EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF
DIRECTOR: JEAN-LUC GODARD
FRANCE / SWITZERLAND, 1979
Love, sex, work (capitalism), and the nature of cinema are complexly intertwined in a visually stunning work which Godard considered his “second first film” after taking most of the decade off to work on non-narrative video experiments. It charts the intertwined lives of three characters wrestling with their own wistful existential crises: Paul Godard (Jacques Dutronc), a filmmaker whose marriage is on the rocks; his ex-girlfriend Denise Rimbaud (Nathalie Baye), who wants to escape to the country; and Isabelle Rivière (Isabelle Huppert), a prostitute who sells her body to lead a free life. Constructed like a piece of music—an arrangement of rhythms, motifs, sounds, and images—the result is “a stunning, original work ... breathtakingly beautiful and often very funny.”—Vincent Canby, New York Times. “A masterpiece of contemporary aimlessness in furious motion. Every image is suffused with such elegant and exquisite insights into what makes the medium interact with its material that the total effect is intoxicating.”—Andrew Sarris, Village Voice. (87 mins.)