Not only has his masterpiece The Mother and the Whore been restored over 50 years following its Cannes Film Festival premiere, but the brief yet essential oeuvre of Jean Eustache is also returning to theaters in new restorations. The French filmmaker, who committed suicide at the age of 42, left behind a number of works of varying lengths and forms and now Janus Films will present a new retrospective kicking off in full at Film at Lincoln Center starting next week. Ahead of the touring series, a new trailer and poster have arrived and if you’re looking for what to follow The Mother and the Whore with, we highly recommend his 1974 feature My Little Loves.
“His film The Mother and the Whore is one of the more beautiful films about male/female miscommunication, and there’s an element of that in our film,” said Jim Jarmusch. “So there was only some minor connection to him in content. And stylistically, [Broken Flowers] is not like Eustache at all. But another way he was an inspiration is because I write in the Catskill Mountains, in the woods, and I have a little room where I write, and I have a photograph right next to my desk. The photo is of Jean Eustache on the set of The Mother and the Whore, and was printed with his obituary in The New York Times in 1981. He was kind of always looking over me; I wrote this script very fast, and he was always there when I got stuck or disillusioned. That was important to me – that photograph of him always being there. The other reason is that the spirit in which he made films was completely true to himself and what he wanted to say with cinema.”
Watch below.
The Dirty Stories of Jean Eustache is now underway at Film at Lincoln Center, with a full retro starting July 7, and will expand.