"Movies should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." – Jean-Luc Godard. Throughout the 1960s, cinephiles eagerly awaited the latest film – or two – by Jean-Luc Godard (born 1930). A founding father of the nouvelle vague, the former film critic was its most innovative in form, with each new work seemingly rewriting the grammar of film. Jump cuts, asynchronous soundtracks, self-narration, cinema as essay, cinema as collage, self-referential cinema, cinema of anarchy – you name it, Godard’s ‘60s oeuvre redefined cutting-edge – and, with location and available-light shooting, now provide a near-documentary time capsule of Paris and environs. Through Godard’s movies, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg and Anna Karina became New Wave icons, with the dark-eyed, appealingly vulnerable Karina doubling as the director’s muse through seven quintessential collaborations – and a four-year marriage. Forty years after the tumultuous events of May ’68, and blessed with 100% hindsight, one can almost see the chaos coming through the satire and social criticism in Godard’s chronicles of "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola." His eventual ever-more-outré stylistic leaps would leave even art-house audiences behind, but for at least one pivotal decade Godard was a seminal force in redrawing the map of film.

"From BREATHLESS through WEEKEND, Godard reinvented cinema. Not since D.W. Griffith was knocking out a weekly two-reeler at the Biograph studio on 14^th Street had there been anything equal to it."- J. Hoberman

"The most gifted younger directors and student filmmakers all over the world recognize his liberation of the movies; they know he has opened up a new kind of movie-making, that he has brought a new sensibility into film, that like James Joyce, he is both kinds of master – both innovator and artist. Godard has already imposed his way of seeing on us: We look at cities, at billboards and brand names, at a girl’s hair different because of him." – Pauline Kael

Friday, July 18 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

BREATHLESS (A BOUT DE SOUFLE), 1960, New Yorker Films, 90 min. Lip-stroking pug Jean-Paul Belmondo on the run, shooting cops and stealing cars – and cash from the handbag of Herald Tribune-hawking girlfriend Jean Seberg; with the couple engaging in boudoir philosophy, staring contests, sous-blanket tussles and plenty of smoking. The start of Godard’s decade of supreme hipness and seemingly compulsive, often outrageous innovation. "No film has been at once so connected to all that had come before it and yet so liberating... like high-energy fusion of jazz and philosophy." – Richard Brody, The New Yorker.  "There’s POTEMKIN, CITIZEN KANE, and this... Godard’s first film." – J. Hoberman.

A WOMAN IS A WOMAN (UNE FEMME EST UNE FEMME), 1961, Rialto, 85 min. Anna Karina, an afternoon stripper in the crummy Zodiac Club, yearns for motherhood, but live-in boyfriend Jean-Claude Brialy "isn’t ready yet," while hanger-on Jean-Paul Belmondo is more than happy to oblige. Godard’s first in color and ‘Scope, and his nearest approximation of a musical, with cinematic in-jokes, and anarchic humor galore. Winner of the Berlin Silver Bear for its "originality, youth, audacity and impertinence," with Karina named Best Actress. "If Karina, Brialy, Belmondo, the voice of Charles Aznavour and a thrilling glimpse of toplessness in a sleazy strip joint don’t turn you on, then tant pis! for you." – Andrew Sarris.

Saturday, July 19 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

PIERROT LE FOU, 1965, Janus Films, 110 min. "The last romantic couple," as Jean-Paul Belmondo, fed up with wife and Paris, heads for the south of France with old flame Anna Karina, a classic pulp fiction moll of a gang of crooks. Essential ‘60s Godard, with sun-splashed color and ‘Scope photography by Raoul Coutard, a cameo by tough-guy director Sam Fuller and an explosive finale. "The most ravishing and romantic film ever made... The dazzling mise–en-scene alternates Lichtenstein with Cezanne, pop art with Impressionism, the shadow of Amerika falling across the Provencal sun." – Amy Taubin, Village Voice.

MASCULINE FEMININE (MASCULIN FEMININ: 15 FAITS PRECIS), 1966, Rialto, 110 min. "This film could be called ‘The children of Marx and Coca-Cola.’" Literary lion-wannabe Jean-Pierre Léaud chases budding yé yé star Chantal Goya, then gets a job as an unlikely opinion pollster. A portrait of youth and sex, with the story repeatedly interrupted: a woman blows away her husband; a scene in the Metro paraphrasing LeRoi Jones’ DUTCHMAN; Brigitte Bardot rehearsing in a bistro; a Swedish art-film-cum-sex-film-within- a-film, etc., topped by Léaud’s probing off-camera questioning of "Miss Nineteen."

Sunday, July 20 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

ALPHAVILLE (ALPHAVILLE, UNE ETRANGE AVENTURE DE LEMMY CAUTION), 1965, Janus Films, 99 min. Godard’s trip into the future with erstwhile B-movie hero Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) trekking through space to track down Professor "von Braun," aided by the prof’s daughter Anna Karina, squaring off in a final showdown with the Alpha 60 computer. With familiar Euro B-movie veteran, Howard Vernon (THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF). "A dazzling amalgam of film noir and science fiction. Raoul Coutard’s camera turns contemporary Paris into an icily dehumanized city of the future." – Tom Milne, Time Out (London).
LA CHINOISE, 1967, Koch Lorber, 99 min. Philosophy student Anne Wiazemsky, actor Jean-Pierre Léaud and friends, crashing at an apartment lent to them for the summer, form a Maoist cell; and then... Godard’s tour de force of idealism, naïveté and flat affect includes red accents in nearly every shot. "Amazing! Like a speed freak’s anticipatory vision of the political horrors to come!" – Pauline Kael.

Wednesday, July 23 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER (2 OU 3 CHOSES QUE JE SAIS D’ELLE), 1967, Rialto, 100 min. Is she Marina Vlady or Juliette Janson? asks the narrating Godard in a conspiratorial whisper. She’s both: an actress in a film and a housewife from the Paris suburbs who turns tricks in the city to make ends meet. With characters casually addressing the camera, a conversation between complete strangers in a bistro – all underscored by relentless thuddings of a pinball machine – and an unblinking gaze at the cosmic whirls of foam in a coffee cup. "Amid splashes of bold color, discordant sound, and brilliant observation, the personal meets the political... the new CinemaScope print makes this perennial must-see a must-see-now." – Manohla Dargis, New York Times.