Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N State St
312.846.2600
This event has passed.
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The Mother and the Whore
- When
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Wednesday May 28, 2008 (6:30pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$9
- Links
To all but the hardiest cinephiles, a three-and-a-half-hour French art-house film composed mostly of conversations might sound tough to endure. But The Mother and the Whore, a 1973 gem from director Jean Eustache, is a naturalistic masterpiece. Terminally narcissistic and unemployed on principle, Jean-Pierre Léaud's café-trolling cad alternately charms, grates, and manipulates the two women stuck in his orbit. Bernadette Lafont plays his doting caretaker; Françoise Lebrun plays his mistress. Besides conducting a deep-dive into the male psyche, the film also ruminates on the legacy of the French protests of May 1968; still, it's the vivid characters and performances that you'll be thinking about the next day.
