We Will Not Grow Old Together

NEW 35mm PRINT! ►Gérard Depardieu, who appeared in four of his films, called Maurice Pialat “the only filmmaker who tells the truth about love.” One of the great French directors of the post-New Wave period, Pialat (who died in 2003) is known for an intimate, explosive, savagely honest, highly naturalistic cinema that recalls the work of John Cassavetes. Pialat’s remarkable second feature, based on his own autobiographical novel, offers an uncompromising study of the break-up of a relationship. Jean Yanne (a Pialat look-alike) was named Best Actor at Cannes in 1972 for his performance as Jean, a selfish and domineering filmmaker still living with his estranged wife (Macha Méril), but involved for six years now with Catherine (Marlène Jobert), a younger working-class woman. The disintegration of this long-term affair is charted is a series of potent and perceptive episodes. Painful recriminations alternate with tearful reconciliations, and whatever feelings exist between Jean and Catherine are inevitably destroyed. “Brutally honest ... An important feminist film by a male director” (Melissa Biggs, French Films). “Of Pialat’s 11 features, three — We Will Not Grow Old Together, À Nos Amours, and Van Gogh — are among the finest films made in France or any other country in the last half century” (Kent Jones, Film Comment). Colour, 35mm, in French with English subtitles. 110 mins.