Pierre Etaix

The Suitor

The Suitor

Pierre Etaix’s first feature introduces the droll humor and oddball charm of its unique writer-director-star. As a tribute to Buster Keaton, Etaix fashioned this lovable story of a privileged yet sheltered young man (played by Etaix himself, in a nearly silent performance) who, under pressure from his parents, sets out to find a young woman to marry—though he has a hard time tearing his mind away from the famous singer whose face decorates the walls of his bedroom.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1963
  • 84 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.66:1
  • French

Available In

Collector's Set

Pierre Etaix

Pierre Etaix

Blu-ray Box Set

2 Discs

$47.96

Collector's Set

Pierre Etaix

Pierre Etaix

DVD Box Set

3 Discs

$39.96

The Suitor
Cast
Pierre Etaix
Pierre
Karin Vesely
Ilka
Claude Massot
Father
France Arnell
Stella
Laurence Lignières
Laurence
Denise Péronne
Mother
Credits
Director
Pierre Etaix
Produced by
Paul Claudon
Screenplay
Pierre Etaix
Screenplay
Jean-Claude Carrière
Cinematography
Pierre Levent
Music
Jean Paillaud

Current

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Among filmmaker Pierre Etaix’s many eclectic accomplishments is his appearance as one of the thieves in Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket. However, you probably won’t be able to spot him: all that’s left of his performance is one o…
The Return of Etaix
The Return of Etaix
Who is Pierre Etaix and where has he been all your life? This is the story of a filmmaker who was vanished, banished, skipped over. It’s as if one of those invisible cubicles mimes are always getting themselves shut in dropped from a blue sky and e…

By David Cairns

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Jean-Claude Carrière

Writer

Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière

A quietly influential force in art cinema throughout the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière (also an author, actor, opera librettist, and occasional director) has collaborated with such important screen artists as Luis Buñuel, Milos Forman, Jean-Luc Godard, Philip Kaufman, Louis Malle, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, and Andrzej Wajda. He got his start working with the comic filmmaker Pierre Etaix on the Oscar-winning slapstick short Happy Anniversary (1962), which the two codirected; Carrière would go on to cowrite all of Etaix’s 1960s features. Meanwhile, Buñuel enlisted Carrière to cowrite 1964’s Diary of a Chambermaid, the beginning of a grand partnership that would also result in increasingly surreal visions like Belle de jour (1967), The Milky Way (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). (In 2012, Carrière said of working with Buñuel, “How we mixed together is impossible to say. One started an idea, the other finished it.”) As is clear from those productions, he has a way with the absurd, but the versatile and erudite Carrière is also a keen literary adapter, translating such daunting novels as The Tin Drum and The Unbearable Lightness of Being into formidable films. Carrière’s career continues to take surprising turns: he has a small but crucial role in Abbas Kiarostami’s 2010 Certified Copy, for example.