FOUR BY CLAUDE SAUTET
LES CHOSES DE LA VIE
While Cinematheque audiences have recently had the opportunity to discover the great crime and action movies of French auteur Claude Sautet, like Classe tous risques, Max et le ferrailleurs, and The Dictator’s Guns, the director was better known internationally as the director of more quiet, interpersonal dramas and love stories. This October, we will present four recent restorations of three highly acclaimed Sautet features from the 1970s - Les Choses de la vie, César et Rosalie, Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others - and his masterful final feature from 1995, Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud.
- Fri., Oct. 7 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
In the moments following a terrible car accident, the life of Pierre (Piccoli) flashes before his eyes. He particularly focuses on the events that led to his leaving his wife (Massari) for a younger woman (Schneider). The basis for the 1994 Richard Gere vehicle, Intersection, Sautet’s thoughtful drama “quietly and deftly...sketches in the portrait of a man gradually becoming aware that he is coming to a crossroads in his life” (Time Out London).
- Fri., Oct. 14 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
After her divorce, Rosalie (Schneider) starts a romance with scrap metal dealer César (Montand), an older, but impulsive and sometimes childlike man. When Rosalie’s old flame David (Band of Outsiders’ Frey) reappears, César’s jealousy drives him to use all the tactics he can to scare off his rival. “A fluky, wry ode on the haphazard nature of imperfect love” (Pauline Kael).
- Fri., Oct. 21 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
In Sautet’s character-driven and finely-observed drama, three middle-aged buddies (Montand, Piccoli and Serge Reggiani) each struggle with individual problems in love, work, money and personal health. On the weekends, they reunite in the countryside for food, drink and conversation. “Four stars. Enormously satisfying” (Leonard Maltin).
- Fri., Oct. 28 | 7:00 PM4070 Vilas Hall
In his masterful final film, Sautet tells of the gradually developing relationship between Nelly (Béart), a 25-year old with an uninterested husband, and Mr. Arnaud (Serrault), a wealthy businessman in his 70s. “There's an admirable detachment and sense of balance in the way [Sautet] attends and responds to his title characters, not merely defining one through the eyes of the other. The results are seamless and profound—novelistic in the best sense” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader).