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La Souriante Madame Beudet  /  La Folie des vaillants

The Smiling Madame Beudet
September 21, 2018 - 7:30 pm


Live musical accompaniment provided by Cliff Retallick!

Los Angeles Filmforum members receive free admission to this series at the Billy Wilder Theater box office!

Un peu de rêve sur le faubourg  (1930)

A little dreaming in the boroughs

35mm, b/w, silent, 9 min.

La Souriante Madame Beudet  (1922)

The Smiling Madame Beudet

An early feminist classic, this dark, impressionistic skewer through the construct of matrimony employs double-exposure and complex spatial relations to depict a frustrated housewife. Thought by Dulac to exemplify the cinema’s capacity to express the “invisible facts of inner life.”

Print courtesy of Light Cone. 16mm, b/w, silent, 38 min. Director: Germaine Dulac. Screenwriter: André Obey. Cast: Germaine Dermoz, Alexandre Arquillère, Jean d’Yd, Madeleine Guitty.

La Folie des vaillants  (1925)

The Folly of the Brave

An adaptation of Russian symbolist Maxim Gorky’s Makar Choudra, this “visual symphony” centers on a romance between two gypsies—figures who, for Dulac, typified the “ideal socialist”—whose courtship dynamics strategically upend traditional gender roles. 

Print courtesy of Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC). 35mm, b/w, silent, 46 min. Director: Germaine Dulac. Cast: Raphaël Liévin, Lia Loo, Castelluci.