The beguiling French-Danish icon of the nouvelle vague has died at the age of 79. So much more than Godard’s muse, she starred in several genres and literary adaptations for many directors, was a decent singer, novelist and directed films herself. She had a voice, grace and infinite talent. Adieu, Madame.
Aka Band of Outsiders. A Who-Dunit, Who’s Got-It, Where-Is-It-Now Wild One From That “Breathless” director Jean-Luc Godard! Smalltime crooks and cinéphile slackers Franz (Sami Frey) and Arthur (Claude Brasseur) spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile (Anna Karina) whom they meet at English class. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre trying to set a record for fastest circumnavigation. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory – just like their B-movie heroes … Isn’t it strange how people never form a whole?Ostensibly an adaptation of a novel called Fool’s Gold by Dorothy Hitchens, that’s just a skeleton on which the mischievous Jean-Luc Godard drapes his love and admiration of Hollywood genres (and Karina) over a series of apparently improvised riffs in this lightly constructed charmer. A few clues for latecomers: Several weeks ago… A pile of money… An English class… A house by the river… A romantic young girl... It’s a splendidly rackety affair, with several standout scenes providing the postmodern matrix for much of pop culture (and a name for Quentin Tarantino’s production company). It’s Godard at his most playful, joyous and audience-pleasing, exploring what it’s like to not want to grow up and how it’s always possible to have fun with like-minded people. Then, you go a little too far and someone goes and spoils it all for everyone. Maybe. Sheer pleasure. Godard said of the dance scene: “Alice in Wonderland as re-choreographed by Kafka”. A minute of silence can last a long time… a whole eternity
I’m here to inform these Modern Times of the Grammatical Era’s end and the beginning of Flamboyance, especially in cinema. Roland Durand (Jean Yanne) and his wife Corinne (Mireille Darc) embark on a weekend getaway to the French countryside determined to murder Corinne’s mother while her father is dying from the poison they’ve been feeding him for five years and collect an inheritance. Each is contemplating adultery as they head for the coast, but end up ensnared in a traffic jam along the way. The ill-fated couple encounter such colorful characters as the leader of the FLSO (Jean-Pierre Kalfon) and Saint-Just (Jean-Pierre Léaud) … What a rotten film, all we meet are crazy people. Jean-Luc Godard turns in a hugely enjoyable, fast-moving absurdist social satire masquerading as a road movie. It has one of the best shots in cinema (much aped, see LA LA Land for proof and Welles for inspiration) when the Parisian couple emerge into a ten-minute track of a traffic jam which proves his point that contemporary life is awash with the pointless clutter of a dying civilisation while the text itself blithely tours through the randomness of car crashes, violence and death. When their car explodes in fire Corinne cries out My Hermès handbag! This carries on before they encounter anti-consumerist Maoists. No matter your feelings about this anarchic picaresque, you have to see it because it presages a seismic change in cinema (this was released 29th December 1967) and Godard himself was the visionary who summoned it. The shots themselves call attention to the fact that you are watching manufactured reality, an adieu to his own traditional filmmaking, fin de cinéma as the credits inform us. The horror of the bourgeoisie can only be overcome by more horror
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