Le Petit Soldat, Godard’s second feature, was initially banned in France for its critical portrayal of the French/Algerian War. Bruno (Subor, who would reprise his role almost 40 years later in Claire Denis’ Beau Travail) is a photojournalist ordered by the government to murder the man who helped him escape military service. When he refuses, he is taken hostage by the Algerian Liberation Front. Godard explains: “I wanted to show that the most terrible thing about torture is that people who practice it don’t find it arguable at all. They all end up by justifying it.” (TY). The feature will be preceded by two rarely shown Godard short films, La Paresse (1962, 15 min.) and Le Grand Escroc (1964, 25 min.), his contributions, respectively, to the portmanteau features Les Sept Péchés Capitaux and Les Plus Escroqueries du monde. New 35mm prints courtesy of Rialto Pictures, Film Desk, & Olive Films.

Just fired from his job and facing eviction, married dad and failed writer Craig (Pat Healy, Compliance, The Innkeepers) runs into an old pal, the shady Vince (Ethan Embry), at a bar. Mildly estranged for years, Craig and Vince’s reunion is interrupted when they meet a seemingly fun couple, Colin (Anchorman’s David Koechner) and Violet (Sara Paxton, Healy’s co-star of The Innkeepers). Flaunting a large wad of bills, Colin has a penchant for daring others to do things for money. At first relatively harmless, the game gets nastier and nastier when the foursome head out to a strip club and, later, to Colin and Violet’s upscale home. As the cash offers get bigger and harder to walk away from, the desperate Craig and the shadowy Vince find themselves pitted against each other, all for the amusement of the decadent one-percenters. A horror film for our recession, Cheap Thrills also works as a jet black comedy with echoes of John Waters’ gross-out classic Pink Flamingos and Terry Southern’s satirical novel The Magic Christian. The lean and shock-filled original screenplay by David Chirchirillo and Trent Haaga slyly exploits the economic divide in the country today and the efficient direction by E.L. Katz makes the most of the script’s many surprises. A hit at the 2013 Wisconsin and SXSW Film Festivals, Cheap Thrills has been released across the country this spring to critical acclaim. It is a movie you definitely want to see with an audience. Director E.L. Katz and actor Pat Healy will join us in person for this special screening, a collaboration between the WUD Film Committee and UW Cinematheque.