Eclipse Series 09: The Delirious Fictions of William Klein (1966-1977) [The Criterion Collection] [REPOST]

William Klein's explosive New York street photography made him one of the most heralded artists of the sixties. An American expatriate in Paris, Klein has also been making challenging cinema for more than forty years, yet with the exception of his acclaimed documentary Muhammad Ali, the Greatest, his film work is barely known in the United States. In his three fiction features—Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, Mr. Freedom, and The Model Couple—he skewers the fashion industry, American imperialism, and governmental mind control with hilarious, cutting aplomb. Today Klein's politically galvanizing social critiques seem even more acute than the works of the more famous New Wavers. These are colorful, surreal antidotes to all forms of social oppression.



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After a nearly decade as New York Vogue's most subversive fashion photographer, William Klein made this wild, pseudovérité peek into the world of Parisian haute couture. Elegant, scathing humor ties together the various strands of this alternately glamorous and grotesque portrait of American in Paris Polly Maggoo (Dorothy MacGowan), a mannequin-like supermodel who becomes the pinup plaything of media hounds and the fragmented fantasy of haunted Prince Igor (Sami Frey). Klein's first fiction film is a daring deflation of cultural pretensions and institutions, dressed up in ravishing black and white.





Director: William Klein
Cast: Dorothy McGowan, Jean Rochefort, Sami Frey, Grayson Hall, Philippe Noiret, Alice Sapritch, Fernando Arrabal, Guy d'Avout, Roger Constant, Francis Dumoulin, Luce Fabiole, Isabelle Garçon, Violette Leduc, Michèle Loubet, Marie Marc, Ivan Nabokoff, Pierre Pernet, Jacques Rispal, Alain Roche, Pierre Baillot, Michel Robin, Joanna Shimkus, Jacques Seiler, Roland Topor, Roger Trapp, Paul Bonifas, René Clermont, Gérard Darrieu, Claude Mansard, Bernard Musson

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William Klein moved into more blatantly political territory with this hilarious, angry Vietnam-era spoof of imperialist American foreign policy. Mr. Freedom (John Abbey), a bellowing good-ol'-boy superhero, decked out in copious football padding, jets off to France to cut off a Commie invasion from Switzerland. A destructive, arrogant patriot in tight pants, Freedom joins forces with Marie Madeleine (a satirically sexy Delphine Seyrig) to combat lefty freethinkers, as well as the insidious evildoers Moujik Man and inflatable Red China Man, culminating in a star-spangled showdown of kitschy excess. Delightfully crass, Mr. Freedom is a trenchant, rib-tickling takedown of gaudy modern Americana.





Director: William Klein
Cast: Delphine Seyrig, John Abbey, Donald Pleasence, Jean-Claude Drouot, Serge Gainsbourg, Yves Lefebvre, Rufus, Sabine Sun, Rita Maiden, Colin Drake, Pierre Baillot, Raoul Billerey, Philippe Noiret, Sami Frey, Catherine Rouvel, Monique Chaumette, Odile Astie, Albert Augier, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jean-Claude Bouillaud, Michel Creton, Guy d'Avout, Albert Dray, Marcel Gassouk, Michèle Loubet, Henry Pillsbury, Hugues Quester, Eric Wasberg, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Yves Montand

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In 1977 France, the Ministry of the Future chooses two "normal," white, middle-class citizens, Claudine (Anémone) and Jean-Michel (André Dussolier), for a national experiment. They will be monitored and displayed for six months in a model apartment outfitted with state-of-the-art products and nonstop surveillance—the template for "a new city for the new man." A searing satire of the breakdown of individual freedoms in the face of increasing governmental control, William Klein's The Model Couple deftly investigates the fine line between democracy and totalitarianism.





Director: William Klein
Cast: André Dussollier, Anémone, Zouc, Jacques Boudet, Georges Descrières, Eddie Constantine, André Penvern, Karl-Josef Cramer, Roland Bertin, Frédéric Pottecher, Michel Toty, Jean-Jacques Schakmundès, Marcel Gassouk, Marcel Lainé, Frédéric Weiss, Julien Maurel, Charlotte Lévy, Jorge Fernandez, Jacqueline Palmade, Anita Bensald, Philippe Gavi, Jean-Pierre Dollé, Pierre Bensoussian, G. Saint Saulieu

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