SUMMER 2006
FRENCH KING OF COMEDY: SEVEN WONDERS OF LUC MOULLET
JULY 21-27
Director Jean-Marie Straub called French New Wave director Luc Moullet �undoubtedly the only heir to both Bu�uel and Tati.� A complete fi lm athlete, Moullet, wears several hats with perfect ease: critic since 1956 for CAHIERS DU CIN�MA, essayist, producer of films such as Marguerite Duras� 1972 NATHALIE GRANGER, and, of course, director of some two dozen films to date. In the first retrospective of its kind in the U.S., Northwest Film Forum presents a sampling of films from across Moullet�s career. All films in French with English subtitles unless otherwise indicated.
The touring series is curated by Michael Chaiken and Sam Di Iorio, International House, Philadelphia. Special thanks to Luc Moullet, Catherine Roux, and Marie Bonnel and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Attend all the films in FRENCH KING OF COMEDY: SEVEN WONDERS OF LUC MOULLET with the Series Pass: $30/$20 NWFF members.
JULY 21-23 Fri, Sun at 7pm, Sat at 9pm (plus Sat, Sun at 5pm)
BRIGITTE AND BRIGITTE
(Luc Moullet, France, 1966, 35mm 71 min.)
Praised by Godard as revolutionary, BRIGITTE AND BRIGITTE builds a loopy satire studded with sight-gags around the adventures of two young women - just in from the sticks to study at the Sorbonneone - a blonde communist, the other a right-wing brunette. Directors Sam Fuller, Claude Chabrol, Andr Tchine and Eric Rohmer make cameo appearances.
Plays with
ATTEMPT AT AN OPENING
(Luc Moullet, France, 1988, 35mm, 15 min.)
A wicked, deadpan short detailing Moullet's lifelong attempts to open a bottle of Coca-Cola.
"BAND OF OUTSIDERS may have come first, but BRIGITTE is a fresher, more inventive take on Parisian youth culture, liberated from Godard's grumpy ambivalence." -Sam Adams, PHILADELPHIA CITY PAPER
JULY 21-23 Fri, Sun at 9pm, Sat at 7pm
THE SMUGGLERS
(Luc Moullet, France, 1967, 35mm 81 min.)
Set on the Franco-Mexican border, this defiantly amateurish non-adventure adventure film and chase comedy tracks two often scantily clad women as they scamper over rocks, smuggling packages and people between two warring nations. Though full of slapstick and silliness, this pre-1968 New Wave classic is a deadly serious film about the arbitrary nature of borders and countries.
"Maybe the best film not made by Godard." -Jean-Marie Straub
JULY 24-25 Mon, Tues at 7 & 9pm
A GIRL IS A GUN aka AN ADVENTURE OF BILLY THE KID
(Luc Moullet, France, 1971, 35mm, 100 min.)
Jean-Pierre Laud stars in the first French Western - a tale of lust and revenge that mixes slapstick and experimentation. Luc Moullet's low-budget, movie-mad film was never released in France, but it was distributed in South America (and is shown here) in an English-dubbed version prepared by Moullet himself.
"Reminiscent of the finale of DUEL IN THE SUN, but pushed to the level of excruciating lunatic farce, with a touch of Fuller's madness." -Jonathan Rosenbaum, FILM COMMENT
JULY 24-25 Mon, Tues at 7 & 9pm
ANATOMY OF A RELATIONSHIP
(Luc Moullet, France,1976, 16mm, 82 min.)
Alternately funny and distressing, this brutally personal sex film blurs the line between fiction and autobiography. A couple (Moullet and Christine Hbert) work through a series of problems intimate and otherwise that have arisen in their relationship.
JULY 26-27 Wed at 7, Thurs at 9pm
COMEDY OF WORK
(Luc Moullet, France, 1987, 35mm 90 min.)
COMEDY OF WORK is actually a comedy of unemployment - either the best or the worst thing to happen to a middle-aged loan officer, his successful wife, a mountain climber, and an employment agency professional. Luc Moullet�s offbeat film is a tale of potatoes, ditch-diggers, doomed lovers, and dueling employment agencies.
"A Marx to Marx dialogue, as if Karl had met Groucho." -CAHIERS DU CINEMA
JULY 26-27 Wed at 9pm, Thurs at 7pm
SHIPWRECKED ON ROUTE D 17
(Luc Moullet, France, 2002, 35mm, 81 min.)
In Luc Moullet's Gulf War comedy, a racecar driver stuck in a sinkhole in remote southern France turns for help to the eccentric locals, who range from farmers to filmmakers, from astrophysicists to soldiers hunting Saddam Hussein.