The plot involves a gang of thieves, a kidnapping and a certifiably burnt-out film director played by Godard. The central characters, Joseph and Carmen, are based on Jose and Carmen in Merimee’s story, with a Beethoven string quartet substituting for Bizet’s music. The conception of Carmen - the woman as a destructive, amoral force - is also close to that of Marianne/Anna Karina in ‘Pierrot le fou’. But typically, Godard is interested not in letting the narrative proceed so much as in brushing it aside. What Pauline Kael aptly calls “the pop clarity” of his sixties movies here gives way to an ambivalent art-cinema overlay on a mix of B-movie plot, a pessimistic wit and modernist-romantic introspection about the relationship between art and life. Awards: Venice Film Festival 1983 - Golden Lion.
Credits: Producer, Alain Sarde ; director, Jean-Luc Godard ; photography, Raoul Coutard, Jean-Bernard Menoud ; writer, Anne-Marie Mieville ; editor, Jean-Luc Godard ; music, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Tom Waits.
Cast: Maruschka Detmers, Jacques Bonnaffe, Myriem Roussel, Christophe Odent, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Villeret, Hippolyte Girardot, Jean-Pierre Mocky.
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How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
X000342
Languages
English
French
Subject category
Foreign language films
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
16mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)