Thursday January 26 | 7PM Vivre sa vie aka My Life To Live France 1961 d. Jean-Luc Godard with Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, André Labarthe, Guylaine Schlumberger, Gérard Hoffman, Monique Messine, Paul Pavel, Dimitri Dineff, Peter Kassovitz, Eric Schlumberger and Brice Parain. Black and white. In French with English subtitles. 85 m
“Star Anna Karina was in the brutal early rounds of marriage to her director, who was never more doting and egghead-condescending than in this showpiece. She’s Nana, a northern provincial in Paris who aspires to maybe become a film actress (like Anna Karina!), but settles on making a quick franc horizontally. The suburban streets and jukebox idylls are as banal as her daydreams, though she touches loftier things—a teary commiseration with Dreyer’s Joan of Arc, a chance dialogue with philosopher Brice Parain. The purpose of this one-woman show is suggested by a child’s description of essence: ‘Take away the outside, the inside is left. Take away the inside, and you see a soul.’ Toward this, girl-for-rent Nana is probed from every side: interrogated by the camera, her jilted beau, the police, her pimp, and the prose of Poe (all of them, really, Godard).” Nick Pinkerton
See Also: A Woman Is A Woman (Godard, 1961), Band Of Outsiders (Godard, 1964)
Series:Winter 2023 :: Four Muses