Synopsis
Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.
1961 ‘Une Femme est une femme’ Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Longing for a baby, a stripper pursues another man in order to make her boyfriend jealous.
여자는 여자다, A nő, az nő, 女人就是女人, Eine Frau ist eine Frau, Una mujer es una mujer, O femeie e o femeie, Uma Mulher É Uma Mulher, Kobieta jest kobietą, 女は女である, La donna è donna, Η κυρία θέλει έρωτα
I really love the poster for this movie. the circles, the reds, the text all spaced out like that, the white background. MUAH!
The movie? Also really nice to look at. I want to know what PTA has to say about it because stylistically it is clear as day that Punch-Drunk Love was directly influenced by this. The lens flares, the wide shots, the blue suit and red dress.
It took me a while to calibrate my brain for this movie. The rhythm of any of Godard’s films is the equivalent to the song “gecgecgec” by 100 gecs. This is the only place you’ll find a 100 gecs reference in a Godard review. But my point is once things do start to click and you embrace that rhythm, everything makes a little bit more sense. I’ll probably appreciate this more on a rewatch.
I just introduced Godard to my 16-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter at the same time. Greatest kids film ever.
Son: "She sure is stupid."
Daughter: "She's beautiful so it doesn't matter."
Shockingly playful, given how famously grouchy Godard became later (did somebody dump him or something?). Anna Karina is the clear star but I also love how Jean-Paul Belmondo seems so different from his usual screen persona - not particularly cool, more of a dork. A trifle, maybe, unless you don't consider movies to be trifling.
“you don’t mind undressing for men?”
“no, I despise humanity.”
“so do I!”
things me and angela have in common:
• both virgos who over-analyze everything
• can never decide if she wants to wear her hair up or down - she goes from having it full down, to an updo, and then back to having it full down, to having it half-up half-down all in the same scene and oh my god ME!! also, bangs!
• winged eyeliner
• argues with significant other until she either wins or he angrily leaves the apartment and then she whispers that she loves him through the door
• sad about everything for no reason
• performs dramatic monologues from plays alone in her apartment
• “looks at camera like i’m on the office” meme
• wishes her life was a gene kelly musical
having a silent argument using book titles is something that can actually be so personal
also.. jean-paul belmondo in a turtleneck.. yeah
The Criterion Challenge 2021
Week #2: Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Wow, this was just me sighing for 83 minutes over the aesthetic, the colors, and honestly I’d love to say Jean-Paul Belmondo, but my eyes were on Anna Karina the whole time. 😍❤️
A Woman is a Woman is a barrage full of whimsy, music, and bright bold colors, yet underneath all the playful fourth wall breaking and giddy production design, there is a feeling of loneliness in the way that Angela longs for a baby in order to salvage her relationship with Emile. I am in love with how Godard presents his mise-en-scène despite how others may think that it’s a distraction from the film’s central themes.…
For twenty or thirty minutes there, I thought this was going to be my favorite Godard. It’s certainly the first of his first three features (Le Petit Soldat shot before; released after) that announces what would become his very 60s trademark style. While Breathless is all about breaking from what had become the French tradition of cinema, Woman is a Woman is instead Godard embracing what he loves about cinema: its blending of artifice and reality. Begins as his most Tashlinesque film – at times could resembling a Looney Tunes cartoon in its surrealism (Karina walks through the magic door and fits into a perfectly suited outfit!). Much of Godard’s choices are more or less show-of-ish: removing sound at odd…
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Godard creates a musical that is insistent on separating image and sound, and finding the balance between disparate elements.
A sucker since girlhood for a musical, my beau knew exactly how to lure me into watching my fifth Godard feature in a month—advertise it as a “musical comedy”.
A Woman is a Woman feels like the deconstruction of the American musical, filtered through a European worldview and Godard’s own neuroses regarding his relationship to cinema and his turbulent romance with the film’s star, Anna Karina. There are musical elements, there are comedic elements, but the way in which the narrative feels Scotch-taped together and the tone playfully scrawled out in primary-hued finger paints, it unfolds more like parents having an argument veiled by terse smiles and stilted chuckles while a child earnestly tries to patch things up by premiering their newest…