A recording of the introduction to EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF by RICHARD BRODY, recorded November 19, 2010, at Film Forum

Summary: EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF: (1980) Marguerite Duras is heard, but not seen; people hear split seconds of music no one else can hear; in public, women are slapped, men get their hair pulled; the most disparate activities are interrupted for vital phone calls; Jacques Dutronc’s Paul Godard (!) smokes big cigars, exchanges notes about parental abuse with his pre-pubescent daughter’s soccer coach, and battles with ex-lover Nathalie Baye; who constantly bicycles around town, edits videotapes, tries to unload the apartment she’d shared with Dutronc, and bonds with prostitute Isabelle Huppert; who herself had spent the night with Paul, counseled an aspirant to “being on the game,” and constantly thinks (in a voice-over quoting Charles Bukowski) on other things as she responds in a lackadaisical “why not?” manner to the absurdly bizarre demands of her clients, notably a four-person “rondelay that Rube Goldberg in his most lecherous mood could hardly have invented... an outrageous metaphor for the mating of sex and capitalism: and it’s funny as hell besides” (Richard Corliss, TIME). Godard’s return to mainstream (for him) filmaking, his self-described “second first film,” with technical innovation — freeze frames and slow-mo within continuing uncut shots — and the most startling and arbitrary of conclusions. This podcast episode is a recording of the introduction to EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF by RICHARD BRODY, recorded November 19, 2010, at Film Forum.