Barbet Schroeder Movies

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be," and while he penned those words in 1961, they seem especially apt in a time when people can easily create an alternate identity for themselves in cyberspace. Director Barbara Schroeder presents a true-life story in which creating an on-line alter ego has deadly consequences in the documentary Talhotblond. Thomas Montgomery, a man from upstate New York with a failing marriage and a dead-end job, found himself spending a lot of time in internet chat rooms, where he told people he was "marinesniper," a rugged eighteen-year-old serving in Iraq. "Marinesniper" began chatting with "talhotblond," an eighteen-year-old girl from West Virginia, and their relationship progressed into cybersex sessions and a proposal of marriage. Eventually, "talhotblond" discovered that "marinesniper" wasn't who he claimed to be, and to get even she began an online relationship with "beefcake," one of Montgomery's co-workers who was on his on-line friends list. In time, the interaction between these characters led to real-life jealousy that ended with gunfire and a murder trial in which the surprising secrets about each party was revealed. Talhotblond received its world premiere at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the Documentary competition. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Barbet Schroeder transcends the borders of the political and judiciary arenas to explore the mystery of a man who stands up for some of society's most deplorable figures. Enigmatic lawyer Jacques Vergès began his career by defending Djamila Bouhired - an activist who became the manifestation of the people's hunger for freedom - during the Algerian War of Independence. Later, after marrying his client and adopting an anti-colonialist stance, Vergès disappeared from the public eye for nearly a decade. Upon his return Vergès shocked the world by defending the rights of terrorists ranging from Magdalena Kopp to Anis Naccache, and even standing up for notorious Gestapo butcher Klaus Barbie. In addition to exploring the career of a man who has dedicated his life to defending the undefendable, director Schroeder also reveals the uncanny connections between the world's increasingly expansive blind terrorist networks. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Jacques Rivette's epic-scale meditation on art, politics and relationships is an eight-part, 740 minute drama that begins as an examination of two Parisian theater companies. Lili (Michele Moretti) is a member of an experimental troupe preparing a radical new interpretation of Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes, while Thomas (Michel Lonsdale) is in charge of a state-funded group who are rehearsing another work by the same ancient Greek playwright, Prometheus Unbound. Drifting in and out of the orbit of these two groups are Sarah (Bernadette Lafont), an author and longtime friend of Thomas; Colin (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a deaf street musician; Frederique (Juliet Berto), a sexy confidence woman, and the bohemian owner of a knick-knack shop who often changes her name (Bulle Ogier), among many others. Colin tries to search out the meaning of a strange note handed to him by a mysterious stranger, while Frederique becomes party to a similar message. As it happens, both learn of the possible existence of a secret society of thirteen powerful individuals who are the true rulers of Paris, but neither is sure if the group exists in history or the present day, and they have very different notions of what to do with this information. Jacques Rivette originally screened Out 1 as a work in progress (titled Out 1: Noli Me Tangere) at a pair of screenings in Paris in the fall of 1971; it was originally conceived as a project for television, but became a theatrical film after it was rejected by French broadcasters. While a four-hour version, Out 1: Spectre, began making the rounds of film festivals in 1974, the film didn't appear in its full twelve-hours-plus version until 1989, when a new cut of Out 1 appeared at the Rotterdam Film Festival. The final cut of Out 1 appeared with English subtitles in London in 2006, and has subsequently been screened in Vancouver, New York City and Chicago. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Golden Boat, the first American production from internationally acclaimed director Raul Ruiz, is a dry-humored, surreal tale set in downtown Manhattan. Young writer Israel Williams (Federico Muchnik) encounters a wounded man on the street. Though he has been stabbed several times over, the man seems unaffected by his wounds and refuses to go to a doctor. Instead, he asks Israel to help find his estranged son. Israel reluctantly agrees but is met with disbelief and suspicion from the supposed son, a South American television star. Things become dangerously complicated when the old man proves to be a murderer with shady criminal and political connections. Israel soon becomes lost in a strange world of international celebrities, Marxist operatives, and postmodern literary critics. The film deconstructs traditional techniques, relying instead on unconventional cinematography, jarring sound design, and eccentric patterns of recurring imagery, including several pairs of boots that reappear in odd places throughout the film. Ruiz made The Golden Boat on a shoestring budget, working in collaboration with The Kitchen, an avant-garde theatre group. Several notable members of the New York art scene make cameos, including director Jim Jarmusch and writer Kathy Acker. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Like a glossy wrapping around an empty box, this film about sophisticated gamblers with nothing deeper than their gambling addiction involves a story no deeper than the tracks along its plot line: win at the casinos alone, win with a woman companion, and then cheat to win some more. Elric (Jacques Dutronc) is a professional gambler successfully working the roulette wheel at the casino in Portuguese Madeira when he meets Suzie (Bulle Ogier) at 7:07 p.m. wearing a T-shirt with the number "7" on it. Convinced she will bring him luck if she stays with him at the games for 7 days, Elric talks Suzie into keeping him company -- he is also hoping her disinterest in gambling will cure him of his habit. The reverse happens; he infects Suzie with the gambling bug. At that juncture, Jorg (Kurt Raab), a skillful cheat at many games, cons Elric into taking off with him to scam their way through one casino after another. The men leave and when they return, the temporary rift between Suzie and Elric is healed -- she objected to Jorg's methods -- but Elric is now infected with Jorg's methods himself and uses a remote-control electronic device to cheat at roulette, winning a fortune. With these proceeds, he and Suzie can start building that chateau in the French Alps they have always dreamed of owning -- though it remains to be seen if the gambling bug has been exterminated or is just lying dormant for awhile. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this excellent drama centered around family relationships, especially that of parent and child, the problems of single motherhood are addressed from several perspectives. Isabelle (Brigitte Fossey) is a movie star in German cinema, and after she wraps a successful film in Berlin, she leaves to spend some time with her little daughter Emilie (Camille Raymond) and her parents in Normandy, France. Isabelle's mother Paula (Hildegarde Knef) was born in Germany and married her French husband after a romance that began in the war-ravaged city of Berlin. Isabelle's parents take care of Emilie while she is working because she insists on remaining a single mother -- although her lover follows her to Normandy and stays in a nearby hotel while she is with her parents. During a 24-hour period, the unresolved problems between Isabelle and her mother and father rise to the surface -- and cannot be ignored any longer. It is not an easy situation, especially since both parents are angry about some aspects of Isabelle's career and/or life that she may not be able to change. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In her 50s, Roberte (Denise Morin Sinclaire) is still an attractive woman who has kept her figure. She is married to Octave (Pierre Klossowski) a substantially older man. His twisted fantasies require that Roberte seek out other men while he follows behind and keeps track of her activities with them. He mulls over sexual photographs he has taken of the episodes he has forced her to enact, in the street, or at their own house. Despite the somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere created by her husband's obsessions, she wants to bring up her nephew, who is in her charge, free of the darkness that hovers over her. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada was but a distant irritation to everyone but his own countrymen and the British Empire until his perfidy became headline material in the early '70s. The first director to provide an in-depth study of this gregarious madman was director Barbet Schroeder, with his General Idi Amin Dada. In this documentary, Schroeder and his crew travel to Uganda to spend several days with the despot, one-on-one. The uncomfortable truths revealed in the film are all the most amazing when one realizes that Schroeder could not release his documentary without Amin's approval. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An early film by director Barbet Schroeder, La Vallée stars Bulle Ogier as the wife of a diplomat who embarks on a journey through the jungles of New Guinea in order to locate a rarely seen type of bird feather. During the course of her quest, she meets up with a group of free-spirited hippies who are seeking their own personal Shangri-la. She becomes involved in their alternative lifestyle; however, their idea world comes crashing down when they begin to interact with a local native tribe. Future Oscar winner Nestor Almendros' cinematography and the counter-culture attitudes helped make this film a success in art-house theaters. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

La Collectionneuse is the third of director Eric Rohmer's "Six contes moraux" (six moral tales), and also the first of the series to attain full feature-length status (each of the first two entries, La Boulangere de Monceau and La Carriere de la Suzanne, ran less than one hour). Patrick Bauchau plays a self-centered young man on summer holiday in the Mediterranean. He finds himself irresistibly attracted to Haydee (Haydee Politoff,) the aloof young woman who shares his St. Tropez villa. Haydee is a sexual libertine, a "collector of men" (hence the film's title), but she appears disinterested in Patrick. For his part, the hero assumes that the girl's promiscuity is deliberately calculated to prompt him to seduce her. Filmed in 1967, La Collectioneuse was released in the US in 1971, by which time the fourth of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales, My Night at Maud's (69), had already debuted in America. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

La Boulangere De Monceau (The Girl at the Monceau Bakery is the first of six short films that make up the Six Moral Tales series by French New Wave director Eric Rohmer. This 25-minute segment was shot in Paris with 16 mm black-and-white film. Barbet Schroeder (who also produced) plays a young university student who is initially attracted to a girl he sees on the street. While searching for her over several days, he makes frequent stops to a bakery. When he finally finds the girl and arranges a date, it conflicts with the date he has made with the bakery salesgirl. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Jean-Luc Godard directed this brutal and purposefully harsh satire (adapted from a play by Benjamino Joppolo) which explores the grim folly of war. Ulysses (Marino Masé) and Michel Ange (Albert Juross) are a pair of thickheaded peasants living in a nameless country who receive a visit from a pair of military recruiters informing them the king wants a favor of them. Impressed that the king regards them as friends, Ulysses and Michel Ange join the army and set out to see the world's battlefields, having been told they can claim any spoils as their own and live a lawless life on the nation's behalf. Ulysses and Michel Ange often write their equally dim girlfriends, Venus (Geneviève Galéa) and Cleopatre (Catherine Riberio), with tales of the places they've seen and the people they've killed, but when the soldiers return home, their women discover the riches they were promised are not quite what they imagined. Filmed and recorded in a deliberately harsh and murky style, Les Carabiniers (aka The Riflemen and The Soldiers) features a brief appearance from Barbet Schroeder, years before he would become an acclaimed director, as a car salesman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Twenty acclaimed filmmakers from around the world look at love in the City of Lights in this omnibus feature. Paris, Je T'Aime features 18 short stories, each set in a different part of Paris and each featuring a different cast and director (two segments were produced by two filmmakers in collaboration). In "Faubourg Saint-Denis," Tom Tykwer directs Natalie Portman as an American actress who is the object of affection for a blind student (Melchior Belson). Christopher Doyle's "Porte de Choisy" follows a salesman (Barbet Schroeder) as he tries to pitch beauty aids in Chinatown. Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier are father and daughter in "Parc Monceau" from Alfonso Cuarón. Animator Sylvain Chomet turns his eye to a pair of living, breathing mimes in "Tour Eiffel." An interracial romance in France is offered by Gurinder Chadha in "Quais de Seine." In "Le Marais" from Gus Van Sant, a man (Gaspard Ulliel) finds himself falling for a handsome gent (Elias McConnell) who works in a print shop. Isabel Coixet tells the tale of a man (Sergio Castellitto) who is making his final choice between his wife (Miranda Richardson) and his lover (Leonor Watling) in "Bastille." Juliette Binoche plays a grieving mother in Nobuhiro Suwa's "Place des Victoires," in which she's greeted by a spectral cowboy (Willem Dafoe). Richard LaGravanese's "Pigalle" finds a long-married man (Bob Hoskins) turning to a prostitute for advice on pleasing his wife (Fanny Ardant). Gérard Depardieu and Frédéric Auburtin direct Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara as longtime marrieds meeting for one final pre-divorce encounter in "Quartier Latin." Steve Buscemi learns a lesson about local etiquette in the Paris Metro in "Tuileries" from Joel and Ethan Coen. In "Loin du 16ème" by Walter Salles, a housekeeper (Catalina Sandino Moreno) longs for her own child as she tends to the infant of her wealthy employer. Elijah Wood stars in "Quartier de la Madeleine," a vampire tale from Vincenzo Natali. Wes Craven presents another fantasy in "Père-Lachaise," in which an engaged young man (Rufus Sewell) receives romantic advice from the spirit of Oscar Wilde (Alex Payne). A postal worker from Colorado (Margo Martindale) shares her thoughts on her visit to Paris in mangled French in Alexander Payne's witty "14th Arrondissement." Other segments include "Place des Fêtes" from Oliver Schmitz, Bruno Podalydès' "Montmartre," and "Quartier des Enfants Rouges" by Olivier Assayas, which stars Maggie Gyllenhaal. Paris, Je T'Aime received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide