Masculin féminin: Quinze faits précis (Masculine, Feminine: In 15 Acts, 1966) is exemplary of Godard’s creative process in that it metamorphosed out of a succession of unmade projects. These included a film about young people and politics, France la douce (Sweet France), and another about a right-wing woman and a left-wing man. Above all, it evolved out of his plans to adapt a Guy de Maupassant short story, 'Le Signe' (The Signal), on which he had already based his self-funded first short 16mm fiction film, Une femme coquette (d’après Maupassant) (A Flirtatious Woman (Based on Maupassant), (1956).

Godard toyed with the idea of remaking Une femme coquette with Anna Karina in 1963. The following year, producers Anatole Dauman and Martin Low proposed that he adapt an erotic short story by Maupassant or the Marquis de Sade. Their aim was to release this in the United States as part of a diptych with critic-turned-filmmaker Alexandre Astruc’s acclaimed Le Rideau cramoisi (The Crimson Curtain, 1953). Astruc had gone on to adapt Maupassant’s novel Une Vie (One Life), a film that Godard defended vigorously in the pages of Cahiers du cinéma in 1958.

Dauman acquired the rights to ‘Le Signe’ and considered releasing Godard’s new adaptation of it – to be titled Avec le sourire (With a Smile) – as half of a two-part feature with The Crimson Curtain, or alternatively with another new film by a different director (Roman Polanski was lined up to direct initially).

On the day Godard was due to start shooting, he cried off and proceeded to develop Alphaville (1965) and Pierrot le fou (1965) instead. Nonetheless, he continued to reflect on the Maupassant project, telling Dauman that he now wanted to make a film with Jean-Pierre Léaud devoted to new adventures of the Antoine Doinel character he had played in François Truffaut’s Les 400 coups (The Four Hundred Blows, 1958) and Antoine et Colette (1962). With this idea in mind, he got Dauman to secure the rights to a second Maupassant short story, ‘La Femme de Paul’ (Paul’s Mistress).

With these two Maupassant stories in mind, Godard intended initially to pursue the diptych idea, but to make both parts himself. However, he soon combined them into a single feature, to be titled La Femme de Paul, avec le sourire (Paul’s Mistress, with a Smile). Godard developed the script significantly over the ensuing months before finally shooting the film, now titled Masculin féminin, in November–December 1965. While the end result looks on the surface to be a long way from Maupassant, it is in fact deeply indebted to ‘La Femme de Paul’ in its characters, themes and narrative. Meanwhile, Godard’s interest in ‘Le Signe’ culminated in his next (and last) collaboration with Dauman, 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle (Two or Three Things I Know About Her, 1966).

This screening will be introduced by Michael Witt.