PIERROT LE FOU / JE TU IL ELLE

ABOUT THE SCREENING:

We continue our Godard tribute with a pairing of PIERROT LE FOU and JE TU IL ELLE. An influential film filled with color and a spirit of reckless abandon, PIERROT LE FOU’s legacy and influence can still be found in newer films today, such as Wes Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM. Godard was also influenced himself by classic Hollywood gangster films while making the film.

Chantal Akerman’s JE TU IL ELLE is her narrative feature film debut. In interviews, Akerman has stated the importance of Godard’s PIERROT LE FOU to catalyzing her filmmaking career, the ultimate influence.

“I was 15 when I saw PIERROT LE FOU. I had no idea who Godard was. I’d only vaguely heard of ‘auteur cinema.’ I’d go to see a big hit like LA GRANDE VADROUILLE or Walt Disney movies just to have a good time, go out with friends, have some ice cream, but certainly not be shaken up emotionally or see a work of art. I didn’t know a film could be a work of art. I walked into PIERROT LE FOU because I liked the title. I watched that film, and it was so completely different. I felt like it was talking to me. It was poetry. Before I wanted to make films, I’d always wanted to write and in that film I experienced something similar to great moments in writing… but from a different angle… and I found that angle more fascinating at the time. I walked out of the theater thinking, ‘I want to make films too.’”

ABOUT THE FILMS:

PIERROT LE FOU, 1965, Jean-Luc Godard, 110 Minutes, Rialto Pictures, France

In French with English subtitles

Abandoning his wife and children, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) runs off with the babysitter, Marianne (Anna Karina), who is not she seems. Together, The Last Romantic Couple, as Godard called them, embark on a haphazard crime spree, through the French country side, complete with fast cars and mysterious hitmen in this stylish mash-up of anti-consumerist satire, au courant politics and comic- book imagery.

FORMAT: DCP

JE TU IL ELLE, 1975, Chantal Akerman, 86 Minutes, Janus Films, France

In French with English subtitles

In her provocative first feature, Chantal Akerman stars as an aimless young woman who leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male truck driver and a former girlfriend. With its famous real-time carnal encounter and its daring minimalism, JE TU IL ELLE is Akerman’s most sexually audacious film.

FORMAT: DCP