A “lost” Jean-Luc Godard film has turned up online | Little White Lies

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A lost” Jean-Luc Godard film has turned up online

21 Feb 2017

Words by David Jenkins

Circular black and white eye icon with radiating lines.
Circular black and white eye icon with radiating lines.
This ear­ly work from the French New Wave icon is a must-watch for cinephiles.

A very ear­ly short film by the French film­mak­er Jean-Luc Godard has been unearthed – 62 years after its then 24-year-old direc­tor shot it on the streets of Paris. Quite a find, we think you’ll agree.

Titled Une Femme Coquette’ (lit­er­al­ly: Pret­ty Woman’), the nine-minute film was pre­vi­ous­ly though to be lost by film his­to­ri­ans. Now, how­ev­er, god-lev­el YouTube user David Hes­lin has uploaded it in its full grainy glo­ry, and com­plete with Eng­lish subtitles.

Based on a short sto­ry by Guy de Mau­pas­sant, the film is cred­it­ed to Hans Lucas”, Godard’s film crit­ic alias, and even fea­tures a brief cameo from the New Wave icon at around the two minute mark.

It’s pret­ty amaz­ing to watch the film today because it con­tains so much of the dis­tinct film­mak­ing lan­guage and style that Godard would devel­op over the course of his sub­se­quent 100+ direct­ing cred­its, most notably his 1960 mas­ter­piece Breath­less.

Here’s hop­ing some­one has the com­mon sense and decen­cy to search out the orig­i­nal reel and restore this pre­cious piece of cin­e­ma history.

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