the mother and the whore (jean eustache, 1973)

The Mother and the Whore has achieved universal critical acclaim over the years. It was #94 on the most recent Sight and Sound poll (between Parasite and The Shining) and it's #105 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time. Way back when I and a couple of friends did a long, Fave Fifty Films thread on Facebook, Jeff Pike had it as #4 on his list. Admittedly, at times it seems like Jean Eustache is praised for the rules he is breaking. The Mother and the Whore is more than 3 1/2 hours long ... the length of an epic ... yet it is a talky, intimate movie, what might have come from John Cassavetes filming Is Paris Burning? There is a clear connection to the French New Wave, but it comes perhaps a decade after the initial flowering of the movement ... post-New Wave, if you will. Many critics read a critique of the New Wave in Eustache's film ... the lead character, Alexandre, is played by New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud, whose charm came across in those earlier films, but whose Alexandre is narcissistic and rather unlikable. The Mother and the Whore is also a commentary on Paris 1968, and it benefits from being made so soon after those events. Alexandre misses the sense of commitment he felt in '68, although it's hard to accept that he truly believes in anything.

I found Léaud annoying, although maybe it's Alexandre that I didn't like. But the two lead actresses are impressive in different ways. Bernadette Lafont is a legend who manages to simultaneously suggest a movie star and an ordinary, down-to-earth woman. Meanwhile, the film came very early in the career of Françoise Lebrun ... she doesn't carry the same baggage as Lafont, "the face of the French New Wave". Her Veronika is burdened with having to wear her raw emotions more openly than the others. In a mixed review, Kael claimed that "the picture stands or falls on the viewer's attitude toward her recital of [Veronika's] sexual humiliations and her loathing of sex without love." I thought the character and Lebrun were properly all over the place. Lebrun gets a long monologue near the end of the film that will impress you if you get that far.

I don't think The Mother and the Whore is a masterpiece, but it is unique in many ways, worthy of at least one viewing.

Comments

[Jeff Pike]

Oh wow, I forgot I had it so high. I watched it again since the FB thread, still liked it a lot. And I was just this week realizing how annoying Leaud (or his character) can be (and/or Godard) in the 1966 Masculine Feminine. There is no end to the French New Wave.

[Steven Rubio]

Notes from a long-ago era:

My #4 was Rio Bravo, Phil's was Double Indemnity.

I've always said, it might take me a while to get to it, but if someone recommends a movie, I always try to see it. I have now seen all but one of the movies on your and Phil's list, although it's a big one and not really a movie: your #27, Berlin Alexanderplatz.