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French New Wave - Jean-Luc Godard, A Bout De Souffle (Breathless) 1961

Director: Jean-Luc Godard - Writers: Jean-Luc Godard (screenplay) & François Truffaut (story) - Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg.

French New Wave - Jean-Luc Godard, Pierrot Le Fou 1965

Director: Jean-Luc Godard - Writer: Jean-Luc Godard - Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina.

Henri-George Clouzot's Inferno with Romy Schneider

Directed in 1964 Henri-Georges Clouzot, L’Enfer (Inferno) was a dark psychological study charting the mental disintegration of hotel owner Marcel (Serge Reggiani), consumed by jealousy at the supposed infidelity of his pretty, flirtatious wife, played by the vivacious Romy Schneider, then one of France’s most bankable stars. Sadly, the film was never to be. Following catastrophic delays in the production schedule, budget problems and a walk-out after three weeks by Reggiani, already tired of the director’s endless perfectionism, finally a heart attack suffered by Clouzot on set put paid to the ambitious project. Noted film restorer Serge Bromberg and co-director Ruxandra Medrea have done a wonderful job in piecing together the fragments of Clouzot’s lost film, not least in persuading his widow, Inez, to give them access to the missing 185 reels mostly without sound.

Clouzot’s main action was shot in black and white but the real joy of this documentary lies in the extraordinary and intensely-coloured test shots that Clouzot intended to symbolise Marcel’s disintegrating mental state.Clouzot conceived a whole battery of hallucinatory effects, jarring camera angles, inspired use of mirrors and auditory distortion to launch a new way of filmmaking. Schneider is bathed in a series of kaleidoscoping lights twisting her features, two actors’ faces are morphed together, anticipating Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, and most stunningly Clouzot toyed with the idea of colour reversal, which would turn blue water blood red but required the actors to paint themselves green to retain their normal skin tone.

In the end it all proved too much. Reggiani left claiming a nervous disorder and the production was already on the verge of collapse before Clouzot’s fateful but thankfully non-fatal heart attack. Whether Inferno would have become a masterpiece we will never know – Bromberg suggests not. French film critics had already derided Clouzot’s meticulousness as old fashioned, which may have contributed to the director’s mental malaise.

Text source : TimesOnline.

Non plus One by Gia Coppola staring Kirsten Dunst & Jason Schwartzman

Directed by Gia Coppola and Tracy Antonopoulos, the film stars fashion and film darlings Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman. The film borrows a lot from the styles evident in French Cinema "Nouvelle Vague".

There’s a good level of playfulness to the short, but it also shows a few other emotionally stirring incidents involving both characters. The short will screen at the Opening Ceremony’s party for its new Ace Hotel shop Saturday. And if you’re wondering about the music in the film, it’s from Jason Schwartzman’s band, Coconut Records.

Via Swipelife.  See also this post on Coconut Records on this blog.

Tracy Antonopoulos (Trailer Series)

Title : The Corner. Written & Directed by Tracy Antonopoulos. Director of Photography Su Yee Jung. Starring Sara Goldstein and John Eatherly.

Title : "Girls". Written and directed by Tracy Antonopoulos. Director of Photography Su Yee Jung. Starring Nathalie Love.