Jacques Spiesser Movies
- 1976
A homeless young man, living in his delivery truck, is simultaneously adopted by a pranksome group of youngsters and made into a police informer. Believing that he is doing something good both for the other kids and for himself, he has no qualms. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Spiesser, Isabelle Huppert, (more)
The inaugural film effort of French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, Black and White in Color is set during World War I. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, a French trading post in West Central Africa finds itself at odds with a formerly peaceful German post, for no other reason than their parent countries are at war. The newly xenophobic French traders attack the Germans, only to fail in their efforts. Socialist Jacques Spiesser is put in charge of the debilitated French contingent, utterly discarding his former high ideals in the process. Filmed on location on the Ivory Coast, the satirical Black and White in Color (originally La Victoire en Chantant) won the American Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Carmet, Jacques Dufilho, (more)
- 1975
Based on a true story, Costa-Gavras' Special Section (Section Speciale) is set in wartime France, but the parallels to contemporary political persecution are inescapable. A young German naval officer is killed in occupied Paris. The supplicative Vichy government sets about to locate the perpetrators. Four idealistic young Frenchman are arrested, tortured and slated for execution. It is clear that it doesn't matter whether they're guilty or not: the flames of totalitarianism must be stoked, even with the blood of the innocent. And it's especially convenient if the accused are thoroughly expendable in the eyes of the authorities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis Seigner, Michel Lonsdale, (more)
- 1975
Based on a groundbreaking 19th-century French trial, this movie recreates the courtroom controversy surrounding a young man who, after losing his religious faith, killed his mother and other siblings in order to assist his father. The trial was the first in French history to permit psychological factors to contribute to the testimony. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Spiesser, Michel Robin, (more)
- 1974
In this French tour-de-force a young student (Jacques Speisser) decides to have no more interaction with the world than is needed to minimally sustain life. His increasingly automaton-like behavior is coupled with a strange clarity of insight about the world around him. His inner musings as he wanders the luminous streets of Paris are narrated in the form of an unwritten diary by Ludmila Mikael. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Spiesser, Ludmila Mikael, (more)
- 1974
In this film, a group of French kids face the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood as they struggle through their teenage years. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lino Ventura, Annie Girardot, (more)
- 1974
This film by French director Alain Resnais (Last Year in Marienbad) is loosely based on a true story from the 1930s about financier, con-man and swindler Stavisky who was arrested in 1934 for selling phony stock but was never brought to trial. While in jail, he continued to engage in doubtful monetary transactions. As the rumors that he was being protected by high-ranking members of the government of the French Third Republic were undoubtedly true, the scandal had a profoundly unsettling effect on the French nation, already suffering from poor government handling of the Depression, and this incident nearly brought down both the government and the Republic. Stavisky's death in prison (an apparent suicide) triggered widespread unrest and rioting. In the movie, when Stavisky (Jean-Paul Belmondo) goes to jail as a young con-man, his embarrassed father commits suicide. Ruining countless lives in his stellar career as a big-money swindler, including that of his nobleman friend Raoul (Charles Boyer), Stavisky is shown to be a pawn in a still bigger swindle, one which will destroy the Left and open the way to fascism. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, (more)
- 1974
This quirky French film examines a series of events during the German occupation of France and shows what might have happened if one thing had gone differently in each instance. The first story given this treatment concerns the assassination of a German officer by a young member of the Resistance. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Clémenti, Jacques Spiesser, (more)
- 1973
In this French film, soldiers in the Algerian war not only fight against the rebelling natives of that country, but fight an equally brutal battle among themselves. Three young army misfits are assigned to a brutal "disciplinary company" during the conflict. When the "discipline" becomes too harsh for him to bear, one of the soldiers kills two of his tormentors. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jacques Spiesser, Jacques Weber, (more)
- 1972
Faustine (Muriel Catala) suffers the wounds of first love in this gentle French film. During a summer when she is staying with her grandmother, she comes to know the nearby neighbors. Two brothers live in the large house. One is divorced and one has recently remarried, both of them live there with their teenaged and adult children. Though the boys of the household are drawn to Faustine, she grows ever more smitten with the divorced older man. During one visit she has to hide in his room to avoid the unwelcome attentions of his sons. As the summer draws to a close she has her first amorous kiss. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
