Since my third or fourth viewing some time ago, I've abstained from La Maman et la putain while I wait for the DVD. In the meantime, I've read the french screenplay as well as Alain Philippon's monograph on Jean Eustache. The latter ends with a frustrating filmography, eleven films, fiction, doc, and in-between, impossible to see or, in the cases of Mes petites amoureuses and Le Père Noël..., re-see.
A few questions that hit me this moment: Polish Véronika's French is plenty colloquial (un maximum d' "un maximum d'"). Even so, does she have an accent? I think I can tell she does. What does the absence of color add, especially at the single spot the fringe of the city is glimpsed? How does this fringe differ from the sleep and journey that separates worlds of The Tempest and The Winter's Tale? Ditto Alphaville. We may imagine the elapsed years since have done it, but does Eustache deliberately circumscribe the film's milieu? Is this an enchanted isle? Is Alexandre's a fairy tale? Alexandre's always choreographing himself, worrying about how or where to stand or walk, what to say when, announcing these decisions to who have to care less than he does what he does. Or is this his way of trying to choreograph others by doing it to himself? How different is he from Vertigo's Scottie? (I say, I think, very.) What's the difference, and is there one, between Eustache's Léaud, and Truffaut's, and Godard's? How different is the present Léaud? Isn't he still doing it, whatever it is, in recent roles, Irma Vep, Le Pornographe, whatever, approaching old age? Once I arrived early for one in a series of mostly Antoine Doinel (Léaud's character) Truffaut films. For a long while, every three or five minutes, down the aisle would come a twenty-something male in scarf, tweedy coat, Léaud hair, with a direction-seeking nose. I have no idea whether this was conscious or unconscious mimicry. I was that age, but have no idea what I myself looked like then. No scarf, at least. I do have a brother, though, who seems to have learned his carriage from Bresson.

I was always curious about this film because it is so tough to find, so when I stumbled upon it on Ebay I forked over the $10 and bought it, now I understand why its so rare! This film is SO bad, so terribly written and hopelessly low budget that the ending credits, which show all of the cut scenes where they fumbled their lines, are literally the movie's highlight. The film is about a psychic (Pettyjohn, cast for one obvious reason, her topless scene) whom uses her powers with an experimental machine to pull objects from another dimension into this reality. When she pulls in some kind of box like object the military nonchalantly throws it into the open back of a truck with one soldier to guard it, and gee, what do you know? SURPRISE! A kid in a foam-rubber monster costume pops out, instantly kills the soldier with a scratch across his face, then escapes to a nearby city. But rather than deploy half the armed forces of the county to find it and protect the public those in charge just leave it up to Pettyjohn and Ray to find it on their own, but no matter, this movie blows all its credibility LONG before then. This barely escapes being voted a 1 by me only because of unintentional laughs, somebody needs to alert the producers of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" if they don't know about it already! 2 out 10, really, REALLY bad!