Masculine Feminine (1966)

Jean-Pierre Léaud: Paul - un jeune homme instable

Photos 

Quotes 

• Paul : We control our thoughts which mean nothing, and not our emotions which mean everything.

• Paul : If you kill a man, you're a murderer. If you kill million of men, you're a conqueror. If you kill them all, you're God.

  Elisabeth : I don't believe in God.

  Paul : We'll see.

• Paul : We' went to the movies often. The screen would light up, and we'd feel a thrill. But Madelrine and I were usually disappointed. But Madeleine and I were usually disappointed. The images were dated and jumpy. Marilyn Monroe had aged badly. We felt sad. It wasn't the movie of our dreams. It wasn't the total film we carried inside ourselves. That film we would have liked to make, or more secretly, no doubt, the film we wanted to live.

• Paul : How's it going?

  Robert : [Seated at cafe table]  Terrible!

  Paul : What's wrong?

  Robert : I'm saying things are terrible until 10:00.

  Paul : [To the waiter]  An espresso.

  [To Robert] 

  Paul : It's 10.05 now.

  Robert : Really? Then everything's all right.

• Paul : I don't know why I'm joking; actually I feel miserable.

• Paul : [Voice-over]  From January to March, I continued the opinion polls. Do vacuum cleaners sell? Do you like cheese in tubes? Do you read a lot? What's a cadre? Do you like poetry? Winter sports? Short skirts? How do you react to an accident? If your lover left you for a black, would you mind? Do you know about the famine in India? Do you know what a Communist is? Do you use birth control pills or a thing in your vagina? Where do you live? What's your salary? Why are society women more frigid than factory girls? Do you know there's an Iraqi-Kurd war on? Gradually, over these three months, I came to realize that these questions did not reflect but deformed the collective mentality. My lack of objectivity, even when unconscious, tended to provoke a predictable lack of sincerity in those I was polling. Unawares, I was deceiving them and being deceived by them. Why? Probably because polls and surveys quickly veer from their true goal, the observation of behavior, and instead insidiously go for value judgments. I discovered that the questions I would ask any French person expressed an ideology that reflects not present mores but those of the past.

• Paul : Man's conscience doesn't determine his existence. His social being determines his conscience.

• Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Do you think one can live alone? Always alone.

  Paul : No, I don't think one can, it's impossible. Without tenderness you'd shoot yourself.

• Paul : To have a conscience is to be open to the world.

  Paul : To be faithful is to act as if time didn't exist.

  Paul : Wisdom would be to see life, truly see it. That would be wisdom.

• Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : What's the center of the world for you?

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : The center of the world? We've never talked, and the first time we do, you ask me weird questions.

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : I think it's a perfectly normal question. Come on. Answer me.

  Paul : Love, I guess.

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Funny. I'd have said "me."

• Robert : Ever notice there's the word "mask" in masculine? And also "ass"?

  Paul : And in feminine?

  Robert : Nothing.

• Paul : What are you reading?

  Robert : An article on Bob Dylan.

  Paul : Who's he?

  Robert : He's a Vietnik, you know.

  Paul : What's that?

  Robert : It's a Yank word, a cross between "beatnik" and "Vietnam."

  Paul : Let me see.

  [Reading Robert's newpaper] 

  Paul : "Who are you, Mr. Bob Dylan?"

• Paul : Do you think socialism still has a future?

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : Socialism? Is that what you asked?

  Paul : Yes.

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : I'm not qualified to answer. I know nothing about it.

• Paul : What does "the American way" mean to you?

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : A very fast-paced life, probably. Very free.

• Paul : What about the car?

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : What car?

  Paul : The car.

  Paul : You stole one?

  Paul : Yes.

  Catherine-Isabelle : I doubt that.

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : You're not Pierrot le Fou. He stole cars for his women.

• Paul : Times had changed, It was the age of James Bond and Viet Nam. Hope swept the French left as the December elections loomed. I turned 21 two days before.

• Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Are you looking for work?

  Paul : Not exactly, but I just did my military service.

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Was it fun?

  Paul : It's 16 months of your life with no comfort, money, love, or free time. In other words, modern life. 24 a day of submission to unbridled authority, 16 months of struggle a young Frenchman must endure to win relative freedom from authority, when he's had no exposure to culture. It can become a life of submission, because the military and industrial complex coexist well, as the logics of money and order.

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : It doesn't sound like fun.

• Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Why do you want to go out with me tonight?

  Paul : Because I think you're pretty. And for some tenderness.

• Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Ever go with a hooker?

  Paul : It's happened. But I don't like hookers. It's sad and without feeling.

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Spare me the details.

• Paul : I really like your kind of breasts.

  [Madeline laughs] 

  Paul : It matters.

• Robert : Not bad.

  Paul : Her breasts?

  Robert : Yes...

• Paul : [Voice-over]  Robert liked Catherine, who was probably still a virgin but had the makings of a future militant.

• Paul : U.S. Go Home!

  Robert : U.S. Go Home!

  Paul : U.S. Go Home! Go Home! Go Home! Go Home! Go Home!

• Paul : You stand a better chance with Catherine.

  Robert : Oh, yeah? Last week at the Rex cinema, I asked her what kind of bra she wore.

  Paul : And?

  Robert : The slap she gave me! Bing!

• Catherine-Isabelle : She's afraid you'll get her pregnant.

  Paul : What an idiot. I'm old enough not to screw all the way. Would you be afraid?

  Catherine-Isabelle : No. Not me. I use a thingamajig.

  Paul : What's that? What is it?

  Catherine-Isabelle : A gadget from America. A guy from Air France brought one for Elisabeth. Madeleine thinks it's indecent. I can understand her being scared.

• Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : [Referring to her newly released record single]  I'm No. 6 in Japan.

  Catherine-Isabelle : Really?

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : With "Pinball Champ".

  Paul : More! Who's ahead of you?

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : The Beatles, France Gall, Bob Dylan...

• Paul : No paper in the john?

  Elisabeth : Use the copy of "Le Figaro" on the chest. What a thing to do to Mauriac. When you think that Beaumarchais, that prince of artists, coined the name "Figaro," and now it's emblematic of everything bourgeois. It's enough to drive you to suicide.

• Elisabeth : Move your behind, Madeleine.

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : Don't say "behind." Say "bottom."

  Paul : Not "bottom." "Buns."

  Elisabeth : No, you say "butt."

  Paul : No, "Bum."

  Madeleine Zimmer - une petite chanteuse : "Heinie."

  Elisabeth : "Moons."

  Paul : "Rear end."

• Paul : Do you know what birth control is?

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : More or less. It's a big topic now.

  Paul : What is it, in practical terms? Come on. Tell me.

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : You're making me uncomfortable. I won't answer. I know what it is... but it's a pain...

  Paul : I'm polling French women. You're a typical French woman.

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : Yes, of course. Well, birth control is...

  Paul : Do you know practical ways not to have kids?

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : There are lots. I'd feel strange naming any.

  Paul : Just name one or two.

  Mlle 19 ans de 'Mademoiselle Age Tendre' : Pills, for example, not to use a more specific term. Or else the diaphragm.

• Cinema Patron : Cut out the necking in front!

  Paul : Can it, Trotskyite!

• Paul : Let's go. This is stupid.

  Catherine-Isabelle : I want to see it.

  Elisabeth : Let's go. Eroticism makes me sick.

  Catherine-Isabelle : Speak for yourself.