Tag: jean Paul belmondo

A Woman is a Woman

A Woman is a Woman is a 1961 movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

WHAT HAPPENS?

A young woman wants to have a baby with her boyfriend, whose interests lie elsewhere. His friend is brought into the relationship, which only leads to complicated feelings.

ONE LINE REVIEW

A Woman is a Woman sees Godard take on the absurdity of relationships.

THE ACTORS

Anna Karina stars in her first Godard feature and it’s obvious the director is infatuated with her. Karina’s big, expressive eyes and range of emotion are continually highlighted throughout. Her character, Angela, possesses little depth beyond her main motivation, yet Godard accentuates her naivety and allows her style to emerge.

Jean-Claude Brialy and Jean-Paul Belmondo play Emile and Alfred, Angela’s potential suitors. The prolific Brialy is efficient as the cynical and often cold Emile – he continually shoots down Angela’s desire for a baby. Belmondo breezes through his performance as the cavalier Alfred.

THE DIRECTOR

A Woman is a Woman fits into a unique place in Godard’s filmography. There are few gangster references and no overt political leanings present. As such, it features a light tone. Being only his second feature, we also see the subversive experimentation that would mark his later work. Early on, Karina announces: “before acting out our little farce, let’s bow to the audience.”

Throughout the movie, Godard reminds us that we’re watching a movie. Karina makes a regular habit of winking to the camera. Meta moments abound, including Alfred mentioning that “Breathless is on TV tonight.” A police duo interrupt an argument to canvass the apartment. Emile and Angela decide not to talk to each other – instead they argue through book titles.

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Pierott le Fou

Pierott le Fou is a 1965 movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

Pierott le Fou tells the story of Ferdinand, a bored man eager to escape his Bourgeois life and Marianne, a gun smuggler on the run from terrorists. Together, they escape Paris and embark on a genre-bending adventure.

Pierret le Fou exists in an interesting space of the Godard universe. In some respects, it’s the natural follow-up to Band of Outsiders, yet also could be seen as the true culmination of Breathless. Godard blends gangster films, island adventures and spy thrillers into a subversive text that ultimately reveals itself as an ironic political statement.

Godard’s movies feature a quirky, contextual innocence – his characters seem to be trying on roles in an experimental landscape. Here, we see a familiar blueprint: a couple is on the run – they’re playing existentialist gangsters – staging car wrecks and breaking the fourth wall. Ferdinand is writing a book, Marianne throws it away.

However, a shift is occurring in the Godard universe. The subversive reassembly of culture that marked his earlier movies is still vivid, but a heaviness is looming. The second half of Pierrot le Fou issues a statement regarding an increasingly militant world. Even Godard is not immune to such sweeping societal change.

Yet, Pierrot le Fou is still a masterful dissection of culture and a really fun movie.

And it looks great.

Stylistically, this may be Godard’s most appealing movie – or at least, it’s intriguing to see him experiment with color.

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Breathless and Un Flic

Breathless is Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature movie. Un Flic is Jean-Pierre Melville’s final movie. Both directors are considered essential figures in French New Wave Cinema.

Breathless is to 1960’s French culture what Pulp Fiction was to its 1990’s American counterpart – a purely original work that both reinterpreted and reinvented movies. Each work represents a complete shift in how people made, watched and thought about movies. Both Godard and Tarantino present stories about crimes and gangsters, but each movie lifts the cultural subtext around them into its own powerful narrative form. There is a linear jump from Jean-Paul Belmondo’s Michel imitating a gangster to Samuel Jackson and John Travolta discussing foot rubs.

While there were occasional surprises in the years before Breathless and Pulp Fiction, nothing represented the jolt of energy these movies produced. Even 60 and 30 years later respectively, the two works remain relevant, instantly re-watchable and endlessly copied.

Breathless tells the story of Michel, a small-time crook who impulsively kills a French policeman. He is pursued by French authorities – along the way, he tries to convince American student Patricia to run away with him to Italy. The plot is nearly superfluous, as Godard focuses on the existential roles his lead characters assume. Patricia is sent to Paris by her parents to attend the Sorbonne – she wants to be independent, Michel is a wanted criminal – he wants to be Humphrey Bogart.

At its core, Breathless is a story about youth. Michel and Patricia are vibrant and driven by pure energy: Patricia’s thoughts form a lyric stream of consciousness, Michel is always moving and laser focused on his goals – getting his money and trying to sleep with Patricia. Each is focused on the moment in front of them and the electric vibe of Paris seems to reflect this.

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