Fool's Mate (1956 film)

Fool's Mate
Le Coup du berger
Directed by	Jacques Rivette
Screenplay by	Jacques Rivette Claude Chabrol Charles Bitsch
Based on	Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat[1]
Produced by	Pierre Braunberger Claude Chabrol
Starring	Virginie Vitry Anne Doat Etienne Loinod Jean-Claude Brialy
Cinematography	Charles Bitsch
Edited by	Denise de Casabianca
Music by	François Couperin
Production company	Les Films de la Pleïade
Release date	1956 (1956)
Running time	28 min
Country	France
Language	French

Fool's Mate (French: Le Coup du berger) is a 1956 short film directed by Jacques Rivette.

It stars Virginie Vitry as a wife cheating on her husband (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze). When her lover (Jean-Claude Brialy) buys her a mink coat, the adulterous pair hatch a plan to avoid her husband's questioning the coat's origins.[2][3]

Fool's Mate is considered by some to be the first film of the French New Wave, or the movement's earliest antecedent. Released in 1956, the film is something of a curio thanks to a scene in which Rivette and New Wave contemporaries Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, and François Truffaut are seen in the same room as party guests.[2]

References

1. Stevens, Brad (2004). "L'œuvre télévisuelle d'Alfred Hitchcock". Trafic (in French). 51: 101. L'histoire de Dahl avait été officieusement adaptée par Jacques Rivette dans un court métrage intitulé Le Coup du berger (1956). Ne pouvant acheter les droits, Rivette prétendait que le film lui avait été inspiré par des articles de journaux (le générique va jusqu'à affirmer: D'après un fait divers).
2. "Le coup du berger". The Criterion Channel.
3. "Jacques Rivette obituary". the Guardian. 2016-01-29. Retrieved 2020-10-31.

External links

• Fool's Mate at IMDb
• Le coup du berger on Vimeo