Francois Moreuil Movies
- 1960
No relation to the Jacques Tati film of the same name, the French Playtime has also been released as La Recreation and Love Play. Jean Seberg plays an American student living in Versailles, who fixates on her next-door neighbor, sculptor Christian Marquand. The sculptor's patroness, Francoise Prevost, encourages a sexual liason between Marquand and Seberg, secure in the belief that the young man will get over the girl before long. As it turns out, it is Seberg who ends the relationship when she realizes the coldness and callousness of the man she thought she loved. Playtime was based on a story by Francoise Sagan, whose earlier Bonjour Tristesse likewise served as a film vehicle for Jean Seberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Seberg, Christian Marquand, (more)
The first feature film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and one of the seminal films of the French New Wave, Breathless is story of the love between Michel Poiccard, a small-time hood wanted for killing a cop, and Patricia Franchini, an American who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. Their relationship develops as Michel hides out from a dragnet. Breathless uses the famous techniques of the French New Wave: location shooting, improvised dialogue, and a loose narrative form. In addition Godard uses his characteristic jump cuts, deliberate "mismatches" between shots, and references to the history of cinema, art, and music. Much of the film's vigor comes from collisions between popular and high culture: Godard shows us pinups and portraits of women by Picasso and Renoir, and the soundtrack includes both Mozart's clarinet concerto and snippets of French pop radio. When Breathless was first released, audiences and critics responded to the burst of energy it gave the French cinema; it won numerous international awards and became an unexpected box-office sensation. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, (more)
