Products.
The first of Rohmer's "Moral Tales" sets the template for the five that followed: a young man enjoys a brief flirtation but ultimately goes after another, idealized woman.