Jean Eustache

Filmmaker, screenwriter Jean Eustache had a brief but important career in French cinema. His best-known film was 1973’s Mother and the Whore, an intense character study credited for marking a new phase in French filmmaking. He got his start as a director assisting such New Wave filmmakers as Godard during the 1960s. In the late ’60s, he launched his own directorial career with two features. While they garnered some acclaim, it was not until Mother and the Whore, his third feature, that the full depth of his talent and sensitivity was recognized. The film won the Grand Prix and the International Critics Award at Cannes. Through the 1970s, Eustache made several films for television and then made one last feature in 1975, Mes Petites Amoureuses. Eustache committed suicide in the early 1980s.—allmovie guide