An opening title card thanks a friend of Godard's for teaching him to love sound and image. From there comes Godard's building of a narrative through just that, sound and image, except now the sound is structured much more like how the image is in film, by cuts instead of layers, as opposed to the usual synced dialog with music and sound effects underneath.
The genre would be film noir except there isn't a bit of black in it. It's shot entirely in bright, luminescent, primary colors. The narrative is taken from The Big Sleep, but frankly doesn't even matter to how the movie operates, as in one scene Godard deconstructs the whole thing by pointing out that sentences don't have any meaning. In fact, the bar sequence of this film is it's finest part.
This is apparently Anna Karina's last role with Godard, and his eye for her hasn't changed a bit this late in the game. She pretty much is the frame, rather than fills it. Everyone and everything else in this movie is only there to be framed by her.
Savvy self-reflexive dialog ensues. "La mise-en-scene! La mise-en-scene! La mise-en-scene!" (mistranslated laughably in the subtitles of the print I saw as "The charade! The charade! The charade!" Oops.) According to Godard's dialog, this is a Disney film--with blood. I say it's a comic book, and a rather good one at that.
I suppose one could say that this movie isn't "logical" (it certainly doesn't fit the more confined logic of Alphaville and A bout de soufflé), but I'd honestly be surprised if anyone watches this movie for the plot. It's surreal and stagy--that's what this movie is, not how it's made. And yes, it bears Godard's "signature" throughout.
--PolarisDiB
The genre would be film noir except there isn't a bit of black in it. It's shot entirely in bright, luminescent, primary colors. The narrative is taken from The Big Sleep, but frankly doesn't even matter to how the movie operates, as in one scene Godard deconstructs the whole thing by pointing out that sentences don't have any meaning. In fact, the bar sequence of this film is it's finest part.
This is apparently Anna Karina's last role with Godard, and his eye for her hasn't changed a bit this late in the game. She pretty much is the frame, rather than fills it. Everyone and everything else in this movie is only there to be framed by her.
Savvy self-reflexive dialog ensues. "La mise-en-scene! La mise-en-scene! La mise-en-scene!" (mistranslated laughably in the subtitles of the print I saw as "The charade! The charade! The charade!" Oops.) According to Godard's dialog, this is a Disney film--with blood. I say it's a comic book, and a rather good one at that.
I suppose one could say that this movie isn't "logical" (it certainly doesn't fit the more confined logic of Alphaville and A bout de soufflé), but I'd honestly be surprised if anyone watches this movie for the plot. It's surreal and stagy--that's what this movie is, not how it's made. And yes, it bears Godard's "signature" throughout.
--PolarisDiB