BAND OF OUTSIDERS  (1964)

One of Godard's most accessible films is this French spin on Dolores Hitchens' novel Fool's Gold.
It tells the tale of three disaffected youths who plan a burglary, leading to deadly results.
The alienated young trio is marvelous, particularly Anna Karina, and the early scenes of their clearly
overdeveloped fantasy lives are splendidly handled. Something of a companion piece to Godard's
classic Breathless, its young characters have the same odd mixture of fatalism and starry-eyed naivete
that is by turns appealing and tragic. Trivia buffs should note that the film gave its name to
Quentin Tarantino's production company (A Band Apart), and several of its scenes
are echoed in his Pulp Fiction.  ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

BREATHLESS  (1959)

Breathless is the first feature film directed by Godard and one of the first films of the French New Wave.  It is the
story of the love between Michel Poiccard, a small-time hood wanted for killing a cop, and Patricia Franchini, an
American who sells the International Herald Tribune along the boulevards of Paris. Their relationship
develops as Michel hides out from a dragnet. The film uses the famous techniques of the French
New Wave: location shooting, improvised dialogue, and a loose narrative form. In addition Godard
uses his characteristic jump cuts, deliberate "mismatches" between shots, and references to the history of
cinema, art, and music.  Much of the film's vigor comes from collisions between popular and high culture
Godard shows us pinups and portraits of women by Picasso and Renoir, and the soundtrack includes both
Mozart's clarinet concerto and snippets of French pop radio. When Breathless was first released, audiences
and critics responded to the burst of energy it gave the French cinema. Although its techniques have become familiar
as the staples of today's independent cinema and its style has been copied by such directors as Jim McBride and
Quentin Tarantino, Breathless still seems novel and full of the creativity that keeps the cinema alive.
~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

CONTEMPT (1963)

Contempt is the story of the end of a marriage. Camille (Brigitte Bardot) falls out of love with her
husband Paul (Michel Piccoli) while he is rewriting the screenplay Odyssey by American producer
Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance). Just as the director of Prokosch's film, Fritz Lang, says that The Odyssey
is the story of individuals confronting their situations in a real world, Le Mépris itself is an examination of the
position of the filmmaker in the commercial cinema. Godard himself was facing this situation in the production
of Le Mépris. Italian producer Carlo Ponti had given him the biggest budget of his career, and he found
himself working with a star of Bardot's magnitude for the first time. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

FIRST NAME: CARMEN (1983)

First Name: Carmen tells the parallel stories of a quartet rehearsing Beethoven and a group of
young people robbing a bank, supposedly to get the funds to make a film.  Godard attempts to make a
film that resembles a string quartet, each of whose parts serves an abstract whole. The film is a meditation
on the difficulties of youth in the 1980s, the relations between cinema and capital, and how to film the human
body.  Godard fills the film with carefully composed shots of bodies playing music, making love, and acting violently.
His attention to bodies in First Name: Carmen makes the film's images very close to sculptures, particularly those of
Rodin. The film's engagement with painting and sculpture continues Godard's ongoing investigation of the
relationships between cinema and other arts.
~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

HAIL MARY / BOOK OF MARY

Hail Mary is Godard's first sustained examination of modern spiritual life. This complex episodic film
parallels the story of acontemporary Joseph (Theirry Rode) and Mary (Myriem Roussel) with that of
a science class studying the origins of life on earth. Joseph is a cab driver and Mary plays on a
woman's basketball team. A thuggish angel (Philippe Lacoste) tells Mary that she is with child.
When she tells Joseph that she is pregnant, he accuses Mary of having cheated on him.
The professor of the science class (Johan Leysen), who is having an affair with one of his
students (Anne Gauthier), presents the theory that life came to earth from somewhere else
in the universe. Godard organizes scenes from these two narratives into an essay about
the relationship between the spirit and the body, and how being is born from nothingness.
The film is filled with images of light cascading over the Swiss countryside. Godard often
has his cinematographers Jean-Bernard Menoud and Jacques Firmann shoot directly into
the sun and capture ravishing shots of pure luminosity. Hail Mary is introduced by a short film
by Godard's frequent directing partner Anne-Marie Miéville entitled The Book Of Mary, the story
of a young girl named Marie whose parents separate. Miéville's film continues the philosophical
reflection on children that she and Godard started in Numéro deux (Number Two).
~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

MY LIFE TO LIVE  (1962)

My Life to Live presents twelve episodes in the life of a young woman who turns to prostitution to pay
her rent. Each episode features a theatrical scene preceded by a title that lists the characters in the episode
, its location, and a brief summary of the action. As he would throughout his career, Godard uses prostitution as a
metaphor for both economic life in general and the position of the filmmaker under capitalism.  The film stars
Anna Karina, who was married to Godard at the time. Her performance was largely improvised as Godard
refused to give Karina her lines until just before each scene was shot. In order to maintain the freshness
of the performances, Godard rarely made more than one take of each shot. The film is shot in stunning
black and white by Raoul Coutard. The improvised acting and fragmented story give the viewer
the impression of watching a documentary about a woman's life that is also a series of essays about
aesthetics and economics. In addition, the film's camera style presents a catalogue of alternatives to
conventional shooting strategies. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

PIERROT LE FOU  (1965)

Pierrot Le Fou is Jean-Luc Godard's sixth film staring Anna Karina, his first wife. It is the story
of Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Karina). They meet when Ferdinand's wife hires
Marianne as a baby-sitter. As he drives Marianne home, Ferdinand decides to run away with her.
The couple get caught up in a mysterious gun-running scheme involving Marianne's brother
(Dirk Sanders). With Pierrot le fou Godard returns to the story of Breathless: the tale of a couple on the
run. But in the six years between the two films Godard developed a more complex and often difficult style.
Pierrot Le Fou incorporates musical numbers, references to the history of cinema and painting,
and quotations from literature. The film features Godard's most extended use of color to that point,
as the shots are filled with blocks of bright primary colors. The film is a catalogue of
cinematic inventions and of gestures made by couples in love. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

SLOW MOTION (1980)

Slow Motion, a pessimistic but visually stunning film, marks Jean-Luc Godard's return to cinema after
having spent the 70s working in video. The film presents a few days in the lives of three people: Paul Godard
(Jacques Dutronc ), a television producer; Denise Rimbaud (Nathalie Baye), his co-worker and ex-girlfriend;
and Isabelle Riviera (Isabelle Huppert), a prostitute whom Paul has used.  Denise wants to break up
with Paul and move to the country. Isabelle wants to work for herself instead of her pimp. Paul just
wants to survive. Their stories intersect when Paul brings Denise to the country cottage he is trying to
rent and Isabelle comes to see it without knowing that the landlord has been her client. The film is broken
into segments entitled "The Imaginary", "Commerce", "Life", and "Music." Each of the first three sections
focuses on one character and the last section brings all three characters together. This complex
film is often closer to an essay than a story; it uses slow motion and experimental techniques to
explore questions of love, work, and the nature of cinema. Slow Motion was Godard's first film
with his frequent collaborator Anne-Marie Miéville, who edited and co-wrote the film.
~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

WEEKEND (1967)

French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend remains his most consistently
relentless attack on the bourgeois values of his own country and the perceived imperialism
of the United States. Mireille Darc plays the central character, an "average" woman who is
systematically radicalized during a weekend motor trip. No sooner have the woman and her
husband (Jean Yanne) embarked on their journey than they become enmeshed in the
mother of all traffic jams. The motorists rave, rant, burn, rape, murder, pillage and even
descend into cannibalism -- all of which is treated by Godard as a natural progression of
events. The prevalent theory that Jean-Luc Godard had intended Weekend as the
apotheosis of his career is bolstered by the film's last two titles:
"End of Film." "End of Cinema." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

THE SUBTERRANEAN COLLECTION

BACK TO:

 SUBTERRANEAN CINEMA