Jean-Luc Godard

Masculin féminin

Masculin féminin

With Masculin féminin, ruthless stylist and iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard introduces the world to “the children of Marx and Coca-Cola,” through a gang of restless youths engaged in hopeless love affairs with music, revolution, and one another. French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud stars as Paul, an idealistic would-be intellectual struggling to forge a relationship with the adorable pop star Madeleine (real-life yé-yé girl Chantal Goya). Through their tempestuous affair, Godard fashions a candid and wildly funny free-form examination of youth culture in pulsating 1960s Paris, mixing satire and tragedy as only Godard can.

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Film Info

  • France
  • 1966
  • 104 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • French
  • Spine #308

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Willy Kurant, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Interview from 1966 with actor Chantal Goya
  • Interviews from 2004 and 2005 with Goya, Kurant, and Jean-Luc Godard collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Discussion of the film from 2004 between film critics Freddy Buache and Dominique Païni
  • Footage from Swedish television of Godard directing the “film within the film” scene
  • Trailers
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Adrian Martin and a 1966 report from the set by French journalist Philippe Labro

    Cover by F. Ron Miller

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Willy Kurant, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Interview from 1966 with actor Chantal Goya
  • Interviews from 2004 and 2005 with Goya, Kurant, and Jean-Luc Godard collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Discussion of the film from 2004 between film critics Freddy Buache and Dominique Païni
  • Footage from Swedish television of Godard directing the “film within the film” scene
  • Trailers
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Adrian Martin and a 1966 report from the set by French journalist Philippe Labro

    Cover by F. Ron Miller
Masculin féminin
Cast
Jean-Pierre Léaud
Paul
Chantal Goya
Madeleine
Marlène Jobert
Elisabeth
Michel Debord
Robert
Catherine-Isabelle Duport
Catherine-Isabelle
Brigitte Bardot
Herself
Antoine Bourseiller
Bardot's director
Françoise Hardy
Woman with American officer
Birger Malmsten
Man in the movie
Eva-Britt Strandberg
Woman in the movie
Elsa Leroy
"Miss 19"
Mickey Baker
Record producer
Med Hondo
Man in the metro
Credits
Director
Jean-Luc Godard
Screenplay
Jean-Luc Godard
Based on "La femme de Paul" and "Le signe" by
Guy de Maupassant
Producer
Anatole Dauman
Cinematography
Willy Kurant
Editor
Agnès Guillemot
Songs
Jean-Jacques Debout

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Jean-Luc Godard

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A pioneer of the French new wave, Jean-Luc Godard has had an incalculable effect on modern cinema that refuses to wane. Before directing, Godard was an ethnology student and a critic for Cahiers du cinéma, and his approach to filmmaking reflects his interest in how cinematic form intertwines with social reality. His groundbreaking debut feature, Breathless—his first and last mainstream success—is, of course, essential Godard: its strategy of merging high (Mozart) and low (American crime thrillers) culture has been mimicked by generations of filmmakers. As the sixties progressed, Godard’s output became increasingly radical, both aesthetically (A Woman Is a Woman, Contempt, Band of Outsiders) and politically (Masculin féminin, Pierrot le fou), until by 1968 he had forsworn commercial cinema altogether, forming a leftist filmmaking collective (the Dziga Vertov Group) and making such films as Tout va bien. Today Godard remains our greatest lyricist on historical trauma, religion, and the legacy of cinema.

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