For years—I’m talking years—the films of Jean Eustache, post-New Wave genius and forefather of more than you’d ever realize, were basically impossible to find in high quality and through means we could strictly speaking call “legal.” The how and why are plenty complicated, but fear not: Les Films du Losange acquired and are overseeing 4K restorations of his complete catalogue, and Janus soon thereafter took up U.S. rights. What will hopefully prove a big rollout begins this month—Eustache’s most iconic film The Mother and the Whore is coming to Cannes Classics, and now we have a trailer foretelling a major upgrade.
“A major upgrade” speaking as one who saw Mother on a dusty 35mm print with several other freaks in 2013, at which time the movie left an indelible impression for its unsentimental depiction of post-68 Parisians—an image made more powerful for including Jean-Pierre Léaud, Bernadette Lafont, and Françoise Lebrun, who just gave an incredible turn in Gaspar Noé’s Climax. If unsubtitled, the preview will still speak to fans and newcomers alike, those who’ve so long waited to see this well and those who’ve never been able to see this at all. Let’s appreciate this for the watershed moment it is.
Find preview and poster below:
