Une Femme Coquette - Jean Luc Godard (1955). W/Intro & English Subs

Une Femme Coquette, the second short film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It’s a nine-minute Guy De Maupassant adaptation he shot on 16 mm in Geneva in 1955, using money earned from the sale of Opération Béton, his first short film. Une Femme Coquette is the most elusive rarity of the French New Wave, and possibly the most difficult-to-see film by a name filmmaker that isn’t believed to be irretrievably lost. Actually, plenty of references list it as lost-which, again, it isn’t-because it’s never been distributed and because no film archive or public collection will cop to owning a print.
The plot was a reworking of a Guy De Maupassant short story called “The Signal,” about a woman who allows herself to be mistaken for a prostitute. The movie was filmed very cheaply on the streets of Geneva, with JLG serving as the sole crew member. According to Colin MacCabe’s biography, Godard: A Portrait Of The Artist At Seventy-which devotes the final, tantalizingly brief paragraph of its first chapter to the film it was shot on equipment borrowed from Actua-Films, the company that distributed JLG’s first short, Opération Béton, and pieces of Bach were used for the soundtrack.

[@clarinhasouza6649]

rewatching this every day i feel like this woman

[@AlexHai_Gondolier]

Beautiful long remembering to Luc , daring and futuristic master of cinema, farewell to the stars

[@oguzkagansevinc]

İt’s a old short movie but the scenario is like so fresh ,like coming from present . thats my first godard movie but i’ll keep watching because i like it .

[@thomasgrantcrary2824]

Thank you for sharing that.

[@willieluncheonette5843]

thanks so much for this. I dig the early Godard films. Contempt is one of my 12 favorite films.

[@nl3064]

That's cool. What are other 11?

[@willieluncheonette5843]

@@nl3064 Murnau's Sunrise, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, The Rules of the Game, The Flowers of St. Francis, I Walked with a Zombie, Kiss Me Deadly, Touch of Evil, Vertigo, Shoot the Piano Player, Demy's Lola, (Guess I've only got 11 as of now)

[@algiersmuse]

Thanks

[@x3LightNinG]

curiosity caught u in fire

[@angelicaprodev]

I love it

[@Supernamek-rh2xv]

Skip the video until it actually start and it is at 1:43

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

is there a YT channel for short films?

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

wow the Bach music for Brandenburg makes zero sense there

[@richardtudor9824]

Hi, I'm writing a thesis on Godard and was hoping to use this as a source. Is there any way you could let me know where you got this from? Thanks

[@msabci]

I will be happy to read it. When it's done. Im interesting on Godard works

[@ZombieZifiction]

lol film school

[@Xuenimul]

if you have your thesis, I would be happy to read it

[@janagnostaki]

I'd also be happy to read your thesis.

[@leracaptures6992]

Sane, I’d love to read your thesis

[@isabelleb.dearruda2469]

This is the whole movie or just a part of it?

[@la-di-da-di-da]

Is this French new wave??

[@shadhinahmedd7416]

Can anyone tell me the name of the piece played in the background by Bach?

[@cibibi]

YES PLEASEE

[@adriaticoboy]

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048

[@orangebetsy]

@@adriaticoboy pretty badly played pitch-wise lol

[@danieleheheh]

Ahhhhh merda l'ho ritrovato io questo cortometraggio, vergognati!

[@573elyc]

second short film? i though it was the first one

[@JR_XX]

Chuck Person His first short movie was called "Opération béton" (Operation concrete). After working on a Dam he decided to make a short documentary on it which they bought off him for advertising purposes.

[@kenny6281]

sorry for the late reply. he made operation beton first but it didn't release until 4 years after it was made in those 4 years he made and released this. so this is his first released film but the second one he made

[@vardor]

context? So to my perception, without knowing anything about this work, beyond my own biases, this seems to touch on the horrible treatment of women, and also on the idea of associating smiling at a man with sinful shame. It's 1955 in France...based on Maupassant's story from an even earlier time (1880s). So I am looking with a New Yorker's eyes in 2018. To me, a prostitute is nothing other than a human being in need of help and healing, but certainly not some object who, having sinned against some vaunted moral diety (I again show some personal bias) can expect nothing less than (deserve) mistreatment. And a woman, though not a prostitute, might expect such a violent response as well, should she borrow that smile...the more I write, the more interesting this little piece seems. In the description it said "hard-to-watch". I assume it meant it's hard to see the painful content, not that it is difficult to find the film. Thoughts anyone?

[@BruceRodriguez]

Orange Betsy My thoughts are exactly like your's, i think Godard wanted to show that human simpathy, independently of the person, human simpathy might be lost in society of this past ages because if the tittles we have given to women, tittles like "she can't smile to me because she IS nice or friendly, if she smiles to me she must be flirting with me and wants to have sex" Maybe she IS like the character writes, maybe she was curious about how that would work and if men really think with our instincts, but to rape a woman is the one of the most brutal ways to insult a person, to be in that person without the consentment of the person is not only an humilliation but an act of hate, maybe the woman wanted to fuck, but if she was just smiling to see what happens she got what she feared the most

[@pensaoimperial7687]

That is art.. You dont know what he was thinking exactly, and you get different interpretations..

[@enriquegonzales6051]

What do you need it's a good laid.!

[@devindevon]

The description doesn't say "hard-to-watch", it says "difficult-to-see", because of it's rarity. The film is not at all hard-to-watch, it's actually quite charming.

[@orangebetsy]

@@devindevon ah yes you're right!

[@LarzGustafsson]

The dreadful music disturbs me.

[@devindevon]

If you think J. S. Bach is dreadful, you must really despise Georg Philipp Telemann.

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

yeh i said the same, makes no sense Bach there. MOzart clarinette concert on masculine feminine was not ideal

[@maximeHECTOR3]

C'est vraiment dla merde le cinéma de Godard!

[@bcxbonvivant]

non ça va

[@maximeHECTOR3]

@@bcxbonvivant bha moi j'y suis complètement hermétique en plus Godard était humainement une merde doublé d'un fou.

[@bcxbonvivant]

@@maximeHECTOR3 je suis pas d accord

[@maximeHECTOR3]

@@bcxbonvivant ok