Oldest Profession, The
Entry updated 30 November 2024. Tagged: Film.
French/German anthology film (1967; original title Le Plus Vieux Métier du monde). Rialto Films, Films Gibs. First segment "L'Ère préhistorique" directed by Franco Indovina, written by Ennio Flaiano. Final segment "Anticipation" written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Cast includes Jacques Charrier, Anna Karina, Michèle Mercier, Enrico Mario Salerno, Gabriele Tinti and Marilù Tolo. 119 minutes. Colour and black-and-white.
International co-productions of anthology films were widely produced in the 1950s and 1960s, often with very distinguished directors involved, though only rarely with artistically satisfying results, and few are remembered today. This film has six short episodes on the theme of prostitution through the ages. The first segment is a negligible Prehistoric SF sketch about a cavewoman (Mercier) discovering make-up to attract a visiting man. Far more significant is the final section by Jean-Luc Godard, set in a future in which prostitutes (male or female) can be ordered through catalogues. A visitor from Galaxy 4 (Charrier), upon arrival on Earth, has one prostitute delivered, but is unsatisfied by the fact she doesn't speak. Her replacement (Karina) engages in conversation, but won't undress or have Sex. She explains that everybody on Earth is now separated into their own speciality, along the lines of extreme logic. The visitor suggests she can also use her mouth to kiss as well as speak, and this way they re-introduce love into Earth's emotionally barren society.
As with Alphaville (1965) the future depicted is clearly Paris in the 1960s, and like that film Godard finds the futuristic and uncanny in gleaming black-and-white photography. Made on the cusp of his most experimental phase, "Anticipation"'s most abstract elements – discordant electronic soundtrack, constant voice-over from the landing station, frequent cut-aways to planes landing – along with its philosophical air, seem to belong to an entirely different film from the light and broad comedy of the other episodes. [CWa]
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