Dancing the Madison in glorious black and white!
If there are any films that offer a wonderful sense of love for the cinema, they are the films of Jean-Luc Godard. But, as he explains in a brief interview from 1964 that is included with this fine DVD, he was also against film; that is, against the conventions and rules that predominated French cinema. So he introduced unconventional methods of telling stories and making movies and decided to include elements that films typically left out. "Band of Outsiders" is a playful, unconventional, mesmerizing tale of small-time gangsters and young love set in 1960s Paris. Its source material runs the gamut from the pulp crime novel on which it is based to the American B-movies and film noir that inspired its look. It's Godard's best love letter to Paris since "Breathless," and also one of the last of his true New Wave films.
The story might be simple enough: Arthur and Franz enlist the help of the young, beautiful Odile to stage a robbery. But if the story is simple,...
Godard bids a fond farewell to the New Wave.
'Band of outsiders' is Jean-Luc Cinema Godard's most endearing film - a teen movie played by adults, a love story, a heist movie, a serial, a slapstick comedy, an anthology of New Wave magic. As with previous films, Hollywood genre is made a complete nonsense, continually deflated by extended bits of business, my favourite being the attempt to beat the record for racing down the Louvre's corridors just before the heist.
As with all early Godard, the joy of 'Band' is in the bouyant playfulness of his style - the high, long shots looking down on bustling activity; the long car-journeys through Paris streets; the intense close-ups on Anna Karina (Godard's wife), eluding all meaning, or the sheer rapture in watching her running along pavements, or crossing a river; the messing around disused yards; the lengthy quotes and allusions that stall the action and give resonance to the silly goings-on and the turmoil of the characters in them; the unwavering long takes with exciting real...
Godard at his best!
Clearly Godard's camera is in love with Anna Karina and this instructs the entire film. That face: Those big almond shaped eyes; innocent, curious, mysterious, mischievous. Odele caught in the prison of her budding sexuality. Oscar and Alex stuck in a web with her, each trapped for different reasons, but all three caught in a struggle manipulated by the puppet master, Godard. "Three weeks earlier, a pile of money. An English class. A house by the river. A romantic girl." A story as improbable as the "legend" of Billy the Kid! This film is derived out of a mixture of boredom, desire and desperation from a filmmaker at odds between love and revulsion of Americana and the cinematic experience in general. One often wonders if making movies is Godard's guilty pleasure. Rather than construct a story, he often seems more interested in deconstruction. His Paris is visually stark and cold, but there is also much beauty. Sadness and beauty: "it all depends upon how you frame the picture." Again...
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