“Probably the most efficacious make-out movie of the swinging 60s.”

 – Pauline Kael

 

CLAUDE LELOUCH’S A MAN AND A WOMAN

STARRING JEAN-LOUIS TRINTIGNANT AND ANOUK AIMÉE

 

WINNER, PALME D’OR, 1966 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

ACADEMY AWARDS ®, BEST FOREIGN FILM, BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY 1966

 

NEW RESTORATION RUNS APRIL 4-17 AT FILM FORUM

 

 

With Select Screenings of Lelouch’s LA BONNE ANNÉE, CAT AND MOUSE, LES UNS ET LES AUTRES, AND NOW MY LOVE, and LES MISÉRABLES

 

WRITER / DIRECTOR / CINEMATOGRAPHER LELOUCH IN PERSON APRIL 3-5

 

Claude Lelouch’s arthouse classic A MAN AND A WOMAN (1966), starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée, will run at Film Forum from Friday, April 4 to Thursday, April 17, in a new restoration supervised by the director. Mr. Lelouch will appear in person at screenings on opening weekend, as well as at a special screening of his latest film, the comedy-drama FINALEMENT, on Thursday, April 3.

 

In A MAN AND A WOMAN, race car driver Jean-Louis Trintignant and “la scripte-girl” Anouk Aimée meet at their kids’ boarding school, and then the flashbacks and Francis Lai’s can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head main love theme begin, in the undeniably romantic international smash hit – winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, two Academy Awards® (Best Foreign Film and Best Original Screenplay), and two nominations (Best Director and Best Actress).

 

Lelouch’s LA BONNE ANNÉE, CAT AND MOUSE, LES UNS ET LES AUTRES, AND NOW MY LOVE, and LES MISÉRABLES will also be shown during the run of A MAN AND A WOMAN.

 

Director, writer, cinematographer, and producer Claude Lelouch was born in Paris in 1937. The son of Jewish parents (his mother was a convert to Judaism), he credits the cinema for saving his life during the war. Says Lelouch, “My mother hid me in movie theaters when I was little. We were wanted by the Gestapo.”

 

With the gift of a movie camera from his father after the war, Lelouch began using it to chronicle actual events, including a film about life in the Soviet Union, made with a camera hidden under his coat, and sporting events like the Tour de France. As a young man in the French army’s Film Unit in the 1950s, he worked on over 100 films.

 

Lelouch became an internationally recognized director with A MAN AND A WOMAN, which he shot in both color and black and white. Other Lelouch films to be screened at Film Forum include the comedy heist drama LA BONNE ANNÉE (1973), starring Lino Ventura and Françoise Fabian; AND NOW MY LOVE (1974), starring Marthe Keller and André Dussollier, nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar; the murder mystery CAT AND MOUSE (1975), starring Michèle Morgan and Serge Reggiani; the musical extravaganza LES UNS ET LES AUTRES (1981), with an all-star cast including Geraldine Chaplin and James Caan, winner of Cannes’ Technical Grand Prize; and LES MISÉRABLES (1995), an update (to WWII) of the Victor Hugo novel starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Often operating the camera himself, Lelouch pioneered the use of compact and light equipment.