The Cinematheque

35mm Print

“Magnificent (and mandatory!) … A pantheon work … Jaggedly witty and woundingly beautiful.”

James Quandt, TIFF

Described by Godard as ​“my second first film,” Every Man for Himself marked the director’s glorious return to ​“mainstream” cinema after years of video experimentation. Set in Switzerland, the film has French pop star Jacques Dutronc as a dislikeable filmmaker named Godard, Nathalie Baye (in a César-winning performance) as the girlfriend trying to leave him, and Isabelle Huppert as a sex worker earning her independence in the city. Godard offers up a characteristically self-reflexive and corrosive comic account of emotional confusion, the problems of filmmaking, the metaphysics of survival, and the connection between sexual and economic exploitation. Critics were agog—Godard was back and still mattered! This blunt, cynical, playful, witty, and surprisingly pastoral film points the way from Godard’s celebrated work of the ​’60s to his remarkable late-period output.

In French with English subtitles

“A stunning, original work … Breathtakingly beautiful and often very funny … I trust it will outlive us all.”

Vincent Canby, The New York Times