Amazon.com essential video: Jean-Luc Godard's fourth feature, released in 1963, was only the second of his movies seen in the United States (he had made six by this point). It seemed so formal and contained in comparison to his impassioned debut, Breathless, as to bewilder many people who had not viewed the works between (The Little Soldier, A Woman Is a Woman) or the two after (The Soldiers, Contempt). My Life to Live was also an intensely personal project, a fictional series of tableaux starring Godard's wife, the Dutch actress Anna Karina, as a Parisian salesgirl who leaves her husband to become an actress but then drifts into prostitution. Embracing a favorite, romantic theme of European filmmakers--the soulful heroine who sacrifices her body to the world's demands but maintains her self and purpose (think of Max Ophuls's Lola Montes, Carl Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc, and Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves)--Godard wed Karina's image to the tradition and then wed the tradition to his abiding interest in cinematic deconstruction and reconstruction. When Karina weeps while staring at a film clip of actress Maria Falconetti--as Joan in Dreyer's 1928 film--weeping (with Falconetti essentially a reversal of Karina, i.e., a French actress in a Dutch film), the boundaries of My Life to Live would almost seem to explode from the pressure of Godard's relentless crossing-over between film as an audience experience and film as an experience of itself. The fact that My Life to Live is actually rather muted in its energy and formal in appearance only heightens its extraordinary tensions. Highly recommended. --Tom Keogh
The Finest of the French New Wave Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) is perhaps one of the greatest films ever made. It is surely the epitome of the French New Wave Movement that launched a totally new view of filmmaking to the world.
The film stars Anna Karina as Nana a young and beautiful woman of Paris. She is dissatisfied with her life as a young mother. She leaves her husband/boyfriend(?) Paul to take up the life of an actress. Having no money she resorts to prostitution, first on her own and then with a pimp named Raoul(Sady Rebbot).
The film is presented in twelve parts (Film en douze tableaux)each showing a segment of Nana's life each with its own title card. Each segment beginning or ending on a closeup of Karina's face.
This is truly unique cinema. Godard's framing and film grammar are the stuff of film school classes. The music by Michel Legrand helps set the tone to perfection and the black and white photography by Raoul Coutard is stunning. The camara is not so much a device but a character we are the camara as it is constantly moving and watching. It expresses the way one person views another. The film shows us the outside of characters without ever getting into motivation. Things, like life, just happen.
The disc by Fox Lorber is pretty bare bones but this is one film that needs to be seen by any serious student of film. Seek this one out. It has been said that it may be out of print soon as ideas of what make good film vary from year to year. This is a must have for any collection.
One of Godard's finest films deserving a restoration. My Life to Live (Vivre sa Vie: Film en Douze Tableaux) is among my five favorite Godard films. (Others I would include on that list include Band of Outsiders (Bande à part), Breathless, and Pierrot le Fou.) Anna Karina (Godard's wife at the time) plays Nana, a Parisian mother and aspiring actress whose financial circumstances lead her into a life of prostitution. Godard's film is no Hollywood Pretty Woman. It takes a cinéma vérité, documentary approach toward its subject, separating the film into 12 tableaux, to examine the life of a prostitute from a sociological perspective. Those twelve revealing tableaux titles include:
Tableau one: A bistro. Nana wants to leave Paul. Pinball. Tableau two: The record shop. 2000 francs. Nana lives her life. Tableau three: The concierge. The passion of Joan of Arc. A journalist. Tableau four: The police. Nana is questioned. Tableau five: The outer boulevards. The first man. The hotel room. Tableau six: Yvette. A café in the suburbs. Raoul. Machine gun fire. Tableau seven: The letter. Raoul again. The Champs Élysées. Tableau eight: Afternoons. Money. Wash-basins. Pleasure. Hotels. Tableau nine: A young man. Nana wonders if she's happy. Tableau ten: The sidewalk. A man. There's no gaiety in happiness. Tableau eleven: Place de Chatelet. The stranger. Nana the unwitting philosopher. Tableau twelve: The young man again. The oval portrait. Raoul sells Nana.
The resulting film is both intelligent and poetic, offering many insights into Parisian culture of the early 60s (cinema, cafes, pop music, hairstyles, gangsters), and featuring a beautiful score by Michel Legrand. Cultural critic, Susan Sontag, describes Godard's film as "a perfect film." I agree, but my one, small complaint with this DVD relates to its poor film-to-DVD transfer quality. My Life to Live deserves a quality restoration by Criterion.
G. Merritt
One of the very best of the French New Wave My life to live is movie which breaks all of the rules of movies... From the opening shots the darkened profile of anna karina, to the opening scene in which the backs of the two characters in conversation are filmed.. this is Godard a man who loves to confront his audience and to challenge his audience.. But My Life to Live is more than just experimentation in celluloid, it is also a tale of a woman who falls into a life of prostitution.. and it delves into such topics as philosophy, religon, and poetry.. This is a perfectly paced film - each chapter illustrating something the director wants to tell us of the characters.. It is one of the rare gems of the new wave.
A Masterpiece; Truly, A Great Film. Jean-Luc Godard's "My Life to Live" is a great film with a form of storytelling that has found its way into such films as "Edmond" and "Jesus' Son" (the latter more than the former, even though the latter was based on a book). It's a legendary film; usually a favorite of Godard's right behind "Breathless" and, to this day, it's still incredibly poignant and unique. It doesn't unfold like a regular film, but is separated into chapters. Vignettes, if you will, that are almost unconnected. Sure, it's got the same characters but there is never a reference to a previous chapter. It's like life and that's exactly how it unfolds. The main character is named Nana (played by Anna Karina, who was married to Godard at the time). In the beginning of the film she abruptly leaves her husband and child (brings to mind an early scene in "Edmond" actually) and plays pinball. She works in a record store. She tries to get some money. She tries to steal the key to her flat, but is frog-marched away. She goes to see "The Passion of Joan of Arc." Eventually, she becomes a prostitute which leads her to her violent end. And even that scene is brilliant; the camera work here is exquisite. The camera isn't used as a "recording device" here, but rather a "looking device." It's not, really, recording what Nana is doing but watching her. Every scene is right there, happening. No explanation, no character development needed. This is only the 2nd Godard film I've seen (the other was Weekend) and it's clear that he was an experimental director. Being experimental is not hard to do, but doing it this well is hard. I just compared this movie to two other films...Jesus' Son was highly acclaimed, but is now Out-of-Print on DVD...Still available in a lot of places, cheap, however. Edmond received O.K. reviews and audiences don't generally like it. Both those movies are more like this film for the way the story is strung together, not so much for camera angles and such. Why is it that movies like those aren't liked a lot, while this film still thrives? "My Life to Live" is a brilliant little piece of film that I think many people should check out. The only thing one can hope for is a better DVD release, possibly from The Criterion Collection or something. The picture and everything is fine, it'd just be nice to have some bonus features. See this movie, I can't stress it enough. One of the best movies ever made.
GRADE: A
A Moving Picture Book Originality at it's pinnacle, very enjoyable film. Jean Luc Godard is to people what Tim Burton is to immagination, no one covers the true feelings and actions of people like Godard, this is probably my second favorite Godard film, BREATHLESS being the first.
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