Jean Eustache
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Jean Eustache (November 30, 1938 - November 3, 1981) was a French filmmaker.
In 1973 Jean Eustache directed what would become one of just two narrative features he would make before committing suicide in 1981. "The Mother and the Whore" ("La maman et la putain") is Eustache’s three-hour-and-forty-minute rumination on love, relationships, men and women. The film’s central three-way romance plot focuses on Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud), his girlfriend Marie (Bernadette Lafont) and the nurse he meets and falls in love with, Veronika (Françoise Lebrun). Aside from "The Mother and the Whore", Eustache’s filmography consists of Mes petites amoureuses (1974), his other narrative feature, and a handful of documentaries and shorts, most notably "Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes" (Le Père Noël a les yeux bleus, 1966) which also stars Léaud.
There exists relatively little information about Eustache’s life prior to the time he became a perfunctory member of the Cahiers du cinema crowd in the late fifties. Information suggests that the mystery surrounding his youth was intentional, with sources stating that "during his lifetime Eustache published little information about his early years, indicating that he felt no nostalgia for an unhappy childhood." (John Wakeman, World Film Directors, Vol. 2)
He was born in Pessac, Gironde, France. After months of immobilization due to an auto accident, Eustache killed himself in Paris a few weeks before his 43rd birthday.
Eustache found his way around the Nouvelle vague, but has never been part of the movement.
Quoted as saying, “The films I made are as autobiographical as fiction can be.”
Eustache himself never wrote for Cahiers du cinema, although he was able to become friendly with such key figures to the nouvelle vague movement as Éric Rohmer and Jean Douchet.
Jean Eustache was also the name of a 17th century French organ maker.
[edit] Filmography
- La soirée (1961), unfinished
- Les Mauvaises Fréquentations (1963), 42 minutes (first title, 16 mm), aka Du côté de Robinson (second title, 35 mm); "Bad Company" aka "Robinson's Place" (English titles)
- Le Père Noël a les yeux bleus (1966), 47 minutes; "Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes" (English title)
- La Rosière de Pessac (1968), 65 minutes; "The Virgin of Pessac" (English title)
- Two TV-films of 26 minutes each one in 1969: Sur Le dernier des hommes de Murnau and A propos de La petite marchande d'allumettes de Jean Renoir
- Le Cochon (1970), 65 minutes, directed with Jean-Michel Barjol; "The Pig" (English title)
- Numéro zéro (1971), 110 minutes (TV-version: Odette Robert, 54 minutes)
- La Maman et la putain (1973), 220 minutes; "The Mother and the Whore" (English title)
- Mes petites amoureuses (1974), 120 minutes
- Une sale histoire (1977), part document: 22 minutes and part fiction: 28 minutes; "A Dirty Story" (English title)
- La Rosière de Pessac (1979), 67 minutes; "The Virgin of Pessac" (1979) (English title)
- Les Photos d'Alix (1980), 18 minutes
- Le Jardin des délices de Jérôme Bosch (1980), 34 minutes; "Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Delights" (English title)
- Offre d'emploi (1980), 18 minutes
