She's a Weekend and a Monday
Vivre Sa Vie (1962)
directed by Jean-Luc Godard
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library
Anna Karina came from Denmark and learned to speak French when she arrived, on her own, in Paris, at the age of 17. She changed her name and appeared in advertisements but did not undergo the choreographed transformation from model to movie star that American actresses like Lauren Bacall were famous for. In interviews at the time, Karina is approachable but vague, and aside from her beauty, not especially memorable.
The men in Vivre Sa Vie might just as well not exist at all, and although each of them contributes in some way to Nana's unhappiness, it isn't unhappiness that we're left with at the end. Talking about Godard is difficult because so much of what a person can say about him seems to be said at the expense of other films. If the camera is "playful," then How the West Was Won, released that same year, must be a relic. He deserves a less relative context.
I guess I get around it by talking about Raoul Coutard, the man who didn't marry Anna Karina but must have loved her. He does not so much watch for the natural, open light of Paris as follow helplessly as Karina wanders on a whim from park to shaded parlor. Godard both loved and married her, but his own affection is indistinguishable from what his cinematographer sees. Isn't it? Is Karina looking at Coutard, at her husband, or at us?
After Vivre Sa Vie, I didn't think of movie stars the same way, and I began to see the girls I already knew as avatars of an impermanent world. None of them are famous today and likely as not, only photographs exist to show them at 22. They missed their chance to be like Anna Karina, but Anna Karina did not, and watching this movie, one thinks of her as a memory that, against all odds, it is possible to physically return to. Which is why it is such a comfort, and why Godard was so good: no past and no future in a movie like this. Only facets of the people we know.
directed by Jean-Luc Godard
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library
Anna Karina came from Denmark and learned to speak French when she arrived, on her own, in Paris, at the age of 17. She changed her name and appeared in advertisements but did not undergo the choreographed transformation from model to movie star that American actresses like Lauren Bacall were famous for. In interviews at the time, Karina is approachable but vague, and aside from her beauty, not especially memorable.
The men in Vivre Sa Vie might just as well not exist at all, and although each of them contributes in some way to Nana's unhappiness, it isn't unhappiness that we're left with at the end. Talking about Godard is difficult because so much of what a person can say about him seems to be said at the expense of other films. If the camera is "playful," then How the West Was Won, released that same year, must be a relic. He deserves a less relative context.
I guess I get around it by talking about Raoul Coutard, the man who didn't marry Anna Karina but must have loved her. He does not so much watch for the natural, open light of Paris as follow helplessly as Karina wanders on a whim from park to shaded parlor. Godard both loved and married her, but his own affection is indistinguishable from what his cinematographer sees. Isn't it? Is Karina looking at Coutard, at her husband, or at us?
After Vivre Sa Vie, I didn't think of movie stars the same way, and I began to see the girls I already knew as avatars of an impermanent world. None of them are famous today and likely as not, only photographs exist to show them at 22. They missed their chance to be like Anna Karina, but Anna Karina did not, and watching this movie, one thinks of her as a memory that, against all odds, it is possible to physically return to. Which is why it is such a comfort, and why Godard was so good: no past and no future in a movie like this. Only facets of the people we know.
posted by NPK at 5:25 AM
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