Scannáin - Film
BALLINA ARTS CENTRE
Barrett St, Ballina, Co. Mayo.
T: 096 73593
Ballina Film Club presents… Jean Luc Godard
Ballina Film Club’s annual celebration of a key, influential film artist returns this year with a four-week programme of films by Jean-Luc Godard. One of the original founders of the highly-influential French New Wave movement, Godard wrote the blueprint for a whole new kind of chic cool in cinema. Over the course of the four weeks, Ballina Arts Centre will screen some of the finest films from the auteur, from the iconic Breathless to the incredibly moving Slow Motion, cinephiles are in for a real treat…
Breathless France, 1960
Tuesday 5th June, 8pm
Long held up as the benchmark for coolness on film, Jean Luc Godard’s 1960 film À Bout de Soufflé (or simply Breathless to give it its English title) kick starts our season of Godard movies. Starring Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg it tells the story of Michel Poiccard, an irresponsible sociopath and small-time thief who steals a car and impulsively murders the motorcycle policeman who pursues him. Now wanted by the authorities, he renews his relationship with Patricia Franchini, a hip American girl studying journalism at the Sorbonne, whom he had met in Nice a few weeks earlier. Before leaving Paris, he plans to collect a debt from an underworld acquaintance and expects her to accompany him on his planned getaway to Italy. Even with his face in the local papers and media, Poiccard seems oblivious to the dragnet that is slowly closing around him as he recklessly pursues his love of American movies and libidinous interest in the beautiful American. Adm: €5
Bande a parte France, 1964
Tuesday 12th June, 8pm
Bande à part is often considered one of Godard's most accessible films, once described as "a Godard film for people who don't much care for Godard". It tells the tale of three disaffected youths who plan a burglary, leading to deadly results. The alienated young trio is marvelous, particularly Anna Karina, and the early scenes of their clearly overdeveloped fantasy lives are splendidly handled. Something of a companion piece to Godard's classic À Bout de Soufflé, its young characters have the same odd mixture of fatalism and starry-eyed naïveté that is, by turns, appealing and tragic. Featuring Anna Karina, Claude Brasseur and Danièle Girard Bande a Part has influenced many film directors, most notably Quentin Tarantino.Adm: €5
Alphaville, France, 1965
Tuesday 19th June, 8pm
A man arrives in a hotel very possessive about his white suitcase. This is Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), an American private-eye, and he has arrived in Alphaville, a futuristic city on another planet. Here he meets Natacha von Braun (Anna Karina) and tried to arrange an interview with her father, saying he is a journalist. In the Red Star hotel he meets Henri Dickson (Akim Tamiroff), who tells him that there used to be artists, musicians in Alphaville but not anymore.Adm: €5
Slow Motion, France, 1980
Tuesday 26th June, 8pm
The narrative revolves around three characters, all facing possible lifestyle changes and whose connection to each other becomes clearer and as the film progresses: Paul (Jacques Dutronc) is a television director, separated from his wife and daughter, whom he sees only once a month; Denise (Nathalie Baye) works for the same television company as Paul, has recently ended a relationship with him and now plans a move to the country to become a writer; Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert) is a country girl who works as a prostitute in the city and is looking to move out of her shared flat and possibly her chosen occupation. There is no all-explaining set-up here – Godard drops us into the middle of the stories and leaves us to piece the information together, and doing so provides one of the film's very real pleasures. Adm: €5