| Weekend | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| French | Week-end |
| Directed by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Screenplay by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Based on | "La autopista del Sur" byJulio Cortázar (uncredited) |
| Produced by | Raymond Danon |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Raoul Coutard |
| Edited by | Agnès Guillemot |
| Music by | Antoine Duhamel |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 105 minutes |
| Countries | |
| Language | French |
| Budget | $250,000 (estimated) |
Weekend (French:Week-end) is a 1967postmodernblack comedy film[2][3] written and directed byJean-Luc Godard, based onJulio Cortázar's short story "La autopista del Sur".[4] It stars mainstream French TV starsMireille Darc andJean Yanne.Jean-Pierre Léaud, star of numerousFrench New Wave films, includingFrançois Truffaut'sThe 400 Blows (1959) and Godard's earlierMasculin Féminin (1966), appeared in two roles.Raoul Coutard served ascinematographer.
Roland and Corinne Durand are abourgeois couple. Each has a secret lover and conspires to murder the other. They drive to Corinne's parents' home in the country to secure her inheritance from her dying father, resolving to resort to murder if necessary. The trip becomes a chaotic journey through a French countryside populated by bizarre characters and punctuated by violent car accidents. After their ownFacel-Vega is destroyed in a collision, they wander through a series of vignettes involvingclass struggle and figures from literature and history, such asLouis Antoine de Saint-Just andEmily Brontë.
In ametafictional touch, some scenes show the characters in the film beingself-aware such as a driver asking Roland after being flagged down, "Are you in a film or reality?", the film's real actors from the Italian co-production being mentioned during Corinne and Roland's search for a car to Oinville (to which they never specify further as to which Oinville they are referring to), and variousintertitles which are a defining feature to Godard's films.
When Corinne and Roland eventually arrive at her parents' place, they discover that her father has died and her mother refuses to give them a share of the spoils. They kill her and hit the road again, only to fall into the hands of a group ofhippie revolutionaries (calling themselves theSeine and Oise Liberation Front) that support themselves through theft andcannibalism. Killed during an escape attempt, Roland is chopped up and cooked.
Weekend has been compared toAlice in Wonderland, theJames Bond series, and the works of theMarquis de Sade.[5][6] Tim Brayton described it as a "film that reads itself, tells the viewer what that reading should be, and at the same time tells the viewer that this reading is inaccurate and should be ignored."[7] In one of the early scenes, Corinne tells her lover about a sexual experience she had. Part of the story she tells is based on theGeorges Bataille novelStory of the Eye (Histoire de l'œil).[5]
According to a letter from Argentine writerJulio Cortázar to his translatorSuzanne Jill Levine, the indirect inspiration for the film was Cortázar's short story "La autopista del Sur" ("The Southern Thruway"). Cortázar explained that while a British producer was considering filming his story, a third party had presented the idea to Godard, who was unaware of its true source.[citation needed]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93%, based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critics consensus reads "Jean-Luc Godard fixes his considerable ire against French society and the broader human condition in the morbidly funnyWeekend, an abstract road trip to damnation that finds the enfant terrible in peak form."[8]
The film shows a range of gruesome treatments of animals, starting with a motif of a skinned rabbit, which gives way to full-blooded slaughter of animals in the final scene of the film. The animals were actually slaughtered, graphically, and it has been argued that the film fails to condemn the behaviour, even whilst exposing its horrors, through suggesting that it is permissible to kill animals, as animalism, which is also found in bourgeoise society, is subhuman and worthy of sacrifice.[9]
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