{ "id": "epcjh04anm", "slug": "masculin-feminin", "title": "Masculin Féminin", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "label": "Comedies of the 1960s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000: Comedies of the 1960s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946", "label": "Western Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "label": "Comedies of the 1960s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Masculin Féminin (1966) is Jean-Luc Godard's eleventh feature, a black-and-white portrait of 1960s Paris youth starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Chantal Goya, loosely based on two Maupassant stories and banned to under-18s in France.", "snippet": "Masculin Féminin (1966) is Jean-Luc Godard's eleventh feature, a black-and-white portrait of 1960s Paris youth starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Chantal Goya, loosely based on two Maupassant stories and banned to under-18s in France.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1960s", "markdown": "# Masculin Féminin\n\n**Masculin Féminin** is a 1966 French black-and-white film directed and written by [Jean-Luc Godard](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-luc-godard), his eleventh feature, which portrays the youth culture of mid-1960s Paris through the relationship between Paul, a demobilized young man and anti-[Vietnam War](https://www.edgepedia.org/vietnam-war) militant played by [Jean-Pierre Léaud](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-pierre-leaud), and Madeleine, an aspiring pop singer played by the real-life yé-yé singer Chantal Goya[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/) • [2](https://www.criterion.com/films/508-masculin-f-minin). The Criterion Collection describes the film as introducing the world to \"the children of Marx and Coca-Cola,\" a phrase that became famous both as an alternative title for the film and as an aphorism for the moods of 1960s Western European youth[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/508-masculin-f-minin) • [3](https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/Oliver-PowellPepsi_intro.html).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director and writer | Jean-Luc Godard; his eleventh feature, made in 1965 between *Pierrot le fou* (1965) and the films of 1966–67[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/) • [4](https://sightlines.media/film/4710/masculin-feminin-1966) |\n| Release | 22 March 1966 in France; re-released 6 July 2016 in a restored version[5](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D1211.html) |\n| Cast | Jean-Pierre Léaud (Paul), Chantal Goya (Madeleine), Marlène Jobert (Elisabeth), with appearances by Brigitte Bardot and Françoise Hardy[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/508-masculin-f-minin) |\n| Literary source | Freely inspired by two Guy de Maupassant stories, *La Femme de Paul* and *Le Signe*[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/) |\n| Structure | Divided by fifteen numbered title cards, in the manner of silent-film intertitles[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/) |\n| Censorship | Banned to under-18s on its 1966 release for its open treatment of sexuality, abortion, and contraception[6](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-1211/secrets-tournage/) |\n| Crew | Cinematography Willy Kurant; producer Anatole Dauman; editing Agnès Guillemot[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/) • [7](https://midcenturycinema.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Masculin.Kirshner.Cineaste.Fall2021-1.pdf) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and subject\n\nPaul, just out of the military, is looking for work and campaigns against the war in Vietnam. He is in love with Madeleine, a young singer more concerned with her career than with his displays of feeling. Paul eventually finds a job at a polling institute, where he is assigned to survey the main preoccupations of the French, and lodges temporarily with two of Madeleine's friends[5](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D1211.html). Time Out's review notes that the polling job mirrors Godard's own project in the film, which he continued a few months later in *Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle*[8](https://www.timeout.com/fr/cinema/masculin-feminin).\n\nThe film's subject is less the romance than the generation around it. Godard, who had just turned 35 during the production and felt out of step with the new generation, set out to identify its political and sexual aspirations[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/). Across Paris, in cafés, laundromats, offices, and apartment courtyards, the film touches on racism, state violence, unemployment, occasional prostitution, contraception, and abortion, alongside popular culture through echoes of [Charlie Parker](https://www.edgepedia.org/charlie-parker) and [Bob Dylan](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-dylan) and a cameo by [Brigitte Bardot](https://www.edgepedia.org/brigitte-bardot)[8](https://www.timeout.com/fr/cinema/masculin-feminin). Paul tags \"paix au Vietnam\" on a car at the American embassy, while Godard interjects written messages on screen commenting on his own film[8](https://www.timeout.com/fr/cinema/masculin-feminin).\n\n## Production\n\nGodard began the film in 1965 after six years of uninterrupted work during which he had made ten features. Deliberately renewing his team, he changed producers and gave the photography to Willy Kurant, temporarily setting aside his usual cinematographer Raoul Coutard[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/). Shooting ran from 18 November to early December 1965, and some scenes were filmed inside the editorial offices of *Mademoiselle Âge Tendre*, the first magazine for teenage girls published in France[6](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-1211/secrets-tournage/). Because of a Swedish film seen within *Masculin Féminin*, part of the shooting took place in Sweden, with Swedish actors including Birger Malmsten and Eva-[Britt Strandberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/britt-strandberg)[6](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-1211/secrets-tournage/) • [2](https://www.criterion.com/films/508-masculin-f-minin).\n\n**Improvised method.** The production was rapid and improvisatory: scenes were frequently developed close to or on the day of filming, with dialogue handed to actors shortly before takes or fed to them during shooting[4](https://sightlines.media/film/4710/masculin-feminin-1966). There was no written script, and Godard let real life bleed into the fiction; when Madeleine announces that her new single has charted in Japan, the same thing had just happened to Chantal Goya[9](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2021/05/masculin-feminin/). The film also contains three interview segments in which Godard himself questioned the actresses through an earpiece fed via the male actors, on sex, politics, war, and relationships, with answers often given truthfully rather than in character[9](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2021/05/masculin-feminin/).\n\nThe film marked the first true collaboration between Godard and Jean-Pierre Léaud, who had been the child star of [François Truffaut](https://www.edgepedia.org/francois-truffaut)'s *Les Quatre Cents Coups* and went on to appear in nine further Godard films[5](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D1211.html) • [1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/).\n\n## Censorship and reception\n\nBecause it openly discusses sexuality, including pleasure, prostitution, abortion, and contraception, the film was banned to under-18s on its first release in 1966[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/) • [6](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-1211/secrets-tournage/). Godard said at the time: \"Ce que j'ai voulu faire, je n'en sais rien. C'est, il me semble, me servir du cinéma pour parler de la jeunesse ou me servir de la jeunesse, je ne sais pas, pour parler du cinéma\"[6](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-1211/secrets-tournage/).\n\nA PhD study of 1960s France notes that a female voiceover in the film denounces the control exerted over young women's sexuality, expressing a mounting opposition to the desexualized representation of young women in French society[10](https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/301787284/Final_Copy_2021_09_28_Plaquevent_B_PhD.pdf). Sightlines places the film among the defining screen portraits of 1960s youth, caught in the calm before the upheavals of 1968, and calls it a key film in the New Wave's turn from movie-love toward politics[4](https://sightlines.media/film/4710/masculin-feminin-1966).\n\n## Form and place in Godard's career\n\nThe film mixes sociological analysis with fiction. Godard wanted to return to what the Festival de Cannes retrospective calls the rawest essence of cinema, the documentary, to observe a French society in the midst of social and moral change, and the film's grainy black-and-white captures shifts in language as it moves through ordinary Paris locations[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/). Its fifteen numbered title cards, like silent-film intertitles, divide the sequence of scenes[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/).\n\nIt arrived in an extraordinarily compressed stretch of Godard's output, between *Pierrot le fou* (1965) and the films of 1966–67 such as *Made in U.S.A.* and *Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle*, during which he released multiple features a year and moved visibly toward overt political cinema[4](https://sightlines.media/film/4710/masculin-feminin-1966). A Cineaste retrospective piece calls it a departure from most of its predecessors, though it shares structural and visual affinities with *Vivre sa vie* (1962), and suggests it can serve as Godard's representative film from this era[7](https://midcenturycinema.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Masculin.Kirshner.Cineaste.Fall2021-1.pdf).\n\n## Restoration\n\nA 2K restoration from the original negative, with color grading supervised by Willy Kurant, accompanied the 2016 French re-release[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/). [The Criterion Collection](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-criterion-collection) issued a Blu-ray edition (Spine #308) with a new 4K restoration approved by Kurant, a 1966 interview with Chantal Goya, a 2004 discussion by critics Freddy Buache and Dominique Païni, Swedish television footage of Godard directing the film-within-the-film scene, and an essay by critic Adrian Martin together with a 1966 set report by journalist Philippe Labro[2](https://www.criterion.com/films/508-masculin-f-minin).\n\n## References\n\n1. [Masculin Féminin, Godard à la croisée des chemins, Festival de Cannes (2016)](https://www.festival-cannes.com/2016/masculin-feminin-godard-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/)\n2. [Masculin féminin (1966), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/508-masculin-f-minin)\n3. [Pepsi and the Pill: Motherhood, Politics and Film in Britain and France, 1958–1969, Berghahn Books](https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/Oliver-PowellPepsi_intro.html)\n4. [Masculin Féminin (1966), analysis, Sightlines](https://sightlines.media/film/4710/masculin-feminin-1966)\n5. [Masculin Féminin, fiche film, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D1211.html)\n6. [Anecdotes du film Masculin Féminin, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-1211/secrets-tournage/)\n7. [Masculin féminin, Cineaste (Fall 2021), Mid-Century Cinema](https://midcenturycinema.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Masculin.Kirshner.Cineaste.Fall2021-1.pdf)\n8. [Masculin Féminin 1966, critique, Time Out France](https://www.timeout.com/fr/cinema/masculin-feminin)\n9. [Masculin Féminin, Blueprint: Review (2021)](https://blueprintreview.co.uk/2021/05/masculin-feminin/)\n10. [Plaquevent, B., PhD thesis, University of Bristol (2021)](https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/301787284/Final_Copy_2021_09_28_Plaquevent_B_PhD.pdf)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1960s*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/masculin-feminin", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/masculin-feminin.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Masculin Féminin\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/masculin-feminin. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Masculin Féminin](https://www.edgepedia.org/masculin-feminin)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/masculin-feminin](https://www.edgepedia.org/masculin-feminin). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Masculin Féminin\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/masculin-feminin. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Masculin Féminin is Jean-Luc Godard's eleventh feature, a black-and-white portrait of 1960s Paris youth starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Chantal Goya, loosely based on two Maupassant stories and banned to under-18s in France." }