Antoine and Atoinette + Francoise Steps Out
THE FEMALE COLLABORATORS OF JACQUES BECKER A fact not often brought to the surface about Jacques Becker’s post-WWII films is that they featured female screenwriters—including Annette Wademant, an aspiring actress who proved to have serious writing talent. (Wademant and Becker were “an item” for most of the 1947-53 time frame where “he said/she said” issues dominated Becker’s POV. We kick off Sunday with two Becker films that feature a distinctively feminine slant.
Antoine and Antoinette / Antoine et Antoinette
12:30 PM Somehow, Louise de Vilmorin’s cut-glass fable was transformed, between Jacques Becker and Françoise Giroud, into a warm-hearted but clear-eyed portrait of a working-class couple (Roger Pigaut, Claire Maffei) buffeted by fate. Fascinating neorealistic glimpses of postwar Paris. (1947, dir. Jacques Becker, 78m)
Françoise Steps Out / Rue de l’Estrapade
2:15 PM Delicious Anne Vernon (still with us at 100!) discovers that her husband (equally delicious Louis Jourdan) may be stepping out on her. What to do? Take a chambre de bonne in the Latin Quarter and take up with adorably louche Daniel Gélin as an outrageous young scrounger… (1953, dir.Jacques Becker, 100m)
Midcentury Productions’ AUTEURES: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LOST CONTINENT ’24 features 15 films from France zeroing in on the status of women in the cinéma de papa period. These films feature women both in front of and behind the camera, covering a rich panorama of their perspectives about their place in French society. Based primarily on researches by Phoebe Green, AUTEURES is an eye-opening look at unjustly neglected works ripe for rediscovery.
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