Julien Pauphilat is the doorman at the famous restaurant, Maxim's and is also the confidant of many of his customers. As a consequence, in this post, he has managed to make a comfortable living and even acquire a country mansion. Retirement beckons and he is going to be able to enjoy the quiet...
A story about a widow who begins to receive blackmail letters demanding money from her. This is when everyone in the small town she lives in dismissing her husband.
Igricheff, the Amiris' instructor, refuses to take part in the Cadi's arms deal. Deposed, he flees and joins the Ghafaris, determined to help his former enemies against the Amiris. Taken prisoner, he is saved by his young slave, Yasmina, while the Ghafaris are almost completely annihilated. He...
A landmark work of symbolistic imagery. The words that the filmmakers speak offscreen are imaginary conversation with Cézanne quoted from a critique by Joachim Gasquet. An exchange of memories spanning over 250 years interweaves everything from the philosophy of Empedocles to excerpts from the...
Straub-Huillet’s first color film, adapts a lesser-known Corneille tragedy from 1664, which in turn was based on an episode of imperial court intrigue chronicled in Tacitus’s Histories. The costuming is classical, and the toga-clad, nonprofessional cast performs the drama’s original French...
In this movie based upon Julian Green's novel, we follow Paul's downfall as he is torn between his love for Angele, a local prostitute, as he finds out too late, and Madame Grosgeorge's love for him.
Paris, in the spring of 1968. Albin Cérès, 23, the son of a bourgeois couple on the verge of breakdown, seeks happiness in life. Disappointed by Laurent, the leader of a small group of revolutionary students ; disappointed by Paméla, a girl he half-heartedly makes love to ; refusing the...
Having recently moved into her new apartment, Irène Cazenave, the widow of a well-known police officer, is forced by one of her husband's colleagues to take part in an investigation. The building's provocative concierge has been found murdered. We watch a parade of suspects, only to learn at the...
"Essay on the Military and the Power", a phrase that also belongs to the title of "Gestures & Fragments", sums up the spirit of the film, based on three points of view on the same theme: Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and Eduardo Lourenço, in their own roles, and the one played by Robert Kramer, as an...
In the summer of 1986, Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub were working in the park of an old Sicilian mansion and in a clearing at the foot of Mount Etna shooting Der Tod des Empedokles. Assistant cameraman Jean-Paul Toraille toyed around, so to speak, with his first video camera, filming the...
How Robert, who does not manage to impose himself in the representation, sees his life turned upside down when he begins a career as a street vendor, which, thanks to his resourcefulness, turns out to be more and more brilliant.
A companion piece to the earlier film ‘The Death of Empedocles’, 'Black Sin' is an adaptation of the third version of Friedrich Hölderlin’s play ‘Der Tod Des Empedokles’.
Based on a rarely performed Schoenberg opera from 1929, From Today Until Tomorrow explores one night in a marriage. A husband and wife return from a party where she has flirted with another man while he has cast an appraising eye toward one of her acquaintances. Each dreams, briefly, of leaving the...
Mado loves Henry but is coveted by Bob Torquella, a dangerous gangster. The latter, mad with jealousy, is prepared to do everything to get rid of Henri. He and his accomplice involve him in a dangerous robbery. Henri is hurt and arrested by the police. But the young man, a weak character, denounces...