| Fool's Mate | |
| Native Name: | Le Coup du berger |
| Director: | Jacques Rivette |
| Screenplay: | Jacques Rivette Claude Chabrol Charles Bitsch |
| Based On: | Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat[1] |
| Producer: | Pierre Braunberger Claude Chabrol |
| Starring: | Virginie Vitry Anne Doat Etienne Loinod Jean-Claude Brialy |
| Cinematography: | Charles Bitsch |
| Editing: | Denise de Casabianca |
| Music: | François Couperin |
| Studio: | Les Films de la Pleïade |
| Runtime: | 28 min |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French |
Fool's Mate (French: Le Coup du berger) is a 1956 short film directed by Jacques Rivette.
It stars Virginie Vitry as a wife cheating on her husband (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze). When her lover (Jean-Claude Brialy) buys her a mink coat, the adulterous pair hatch a plan to avoid her husband's questioning the coat's origins.[2] [3]
Fool's Mate is considered by some to be the first film of the French New Wave, or the movement's earliest antecedent. Released in 1956, the film is something of a curio thanks to a scene in which Rivette and New Wave contemporaries Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, and François Truffaut are seen in the same room as party guests.[2]