Fool's Mate (1956 film)

Fool's Mate (French: Le Coup du berger) is a 1956 short film directed by Jacques Rivette.

Fool's Mate
Le Coup du berger
Directed byJacques Rivette
Screenplay byJacques Rivette
Claude Chabrol
Charles Bitsch
Based onMrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat[1]
Produced byPierre Braunberger
Claude Chabrol
StarringVirginie Vitry
Anne Doat
Etienne Loinod
Jean-Claude Brialy
CinematographyCharles Bitsch
Edited byDenise de Casabianca
Music byFrançois Couperin
Production
company
Release date
  • 1956 (1956)
Running time
28 min
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench

It stars Virginie Vitry as a wife cheating on her husband (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze). When her lover (Jean-Claude Brialy) buys her a mink coat, the adulterous pair hatch a plan to avoid her husband's questioning the coat's origins.[2][3]

Fool's Mate is considered by some to be the first film of the French New Wave, or the movement's earliest antecedent. Released in 1956, the film is something of a curio thanks to a scene in which Rivette and New Wave contemporaries Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, and François Truffaut are seen in the same room as party guests.[2]

References

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  1. ^ Stevens, Brad (2004). "L'œuvre télévisuelle d'Alfred Hitchcock". Trafic (in French). 51: 101. L'histoire de Dahl avait été officieusement adaptée par Jacques Rivette dans un court métrage intitulé Le Coup du berger (1956). Ne pouvant acheter les droits, Rivette prétendait que le film lui avait été inspiré par des articles de journaux (le générique va jusqu'à affirmer: D'après un fait divers).
  2. ^ a b "Le coup du berger". The Criterion Channel.
  3. ^ "Jacques Rivette obituary". the Guardian. 2016-01-29. Retrieved 2020-10-31.
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