La Garçonne is a 1957 French film directed by Jacqueline Audry. It follows Monique, an ingenue and a clueless girl who believes in true love. When she discovers her future husband has a lover, she rebels against her bourgeois life:s he will lead a free and wild life and she will live like a man. Soon she becomes the toast of Gay Paris, sleeping with all the men around, and even with a woman.
Direction
Audry's rare female gaze in 1950s French cinema.
Costume
Monique's transformation wardrobe screams liberation.
Writing
Dialogue that smuggles radical ideas past 1957 censors.
Director
Jacqueline Audry
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was a remake of a 1936 film, but Audry's version carries post-war sexual tension and the emerging French New Wave's rebellious spirit.
The term 'garçonne' refers to 1920s flappers—by 1957, Monique's rebellion was already nostalgic, making her quest doubly doomed.
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