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Luc Moullet | |
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 Luc Moullet in 2009 | |
| Born | (1937-10-14)14 October 1937 (age 87) Paris, France |
| Citizenship | French |
| Occupation(s) | Film critic, director, screenwriter, actor |
| Years active | 1954–present |
| Notable work | Brigitte et Brigitte |
| Movement | French New Wave |
Luc Moullet (French:[mulɛ]; born 14 October 1937 inParis) is a Frenchfilm critic andfilmmaker, and a member of the Nouvelle Vague orFrench New Wave.[1] Moullet's films are known for their humor, anti-authoritarian leanings and rigorously primitive aesthetic, which is heavily influenced by his love of AmericanB-movies.
Though such influential filmmakers and critics asJean-Luc Godard,Jean-Marie Straub,Jacques Rivette andJonathan Rosenbaum have consistently praised his work, he has never found commercial success, even in his native France.
Moullet is known to frequently act in his movies.
Moullet began writing forCahiers du cinéma at the age of eighteen, where he was an early champion of the films ofSamuel Fuller. Though reportedly initially disliked byFrançois Truffaut, the brash critic found a defender in a youngJean-Luc Godard. In one of his articles for theCahiers (published in the March 1959) Moullet stated that "Morality is a question of tracking shots", a phrase which, along with Jean-Luc Godard's alternative, formulated shortly afterwards ("Tracking shots are a question of morality"), has since become well known in French cinema studies.
Moullet's first short film was intended to be shown before Godard's second feature,Le Petit Soldat, which was banned due to its political content. After several more shorts failed to attract attention, Moullet returned to criticism, authoring major studies on several directors (most notably a book onFritz Lang whichBrigitte Bardot is seen reading in Godard'sContempt).
His first feature, made in 1966, was the comedyBrigitte et Brigitte, which follows two young women who share a name and a Paris apartment. The film features cameos bySamuel Fuller,Claude Chabrol,Eric Rohmer andAndré Téchiné. It was followed the next year byLes Contrebandières (The Smugglers), aB-movie-influencedlove triangle centered oncontraband runners in an imaginary country.
In 1971, Moullet made his first color film,Une aventure de Billy le Kid, also known by its English title,A Girl Is a Gun. A psychedelicWestern starring French New Wave iconJean-Pierre Léaud, the film was never released in France, but was instead shown abroad in an English-dubbed version. The dubbing, conceived by Moullet as a tribute to the "shabbiness" he always admired in American genre films, is intentionally bad, and the short, slight Leaud is given a mismatched deep voice.
Moullet continued at a relatively slow pace throughout the 1970s. His most notable film of the period isAnatomie d'un rapport (1976), a relationship drama that also attacks and parodies other relationship dramas.
In the early 1980s Moullet began to direct films at a quicker pace, making humorous short films in between his features. In 1987, his filmLa Comédie du travail won thePrix Jean Vigo at theCannes Film Festival, an award usually given to young directors (Moullet was 50 at the time).
Moullet has continued making shorts and features at a steady rate throughout the 1990s and to the present. His recent works include the featureLa Prestige de la mort (Death's Glamour), the working title of which wasLa Seule solution (The Only Solution) andLa Terre de la folie (Land of Madness) (2009), along with a number of short films in 2010.
In 2009 he participated in a roundtable discussion with criticsBill Krohn andCraig Keller on the subject of Jean-Luc Godard's 1964Une femme mariée for a book that accompanies TheMasters of Cinema Series DVD release of the film. Moullet also contributed a new overture to the volume. Later in the year, the French publisher,Capricci, released two Moullet-related works:Piges choisies (Selected Filings / Selected Submissions) (an anthology of Moullet's film writing over the last fifty years), andNotre alpin quotidien (Our Daily Alpine, a pun onNotre pain quotidien orOur Daily Bread) (a new book-length interview with Moullet). In 2010, Moullet contributed a new essay to theMasters of Cinema DVD release ofMax Ophüls'La signora di tutti.
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