Jacques Rozier: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

The retrospective begins with Rozier’s debut feature, ADIEU PHILIPPINE (on August 31), a satirical jab at French society in the 1960s, which though performed poorly at the box office upon release, was praised at the time by filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette, and has since undergone rediscovery by contemporary audiences, leading the film to be widely considered as one of the touchstones of the French New Wave. Rozier’s output was not as prolific as many of his contemporaries, but each film carried with it a singular artistic expression. His second feature came nearly a decade later, with NEAR OROUET (on September 3), a “dramedy” made in the aftermath of the famed 1968 student protests, a movement that very much influenced the work being released by French filmmakers in the immediate post-New wave years.

Rozier spent the years between feature films, directing shorts and episodes for French television, but remained steadfast in carving out an oeuvre which gave voice to his uncompromising singularity as an artist. As the world and the film industry were globalizing rapidly, his next two films, THE CASTAWAYS OF TURTLE ISLAND (on September 7) and MAINE-OCÉAN EXPRESS (on September 8) both interestingly deal with themes of travel and serve as love letters to coastal France. With his final feature film, FIFI MARTINGALE (on September 11) – an accumulation of all his major themes and strategies – Rozier emphasized self-reflectivity in this hilarious and satirical ode to the theater.

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