The Mother and the Whore
If the supposedly highly autobiographical The Mother and the Whore (La maman et la putain) is anything to go by, its writer/director Jean Eustache was a cock, a pseud and the sort of blowhard who could dish it out but not take it. A flattering portrait it is not but what’s usually considered Eustache’s best work (the Cahiers du Cinéma called it the best movie of the 1970s) is at least bracingly honest. Or maybe not – Eustache might have been even more appalling than the smug, self-centred creature he is portrayed as here, in the astonishing performance by Jean-Pierre Léaud, on screen for every minute of three hours 35 minutes of running … Read more