Masculin Feminin (1966) (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] [2021]
Masculine/Feminine was Jean-Luc Godard's first (but not the last) foray into the burgeoning "Children of the Sixties" generation—or, as Godard described it, "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola". Impressionable teenager Jean-
Pierre Leaud tries to make sense of the world by working as an interviewer for a research firm. Meanwhile, Leaud cohabits with aspiring singer Chantal Goya, with two additional young
ladies joining the nocturnal festivities. Leaud jumps or is pushed from a window, leaving a pregnant Goya to move on to the next aimless youth she meets. While the nominal hero has failed to find fulfillment in personal relations, another male protagonist (
Micheal Deborb), a political activist, is luckier — an indication that the director favored revolutionary politics over simple emotionalism at this point in his career. Though Godard's free-form style is usually opposed to linear storytelling, Masculine Feminine has solid literary roots, having been inspired by two Guy de Maupassant s
