238 A Woman is a Woman

[domino harvey]

by coincidence, I watched this again this weekend, and caught a supplement I'd never watched before, the animated 10" promo record. this has to be one of the best extras Criterion's ever provided. there's a wealth of bonus material on this disc, it's surprising it's not a higher-tier price.

[French completist]

Jean-Claude Brialy died yesterday.

[domino harvey]

holy shit what, link?

[TheGodfather]

holy shit what, link?

here you go
Died of cancer

[hangthadj]

Jean-Claude Brialy died yesterday.

RIP.

I re-watched this Thursday after reading the news. I really got nothing insightful, except I think this is a film that just gets better with each viewing.

I remember the first time I watched I was puzzled by the sound. HUGE bursts of music coming in and out of nowhere, and then back to normal dialogue.

The second time I knew what to expect fro the soundtrack, but sat back just in awe of how colorful and gorgeous the film was.

Since then, my subsequent viewings (of which there have been several) just convince me this is one of the funnest films out there. It's just a joy to watch through and through.

And yes, the entire cast, Brialy definitely included, is superb.

[ellipsis7]

Guardian obit...

Obituary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Claude Brialy
Prolific French actor and director whose influence spread from the New Wave

Ronald Bergan
Friday June 1, 2007

Guardian

For most cinéphiles outside his native France, Jean-Claude Brialy, who has died of cancer aged 74, is mainly associated with the Nouvelle Vague, in which he was a principal actor. But at home he went on to become one of the most prominent figures in the arts, prolific in films, on television and in the theatre; a brilliant raconteur with the air of a boulevardier, he was also one of the few French stars to be openly gay.
With Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Léaud and Gérard Blain, Brialy was among that generation of actors with a fresh look and an acting style that crystallised the ideological and cinematic goals of the New Wave. The acting was a departure from much that had gone before, with the actors being encouraged to improvise, or talk over each others' lines, as would happen in real life.

Where Belmondo represented anarchy, Léaud youthful innocence and Blain sensitivity, Brialy brought cynicism, charm and sophistication to the films of the period. This was particularly apparent in Claude Chabrol's Les Cousins (1959), in which he played the sardonic town cousin to Blain's simple country cousin. The two had previously been in Chabrol's first feature, Le Beau Serge (1958), the film that launched them and the New Wave.

Brialy was born in French colonial Algeria, the son of a colonel. At the age of nine, he went with his family to various cities in France, settling after the war in Strasbourg, where he took his baccalaureate. "The theatre occupied all my thoughts at the time," he wrote, so he entered the Centre of Dramatic Art in Strasbourg, where he played in the classics, Jean-Paul Sartre and his beloved Jean Cocteau.

He went to Paris in 1954 - without much money because his parents refused to help him, but with the hope of an acting career. He became friendly with a group of young critics on the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, but before he could achieve his ambition, he was called up for military service in Germany. While on leave, he and a number of friends, among them Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette, piled into an old Buick and drove from Paris to Provence to appear as extras in Jean Renoir's production of Julius Cesar in the Roman arena in Arles. "All night they spoke of cinema, in a manner that I hadn't heard before," Brialy recalled. "They were like a clandestine group plotting revolution. Most of them were hardly 20 years old. They spoke with incredible clarity of Rossellini, Hitchcock and Renoir as connoisseurs speak of Mozart and Beethoven."

Brialy was to make his first film appearances in 1956 in Rivette's short Le Coup de Berger and Renoir's Elena et les Hommes. He was cast in Godard's Une Femme est Une Femme (1961), in which Anna Karina wants to have his baby and turns to his best friend Belmondo when he refuses. The playing of the trio had exactly the freewheeling approach that typified the New Wave.

A certain devil-may-care attitude continued throughout the 1960s, when his films included Rivette's Paris Belongs to Us (1961), Roger Vadim's Le Ronde (1964) and François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1967). In Eric Rohmer's delicious Claire's Knee (1970), a heavily-bearded Brialy displayed a new maturity as a diplomat taking a summer holiday at Annecy. He patently delights in Rohmer's lucid prose and witty observations as he flirts with two young sisters, only to be satisfied when he gets to fondle the knee of the elder one. The moment when Brialy fulfils his desire is as erotic a scene as any heavy-breathing bed play.

In contrast to the movies of his erstwhile New Wave colleagues, Brialy directed six feature films, all of them sentimental, attractively photographed, old-fashioned family sagas. At the same time, he continued a career in the theatre. Among his triumphs were Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear (1968) and Hotel Paradiso (1974); Sacha Guitry's Desiré (1984), The Illusionist (1989) and Jealousy (1992). He was also a successful artistic director of the Théâtre Hébertot, Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens and the Anjou Theatre Festival.

In most of his films over the last few decades, Brialy played supporting roles, one of his most piquant being as a gay uncle in Chabrol's Inspector Lavardin (1986). In his last film, made for television, Brialy gave his best performance in years, as the poet Max Jacob in Monsieur Max (2006). Jacob, a homosexual Jew who converted to Catholicism, died in a Gestapo internment camp.

This was a far cry from Brialy himself, who owned L'Orangerie restaurant in Paris, whose personality epitomised that of le tout-Paris, and who was a commandeur de la Légion d'honneur, commandeur de l'Ordre national du mérite, and commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. "Out of the 185 films, I must admit that I've enjoyed myself 185 times," he said.

· Jean-Claude Brialy, actor and director, born March 30 1933; died May 30 2007.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Brialy was gay? I never would have guessed. What was that bit about being one of a few openly gay French film stars? I'd have thought the French would be less homophobic nowadays.
By coincidence, a friend and I were watching Claire's Knee a few days before his death. What a superb performance! That viewing really opened my eyes up to the nuances of his performance in the film.

[French completist]

Afaik, he was bisexual. Reportedly he was madly in love with Françoise Dorléac (the sister of Catherine Deneuve) at some point in his life. A long time ago I remember hearing him saying during a television interview : if I had the choice between an ugly man and a beautiful woman, I'd pick the woman, between an ugly woman and a beautiful man, I'd pick the man, and between a beautiful man and a beautiful woman, I'd pick the man. Typical Brialy.

[lord_clyde]

Picked this up at random, thoroughly enjoyed it. I must say that the feature 'Who are you, Anna Karina?' is a real treasure. I couldn't ask for anything more than just to watch Anna on the move (I hate sitting still!) just being herself. I also liked the short film on the disc (written by Rohmer) it has to be one of the better early short films I've seen from major directors (I still have the bad taste of John Woo's student film from the Hard Boiled disc in my mind) and it was great to see Brialy in such an early role. I wonder if Godard and co realized what stars they were about to become?

[Sanjuro]

"a rather trivially pretty face"

Bizarre put-down.

Aint nothing trivial about a pretty face. 8-)

[justeleblanc]

I also liked the short film on the disc (written by Rohmer) it has to be one of the better early short films I've seen from major directors

Rohmer's early shorts are underrated for sure.

[evillights]

I also liked the short film on the disc (written by Rohmer)

'"Charlotte and Véronique" or "All Boys Are Called Patrick"' -- it's a classic. The punchline of maybe the funniest remark in the film goes unsubtitled, unfortunately -- not that it's in French, but the French pronunciation of the words might make it hard to distinguish:

"I know -- you speak Japanese! -- 'Kurosawa Mizoguchi'?"

For any keeping score, Godard's cinema springs full-on into its own in the year 1957, not 1959.

[Michael Kerpan]

"All Boys Are Named Patrick" -- possibly my favorite Godard film. ;~}

[Antoine Doinel]

Does this look familiar to anyone?

[Tom Hagen]

Does this look familiar to anyone?

About as familiar as the sound of Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, The Shins, and Paul Simon's Graceland.

[bkimball]

Does this look familiar to anyone?

About as familiar as the sound of Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, The Shins, and Paul Simon's Graceland.

snap dizzle

[Magic Hate Ball]

I saw this at the SIFF cinema a few weeks ago. It really shines on the big screen, most notably the great big titles at the beginning; the trailer for Milk has a similar effect, huge words that fill your field of vision. It's a really wonderful film. I think it's Godard's "happiest" movie, even though it has some incredibly sad moments. While I do think the pacing is a little funky at the end, the film is so overwhelmingly marvelous and candy-coloured that you can totally forgive it.

[LQ]

.. most notably the great big titles at the beginning; the trailer for Milk has a similar effect, huge words that fill your field of vision

I'm so jealous you saw this on the big screen!
I can't really explain why I love it, but I'm similarly dazzled by the gargantuan, vivid titles/words inserted onscreen. I adore that Godard touch.
I'm making my way through Everything is Cinema and it is fascinating to re-watch all his earlier films, especially those with Karina, while concurrently reading about them. It certainly makes choice parts of A Woman is a Woman all the more...raw. For example: in that scene where she sobs out a line and then says, "no, thats not it.."..she was in reality quite flustered, flubbing her line and brought to tears over the pressure of trying to keep up with Godard's particular brand of off-the-cuff scriptwriting. But he kept that scene, because of how ahem, real it looked.
As always for Godard, the story behind the camera is just as interesting as what's being filmed.
This movie just reduces me to a giggly, starry-eyed sap. It's so beautiful and just bursting with imagination. Every so often I eye-ball my books and dvd titles and just wish I could bring some of them into an argument....

Anna Karina mushes some french together in bed with Brialy, right before she announces her fanny is cold, and it sounds like mmmmmFWAAA and it is just the cutest sound in all of cinema. God I love this movie. One of my all-time favorites. Even if Anna wasn't having fun all the time making it, I have a blast every time I watch it.

[Cde.]

Agreed. So much life and passion bursting from this. Definitely the most fun and happy work from Godard (though those are not qualities I usually look for in his work).

[Noiretirc]

So much life and passion bursting from this.

Indeed. It's a stunningly gorgeous looking film, and I was very surprised that this immediately followed Breathless and Petit Soldat. The fragmented/disjointed sound had me in stitches. That's Pythonesque. This is a genuinely funny movie. The hints of song-and-dance that never really materialise......Python surely copied this in Holy Grail. ("I just want to sing....") I loved A Woman Is A Woman and I can't wait to see it again.

Godard's first 5 features demonstrates a vast eclecticism, and balls of tungsten.

[HistoryProf]

Out of Print as of June 30, 2010.