Anne Wiazemsky Movies
- 2003
French filmmaker Jean-Paul Civeyrac directs the drama Toutes Ces Belles Promesses (All the Fine Promises), loosely based on the novel Hymnes à l'amour by Anne Wiazemsky. Jeanne Balibar stars as Marianne, a young Paris cellist mourning the recent death of her mother. When she discovers that her late father had a mistress, she casts aside her boyfriend Étienne (Renaud Bécard) in order to find her. It turns out that the mistress is also a musician, a pianist named Béatrice Marquet (Bulle Ogier). Marianne and Béatrice strike up a strange and tender friendship while reminiscing about the past and playing Edith Piaf songs on the piano. Marianne also reconnects with her family's maid Ghislaine (Valérie Crunchant) before returning to her home in Paris. All the Fine Promises premiered at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeanne Balibar, Bulle Ogier, (more)
- 1994
This film is part of the nine volume "Tous les Garcons et les Filles de Leur Age" series which chronicles the adolescent eras of nine prominent directors. "U.S. Go Home," set in 1965, chronicles 24 hours in the lives of three teenagers as they try to finally lose their virginity. Martine, Marlene, and Martine's older brother Alain, live in a small town outside of Paris. They are preparing to attend a wild party where Martine hopes to get laid. Unfortunately Martine is a shy wallflower, and does not get lucky at the party despite the tender consolation of her equally unlucky brother who tried to score with Marlene. Martine's prospects brighten when she accepts a ride home with an initially reticent American soldier. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alice Houri, Jessica Tharaud, (more)
- 1987
This somber drama chronicles the writings of Paltiel Kossover (Michel Jonasz), a Rumanian Jew who was incarcerated in a Stalinist prison. Zupanev (Erland Josephson) is a sympathetic court registrar who smuggles the documents and later presents them to the poet's son Grisha (Vincent David). ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Jonasz, Erland Josephson, (more)
- 1987
An Austrian diplomat assigned to Paris wakes up after having a strange nightmare and finds himself emotionally distanced from his world. He feels absolutely nothing as he attends to his daily routine. He gradually begins to behave in an increasingly strange manner. The story is based on Moment of True Feeling, a novel by Peter Handke. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Niels Arestrup, Anne Wiazemsky, (more)
- 1986
How couples unite, interact, separate, reunite or find other partners is the focus of this off-beat romantic drama by Jacques Davila. The links in this chain begin with Christian and Nathalie, who are coworkers and friends. Christian discovers that his lover Francoise is having an affair, and Nathalie advises him to give his feelings some time to heal, about two years. Nathalie is angry that her lover Mark does not want to see her more often, while he is jealous of the men in her past. Meanwhile, Francoise finds out that her new lover is not that interested in her anymore, and after they split, she encounters him with someone else. As romance fluctuates like the lunar tides, the myth of one true love takes a beating. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Wiazemsky, Tonie Marshall, (more)
Juliette Binoche teams with Lambert Wilson in this erotic drama. Binoche plays Nina, the young lady friend of timid Paulot (Wadeck Stanczak). Though she intends to be true to Paulot, Nina falls hard for his roommate, Quentin (Wilson), a thoroughly self-centered actor who performs in live sex shows. After a torrid affair with Nina, Quentin dies under questionable circumstances. Nina's search for answers to Quentin's sudden death leads her to Scrutzler (Jean-Louis Trintignant), the theater director who'd once cast Quentin in Romeo and Juliet. Scrutzler has likewise suffered a terrible loss in his life: his Juliet was also his wife, who also died unexpectedly. Apparently, it was the wife's death that led to Quentin's demise. On impulse, Scrutzler casts the inexperienced Nina as Juliet -- and before long, both unhappy souls find a common emotional ground. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliette Binoche, Lambert Wilson, (more)
- 1984
Too many hours under the sun, artificial or not, might have warped this experimental work by Philippe Garrel. Ostensibly starting out as a movie about a young man and a woman whose relationship is coming apart, the story itself then comes apart. Soon director Garrel himself is in front of the camera, as the story turns into a film within a film, and other directors are brought in to salvage it: Chantal Ackerman and Jacques Doillon. After two hours of smoke and mirrors, viewers themselves will have to judge whether or not the salvage job worked. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mireille Perrier, Jacques Bonnaffé, (more)
- 1974
Throughout the late 19th century and in the early part of the 20th, Russians of a wide variety of political persuasions contemplated various forms of revolution. Throughout the same period, they often had to seek asylum in other countries. This movie concerns Sergei (Roger Jendly), a revolutionary who kills a student in Russia and flees to Switzerland. Though he has the gifts and abilities to unify various revolutionary groups within Russia, once he has been forced to flee, they have no interest in him. When his presence in Switzerland threatens a trade agreement with the Tsar, he is tracked down and expelled. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
At the beginning of World War II, while the Germans entered France from the north, many people had reason to believe that the Germans would not treat them kindly, and they fled by train to the south. This French film tells the story of a few of them. Because they were fleeing the best-organized bureaucrats in the world, many of them chose to flee in freight cars, unseen and unnoted. When Meyereu (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is separated from his wife during the escape, he allows a Jewish girl (Romy Schneider) to pose as his wife. As the deception continues, they come to care for each other, but she discreetly disappears when his real wife turns up. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Romy Schneider, (more)
- 1973
Georges Sand (Aurore Dupin, Baronne Dudevant:1804-76) was a noblewoman who broke new ground for women in the 19th century. She was a sensuous woman, a great novelist, and a devoted mother. She fought ferociously (and largely successfully) to maintain her independence from men. She also dressed in male clothing, adopted a male name, smoked cigars, and had numerous affairs; the most famous was with the composer/performer Frederic Chopin. In her lifetime, her behavior was one of the great scandals of Europe. This French film makes an effort to depict her life to show how she is an essential forerunner of the women's liberation movement. To highlight this point, certain anachronisms are brought to this otherwise straightforward recounting. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alain Libolt, Anne Wiazemsky, (more)
- 1973
Françoise and Vincent have grown tired of the stuffy, constrained and overly commercial quality of life in Geneva. With the help of a friend, they hope to move to Algeria and do something really different in a different place. They sell practically everything they own in preparation for the journey. Then they get a telegram from their friend urging them to stay put for a little while: a letter explaining things further is on its way. While they wait, they begin to think that the problem may not be with Geneva itself, but with their own sense of what is possible there. They decide to stay and make changes in their own lives. This film is in the French language. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1972
For most of this experimental, allegorical French movie, the story is told using a reversed color (negative) developing process for the film itself. The director of the film, Martial Raysse, is a painter and sculptor; this is his first full-length feature. The non-narrative story follows the adventures of a man in a cat-mask. He is seen, variously, rescuing people or raping women, or tenderly reassuring a young girl. In short, he is an unpredictable element. He joins forces with someone (Sterling Hayden) who is taking a raft around the world, or maybe out of the world. Highlights of the film are the short scenes which appear with their color the right way 'round. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sterling Hayden, Anne Wiazemsky, (more)
After collaborating on a series of small-scale political films under the alias of the Dziga Vertov Group, pioneering French director Jean-Luc Godard and filmmaker and activist Jean-Pierre Gorin attempted to fuse their Maoist theories of revolutionary art with a more accessible structural framework in this leftist comedy drama. Susan (Jane Fonda) is an American journalist working as a French correspondent for a radio network; her husband, Jacques (Yves Montand), was once a major filmmaker during the French New Wave, but now supports himself directing television commercials as he tries to come to terms with his political responsibilities. Jacques tags along when Susan visits a sausage factory to interview the manager (Vittorio Caprioli); their visit unexpectedly coincides with a wildcat strike staged by the plant's employees, who hold the boss captive as they lash out against both their employers and their union in a bid for more money and greater dignity. Over the course of the day, many of the participants speak to the camera about their varying degrees of commitment to radical political and economic change, while we are also afforded an inside look at Susan and Jacques' splintered relationship. Shortly after Tout Va Bien was released, Jane Fonda made her famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) visit to Hanoi, an action which led Godard and Gorin to create a companion film, Letter to Jane, in which they dissected a photo of Fonda in Vietnam for its multiple levels of political meaning. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Fonda, Yves Montand, (more)
- 1971
This well-made period melodrama, set in late 19th-century France, highlights the worldly, flirtatious fashion of the day and the demands of genuine piety on the one hand and debauchery on the other. Aurore (Francoise Fabian) is a high-minded but flirtatious woman of society who charmingly refuses the attentions of one man, claiming she would have had to completely lost heart to marry such an old miser as he. She falls for completely debauched charmer Raphael (Maurice Ronet) and hopes at first to win him to a life of virtue. Unsuccessful in this and deeply obsessed with him, she then simply hopes to win him and, in the attempt, enters further and further into his depraved world. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1970
This is a somewhat experimental radical-chic film made by director Jean-Luc Godard and the Dziga-Vertov filmmakers cooperative. It depicts a trial resembling that of the "Chicago Eight," in the U.S. in the '60s, and also shows something of the everyday lives of several of the defendants. Another issue touched on is the taut relationship of the Black Panthers with Chicago and Federal authorities. Included as part of the film are discussions by the director and cooperative members about what they have filmed, or are going to film, and how they plan to handle aspects of the movie. There is a great deal of political preaching, both within the story and in the filmmaker's discussions, and the film was considered to be somewhat heavy-handedly anti-U.S. at the time of its release. Godard is better known for some of his earlier films, such as Les Carabiners, A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), and Le Mepris. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, (more)
- 1970
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, this Italian sci-fi thriller presents a dim view of humanity. Following the devastation of WW III, very few people are left and there is a big push to procreate. The dark tale begins on a decimated sea shore settlement were a young couple appears. The male wants his woman to have a child, but she, not wanting to bring life to such a terrible place, refuses to submit to his advances. When a different woman comes along and agrees to have his baby, the fellow promptly sleeps with her. The new woman, wanting to insure her status tries to kill the first woman. She ends up being killed and served for dinner by the first woman. Alone once more, the man continues his fruitless pleas to have babies with the recalcitrant woman until frustration forces him to take desperate measures. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marco Margine, Anne Wiazemsky, (more)
- 1969
Noted French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard makes another foray into Marxist film in this poorly-wrought attempt at a political film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gian Maria Volontè, Anne Wiazemsky, (more)
Julian (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is the son of German industrialist Klotz (Alberto Lionello) who seeks to go into business with the former Nazi Herdhitze (Ugo Tognazzi). Herdhitze had spent most of World War II collecting human skulls for experiments with brain matter. As a protest, Julian refuses to marry his fiancé from a pre-arranged marriage, and he becomes romantically involved with pigs. Part two finds a man driven to cannibalism by hunger while wandering Mount Etna. He scavenges the mountainside looking for any kind of sustenance. In both cases, humans revert to animal behavior when they are removed from the spectrum of social rules and opinions. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Clémenti, Jean-Pierre Léaud, (more)
Terence Stamp is known only as "The Visitor" in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema. The mysterious stranger insinuates himself into the home of a wealthy Italian family, where he exerts a curious, sensual spirituality over everyone in the household. He then proceeds to seduce everyone in the family (male and female) including the maid, which gives each person some sort of unique epiphany. Because he reveals so little about his innermost thoughts, "The Visitor" becomes all things to all people. What it boils down to is this: Is the enigmatic visitor Christ, or is he the Devil? Matching Terence Stamp's multi-textured performance every step of the way is Laura Betti as the family's maid; Betti, in fact, won the "Best Actress Award" at the 1968 Venice Film Festival. Director Pasolini adapted the screenplay of Teorema from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp, (more)
Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil, also known as One Plus One, uses both documentary and staged sequences, alternating between an inside look at a rock band's recording process and reflections on contemporary politics and aesthetics. One half of the film focuses on the Rolling Stones, as they rehearse and ultimately record the song that would become "Sympathy for the Devil." By presenting repeated takes of the entire composition, the film allows the viewer to witness the progressive evolution of the song from its original, slower conception to the more percussive version that became the final recording. The other half of the film -- which is occasionally accompanied by the song -- presents a series of sequences dealing with issues like black power, pornography, racism, and Marxism, amongst others. These sequences, which often focus on a group of revolutionary youth in Paris, provide a chance for Godard to inject political commentary and meta-fictional musings on the nature of cinema. These more cerebral scenes serve as counterpoint to the direct presentation of the creative process seen in the Stones' studio sessions, and provide oblique commentary on the political meanings of popular music. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- The Rolling Stones, Iain Quarrier, (more)
