cahiers du cinéma presents philippe garrel april 4 - 10, 1997 photo: a scene from THE INNER SCAR

Director Philippe Garrel will be on hand to introduce many of the screenings throughout the series. Thierry Jousse from Cahiers du Cinéma will also be present at many screenings to discuss Garrel's work. Special thanks to the French Cultural Services Surprisingly, you won't find Philippe Garrel's name in the Oxford History of World Cinema or even in some recent studies of contemporary French cinema. Kent Jones, author of an insightful article on Garrel's oeuvre, slated to appear in the May/June issue of Film Comment magazine, sees this avant-garde filmmaker as still an essentially "underground" artist. In the venerable tradition of Cahiers du Cinéma's identification and defense of cutting-edge auteurs, the prestigious film journal joins us in presenting a half dozen examples of rare, early and recent cinema by a remarkable director not yet Tarantino-ized--though his admirers include Jean-Luc Godard, André Téchiné, Arnaud Desplechin, and Léos Carax. Born in 1948, Garrel made his first short film at 16 and was swiftly dubbed a cinematic Rimbaud. He shot what Godard called "the best film about May '68" (the student-worker uprising), and then, during the 70s, embarked on a series of cinematic "experiments," avoiding conventional narrative and specific social references in favor of private, symbolic worlds replete with archetypal character and action. The influence of painters Georges de la Tour and Ingrés is evident in these "spectacles." Around 1969, he met Nico, the Velvet Underground diva, who became a sort of muse, starring in a number of his films. The early 80s marked Garrel's return to narrative filmmaking. His vision has always been intensely personal, very autobiographical--he casts father, son, wives and girlfriends past and present. According to Jones, "He has very firm beliefs that the only thing worth talking about is a man and a woman and a child...the holy family was a kind of template for him in his early films, perhaps still is." This uncompromising artist continues to make movies of extraordinary beauty, shattering intimacy, and sharp contemporary significance--adding to what might be called Philippe Garrel's hard won cinematic places in the heart. -- Kathleen Murphy calendar program notes and times

a scene from LIBERTE, LA NUIT

Note: All films are subtitled in English except for THE INNER SCAR, which is in French without subtitles (however it has little dialogue). LE COEUR FANTÔME / THE PHANTOM HEART (New York Premiere) (1995; 88 minutes) Garrel's latest installment in his ongoing cinematic autobiography is a delicately nuanced portrait of a middle-aged painter (Luis Rego) caught between the demands of his children, his ex-wife (Evelyne Didi), his aging father (Maurice Garrel) and his young finacee (Aurelia Alcais). Night after night he is haunted by fears past and present in the form of strange, cryptic dreams, and his only solace is in his art. A lovely but unsettling film, shot by the great Raoul Coutard. With cameo appearances by Johanna ter Steege and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. Friday, April 4: 8:45 pm Saturday, April 5: 8 pm Tuesday, April 8: 2 pm LIBERTE, LA NUIT (1983; 80 minutes) In Paris, during the Algerian war, Jean (Maurice Garrel, the director's father), an FLN sympathizer, witnesses the murder of Mouche (Emmanuelle Riva, referencing Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour), his estranged wife, by members of the OAS. After a period of deep despair, he meets Gemina (Christine Boisson), a young French-Algerian colonial. In this very personal film, Garrel uses a precise historical backstory, replete with clandestine political factions, to frame the violence of human passions. With Laszlo Szabo. Friday, April 4: 6:30 pm Tuesday, April 8: 4 pm LA CICATRICE INTERIEURE / THE INNER SCAR (1970/71; 60 minutes) "You must not look at this film and ask yourself questions, you must look at it in the same way as you might enjoy walking through the desert. The film consists of traces...and milestones.... It is a film based on the couple." -- Philippe Garrel. A spectacularly mysterious exploration of emotional dynamics generated between archetypal man and woman, played by Nico and Garrel himself. Bringing imagery from Ingrés and the Symbolist tradition to the Egyptian desert--among other locations--Garrel pans and tracks, delighting in this exotic landscape's rich play of light, as he re-enacts modern-day versions of Greek myth and Arthurian legends about the Grail Quest. With Pierre Clémenti. Saturday, April 5: 4 pm Sunday, April 6: 6:15 pm J'ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE / I DON'T HEAR THE GUITAR ANYMORE (1990; 98 minutes) Garrel's hommage to Nico, of Velvet Underground fame: Gérard (Benôit Regent) begins by finding a love with Marianne (Johanna ter Steege, of The Vanishing) that defines his life. Almost by accident, she slips away to another man. Many loves later, he realizes that Marianne is locked in his memory as a locus of lost happiness. Of Garrel's work, Jean-Luc Godard has admiringly noted: "[His] films have always seemed...to be as close to the idea of natural beauty as teeth are to lips." (Winner, Silver Lion, Venice) Saturday, April 5: 5:45 pm Sunday, April 6: 8 pm Thursday, April 10: 4 pm

garrel directing THE BIRTH OF LOVE

MARIE POUR MEMOIRE (1967; 85 minutes) "You go somewhere with people, bring a camera with you, and get into a collective psychosis, just like that...." -- Philippe Garrel This striking example of Garrel's youthful avant-garde work looks to Rimbaud, Cocteau, the French Symbolists and Christian imagery--surpassing Warhol in its visceral, highly personal "home movie" mysticism. Maurice Garrel, the director's father, embodies the fascist impulse to suppress creativity, while Zouzou's Marie, bravely dreaming she's with child, suggests the artist committed to aesthetic gestation against all odds. Sunday, April 6: 4 pm Wednesday, April 9: 4 and 8:15 pm LES BAISERS DE SECOURS (1988; 83 minutes) Another explicitly autobiographical excursion, LES BAISERS stars Garrel, his wife at the time (Brigitte Sy), his son and his father. The director breaks his actress-wife's heart by giving a part planned for her to another actress, Anémone, who is in fact an old girlfriend of Garrel's. Wednesday, April 9: 2 and 6:15 pm Thursday, April 10: 8:15 pm THE BIRTH OF LOVE / LA NAISSANCE (1993; 94 minutes) Garrel's artistic and emotional evolution is bound up with the people and stories he films: J'ENTENDS PLUS LA GUITARE paid tribute to his late wife and LES BAISERS DE SECOURS celebrated recent fatherhood. In LA NAISSANCE he focuses on the emotional ecology of family life, from the point of view of the 45-year-old man Garrel was when he made the film. Two "faces" of a previous generation of young screen icons--Lou Castel and Jean-Pierre Léaud--turn in vivid performances as men who are mature in years, but are perhaps more than a little arrested emotionally. Raoul Coutard, Godard's longtime righthand cameraman, seems able to turns an illuminating eye on their very thoughts in this deeply moving investigation of love. With Johanna ter Steege. Music by John Cale. Thursday, April 10: 2 and 6:15 pm