Directed by Jean Eustache • 1971 • France
Starring Jean Eustache, Odette Robert, Boris Eustache
Before paying homage to his grandmother Odette Robert in the autobiographical MY LITTLE LOVES, Jean Eustache made NUMÉRO ZÉRO, a documentary portrait in which Robert answers questions about her difficult Bordeaux upbringing, contentious marriage, and traumatic wartime experiences. In excavating the painful details of Robert’s life, Eustache discovers their universal resonance. Much of Eustache’s later style can be found in NUMÉRO ZÉRO, from the inimitable black-and-white photography and static framing to the emphasis on the major revelations of minor movements and gestures. This is the complete version of the shorter ODETTE ROBERT, which was broadcast in 1980 on France’s TF1 channel.
Up Next in Directed by Jean Eustache
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The Pig
Directed by Jean Eustache and Jean-Michel Barjol • 1970 • France
Jean Eustache returned to his hometown, the farming community of Pessac, to create this cinema-verité record of the ritual slaughter of a pig, codirected with Jean-Michel Barjol. The documentary captures in unflinching detail—and i...
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A Dirty Story
Directed by Jean Eustache • 1977 • France
Starring Michael Lonsdale, Jean-Noël Picq, Laurie ZimmerDeceptively simple in form and content, Jean Eustache’s A DIRTY STORY is a fascinatingly complex investigation of the relationship between fiction and documentary, verbal and visual storytelling, a...
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The Virgin of Pessac 79
Directed by Jean Eustache • 1979 • France
A decade after making THE VIRGIN OF PESSAC, Jean Eustache filmed another documentary about his hometown’s annual coronation of a young woman of moral integrity. The differences between the two portraits of the same ritual are subtle yet telling: The sele...
