That Most Important Thing: Love

Director: Andrzej Żuławski

1975 / 109min / DCP

After the Polish government banned his 1972 film, The Devil, Possession director Żuławski bounced back with a new start in France and a critical and commercial success with That Most Important Thing: Love, a turbulent, tragicomic depiction of the plight of an aging actress starring Romy Schneider as Nadine Chevalier, a once-acclaimed thespian now reduced to starring in softcore, striving to defend her dignity from foppish impresario husband Jacques Dutronc, snooping photographer Fabio Testi, and has-been theater director Klaus Kinski. “A descent into a burlesque theater world, with characters and settings that recall the decadent Europe of George Grosz… Żuławski’s fluid, roving camera… accompanied by Georges Delerue’s full-throated score, is so attentive to every pang, twinge, or slightest hint of agony that it seems to expose the characters’ every nerve.” —Film Comment

Distributor: Rialto Pictures