Friday,
January 20 ~ Sunday, January 22
Luc
Moullet: 5 Comic Films
In
January, International House launches a national tour of the
films
of
Luc Moullet – the first ever retrospective of
his work within the
United
States.
Director,
actor, producer and writer Luc Moullet has been one of the key
figures in independent French cinema since the early 1960s.
After getting his start as an eighteen year old critic for Cahiers
du Cinéma, Moullet was able to make his first films thanks
to the initial success of the New Wave. He immediately distinguished
himself with a string of comic masterpieces characterized by
caustic humor, occasional gunplay, shoestring budgets, careful
attention to landscape and an overall b-movie scabbiness which
as yet knows no equal. Relentlessly teetering between rigorous
logic and the heights of the absurd, Moullet’s films have earned
the consistent praise of critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum and
filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub (who called him “the only heir
of
both Buñuel and Tati”), Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.
These
five films are presented thanks to the generous support of Luc
Moullet, Catherine Roux, Marie Bonnel and the French Ministry
of Foreign Affairs.
Special
thanks to Sam DiIorio, Hunter College (New York).
Friday,
January 20 at 7:00pm
Brigitte
and Brigitte
dir.
Luc Moullet, France, 1966, 35mm, 76 mins, b/w, French w/ English
subtitles
 Moullet's
brilliant, sarcastic first feature stands as the finest period
document of French cinephilia. Two identically-named young
students meet just after moving to
Paris. Over the course of the film they discover the city,
rate its monuments, look for an apartment, eat at a restaurant,
visit the country, and become involved in a wide variety
of
movie going-related shenanigans. Featuring cameos by Samuel
Fuller, Claude Chabrol, André Téchiné and Eric Rohmer.
preceded
by
Opening
Tries
dir.
Luc Moullet, France, 1988, 16mm, 15 mins, color, French w/ English
subtitles
This fifteen-minute film, a prime example of Moullet's short
work, is a deadpan illustration of methodological persistence.
It's tempting to label it a documentary about problem solving,
gender roles, and cultural relations, but
it's
mostly about ways to open a bottle of Coca-Cola. One of
these requires welding goggles.
Saturday,
January 21 at 7:00pm
A
Girl is a Gun
(aka
Une Adventure de Billy le Kid)
dir.
Luc Moullet, France, 1971, 35mm, 78 mins, color, dubbed in English
 Jean-Pierre
Léaud and Rachel Kesterber star in the greatest French western
ever made. Never released in France but distributed in South
America in an English-language version dubbed by Moullet himself,
this dark tale of lust and revenge swings wildly between a slapstick
insanity and a delirious experimentation that are kith and kin
with William Wellman's Yellow Sky, King Vidor's Duel
in the Sun and Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend. In
rewriting an old saw
(cinema
and a girl is a gun, indeed), Moullet
tackles favorite themes time, landscape, exhaustion –
with relish.
Sunday,
January 22 at 2:00pm
Anatomy
of a Relationship
dir.
Luc Moullet and Antonietta Pizzorno, France, 1975, 16mm, 82
mins, b/w, French w/ English subtitles
Co-directed
with Antonietta Pizzorno, this "sex film" is a clinical
exploration of
a
couple working through a series of problems (intimate and otherwise),
which have arisen in their relationship. By turns funny
and distressing, this is a brutally personal film that blurs
the frontier separating fiction from utobiography. Starring
Moullet and Christine Hébert, with an appearance by Pizzorno.
Sunday,
January 22 at 7:00pm
The
Comedy of Work
dir.
Luc Moullet, France, 1987, 35mm, 90 mins, color, French w/ English
subtitles
Actually
the comedy of unemployment, which is defined as possibly the
worst,
or
maybe the best, thing that ever happened to this film's group
of protagonists: a middle-aged loan officer, his successful
wife, a champion of professional joblessness (and mountain-climbing
enthusiast), and the employment agency professional who falls
passionately in love with him. This film's honest work
involves potatoes, ditch-diggers, a wheelbarrow, doomed love,
jam in bed, and gunfire involving dueling employment agencies.
Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.
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