ProgramMed by Bruce Goldstein

“IF YOU ONLY DO 1 THING THIS WEEK... Film Forum's sprawling five-week primer mixes well-known entries with more obscure, but no less twisted, picks. Gallic gangsters, hard-boiled hit men and cops with chips on their shoulders are all accounted for. All the tough guy postures you can handle!”
– Time Out New York

“NOBODY COULD PRODUCE SUAVE DELINQUENTS LIKE THE FRENCH! While Scorsese and Coppola would lead the American pulp flicks to the forefront of the genre, the charismatic style of [French] auteurs showed them how to get there... Attendants can gain insight into the criminal mind or just as easily beat the heat with more cool attitude than psychology. THE OLD KINGS OF VICE STILL RULE!”
– Simon Abrams, The New York Press
Click here to read full article on the series

“IT’S A TREAT AND A REVELATION! Film Forum’s great new retrospective has crooked cops, double-dealing mistresses, high-tension jewel thefts, perfect crimes that go perfectly wrong -- and a cool, sophisticated and perfectly Gallic philosophical attitude about it all.”
– Stephen Witty, The Newark Star-Ledger
Click here to read full article on the series


“A FANTASTIC FIVE WEEKS!” – Andrew Sarris

LE CERCLE ROUGE

“The ultimate genre lead may well be Alain Delon, whose acting method boiled down to a kind of aloof, opaque narcissism that read as dangerous. Delon wasn’t likable, even when he was playing a good guy; he was something even better—magnetic.”
– Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

AUGUST 8/9/10 FRI/SAT/SUN

RIFIFI

(1955, Jules Dassin) Back from the pen after taking the rap for a pal, homme dur Jean Servais rejoins his cohorts for what proves to be a classic heist - a 30-minute sequence sans dialogue or music – that provided a usable blueprint for both real-life crooks and thriller directors. The late Jules Dassin, then a blacklisted Hollywood exile, turned a potboiler by milieu specialist Auguste Le Breton into an existential thriller that earned him Cannes' Best Director prize and set the gold standard for screen robberies, while raising eyebrows for its excessive gunplay, décolletage, and dope use - all of which led to its condemnation by the Legion of Decency. Approx. 135 min.
1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45, 10:00

Click here for more information about RIFIFI

“A vivid exercise that more or less invented the idea of French Film Noir... For the French, Rififi had Hollywood pizzazz; for Americans, it had continental sophistication. For both, it seemed to possess an authoritative naturalism.”
– J. Hoberman
Click here to read full article

“The dark pleasures of this jewel-thief thriller are legion, and the influence of this tightly wound film is incalculable. Few crime movies have better captured the taut enthusiasm of planning a heist and the exquisite pain of trying to pull it off.”
– Time Out New York

“THE BEST FILM NOIR I'VE EVER SEEN. A marvel of skill and inventiveness.”
– François Truffaut

“For lovers of tough-guy moviemaking, Rififi really means perfection.”
– Michael Sragow, The New York Times
Click here to read full article

“No matter how many heists you've seen, how many gangs you've watched fall apart or how many aging crooks you've seen walk up a mean street to a violent destiny, Rififi never loses its ruthless grace and force.”
– The Chicago Tribune

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AUGUST 11 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

SÉRIE NOIRE

(1979, Alain Corneau) Slang-slinging salesman Patrick Dewaere murders the aunt of his girlfriend (Jean-Louis’s doomed daughter, Marie Trintignant) to settle those pesky debts, but then itchily open-palmed Bernard Blier seems to know all too much about it. Adapted from Jim Thompson’s A Hell of a Woman by experimental novelist Georges Perec in a conversational style that mingles verlan (back slang), newly-liberated profanity, bits of English, and elements of almost too-classy French. Approx. 110 min.
1:00, 5:25, 9:50

“Recommended! The chilling amoral landscapes of Jim Thomspon come to life…
a harsh portrait of a loser brought down by a nymphet in an urban no-man’s-land.”
– Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

“Definitely the best movie made from a Jim Thompson novel to date… Patrick Dewaere as demented thief/murderer/child molester is as close to a real Jim Thompson character as an actor could get.”
– Barry Gifford

“Corneau expertly adapts one of Jim Thompson’s most twisted pulp masterworks.” – American Cinematheque

“Although the setting is changed from Big City USA to the dismal, wintry Paris suburbs, this neo-noir retains the outline of Jim Thompson's source novel but the characterisations are turned on their heads. 'A hell of a woman' is here an enigmatically passive 17-year-old, while the weary hero is rendered hyperactive in Dewaere's tornado-strength performance, hysterical rages, comical monologues and all.”
– Time Out (London)

POLICE PYTHON 357

(1976, Alain Corneau) On the skids Orléans cop Yves Montand, wearing the same jacket as Dirty Harry and investigating the murder of a former love, finds himself rapidly becoming the prime suspect. Nerve-shredding suspense, with intense highlight Montand agreeing to help invalid Simone Signoret end it all—so intense that Signoret, Mme. Montand in private life, could only ad-lib her lines after a prolonged struggle. With Stefania Sandrelli. Approx. 125 min.
3:05, 7:30

“A grimly absorbing procedural.” – Time Out New York

“Corneau’s tough, violent policier’s plot faintly echoes old school noir, The Big Clock.”
– American Cinematheque

“Contains two murders, one suicide, one supermarket hold-up, a number of muggings and a lot of mail-order psychoanalysis.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

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AUGUST 12 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE THIEF OF PARIS

(1967, Louis Malle) Fin de siècle Paris: robbed by his sleazy uncle of his inheritance and the hand of beloved cousine Genevieve Bujold, orphan Jean-Paul Belmondo counterpunches by snatching Bujold’s intended’s family jewels. Then, after expert tutelage from underworld kingpin Julien Guiomar, finds that he’s got a taste for the “gentleman-burglar” life — but is it enough? Luscious Henri Decaë color photography amid careful period décor. Approx. 120 min.
2:10, 7:00

“Brilliantly composed… eye-filling richness. Mr. Malle stylishly evokes a stunningly beautiful and trenchant canvas of Europe before the turn of the century, centering in Paris. The color photography is wonderfully subdued and real.”
– The New York Times

BORSALINO

(1970, Jacques Deray) In 20s Marseilles, two-bit crooks Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon begin by brawling over golden-hearted-hooker Catherine Rouvel (Renoir’s Picnic on the Grass), but soon it’s a match made in gangster heaven, moving from fixing fights and races, to going independent, to ... a final showdown? Lavish period detail — It’s the hats! — and rollicking Claude Bolling score. Approx. 128 min.
4:30, 9:20
NOTE: We will be showing the French-language version of BORSALINO (with English subtitles) and not the English-dubbed version, as indicated on our calendar

“Delon and Belmondo having fun with the genre. The sets evoke the fetishistically stylized sets of Jean-Pierre Melville, combined with 30s Warners-style fast-paced action and leavened with black comedy. It emerges more than anything like a comic strip set in some no man’s land of gangster-movie cliché.”
– Phil Hardy, The Gangster Film

“One of the most elaborately detailed period reconstructions I have ever seen.” – The New York Times

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AUGUST 13/14 WED/THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

“A CLEVERLY MATCHED DOUBLE BILL. Features a young, achingly gorgeous Delon. Both films are smorgasbords of desire -
all glistening azure water, bewitching blue eyes, and supple, tanned limbs, with lots of money and sex tossed in.”
– Elena Oumano, Village Voice

PURPLE NOON

(1969, René Clément) As the sun beats down on a boat in the Mediterranean, two men loll back: scapegrace playboy Maurice Ronet and hanger-on Alain Delon, sent by Ronet's Dad to bring him back. Which one's going to leave that boat alive? And can he get away with pretending to be the other man? Tense, sun-splashed thriller, with music by Fellini's Nino Rota, and dazzling on-boat camerawork by Henri Decaë, in Delon's star-making thriller smash, adapted from Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. Approx. 115 min.
WED 1:00, 5:25, 9:50
THU 1:00, 5:25, 9:45*
*Note: 9:45 show on Thursday is a single feature only

“Might have been pulled from an alternate universe in which Hitchcock was incarnated as a member of the French New Wave. A rarity: a genuinely unpredictable and suspenseful film. A can’t miss with moral ambiguity, a subtext that raises questions about the nature of identity, stunning cinematography, and a score by Nina Rota.”
– Keith Phipps, The Onion

“A classic of psychological suspense. Delon’s catlike grace, aura of danger, lonely vulnerability and sexual magnetism make him a most compelling antihero.”
– The Los Angeles Times

“Much to enjoy: a narrative stitched together with old school expertise; vivid marine camerawork by Henri Decaë; a startling piano score by Nino Rota.”
– Time Out (London)

LA PISCINE

(1969, Jacques Deray) Lazy vacation beside the pool in St. Tropez for lovers Alain Delon and Romy Schneider (“two of the most preternaturally attractive people on the planet” – Dave Kehr) — but then Schneider’s ex-lover Maurice Ronet and daughter Jane Birkin suddenly drop in — and, as a former ménage à trois becomes a ménage à quatre, mortal consequences loom. Approx. 120 min.
WED 3:10, 7:35
THU 3:10

“Icily erotic. The setup manages to suggest both Jean Renoir’s dancing-on-the-precipice film The Rules of the Game and Godard’s consumerist death trip Weekend. An established favorite in France but remains essentially unknown here.”
– Dave Kehr, The New York Times

“An apposite reference is Chabrol - the meals as splendid, the characters as impeccably bourgeois, a lethal outcome just as much a foregone conclusion.”
– Time Out (London)

“Romy Schnieder dominates like a ripe, golden goddess.” – Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

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AUGUST 14 THU (Separate Admission)

LES TONTONS FLINGUEURS

(1963, Georges Lautner) Just when he thinks he’s stuck with fulfilling an old mob boss pal’s dying wish, ex-gangster Lino Ventura (Army of Shadows) has to clean up some loose ends, while watching out for the old man’s about-to-be-married daughter. But Bernard Blier takes violent exception to Ventura’s horning in. Often hilarious, still-quoted (in French) argot-heavy dialogue keeps the action both suspenseful and parodic. Based on a novel by Albert Simonin, author of Touchez Pas au Grisbi. Approx. 105 min.
7:35 ONLY

“This wittily cynical gangster comedy proves the laconic Ventura,
best known for his tough, square-jowled roles, a comedian with expert timing.”
– Phil Hardy (ed.), The Gangster Film

“Blending elements of noir and farce—a cult item in its own country.” – Time Out New York

“Deliciously funny, but dark, gangster spoof… One of the classics.” – American Cinematheque

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AUGUST 15/16 FRI/SAT

LE CERCLE ROUGE

(1970, Jean-Pierre Melville) Impassive faces, snap-brim hats, dangling cigarettes, sunglasses after dark, raincoats without rain, nightclub floor shows, and a prologue quote from an ersatz Indian mystic. We’re unmistakably in the milieu of Melville (Army of Shadows), here bringing together four archetypal tough guys for their appointment with destiny: prisoner-in-transit Gian Maria Volontè; Bourvil’s relentless Inspector Mattei; DT-plagued ex-cop Yves Montand; and artfilm/action hero Alain Delon —on his first day out of the joint reclaiming gun and money, and shrugging off two murder attempts – joining forces for a meticulously-orchestrated jewel heist, “choreographed like a bullfight with Delon the matador in white gloves and full-face mask” (J. Hoberman). Approx. 150 min.
1:00, 3:50, 6:40, 9:30

Click here for more information about LE CERCLE ROUGE

“A deluxe piece of heist film engineering. Melville provides a satisfying payoff for the audience, if not the characters—according to the hardboiled karma of the plot, everyone winds up philosophical or dead. A virtuoso display of the geometry of movie action, from the red circle of chalk Delon uses on a pool cue to the slashing lines he cuts in his blocky American car.”
– The New Yorker
Click here to read full article

“The kind of experience that makes you glad that movies exist.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Click here to read full article

“The existential doom is so thick you could spread it on a baguette.
Melville was High priest of tough-guy mysticism, inventor of the attitudinous thriller.”
– J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
Click here to read full article

“One dense package of coolly stylized mayhem… Melville’s retro take on the caper flick makes for a gripping Gothic thriller.”
– Time Out New York

“Melville adapted the conventions of the American noir novels and movies that flooded post–WWII France to create mesmerizing filmic metaphors for the era's politics of paranoia. See: the perfect trifecta of Montand, Delon, and Gian Maria Volontè, all struggling in vain to outwit their own flawed natures and the hidden agendas of mysterious powers-that-be.”
– Elena Oumano, Village Voice

“One of the all-time exercises in cinematic cool.” – New York Daily News

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AUGUST 17/18 SUN/MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI

(1954, Jacques Becker) Over-the-hill gangland buddies Jean Gabin and René Dary have just pulled the heist of a lifetime: enough grisbi (loot) to give them both a cushy retirement. But when Dary’s two-timing moll Jeanne Moreau spills the beans to drug-dealing bad guy Lino Ventura, it’s time for a showdown with guns and grenades on a deserted country road. Approx. 90 min.
SUN 2:55, 6:35, 10:15
MON 2:55

Click here for more information about TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI

“In Grisbi, real men eat paté. Consistently surprising.... as classic and as lived-in as Gabin’s impeccable double-breasted suits. The movie is, in every sense, a celebration of savoir-faire. I don’t know of [a gangster movie] with a more complex or a more delicate bouquet.”
– Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times
Click here to read the full article

“SET THE STANDARD FOR THE FRENCH UNDERWORLD CRIME CAPERS TO FOLLOW yet it retains a mellow kick all of its own. The movie overflows with comic, melancholy ruminations on mortality and sexual fatigue.... The action is just as vicious as it has to be, and Becker pulls off one tough-guy surprise after another with masterly soft-shoe storytelling. Best of all, Gabin’s performance is more than a star turn.”
– Michael Sragow, The New Yorker
Click here to read the full article

“Makes getting old look good. Gabin’s middle-aged robber is as bitter as he is experienced,
making his calculating stare an all-time high for hip thieves.”
– Simon Abrams, The New York Press

“A wonderful treasure. Unbeatable as a gripping story of loyalty, betrayal and the price of friendship in the Parisian underworld.”
– Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
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BOB LE FLAMBEUR

(1955, Jean-Pierre Melville) Silverhaired ex-gangster Bob Montagné (Roger Duchesne), a “flambeur” (high roller), moves from poker to craps to the track to roulette to baccarat and back, and one last heist: the casino at Deauville — but in an outrageous climax, it all hinges on one final, ironic deal of the cards. Approx. 100 min.
SUN 1:00, 4:40, 8:20
MON 1:00, 4:40

Click here for more information about BOB LE FLAMBEUR

“THE CINEMATIC BIRTH OF THE COOL! Melville’s drollest, most likable gangster movie.
A superb riff with a boffo finale.”
– J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
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“A film that was far ahead of its time. Melville brought emotional depth and stylistic polish to the gangster genre.”
– Andrew Sarris

“Before the New Wave, before Godard and Truffaut and Chabrol, before Belmondo flicked the cigarette into his mouth in one smooth motion and walked the streets of Paris like a Hollywood gangster, there was Bob.”
– Roger Ebert
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“The plot mainly provides excuses for Melville to indulge his tastes for amazingly delicate nocturnal imagery, smoky atmospherics, mechanical gimmickry and attractive young women. Melville is able to cast a spell of fairy-tale unreality around his characters. Bob le flambeur catches Melville at his most commodious; the film is informed by a love of movies that, for once, is also a love of life.”
– Dave Kehr, The New York Times
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AUGUST 18 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

RIPTIDE

(1949, Yves Allégret) As guests gather in a dingy resort hotel in winter to twitter about the latest Parisian crime passionel, gloomy Gérard Philipe wanders among sodden dunes and cabañas of his childhood, finding temporary warmth with chambermaid Madeleine Robinson and dodging nosy proprietress Jane Marken and sinister stranger Jean Servais (Rififi). A throwback to pre-war poetic realism. Approx. 91 min.
7:00 only

“The biggest revelation [of the series]! It rains all the time and the sense of hopeless social determinism is both poetic and oppressive. Madeleine Robinson gives a naturalistic, singularly modern performance. Mark your calendar!”
– Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

“A spiritual heir to earlier French crime gems like Le Jour se leve and Quai des brumes,
Riptide is a forgotten classic in urgent need of rediscovery.”
– American Cinemtheque

“Critic’s pick: Gérard Philipe burns up the screen!” – Time Out New York

“Shows fine craftsmanship and is beautifully sensitive to place and atmosphere.” – Gavin Lambert, Monthly Film Bulletin

“A melancholy anecdote which works both as a character study and pictorially.” – Leslie Halliwell

WE ARE ALL MURDERERS

(1952, André Cayatte) No-good punk Marcel Mouloudji moves from petty thievery in the slums to bloody intrigue in the Resistance to postwar cop-killing to the death cell. A grippingly horrific look at French penology, with Bresson’s “country priest” Claude Laydu as the rich boy lawyer turned crusader uttering the memorable final lines. Special Jury Prize, Cannes. Approx. 115 min.
8:45 only

“As skillfully staged by Cayatte, this is realism and compassion that chills the marrow.” – The New York Times

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AUGUST 19 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

LA CÉRÉMONIE

(1995, Claude Chabrol) Until the almost unsettlingly efficient Sandrine Bonnaire turns up, très bourgeois Jean-Pierre Cassel and Jacqueline Bisset just can’t seem to find the right housekeeper for their country chateau. But when Bonnaire strikes up a friendship with local loose cannon Isabelle Huppert (César winner for Best Actress), who’s still fighting the class wars, disturbing incidents begin. Chabrol’s adaptation of a novel by mystery titan Ruth Rendell (“whose view of human nature is every bit as big-hearted as Alfred Hitchcock's, and almost as fascinatingly macabre.” – The New York Times) exudes his patented atmosphere of psychological intrigue, sexual tension, and biting irony—and don’t skip the credits! National Society of Film Critics pick for Best Foreign Language Film. With then up-and-coming French femme Virginie Ledoyen. Approx. 112 min.
1:30, 5:25, 9:30

“Macabre, mysterious... It's the perfect amuse-bouche!” – New York Magazine

“Expertly contrived and ultimately shocking psychological thriller.
A mysterious, haunting tale… this film unfolds with the rigor of a dream.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum

“TAUT AND MERCILESS. Features wonderfully chilling performances from Bonnaire and Huppert.”
– Elena Oumano, Village Voice

“An instant suspense classic. Shows off Chabrol’s graceful way of building tension in slow,
subversive increments until violence erupts as a natural outgrowth of his characters' secret lives.
This story has a chilling, lethal inevitability from the very start. Beautifully and wickedly made.”
– Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Click here to read the full article

“Almost unbearably nerve-racking.” – Time Out New York

“Venomous atmosphere….
A mise-en-scène tour de force that successfully transplants the literal class struggle in [Rendell’s] novel to Brittany.”
– Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

“Creates a palpable sense of unease that fully justifies the shockingly violent finale.
Benefits from Chabrol’s immaculate sense of social and psychological detail.”
– Time Out (London)

MURDEROUS MAIDS

(2000, Jean-Pierre Denis) Le Mans, 1933, and M. Lancelin returns home to find his wife and daughter brutally murdered and mutilated — but unlike Lizzie Borden, sisters Sylvie Testud and Julie-Marie Parmentier use not an axe but a pewter jug. A Why-dunnit, since the Papin Sisters case remains one of France’s most puzzling and notorious. Approx. 94 min.
3:35, 7:45

“Testud’s towering depiction of madness evokes pity and terror on a scale to satisfy Artistotle’s definition of tragedy.”
– Amy Taubin, Village Voice

“Sober, nuanced, and concise, Murderous Maids takes a brisk walk through one of the creepiest crimes of the 20th century.
A riveting re-telling… genuinely unnerving.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Click here to read the full article

“Sylvie Testud gives a performance of bone-chilling intensity. She is the source of the movie’s lingering, troubling power.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times
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AUGUST 20 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

PICKPOCKET

(1959, Robert Bresson) A purse is moved almost immediately through three sets of hands; a wallet is taken, dropped in a passer-by's pocket, then finally taken again; a wallet is plucked, looted, then returned empty. A young man's rise and fall as a master pickpocket—although director Robert Bresson firmly declared it not a thriller. Acknowledged by Paul Schrader as an influence on his American Gigolo and Taxi Driver screenplays. Approx. 80 min.
3:00, 6:35, 10:10

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“The nimble crime of the title, perfected by a fiercely philosophical outlaw, is itself a work of art, and Bresson reveals it, in all of its varieties, as a furtive street ballet.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Click here to read the full article

“Bresson’s parable of crime and redemption... is timeless, achieving a state of spiritual grace rarely seen, or even contemplated, in the secular medium of cinema.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“DON’T MISS! Bresson’s terse classic… plays out like a Russian novel stripped of all pretensions.
A rigorous look at one man’s journey becomes a liberating experience for all.”
– David Fear, Time Out New York

“Elliptical, economical… an experience that never loses its strangeness. To not get Bresson is to not get the idea of motion pictures.”
– J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
Click here to read the full article

A MAN ESCAPED

(1956, Robert Bresson) Ultra-quiet but nerve-shredding adaptation of André Devigny’s account of his escape from a Lyons prison while awaiting a German death sentence, mostly filmed in the actual cell and given an unearthly transcendence by its Bressonian treatment. Best Director, Cannes. Approx. 102 min.
1:00, 4:35, 8:10

“Simply put, one of the most riveting films ever made.” – Time Out New York

“The best of all prison escape movies.
The greatest achievement of Robert Bresson, one of the cinema's foremost artists. Essential viewing.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum

“By pushing through the authentic details into a more transcendental realm, Bresson in fact subtly transforms the simple story into a metaphysical meditation… The kind of film which inspires awe, even in an atheist.”
– Time Out (London)

“Bresson is to French cinema what Mozart is to German music and Dostoevsky is to Russian literature.”
– Jean-Luc Godard, following a screening of the film

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AUGUST 21 THU

LA VÉRITÉ

(1960, Henri-Georges Clouzot) As opposing counsels, prosecutor Paul Meurisse and defender Charles Vanel, thunder amid courtroom dramatics, only flashbacks reveal the truth about the violent end to Brigitte Bardot’s love affair with Sami Frey. Powerful performance by the erstwhile sex kitten (although a contemporary review cooed “‘a guided tour of Bardot”) and characteristically dark vision from the director of The Wages of Fear and Diabolique. Approx. 127 min.
2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30

“Bardot gives her finest ever performance… compared to Clouzot, even Fassbinder seemed a romantic.” – Time Out (London)

“FUN! A reactionary chastisement of the free-spirited New Wave, Clouzot’s courtroom drama plays like Reefer Madness for the sex set.”
– Time Out New York

“Never has the famous Gallic siren been so frankly and ferociously employed as a symbol of sexual intemperance and rebellion as Bardot is in La Vérité.”
– The New York Times

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AUGUST 22/23 FRI/SAT

PIERROT LE FOU

(1965, Jean-Luc Godard) “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. Echt 60s Godard, with color & Scope photography by Raoul Coutard, a cameo by Sam Fuller, and an explosive finale. Approx. 110 min.
NOTE REVISED SHOWTIMES: 1:00, 3:05, 5:25, 7:30, and 9:50.

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“May be the quintessential Godard picture: part road movie, part improvisational exercise, part genre deconstruction.”
– Time Out New York

“The dazzling mise-en-scène alternates Lichtenstein with Cézanne, pop art with impressionism,
the shadow of Amerika falling across the Provençal sun.”
– Amy Taubin

“Like visiting another planet. It's an explosion of color, sound, music, passion,
violence and wit that illustrates what used to be regarded as cinema.”
– The Chicago Reader

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AUGUST 24/25 SUN/MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

LE DOULOS

(1962, Jean-Pierre Melville) “One must choose: die... or lie?” Trench-coated Serge Reggiani is back from the slammer — but what to do now? First things first: there’s a debt to be paid and a piece-of-cake heist to be pulled — but why are those darn flics here already? Could there be a doulos? – “squealer” in French underworld argot. A-list gangster Jean-Paul Belmondo is a prime candidate for the title —with toothpick-chomping Inspector Jean Desailly providing an eight-minute grilling shot in a single, 360° panning take. But then the head-snapping plot twists start coming. Even Belmondo wasn’t clued into the ending. Approx. 108 min.
SUN 1:30, 5:35, 9:40
MON 1:30, 5:35, 10:00*
*Note: 10:00 show on Monday is a single feature only
Click here for more information about LE DOULOS

“Melville’s brutal and subtly brilliant policier… underscores why the French put the name to film noir.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
Click here to read the full article

“Melville got the combination just right: an intricate ballet of trench coats, fedoras, and deep shadows… Melville has more than one plot twist hidden up his sleeve and everyone on-screen only has about 20 cigarettes to go before they get perforated. IT'S THE PERFECT COCKTAIL OF FATE AND FASHION.”
– Grady Hendrix, The New York Sun

“A master class in the art of the double-cross.” – Nick Catucci, New York magazine

“For fans of classic hard-boiled crime cinema, nothing will compete with Le Doulos, the great Jean-Pierre Melville's most influential film… A masterful blend of economy and style.”
– Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
Click here to read the full article

“Arguably Melville’s best film… So stylized that it's nearly a fetish vehicle for staccato dialogue, trench coats, and fedoras.”
– Lisa Rosman, Flavorpill

CLASSE TOUS RISQUES

(1960, Claude Sautet) Neo-realism meets Film Noir, as tough guy Lino Ventura—going back to France with the wife and kids after a decade’s absence—plans a job for some startup money, but, as the mayhem mounts, realizes there may be another life beyond the milieu. First major feature for Sautet and first teaming of two French super-icons: former champion wrestler-turned-scene-stealer Ventura and New Wave wunderkind Jean-Paul Belmondo, coming to Risques straight from Breathless. Approx. 103 min.
SUN 3:35, 7:30
MON 3:35
Click here for more information about CLASSE TOUS RISQUES

“The kind of movie that makes you want to throw on your trench coat, light up a cigarette, and shoot somebody. A tough and touching exploration of honor and friendship among thieves… A masterpiece of the French gangster genre.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Click here to read the full article

“One of the best gangster films... tense and warm, elliptical and human.” – Bertrand Tavernier
Click here to read the full article

“Sautet is patient, psychologically exact and firmly in control of the narrative rhythm,
yet the film never feels artificial or overconstructed.”
– Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times

“A stunning gangster flick that expertly balances terse macho theatrics and a surprisingly tender emotional throughline.”
– New York magazine
Click here to read the full article

“You couldn’t ask for a more humanistic example of genre storytelling. Those who love Euro-stars should consider it required viewing. Ventura’s mug has never been more suited for a part and Belmondo radiates a supernova charisma. Whenever the two actors share the screen, [it] suddenly turns into the most hard-boiled buddy movie you’ve ever seen.”
– David Fear, Time Out New York

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AUGUST 25 MON (Separate Admission)

COUP DE TORCHON

(1981, Bertrand Tavernier) In a French West African colony in 1938, cop Philippe Noiret is nobody’s idea of Wyatt Earp, humiliated by wife Stéphane Audran and sneered at by pimp Jean-Pierre Marielle. But when the worm decides to turn, and the bodies start to pile up — isn’t he going just a bit too far? A blackly comic adaptation of Jim Thompson’s noirer-than-noir Pop. 1280. Approx. 128 min.
7:30 only

“Tavernier's rowdy, broad, unsettling moral tale… follows screwball comedy out to its other side as madness: you're never sure whether what you're watching is high spirits or insanity, and the characters keep reversing themselves. Tavernier created one of the freshest French films in years—it has wit, dash, and fiber.”
– Dave Kehr

“Recommended! A beautifully plotted black comedy. Philippe Noiret is sublime.” – Time Out New York

“A handsome and unusual work.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“The chilling amoral landscapes in Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280 come to life,
ingeniously transposing the U.S. South to a French colony in Africa.”
– Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

“Tough, smart, and marvelously unpredictable.” – Richard Schickel, Time

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AUGUST 26 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE CLOCKMAKER

(1974, Bertrand Tavernier) Bad news from Inspector Jean Rochefort for quiet Lyons clockmaker Philippe Noiret: the son who-lives-but-doesn’t-live-with-him has committed murder. In the course of the case, Noiret finds new understanding with the son he realizes he didn’t really know, and a new friendship with the understanding cop. Tavernier’s first feature, from a Simenon novel. Winner, Prix Louis Delluc and Silver Bear, Berlin Film Festival. Approx. 105 min.
2:40, 6:20, 10:00

“Very moving. Tavernier’s initial effort is a work of assurance and ease. It is both complex and simple in the way of a film that knows exactly what it's about—which is fathers and sons and the respect that is possible between them under even the worst of circumstances.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“Tavernier invests the film with details—from the personal and domestic to the widely cultural—and political observations... this perspective combines with Noiret's humbly intelligent performance to strip the film, even in its tenderest moments, of melodrama.”
– Pacific Film Archive

GARDE À VUE

(1981, Claude Miller) Tough New Year’s Eve for rich lawyer Michel Serrault (La Cage aux Folles): as top suspect in the rape and murder of two young girls, he’s spending it being grilled by formidable Inspector Lino Ventura — who then drags in Serrault’s estranged wife Romy Schneider to turn up the heat. Winner of four Césars for Best Actor (Serrault), Editing, Supporting Actor (Guy Marchand), and Writing. Approx runtime 86 min.
1:00, 4:40, 8:20

“A fine psychological thriller… Miller's confidence in dialogue and an ever more tightly twisting plot is simply a gripping joy.”
– Time Out (London)

“This tightly paced drama provides a fine showcase for Ventura and Serrault. The neatly constructed script emphasizes the psychological struggle between the characters, and like the much-lauded TV series Homicide: Life on the Street, it lays bare one of the more insidious tactics of the professional inquisitor: breaking down the suspect's sense of self-worth so completely that he yearns to be punished.”
– Chicago Reader

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AUGUST 27 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

DIABOLIQUE

(1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot) Downtrodden wife Vera Clouzot and no-nonsense mistress Simone Signoret team up to eliminate their perfect salaud husband/lover... and then la terreur commence. Dizzying plot twists lead to an eyeball-glazing dénouement in Clouzot’s suspense masterpiece. Scripters Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac wrote the novel basis for Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Approx. 114 min.
1:30, 5:25, 9:50

“EXCRUCIATINGLY NERVE-WRECKING. Could serve as a primer for today's would-be horror meisters.”
– Elena Oumano, Village Voice

The best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made! Directly inspired both Vertigo and Psycho.” – Time Out New York

“MALICIOUSLY INGENIOUS.” – Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times

“Does for baths what Hitchcock's Psycho did for showers.” – V.A. Musetto, New York Post

“Part ghost story, part murder thriller, part menage-a-trois drama… a murky, moody masterpiece.”
– Stephen Witty, The Newark Star-Ledger

“Beneath the surface of Clouzot’s elegantly perverse thriller lie bottomless reserves of malice and kinky intrigue. The very sight of the victim’s dainty wife and his tough, steely mistress, is enough to suggest all manner of forbidden possibilities.”
– Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“A primer for a generation of thrill-filmmakers. Clouzot is an uncompromising master of suspense.”
– Jami Bernard, New York Daily News

“Brilliant. No matter how many times you've seen it, Diabolique still has one of the all-time great endings.”
– Caryn James, The New York Times

“I sought only to amuse myself and the little child who sleeps in all our hearts—
the child who hides her head under the bedcovers and begs, ‘Daddy, daddy, frighten me.’”
– Clouzot

EYES WITHOUT A FACE

(1959, Georges Franju) The ethereal Edith Scob, in a simultaneously beautiful and creepy mask, floats through operating room and dog kennel in her high-collared, almost iridescent white coat as doves fly past. A distinguished surgeon lectures to a rapt audience on the “heterograft.” But who’s that facedown on her bed on the top floor of the doctor’s house? For his second feature, Franju invested a script by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (authors of Diabolique AND Hitchcock’s Vertigo) with “exquisite, dread images . . . a vague, floating, almost lyric sense of horror” in “perhaps the most elegant horror movie ever made,” (Pauline Kael). Approx. 90 min.
3:40, 7:35

Click here for more information about EYES WITHOUT A FACE

“The saddest, scariest French movie ever made.” – Time Out New York

“A masterpiece of poetic horror and tactful, tactile brutality. The look is black on black, with gleaming highlights; the musical accompaniment is gleefully carnivalesque.... It's one of the three movies (along with Psycho and Peeping Tom) that created the modern slasher-shocker.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Click here to read the full article

“Haunting... gorgeous, intensely disquieting black and white images. The unearthly beauty of Franju’s imagery is never merely decorative… but is the real substance of his terrible, gentle, poetic art... Franju shocks us by embracing and then transcending the grotesque.”
– Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times
Click here to read the full article

“A dream of a movie – a disturbing kaleidoscope of charged imagery and devilish suspense.” – Bilge Ebiri, New York magazine

“Eyes Without a Face is austere and elegant: the exquisite photography is by the great Shuftan, the music by Maurice Jarre, the gowns by Givenchy…it is in some peculiar way a classic of horror.”
– Pauline Kael
Click here to read the full article

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AUGUST 28 THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE SICILIAN CLAN

(1969, Henri Verneuil) After fiery killer Alain Delon memorably escapes from the slammer (“a sequence worthy of Melville” – Stephen O. Murray), it’s time to team up with Sicilian gang boss Jean Gabin to heist a pre-metal-detector plane-load of jewels, but there’s Gabin’s all-too-attractive daughter-in-law and trying-to-quit-smoking cop Lino Ventura to contend with. With memorable Ennio Morricone score. English-language version. Approx. 120 min.
3:25, 7:35

“Talk about a cast... IT'S LIKE WE'VE DIED AND GONE TO FRENCH CRIME HEAVEN!” – Time Out New York

“The three consummate cinema actors are excellent together. Highlights include the spectacularly shot forced landing of an airplane on a motorway and Delon viciously battering a live eel to death on the rocks, watched by his shaken but excited lover.”
– Phil Hardy, The Gangster Film

UN FLIC

(1972, Jean-Pierre Melville) Nightclub owner Richard Crenna (who, while dubbed, acts in French) and piano-playing Alain Delon both love Catherine Deneuve— who doesn’t?—only trouble is, one’s a cop and the other’s bent on the heist of a lifetime.  Melville’s final work features a rain-sodden bank robbery done in total silence and a drug deal that entails a helicopter to train transfer—and back again.  Approx. 98 min.
1:30, 5:40, 9:50

“An almost perfect last hurrah for manliness that kicks off with a bank heist that would make Michael Mann and Johnny To weep.”
– Simon Abrams, The New York Press

“The cold restraint with which Melville films the opening bank robbery and the central heist suggests emotion with an exquisite subtlety that borders on hysterical repression—and Delon, with his ice-blue eyes and mask-like stillness, serves the director’s purposes perfectly, as does Catherine Deneuve as a platinum princess... Melville's chilly manner turns sardonic as he vents pent-up bile.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“A bitter meditation on disenchantment and defeat, as glacial and hermetic as Deneuve's face.”
– Time Out (London)

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AUGUST 29/30 FRI/SAT

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

(1957, Louis Malle) Scheming lovers Julien (Maurice Ronet) and Florence (Jeanne Moreau) engineer the “perfect murder” of her husband. But when Julien attempts to tie up one more loose end (literally… a rope dangling from the dead man’s office window), he becomes trapped between floors in the title conveyance, with precious minutes ticking away before the police discover the victim’s body. Complicating things are a teenaged greaser and his thrill-seeking girlfriend. A stunning debut that won the then 24-year-old director Louis Malle the prestigious Prix Delluc, France’s highest film award, Elevator ushered in the French New Wave and made an international super-star of cool beauty Moreau, here giving perhaps the most iconic performance of her career. As seminal as the film itself is its legendary Miles Davis music (largely improvised by Miles and his combo) —still the most famous of all jazz film scores. Approx. 89 min.
1:00, 2:50, 4:40, 6:30, 8:20, 10:10

Click here for more information about ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS

“Unbearably poignant. Exquisite jazz.” – David Denby, The New Yorker

“Memorable for the 24-year-old Malle's stunning imagination and control, and perhaps even more so
for Jeanne Moreau's slightly worn, extraordinary face - that mouth, those eyes!”
– Elena Oumano, Village Voice

“A terrific thriller. Moreau is radiant.” – Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times

“Delectable. Stuffed with many sumptuous sights and sounds: gorgeous nighttime shots of Paris lensed by Henri Decaë, Miles Davis's largely improvised score, the nail-biting breakout from the titular lift and Jeanne Moreau, here in the role that would make her a star.”
– Melissa Anderson, Village Voice
Click here to read the full article

“A consummate entertainment rich with the romantic atmosphere of Paris in the 1950s… has the brisk craftsmanship and efficiency of classic French cinema and a breathless hint of the energy of the New Wave that was but a few years away.”
– Kenneth Turan, NPR

“Malle’s snazzy debut feature, a consistently engaging, atmospheric noir. An ideal showcase for Moreau’s natural beauty.”
– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

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AUGUST 31/SEPTEMBER 1 SUN/MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

"A can't-miss double feature! You could do much worse than devoting a day to the immensely influential Jean-Luc Godard."
– New York Daily News

BREATHLESS

(1959, Jean-Luc Godard) 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 le smoking. The start of JLG’s decade of supreme hipness and seemingly compulsive, often outrageous innovation. With a notable cameo by trademark-Stetson-wearing Jean-Pierre Melville (“in his full eccentric glory, grunting cryptic responses to grandiose questions.” – Dave Kehr). Approx. 90 min.
2:50, 6:30, 10:10
*Listen to our podcast: INTRODUCTION TO BREATHLESS BY FRENCH DESIGNER AGNÈS B. ON FRIDAY, MAY 2 [MP3 file]

Click here for more information about BREATHLESS

“Dispensing with virtually every cinematic convention in the book, this dynamic debut served as both an ostentatious calling card for France’s burgeoning nouvelle vague and a much-needed wake-up call to a medium that had grown dangerously stodgy. A free-wheeling masterpiece.”
– Time Out New York

“Godard’s brilliant provocation. A progenitor of the youth-cult film… Breathless still plays beautifully. It lighted the fuse for the whole youth movement in cinema. Some of today’s young directors may not even know how indebted they are to Godard’s work. The fact remains that Breathless is where it—they—all began.”
– Phillip Lopate, The New York Times

“Viewing this landmark flick on a tiny screen in my living room would be akin to eating a gourmet French meal on the Times Square shuttle. Breathless needs the proper surroundings—in Godard’s case, a bigger-than-life screen and the ambiance of a dark theater... See you at Film Forum.”
– V.A. Musetto, New York Post

“No film has been at once so connected to all that had come before it and yet so liberating . . .
Like a high-energy fusion of jazz and philosophy.”
– Richard Brody

BAND OF OUTSIDERS

(1964, Jean-Luc Godard) “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.” – Godard. In the dreary suburb of Joinville, Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey (“Belmondo’s suburban cousins” – JLG), and mutual girlfriend Anna Karina, horse around with the idea of burglarizing the villa where she’s staying, but then things go memorably awry. A jeu d’esprit, with set pieces including the trio dancing “Le Madison” (“Probably the single most imitated sequence in art films.” – Phillip Lopate, NY Times) and then “doing” the Louvre in record time. Approx. 95 min.
1:00, 4:40, 8:20

Click here for more information about BAND OF OUTSIDERS

CLICK HERE FOR BAND OF OUTSIDERS PRESSBOOK

“Godard's idea of a heist picture is like nothing that had ever been seen before.
It's a strange unceasingly inventive pastiche, and one of his best.”
– Time Out New York

“A reverie of a gangster movie… Godard re-creates the gangsters and the moll as people in a Paris café, mixing them with Rimbaud, Kafka, Alice in Wonderland. This lyrical tragicomedy is perhaps Godard’s most delicately charming film.”
– Pauline Kael

“Godard at his most off-the-cuff takes a série noire and spins a fast and loose tale. One of his most open and enjoyable films.”
– Time Out (London)

“About the tyranny of living a life of movie-fed fantasies, and while it makes us see the poverty of those fantasies,
it also makes them unaccountably rich, poetic, sad.”
– Charles Taylor, Salon.com

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SEPTEMBER 2 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

CASQUE D’OR

(1952, Jacques Becker) Murder among the "apaches" in 1898 Paris:  carpenter Serge Reggiani falls for cabaret enchantress Simone Signoret (“so intensely, ripely physical that she takes command of the screen” – Pauline Kael), takes on her lover, and then must face doom for a friend.  Based on a an actual case, this is Becker's masterpiece, in its period details, the romanticism of the Reggiani/Signoret love idyll, and the most excitingly pure filmmaking of the cinema de qualité. Approx. 96 min.
PLEASE NOTE REVISED SHOWTIMES: 1:00, 4:50, 8:40

“Becker's masterpiece, ONE OF THE GREAT MOVIE ROMANCES.”
– Elliott Stein, Village Voice

“Rarely in cinema has the sweet transience of erotic passion been more vividly evoked.”
– Philip Kemp. Click here to read full article

“Primarily a film of personalities, but also a visual tour de force. At times funny, at times tragic, proves that we can surpass parody; we can look at the picturesque and bloody past and evoke it with tenderness and violence.”
– François Truffaut

“ONE OF THE GREAT MOVIE ROMANCES. This elegant masterwork is a glowingly nostalgic evocation of the Paris of the Impressionists, focusing on the apache underworld and an ill-starred romance, with an elusive density, a probing awareness of emotional complexities. Signoret, as voluptuously sensual as a Rubens painting, has never been more stunning; and she is perfectly partnered by Reggiani, seemingly carved out of mahogany yet revealing an ineffable grace in movement.”
– Tom Milne, Time Out (London)

“A world of cutthroats, apaches, and gun molls, subtly evoking an atmosphere that gives meaning and passion—
and an overdose of doom—to their rivalries and intrigues.”
– Pauline Kael

“Becker's great romance captures the impressionist era like few other films.”
– Time Out New York

“An insular underworld drama of love and revenge vibrates authentically against a vividly etched background of early century Paris… Becker’s commendable camera scours the skyline, the smoke-filled bistros, the tarnished hotel rooms and the cobblestone byways with the eye of a painter.”
– The New York Times

GOUPI MAINS ROUGES

(1943, Jacques Becker) Going hip deep in la France profonde, naïve Parisian clerk Georges Rollin watches the gargoyles come out of the woodwork—that is, gets to meet the provincial branch of his family. The Goupis have their own rules, don’t like strangers, are known by colorful nicknames, and then one of them gets murdered—but who needs the police? Atmospheric whodunit with crisply autumnal shooting. Approx. 104 min.
PLEASE NOTE REVISED SHOWTIMES: 2:50, 6:40, 10:30

“Suggests an air of corruption and menace beneath the folksy drama... Becker’s droll and meticulous observation of a wide range of characters reveals the country folk’s deep-rooted venality, violence, and tribalism, together with a code of secrecy that conveys the desperate wartime mood.”
- Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Click here to read full article

“Decidedly weird... rural France is packed with petty liars and sneaky cheats.”
– Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

“Beckers first really great film. Less concerned with the ‘suspense’ of the novel than with its down-to-earth study of peasant behavior, Becker follows the fine tradition of his master, Jean Renoir.”
– George Sadoul

“An odd little black comedy.” – Leslie Halliwell

“A carefully detailed portrait of French rural life, with authenticity and warm humor.” – World Film Directors

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SEPTEMBER 3/4 WED/THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

QUAI DES ORFÈVRES

(1947, Henri-Georges Clouzot) Suzy Delair sings "avec son tra-la-la" in a smoky Ménilmontant boîte, while seedy Maigret-like detective Louis Jouvet must track down the murder of stage great Charles Dullin as "the dirtiest old man on celluloid” (David Shipman). Clouzot masterfully recreates his two worlds of police station and shabby music hall with typically nihilistic touches, cutting from Delair's romantic encounter with masochistic husband Bernard Blier to a pan of milk boiling over on a stove. Cannes Grand Prize. Approx. 105 min.
WED 1:30, 5:20, 9:10
THU 1:00, 4:50
Click here for more information about QUAI DES ORFÈVRES

“Recommended! Notable for its immersion in life's seamier elements. A corpse gets kicked by a blond in high heels... What more do you need?”
– Time Out New York

“Uncovers entire worlds to view, layered and profuse. Quai des Orfèvres, which accepts and embraces the world while pretending to sneer at it, is as rich and deep and wily and teeming as a 400-page classic novel, and it demands to be seen again and again.”
– Luc Sante. Click here to read full article

“AS SURE-FOOTED AS ANYTHING ALFRED HITCHCOCK EVER MADE. Clouzot's film should become a Christmas classic, like a cynical, venomous version of It's a Wonderful Life.”
– Grady Hendrix, The New York Sun

“Stunningly well-made entertainment.” – Pauline Kael
Click here to read the full article

“Clouzot was ahead of his time. A fun movie classic!” – Andrew Sarris

“Two stellar star turns: Suzy Delair as the gleefully, exuberantly vulgar music-hall singer, and Simone Renant as the glacially elegant photographer. Suggests an undercurrent of eroticism that’s as powerful as it is suppressed. Noir c'est noir, indeed.”
– Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York

“Few crime movies are as spectacular as this. The black-and-white chiaroscuro seduces and glistens. Filmed in such a dazzling way you wonder where the magic went in our contemporary, banal movie fictions.”
– Armond White, NY Press
Click here to read the full article

PÉPÉ LE MOKO

(1937, Julien Duvivier) Trapped by a police raid while slumming in Algiers’ Casbah, Mireille Balin encounters the caïd of the labyrinthine quarter, Jean Gabin’s impeccably-dressed French crook-on-the-run Pépé Le Moko. Then, as they share wistful memories of the Paris Métro, it’s clear that if les flics can’t get Pépé, l’amour can. Approx. 94 min.
WED 3:30, 7:20
THU 3:00

Click here for more information about PÉPÉ LE MOKO

“Before Casablanca, there was Pépé. One of the most exciting and moving films I can remember seeing...
Raises the thriller to a poetic level.”
– Graham Greene. Click here to read the full article

“One of the most purely enjoyable films ever made... One of the undeniably influential movies of the last century.”
– Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times
Click here to read the full article

“Gabin first came to prominence as a result of his dashing performance in this gorgeous, evocative romance.”
– Time Out New York

“The criminal as raffish, irresistible satyr [is] perhaps most memorably embodied by Jean Gabin in Duvivier's Pépé le Moko.”
– Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times

“Superb entertainment. One of the most compelling of all the fatalistic French screen romances.”
– Pauline Kael
Click here to read the full article

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SEPTEMBER 4 THU (Separate Admission)

THE WAGES OF FEAR

(1952, Henri-Georges Clouzot) Bottom of the bottle denizens of a nameless Central American fleapit sign up to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerine over hair-raising mountain switchbacks and bottomless jungle tracks to put out an oil field fire; their reward: the price of a ticket out. Clouzot’s masterpiece is both the epitome of the nerve-shredding suspense melodrama and existential art film. Best Picture, Cannes and Berlin festivals. Approx. 140 min.
7:00, 9:40

“Seldom have the exquisite pain and pleasure of motion picture suspense been mixed with quite its intoxicating effects.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“This grueling pile driver of a movie will keep you on the edge of your seat.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum

“An existential thriller—the most original and shocking French melodrama of the 1950s. It is Clouzot’s most powerful film; the violence is not simply used for excitement—it’s used as in Eisenstein’s and Bunuel’s films: to force a vision of human experience.”
– Pauline Kael

“The extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema.” – Roger Ebert

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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 - THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 • ONE WEEK

SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER

Click here for more information.

1:00, 2:40, 4:20, 6:00, 7:45, 9:30

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SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Delphine Selles, Nicolas Denoize (French Ministry of Culture, New York); Adrienne Halpern, Eric DiBernardo (Rialto Pictures); Sarah Finklea, Brian Belovarac (Janus Films); Fleur Buckley (BFI, London); Ron Halpern (StudioCanal, Paris); Philippe Chevasu (Connaissance du cinema, Paris); Sarah Choyeau, Emeline Cassiat (Gaumont, Paris); Catherine Montouchet (Pathé, Paris); Ross Klein (MGM): Jacob Perlin (The Film Desk); Jared Sapolin, Grover Crisp, Helena Brissenden (Sony Pictures); Schawn Belston, Caitlin Robertson (Twentieth Century Fox): Jonathan Howell (New Yorker Films); Rachel Murray (Miramax); Gary Palmucci (Kino International); Melanie Valera, Barry Allen (Paramount); Caroline Yeager, Pat Loughney, Leeann Duggan (George Eastman House); Martin Scorsese, Mark McElhatten (Sikelia Productions); and Lenny Borger.

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