Luc Moullet's ANATOMY OF A RELATIONSHIP (1976) + ESSAI D'OUVERTURE (1988)
For opening night of our Luc Moullet retrospective, we present a new 4K restoration of his autofictional masterpiece paired with a similarly comedic self-portrait.
~
Sep 09, 2025, 8:00 PM
2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA
Anatomy of a Relationship
directed by Luc Moullet & Antonietta Pizzorno
1976, France, 82m, DCP
Brand new 4K restoration! Opening night of Luc Moullet: Hardly Working, a Mezzanine retrospective.
doors/bar 7:30
film 8:00
In this autofiction masterpiece, Moullet himself (in the first of many appearances in his own films) portrays a boorish filmmaker struggling to get his next film made while unable to sexually satisfy his girlfriend (Christine Hébert), whose intellectual awakening seems to further spell the death knell of their relationship. Frank and dryly hilarious, the film was co-directed by Moullet and his real-life wife and creative partner Antoinetta Pizzorno, and its many cringe-inducing, all-too-recognizable scenarios carry on the tradition of metafictional totems like David Holzman’s Diary and exemplify the cannibalizing labor and frustration of a life lived in independent film.
In French with English subtitles. A Cinema Guild release.
“Provides a succinct introduction to [Moullet’s] special brand of low-budget cinema. A restaging of his abortive sexual relationship with Antonietta Pizzorno (who cowrote and codirected but, unlike Moullet, appears only in the finale), it’s painfully, hilariously, and graphically honest, and its willful rejection of technique is an implicit critique of slickness.” -Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Preceded by:
Essai d’ouverture
1988, France, 14m, DCP
Moullet struggles to open a bottle of Coke.
Total runtime: 96m