Masculin Féminin

6/5/2018

In MASCULIN FEMININ, shot in the autumn of 1965, Jean-Luc Godard studies the perennial features of courtship and dating between young men and young women, and the particular way they worked out in the newly permissive and economically booming society of 1960s France. Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is 21 and has just finished his national service. In a café, he strikes up a conversation with Madeleine (Chantal Goya), a friend of a friend, with the pretext that she might help him find work. They start dating, and the film then tracks their rocky relationship, where Paul is frustrated as the sole man among Madeleine and her flatmates/girlfriends Elisabeth (Marlène Jobert) and Catherine-Isabelle (Catherine-Isabelle Duport). He occasionally meets up with his chum Robert (Michel Debord), just as young