癲狂院 Vixen Owl Cigar..。o○

One of Godard's & the French New Wave's


"I'm Not Without Shame. I'm a Dame !!"
Can Godard's sixties films be anything less than sensational ?
"A Woman is a Woman " remains one of his most magnificent, a dazzling cinematic hymn to the Hollywood musical, and a celebration of his then wife, Anna Karina.
Karina plays Angela, a nightclub stripper who yearns for a baby.
Her practical boyfriend, Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy ) insists that they marry first, and in her frustration she turns to Emile's friend, the romantic Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo )...

This is certainly one of the finest films Godard has ever made and not in spite of the criticisms that could be leveled against it but because of them.
The indifference with which he treats his style and the more traditional styles of movie-making are an irony in and of themselves.
Godard has reached his exalted status (rightly or wrongly ) by abusing technique, both as a storyteller and a filmmaker.
Of course the movie is bad -- almost everything he's made has been bad in it's own special way and that's the point.
He's clearly got intelligence and creativity and he just as clearly has no intention of ever bringing it to any kind of satisfying focus or discernible fruition.
The work itself is a kind of revolution in its violation of aesthetic.
Buying the DVD is more of a political statement than anything else and a foolish waste of money on the part of anyone who's looking to be entertained.
Buying the DVD and throwing it out the window is one of only many things that could be done with it.
It could also be turned into a four or five star coaster.
There are endless applications for this technology, some of which Godard may have already anticipated in the making of this film.

Like nothing you've ever seen before, "A Woman is a Woman ", is a time capsule no doubt , but definitely a masterpiece for all time...

【Anna Karina】Woman Is a Woman【Jean-Claude Brialy】
Way too Good for Americans to Get It..
"A Woman is a Woman " is French Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard's self-proclaimed "neo-realist musical "--"an absolute contradiction ," as Godard has noted, "but that is why I wanted to make the film ."

Given the unproblematized artificiality of the Hollywood film in general, and of the musical in particular -- the characters, the narratives, the soundtracks, not to mention the extreme unlikelihood of spontaneous but elaborately staged song-and-dance numbers in daily life -- triangulated with Godard's enthusiasm for disreputable American film genres (the gangster film in Breathless, the science fiction film, not to mention the film noir, in Alphaville ) and his penchant for that Brechtian verfremmdungseffekt, that interruption of any possible sustained involvement in, if not the "reality ," the "realism " of events transpiring on the stage, the page, or, here, the screen (those notorious jump-cuts in, again, Breathless, for starters ), one can easily see why.
The Hollywood musical is about as unreal(ist, -istic) as a film industry otherwise ostensibly dealing in the "realistic " "representation " of "reality " can get, something that "A Woman is a Woman " demonstrates repeatedly, not to mention hilariously.

Beginning with the soundtrack.
While songs are largely done away with, there is a dance number of sorts, awkward albeit charming in its self-consciousness as something that should not, could not possibly be happening.
Often, however, the real action is coming from the speakers rather than the screen.
String-laden schmaltz romanticisms (courtesy of French soundtrack maestro, Michel Legrand ) well up and fade, only to restart with the drop of a coin in a jukebox.
Musical figures dance with dialogue with the daffy deftness of a Carl Stalling cartoon score.
Ambient street noises are heard arbitrarily, and occasionally even the crew can be heard in the very act of filming the film.

There is a narrative, though, of course, it's not quite of the standard Hollywood boy-meets-girl variety.
Striptease dancer (and eventual ex-Mme. Godard ) Anna Karina -- at her most absolutely adorable here, her first act being to enact the film itself, winking at the audience through that much-vaunted, and by Godard much-violated, "fourth wall" -- wants a baby, but boyfriend Jean-Claude Brialy won't cooperate.
Enter coolest-actor-in-the-world-contender (Mifune, Mastroianni, McQueen, Coburn, Jackson ) and Godard ensemble player, Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Speaking of triangulation ....

Ye-ye girl Nicole Paquin is the best friend, fellow auteur Francois Truffaut favorites Jeanne Moreau and, in effigy, Charles Aznavour make cameo appearances, conversations are held entirely via book titles displayed on dust jackets, the cast is required to supply its own wardrobe (which makes one wonder just why Karina had a sailor suit at hand), and things are both far more complicated and far more entertaining than they've been made out to be here ...

All in all, it's a very funny movie, very different from the rest of Godard's work.
You'll have a good time watching it and if you've never seen a Godard movie, you'll go "what the....? Why is he on a bike?!" or... "why do they carry the lamp around? "
With Godard, try not to ask too many questions, just go with it and enjoy the ride