Jacques Becker

July 12–August 31, 2018

From hardboiled crime sagas to breezy portraits of postwar Parisian life, the films of this classic French director are ripe for rediscovery.

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  • Touchez pas au grisbi

  • Le trou

  • Antoine et Antoinette

  • Goupi mains-rouges

  • Casque d’or

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Past Films

  • My Journey Through French Cinema

    Bertrand Tavernier
    France, 2017

    East Bay Premiere

    Thursday, July 12 7 PM

    A great director takes viewers on an idiosyncratic tour of French film in this delightful documentary, which offers an entire lifetime of cinema knowledge and passion within its running time. “Exhilarating and inspiring” (New York Times).

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  • Goupi mains-rouges

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1943

    Imported 35mm Print

    Saturday, July 14 6 PM

    A city slicker departs Paris for the provinces in Becker’s droll satire on city and country folk, family and outsiders, men and women. “Becker gave French cinema its greatest film about rural France” (Bernard Eisenschitz).

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  • Dernier atout

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1942
    Wednesday, July 18 7 PM

    Becker’s “official” directorial debut offers a suitably fast-moving tribute to Hollywood pre-Code programmers, as two rookie sleuths deal with a murderer, a beautiful femme fatale, and even a visiting Chicago gangster.

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  • Falbalas

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1944
    Friday, July 20 7 PM

    A talented, vain couturier runs roughshod over workers, friends, and lovers in Becker’s vividly realist drama of Parisian haute couture, a fascinating companion piece to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. Jean-Paul Gaultier is a fan.

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  • Antoine et Antoinette

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1947
    Sunday, July 22 5 PM

    Becker’s “snappy, sentimental comic melodrama” (New Yorker) follows a young working-class couple and the husband’s desperate search for a missing lottery ticket in this portrait of changing proletarian life in postwar Paris.

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  • Casque d’or

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1952

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick!

     

    Friday, July 27 7 PM

    A dazzling Simone Signoret is caught between a gangster tough and an honest carpenter in Becker’s “elegant masterwork” (Time Out) set in turn-of-the century Paris. Signoret’s performance is “a triumph of sensuality” (Pauline Kael).

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  • Casque d’or

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1952

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick!

     

    Saturday, July 28 6 PM

    A dazzling Simone Signoret is caught between a gangster tough and an honest carpenter in Becker’s “elegant masterwork” (Time Out) set in turn-of-the century Paris. Signoret’s performance is “a triumph of sensuality” (Pauline Kael).

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  • Édouard et Caroline

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1951
    Sunday, July 29 5 PM

    A pianist and his wife quarrel as they prepare for an upcoming recital in Becker’s airy, Lubitsch-like portrait of love and life in a slowly modernizing urban France, which was praised by—and inspired—Godard and Truffaut.

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  • The Lovers of Montparnasse

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1958
    Thursday, August 2 7 PM

    The famed (and infamously wild) Italian artist Modigliani’s last days in Paris are reconstructed in Becker’s untamed biopic, a loving tribute to the city’s bohemian life.

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  • Rendezvous de Juillet

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1949
    Saturday, August 4 8 PM

    A group of students, hepcats, and others spill through the streets of the Left Bank in search of love, life, and jazz in Becker’s spirited portrait of France’s emerging postwar generation, poised between existential despair and liberating action.

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  • Touchez pas au grisbi

    Jacques Becker
    France, Italy, 1953
    Friday, August 10 7 PM

    French legend Jean Gabin is a Montmartre gangster looking to hide—and later find—his loot, with Jeanne Moreau as his tough-as-nails lover. A masterpiece of hard-boiled film noir, French style.

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  • Le trou

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1960
    Sunday, August 12 7 PM

    A group of convicts attempts an escape in Becker’s last film, one of the great prison-break movies and, for Jean-Pierre Melville, “the greatest French film of all time.”

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  • My Journey Through French Cinema

    Bertrand Tavernier
    France, 2017

    East Bay Premiere

    Friday, August 17 7 PM

    A great director takes viewers on an idiosyncratic tour of French film in this delightful documentary, which offers an entire lifetime of cinema knowledge and passion within its running time. “Exhilarating and inspiring” (New York Times).

    View Details

  • Touchez pas au grisbi

    Jacques Becker
    France, Italy, 1953
    Saturday, August 18 6 PM

    French legend Jean Gabin is a Montmartre gangster looking to hide—and later find—his loot, with Jeanne Moreau as his tough-as-nails lover. A masterpiece of hard-boiled film noir, French style.

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  • Le trou

    Jacques Becker
    France, 1960
    Friday, August 24 6:30 PM

    A group of convicts attempts an escape in Becker’s last film, one of the great prison-break movies and, for Jean-Pierre Melville, “the greatest French film of all time.”

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  • La vie est à nous

    Jean Renoir, Jacques Becker, Jacques Brunius, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Swoboda, Pierre Unik, Maurice Lime, Jean-Paul Le Chanois
    France, 1936
    Friday, August 31 4 PM

    The first militant left-wing film made in France, this lyrical cine-essay is a collective effort by some of the finest writers, directors, and cinematographers working in France in the thirties.

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