Jean-Pierre Léaud

  • Olivier Assayas – Irma Vep (1996) (HD)

    1991-2000ComedyDramaFranceOlivier Assayas

    One of the most striking and critically acclaimed French films of the 1990s, Irma Vep offers a witty and insightful comment on film-making in that decade. The film demonstrates not just the precarious nature of an industry which is constantly constrained by time and money, and its susceptibility to personal whims and prejudices, but also provides an eye-opening résumé of the whole film making process. The film was directed by Olivier Assayas, a one-time critic who has since gained a reputation as one of France’s most promising filmmakers.Read More »

  • Julien Duvivier – Boulevard (1960)

    1951-1960DramaFranceJulien DuvivierQueer Cinema(s)

    Jojo has been living for a while in a room under the roof of a block of flats in Pigalle. He has chosen to leave home since he realized his stepmother has hated him from day one. Among his many neighbors in the house is the gorgeous Jenny Dorr, a nightclub dancer,whose lover he dreams of becoming. But as the boy is only sixteen Jenny proves kind and motherly but that’s that. Worse, she becomes the lover of Dicky, a mediocre boxer farting around in the Pigalle cafés. On the other hand, Jojo, who has no income, must absolutely find work, all the more as he woos Marietta, one of his other neighbors, a young lady more suited to his age. Selling magazines works for a while but posing as Narcissus for two gay artists proves a disaster. When things go really awry, Jojo tries to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of his house…Read More »

  • Luc Moullet – Une aventure de Billy le Kid aka A girl is a gun (1971)

    1971-1980Euro WesternsFranceLuc MoulletWestern

    “Reminiscent of the finale of Duel in the Sun, but pushed to the level of excruciating lunatic farce, with a touch of Fuller’s madness.”
    — Jonathan Rosenbaum

    IMDB:
    Despite most Cahiers du cinéma critics admired many western authors, when they themselves became filmmakers few dared to overtly revisit that genre. One year after Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El topo and as Sergio Leone premiered A Fistful of Dollars, Moullet charges full steam ahead with a wild western starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, taking this genre and one of its key characters to unexpected territory.Read More »

  • Albert Serra – La mort de Louis XIV AKA The Death of Louis XIV (2016) (HD)

    Drama2011-2020Albert SerraArthouseFrance

    Synopsis:
    August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.Read More »

  • Lucas Belvaux – Pour rire! (1996)

    1991-2000ComedyFranceLucas Belvaux

    Alice is a successful barrister who lives with her stay-at-home boyfriend Nicholas. When their mutual friend Juliette splits up with her partner Michel, Nicholas takes solace in the fact that his relationship with Alice is a stable one. He does not realise that Alice has been seeing another man, a handsome sports photographer, Gaspard, for the past few months. When he discovers the truth, Nicholas goes to extreme lengths to gain Gaspard’s confidence, with the intention of sabotaging the affair…Read More »

  • Bertrand Bonello – Le pornographe AKA The Pornographer (2001)

    2001-2010Bertrand BonelloDramaFrance

    Jacques Laurent made pornographic films in the 1970s and ’80s, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the ’60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre. Older and paunchier, he is now directing a porno again. Jacques’s artistry clashes with his financially-troubled producer’s ideas about shooting hard-core sex. Jacques has been estranged from his son Joseph for years, since the son first learned the nature of the family business. They are now speaking again. Joseph and his friends want to recapture the idealism of 1968 with a protest. Separated from his wife, Jacques strives for personal renewal with plans to build a new house by himself…Read More »

  • Various – L’amour à vingt ans AKA Love at Twenty (1962)

    1961-1970ArthouseFranceVarious

    IMDB says:
    “Love at Twenty” unites five directors from around the world to present their different perspectives on what love really is at the age of 20. The episodes are united with the score of Georges Delerue and still photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson. The directors create their peculiar scenarios with Truffaut revisiting Antoine Doinel, this time finding some meaning to his life while getting involved with a girl; Renzo Rossellini’s episode about an abandoned mistress; Ishihara’s tale about an obsessive love; Ophüls’ story about a pregnant woman trying to plot against the baby’s father; and Wajda presenting a confusing relationship between people from different generations.Read More »

  • Aki Kaurismäki – I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)

    1981-1990Aki KaurismäkiArthouseComedyFinland

    Quote:
    In this Finnish comedy, which features all-English dialogue and nary a Scandanavian in it, Henri Boulanger (Jean-Pierre Leaud), is a colorless English civil servant, who was given a speedy retirement when his agency was “privatized,” complete with a gold watch. His life is so barren that removing even the empty activities of his job makes it not worth living, so he attempts suicide by sticking his head in a gas oven – just as a gas service strike gets underway. Frustrated, he takes his savings from the bank and heads off to hire a contract killer to take his life from him. Then he really begins to enjoy life – so much so, that now he wants to avoid his imminent demise. —Clarke Fountain, RoviRead More »

  • Jean Eustache – La maman et la putain (1973)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaFranceJean EustacheThe Films of May '68

    A few days of a dandyish French intellectual in his late 20s named Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Leaud), who’s living with and supported by his lover, Marie (Bernadette Lafont); she’s in her mid-30s and runs a small boutique. In the first scene he borrows a neighbor’s car and tracks down a former girlfriend, Gilberte (Isabelle Weingarten), who’s just started a new semester at the Sorbonne, and tries to persuade her to marry him, only to discover that she’s just agreed to marry someone else. (We and Alexandre briefly glimpse Gilberte with her husband, played by Eustache, toward the end of the film, in the liquor section of a department store.) After hanging out with an equally idle friend (Jacques Renard) at the Deux Magots cafe, Alexandre follows a young woman after she leaves a nearby table, asks for her phone number, and scores; the remainder of the film is devoted to his courting of her.Read More »

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