A Dirty Story
Une sale histoire
France • 1977
Director
Synopsis
Deceptively simple in form and content, Jean Eustache’s A DIRTY STORY is a fascinatingly complex investigation of the relationship between fiction and documentary, verbal and visual storytelling, and personal and universal desires. The film’s two sections mirror each other: in the first, Michael Lonsdale performs the role of a man explaining to a roomful of friends his past voyeuristic obsessions, while the second section shows an unscripted recording of Jean-Noël Picq, the man Lonsdale plays, recounting the same real-life tale. Eustache presents dramatic and authentic versions of the “dirty story” without authorial commentary and thus encourages the viewer to untangle a web of structural correspondences between the narrations, as well as the sexual and moral implications of Picq’s candid confession.
Synopsis
Deceptively simple in form and content, Jean Eustache’s A DIRTY STORY is a fascinatingly complex investigation of the relationship between fiction and documentary, verbal and visual storytelling, and personal and universal desires. The film’s two sections mirror each other: in the first, Michael Lonsdale performs the role of a man explaining to a roomful of friends his past voyeuristic obsessions, while the second section shows an unscripted recording of Jean-Noël Picq, the man Lonsdale plays, recounting the same real-life tale. Eustache presents dramatic and authentic versions of the “dirty story” without authorial commentary and thus encourages the viewer to untangle a web of structural correspondences between the narrations, as well as the sexual and moral implications of Picq’s candid confession.
Credits
Crew
DirectorJean Eustache
CinematographerPierre Lhomme, Jacques Renard
EditorChantal Colomer
ProducerJean Eustache