MOTHER AND THE WHORE, THE [LA MAMAM ET LA PUTAIN] (1973) Oversize French photo

Vintage original 9 x 12″ (23 x 31 cm.) double weight black-and-white photo, France. Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Pierre Léaud, dir: Jean Eustache. Minor diagonal crease at top left, just about fine.

Eustache’s first feature film, about the intertwined romantic relationships of one man and two women and, arguably, the final cornerstone film of the French New Wave. Three-and-a-half or more hours of unhappy young people endlessly talking about sex and their miseries in love — it doesn’t sound anything like the wonderful, vital masterpiece that it really is!

This is a critical and very characteristic image of Jean-Pierre Léaud and Bernadette Lafont, as he sits on her bed and they both smoke (everybody endlessly smokes in this film).