New Wave at the Oak Street
The Oak Street cinema brings the influential Jean-Luc Godard back to the big screen
October 19th, 2008
By Pammy Ronnei
Starting on Friday, Oct. 10th and continuing through Thursday,
Oct. 23rd, the Oak Street Cinema and the Film Society are presenting a retrospective of six of Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal 1960s French New Wave films in commemoration of the release of “Breathless”, his first feature film. Godard, a groundbreaking director and leader of the New Wave film
movement in France, directed 18 feature films and at least 11 short films throughout the 1960s. Filled with beautiful women and equally beautiful cinematography, Godard’s films are as complex as they are enjoyable, providing their viewers with ample food for thought. And, as I discovered when I attended
“Contempt”, the first film screened, one does not need to be a film connoisseur to enjoy a Godard piece.
Of the six films selected, two (“Contempt” and “Band of Outsiders”) have finished screening. “Contempt,” Godard’s most commercially successful film, stars Michael Piccoli as an author-of-crime-novels-turned-screenwriter who sells out to make money on a film for an arrogant film producer, played by Jack Palance. In doing so, Piccoli estranges his wife, played by famous French actress Brigitte Bardot. “Band of Outsiders,” once described by Godard as “Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka,” is an adaptation of Fool’s Gold, an American crime novel starring Anna Karina, a woman whom Godard married and cast in several of his films.
The third film of the screening series, “Two or Three Things I Know About Her,” is screening Wednesday, Oct. 15th and Thursday, Oct. 16th at 7pm and 9pm. This film stars Marina Vlady as a suburban housewife who prostitutes herself in order to have the money to maintain her lifestyle.
“Breathless,” Godard’s first and perhaps most famous film, is screening at the Oak Street Cinema from Friday, Oct. 17th to Sunday, Oct. 19th at 7pm and 9pm with 5pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg star in this crime story that marked the advent of the French
New Wave.
Godard’s futuristic science-fiction film “Alphaville” stars American actor Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution, a private investigator whose case leads him to a scientist whose supercomputer, Alpha 60, is believed to suppress love and individuality. Anna Karina co-stars. Alphaville is screening on Monday, Oct. 20th, and Tuesday, Oct. 21st at 7pm and 9pm.
“Pierrot le Fou,” 1965, is another of Godard’s films starring Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo as a man and his children’s babysitter-turned-girlfriend set out on the run from gangsters. The Oak Street Cinema is screening an all-new 35mm print of this vividly colored film. “Pierrot le Fou” is screening on Wednesday, Oct. 22nd and Thursday, Oct. 23rd at 7pm and 9pm.
The Oak Street Cinema is located at 309 Oak Street SE in Stadium Village.
