LES CHOSES DE LA VIE - Claude Sautet
CESAR ET ROSALIE - Claude Sautet
L'IMPORTANT C'EST D'AIMER - Andrej Zulawski
NOW PLAYING on VIRTUAL CINEMA!
NOW PLAYING
on VIRTUAL CINEMA ONLY!
YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO GET THE 3-FILM PACKAGE FOR $20 (you will have 7 days to watch the 3 films) OR RENT EACH INDIVIDUAL FILMS FOR $10 (3-day rental).
Your rental supports
the Sacramento French Film Festival
LES CHOSES DE LA VIE
(THE THINGS OF LIFE)
1970
Director: Claude Sautet
Screenplay: Jean-Loup Dabadie, Claude Sautet & Paul Guimard (based on his novel).
Cast:
Pierre Bérard: Michel Piccoli
Hélène Haltig: Romy Schneider
Bertrand Bérard: Gérard Lartigau
Catherine Bérard: Léa Massari
François: Jean Bouise
87 minutes
Romance/Drama Not Rated
Pierre (Michel Piccoli), a middle-aged engineer, sees his life flashes before his eyes after being involved in a horrific car accident. While falling in and out of consciousness, he reflects on the recent events that have transpired between him and estranged wife, Catherine (Léa Massari), and his young lover, Hélène (Romy Schneider).
Based on the acclaimed novel by Paul Guimard Intersection, Les Choses de la vie won the 1969 Louis Delluc Prize and was the first of five film collaborations between actress Romy Schneider and director Claude Sautet.
Actor Michel Piccoli & screenwriter Jean-Loup dabadie both died in late May 2020. Romy, Piccoli, Dabadie: three good reasons to watch Les Choses de la vie.
Should be considered a high priority for cinephiles.
Mike D’Angelo - The Village Voice
It is Sautet’s work on Les Choses de la vie that helps change the French
cinematic landscape definitively.
Janice Tong - Senses of Cinema
Sautet captures Schneider’s quiet eroticism solely in the way he focuses on the
nape of her neck or the curve of her honey-toned shoulders.
Stephanie Zacharek - The Village Voice
A remarkable portrait of the compromises of marriage and the fickle stirrings of the human heart, structured as an intricate narrative jigsaw.
Scott Foundas - Variety
CESAR ET ROSALIE
1972
Director: Claude Sautet
Screenplay: Jean-Loup Dabadie & Claude Sautet
Cast:
César: Yves Montand
Rosalie: Romy Schneider
David:Sami Frey
Michel: Bernard Le Coq
Lucie Artigues: Eva Maria Meineke
Marite: Isabelle Huppert
Carla: Gisella Hahn
111 minutes
Romance/Drama Rated R
Sometimes two and two make three. Rosalie and David... Rosalie and César... César and David…. After her marriage ends in divorce, the beautiful Rosalie (Romy Schneider) begins dating César (Yves Montand), a wealthy playboy and businessman. But when her old flame, David (Sami Frey), unexpectedly re-enters her life, the two men simultaneously vie for her affections.
One of Claude Sautet's most celebrated films, CÉSAR ET ROSALIE reunited the director with his on-screen muse Romy Schneider, who according to Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times review could “make a half-shy smile into the suggestion of unimaginable carnal possibilities.”
AWARD
David Di Donatello Awards - Best Foreign Actor (Yves Montand)
REVIEWS
Romy Schneider can make a half-shy smile into the suggestion of unimaginable
carnal possibilities.
Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times
Sautet’s films are a careful study of human subjectivity and reflect our struggle
to find meaning and love in our often complex, difficult and fragmented
relationships through life. Janice Tong - Senses of Cinema
A fluky, wry ode on the imperfect, haphazard nature of romantic love.
Pauline Kael -
The New Yorker
An enchanting story of what love is all about. The enchantment of Sautet’s film
is his acknowledgment that it is in the daily living rather than the nightly bedding
that meaningful relationships exist.
Judith Crist -
New York Magazine
L'IMPORTANT C'EST D'AIMER
1975
Director: Andrzej Zulawski
Screenplay: Christopher Frank & Andrzej Zulawski. Based on Christopher Frank's novel La Nuit Américaine.
Cast:
Nadine Chevalier: Romy Schneider
Servais Mont: Fabio Testi
Jacques Chevalier: Jacques Dutronc
Mazelli: Claude Dauphin
113 minutes
Drama Not Rated
Romy Schneider delivers a César Award-winning performance as a down-on-her-luck actress in L'important c'est d'aimer, Andrzej Żuławski’s “passionate portrait of the dignity – and the indignities – of an actor’s work” (Film Comment).
Forced to earn a living by accepting demeaning roles negotiated by her erratic husband (Jacques Dutronc), Nadine Chevalier (Schneider) encounters tabloid photographer Servais Mont (Fabio Testi) on the set of a film. Desperate to win her affections, Servais secretly uses money borrowed from a shady associate to bankroll her next project, a production of Richard III with Nadine starring opposite the maniacal German thespian Karl-Heinz Zimmer (Klaus Kinski).
AWARD
1976 César for best Actress (Romy Schneider)
REVIEWS
Intemperate, garish, outrageous, and unmissable....
Melissa Anderson - The Village Voice
This passionate portrait of the dignity—and the indignities—of an actor’s work is one of his (Zulawski) best films.
Ela Bittencourt - Film Comment
Schneider, who embodies the very heart of L’Important C’est D’aimer, may deliver a performance that tops even Isabelle Adjani’s wide-eyed, operatically voluptuous turn in Possession. She startles for the way she conveys something buried death and twisted inside Nadine. Hers is a fearless performance not because she gets naked, in the figurative sense (the nudity is, in fact, quite chaste), but because she allows herself to be so vulnerable.
Jeremiah Kipp - Slant Magazine
The searing, sometimes confounding film also ideally showcases the heartbreaking talents of Schneider, who deservedly won her first César award for her work here. The restoration...is lovely; Ricardo Aronovich’s cinematography is largely a study of tragic faces, and when his light hits the whites of Schneider’s eyes a certain way, the effect is breathtaking.
Glenn Kenny - The New York Times
Virtual Cinema is a platform put together by independent U.S. distributors, in partnerships with independent movie theaters & film festivals, to offer the latest independent and foreign films while theaters remain closed.
HOW TO WATCH THE FILMS?
- Click on the Specific link.
- Click on VIRTUAL SCREENING.
- Create an account & enter your payment information.
- Pay the $10 or $20 rental fee (the SFFF will get 50% of the net revenue).
- You will be able to watch the film for 3 days (72 hours) / or 7 days if you chose the 3-film package, from the time of rental on any computer, laptop, iPad, Chromebook or other mobile devices.
IMPORTANT! The only way to watch this film on a television set is to mirror or cast from one of the above devices to your television.