The disc: A Married Woman

The details: Jean-Luc Godard is like the weather; if you don’t like the movie, just wait a few minutes. His 1964 film A Married Woman (Koch Lorber) ranges from scintillating to tedious and back again. In broad outline, it’s the story of Charlotte — the delectable Macha Meril — who is burdened by a husband who seems slightly boring, as well as a lover who’s not much better. She moves in apparent passive eqipoise between the two men until she realizes she’s pregnant. Not entirely sure which one is the father, not entirely sure what to do, the film follows her to one final assignation with her lover, which helps decide her course.

It could be a prototypical woman’s film, but Godard always goes for the jagged in relationships as well as film style, so he makes Charlotte slightly empty-headed; she’s concerned about her bustline, and is always narcissistically playing with her own hair. All of this plays out in some of Raoul Coutard’s finest black and white photography — actually, there are no blacks and very few whites, just an infinite succession of grays — with Godard avoiding any actual lovemaking for pre- and post-coital discussions shot over body parts resting on a sheet: interlocked ankles, or a man’s hand reaching out to hold Charlotte’s wrist.

Godard has never gotten the credit he deserves for having superb taste in actresses, as well as directing them beautifully. A Married Woman succeeds on both counts.