new wave film anna karina _design editorial

New wave film

Nยบ15.

a brief history of her life | icon of the nouvelle vague | a troubled relationship love, hate, violence, death | pierrot le fou | movie list infographic poster

A

N

N

A

-

K

A

R

I

N

A

-

nouvelle vague_ anna karina

HANNA KARIN BLARKE

Anna Karina , born

Hanne Karin Bayer.

1

2

“

“

we live in the void of metamorphoses Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer a brief history of her life

written by: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Anna Karina, original name Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer, (born September 22, 1940, Copenhagen, Denmark), Danish beauty prominently featured in French films of the 1960s, notably in those directed by her husband Jean-Luc Godard.

After finishing high school, Anna Karina studied dance and worked as a model for fashion magazines. She appeared in several industrial and independent films, including the noted short film Pigin og skoene (1959; The Girl and the Shoes), which was presented at the Cannes film festival.

She moved to Paris that same year, where her meeting with French New Wave director Godard proved fortuitous for both. Although she turned down a role in his masterpiece Breathless (1960), she made Le Petit Soldat (1960, banned until 1963; The Little Soldier) with him shortly thereafter. The two were married in 1961; their six-year

marriage was not as successful as their professional union. They produced a total of seven feature films together, including some of the most influential films of the 1960s.

Karina played a wide range of characters in Godard’s films, including a nightclub dancer who desperately wants a baby in Une Femme est une femme (1961; A Woman Is a Woman), a lonely, pathetic prostitute in Vivre sa vie (1962; My Life to Live), and a member of a gang of alienated youths who attempt a robbery in Bande à part (1964; Band of Outsiders). In 1965 she starred in three significant French films of the period: Alphaville and Pierrot le fou (Pierrot Goes Wild), for Godard, and Jacques Rivette’s La Religieuse (The Nun). She married director Daniel Duval in 1978, after which her screen appearances were generally unremarkable.

3

Anna Karina, Iconic Actress of the French New Wave.

4

In spite of this diversity, Anna Karina will always be best remembered all over the world for her work in the Godar years.

The Anna Karina of those years is frozen in time, and her legacy is set in stone. To fans everywhere, Anna Karina is always also Marianne in that red dress, Odille dancing, and Nana weeping to Jean d’Arc.

Such serious subject matter was not typical of her work at this time; most of her roles were in lighter fare such as television cop show like Dossiers: Danger immédiat or comedies like Ausgerechnet Bananen (Monkey Business, 1978) and Chaussette surprise and an adaptation of a Hans Christian Andersen short story called The Story of a Mother (1979).

Outside of acting, Anna has carried as a singer. In 2000 she released a CD entitled Une hi toire d’amour.

This was followed in 2005 by Chansons de films, a collection of songs in movies.

She has also written two novels, Jusqu’au bout and Golden City.

In more recent years, Anna has appeared in cameo roles in Jacques Rivette’s Haut, bas, fragile (Up, Down, Fragile 1995), and Jonathan Demme’s The Truth About Charlie (2002), both of which play on her symbolic status as an icon of the Nouvelle Vague. In 2007, she wrote, directed and starred in Victoria, a musical road movie filmed in Montreal, Quebec and SaguenayLac-St-Jean. Variety praised the film as “a pleasant gambol through the backwoods of Quebec… Given plenty of room to work off each other, the members of this fine ensemble keep the picture on track.

5

“In quest of knowlage, I watched night create day...

Away, away says hate, Closer, closer, says love” Alphaville, 1965 - Jean-Luc Godard

r/Amélied’bouvier

Search r/Amélied’bouvier

oc

Amélie d’ Bouvier _coming soon

osts VIEW

SORT

HOT

6

LOG IN

SIGN UP

Godard’s inspiration The pair married in 1961, divorced in 1965 and made eight films together, from Le Petit Soldat through to Made in USA. These roles would prove to be the making of her – although she, by the same token, was the making of them.

Whatever Godard required, Karina provided. She could be headstrong and wayward, gorgeous and broken. She was the effervescent free spirit of the French new wave, with all of the scars that the position entails.

Aside from having the most amazing head of hair in movie history, Anna Karina is best known for being an icon of the Nouvelle Vague. But few know her incredible life story. She was born in Copenhagen in 1940 to an unhappy home with an abusive step-father. Anna dreamed about becoming an actress, it was her heart’s greatest desire, but the sadness and struggle of daily life made that dream seem completely unattainable.

One day in 1958, when the abuse at home reached a boiling point, Anna ran away to Paris.

Just to give you a grasp of this incredible woman’s bravery and resilience in the face of impossible obstacles, she arrived in Paris with the equivalent of $15 in her pocket, and spoke no French whatsoever. She taught herself how to speak the language by watching French movies, over and over again, until she understood what the characters were saying.

More than half a century after snapping her fingers in Bande à Part, Karina is attending a Godard retrospective at London’s BFI Southbank. She is now 75 and comes haring down the corridor like a fugitive from justice – swaddled in a trenchcoat and scarf, her head engulfed by a tan fedora.

7

K

K 8

Icon of the nouvelle vague Amazing head of hair in movie history Aside from having the most amazing head of hair in movie history, Anna Karina is best known for being an icon of the Nouvelle Vague. But few know her incredible life story. She was born in Copenhagen in 1940 to an unhappy home with an abusive step-father. Anna dreamed about becoming an actress, it was her heart’s greatest desire, but the sadness and struggle of daily life made that dream seem completely unattainable.

One day in 1958, when the abuse at home reached a boiling point, Anna ran away to Paris. Just to give you a grasp of this incredible woman’s bravery and resilience in the face of impossible obstacles, she arrived in Paris with the equivalent of $15 in her pocket, and spoke no French whatsoever. She taught herself how to speak the language by watching French movies, over and over again, until she understood what the characters were saying.

Who is Anna Karina?

9

by Natalia Borecka

Anna

K

10

A+K

Jean-Luc Godard NOUVELLE VAGUE STAR ANNA KARINA BEST WORK

Le soleil dans l'oeil(1962) Petit jour (1960)

Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald(1961)

Le petit soldat (1963)

Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux(1962)

Pierrot le fou(1965) Un mari à prix fixe(1965)

Bande à part(1964)

(1967)

MOVIES

De l'amour(1964)

THE mAGUS

A Troubled Relationship

Love, Hate, Violence, Death

Une femme est une femme (A Woman is a Woman, 1961) was a complete change of genre and mood from Godard’s first two features. It was a musical comedy but with a realistic setting about a stripper named Angela, played by Karina who is determined to have a baby and blackmails her boyfriend played by Jean-Claude Brialy into committing to marriage and parenthood, by having an affair with his friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo). During the shoot, relations between Godard and Karina were often stormy. Brialy described their tormented union: “They tore each other apart, argued, loved each other, hated each other, screamed at each other.” Godard had sketched out the scenario for the film long before he met Karina and had originally intended it to be a light-hearted comedy, but the adjustments he made during the filming made the story much more autobiographical, specifically in regard to his relationship with Karina. He used the comedy framework to express difficult truths about their relationship.

The parallels between real life and the movie, were further underlined when Karina became pregnant. Godard insisted that they marry. There were two weddings. The first took place in Begnins, Switzerland on March 3, 1961, followed three weeks later by another in Paris for the benefit of the couple’s Parisian friends and the press. This second ceremony was captured in photos taken

by Agnes Varda, who would cast the couple in the silent movie extract in her film Cléo de 5 à 7 that summer. The couple now had a regular social life, frequently visiting friends like Varda and her husband Jacques Demy to play cards on Sundays, and joining Karina’s friends on trips to nightclubs.

Godard often seemed uneasy in these gatherings and rarely spoke. Obsessed with work, he would spend his time at the Cahiers offices, or say he was going out for some cigarettes and return three weeks later. Meanwhile, Anna was often left alone in the apartment waiting for the phone to ring. Then one night, Godard returned home,

Despite her recent trauma, Anna proved her versatility as an actress in Bande à part, playing Odile, a young woman, who gets involved in a romantic triangle with two petty criminals played

by Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey. She is a captivating presence in the film, at times charming, at others poignantly vulnerable. She later recalled her state of mind at the time of the filming: “I had come out of hospital. It was painful.

Regardless of their separation, Anna and Jean-Luc agreed to work together again on the sci-fi noir thriller Alphaville, in which character joins forces with secret agent.

I had lost the taste for life at that time. In the meantime I had lost weight, I wasn’t doing well, neither in my head nor in my body. It’s true: the film saved my life. I had no more desire to live. I was doing very, very badly. This film saved my life.”

13

During the making of Bande à part, Godard and Karina reconciled, moving into a new apartment in the Latin Quarter. Karina continued working, accepting a supporting role in Jean Aurel’s De l’amour, filmed in April 1964, and a starring role opposite Maurice Ronet in Le Voleur de Tibidabo (The Thief of Tibidado), who was also making his directorial debut.

In the summer of 1966, Anna returned to work with Jean-Luc Godard, as a trench coat wearing private eye investigating the death of a former lover mixed up in the murky world of French colonial politics, in Made in U.S.A. Once again, Godard used the narrative as means to explore his romantic trials with Karina. At one point her character says, “We were hardly seeing each other anymore. I don’t even know whether I still love him, but I owed him something because of what was between us.” Relations were as bad as ever on the set.

Indeed Godard was so unpleasant to his former wife that even cameraman Raoul Coutard was moved to comment that he shouldn’t treat her so badly. Aside from a short film they made together the following year, it was the last time they would work together. In an interview years later, Karina said: “He was and will remain the greatest love of my life.”

14

them). It seems to be a gangster picture: Jean Paul Belmondo leaves his wife and goes to live with his former girlfriend, Anna Karina. She has apparently killed a man. They go on the lam in a stolen car, wind up on a deserted island, play the Robinson Crusoe bit for awhile, and then go back to the mainland to face the music (as Edward G. Robinson might have put it).

But Godard never sticks closely enough to this plot to make it important. He does a curious thing. He will have a scene that is perfectly conventional, like a scene in a Hollywood gangster movie. But it doesn’t come out of anything or lead into anything; it is important because of its tone, its texture and not because it advances the plot. Thus a Godard movie becomes a montage of pure technique; the parts don’t fit together but they add up to an attitude.

Does this make sense? More than any other director, Godard resists being written about.

But let me try an example. Belmondo wakes up in Anna Karina’s apartment. She is in the kitchen.

He is in bed, smoking (a reference, if you will, to “Breathless” (1960)). The camera follows her into the bedroom and back to the kitchen. She sings a song to him. A piano supplies a modest background. It is one of the most charming musical scenes in recent movies. She continues to sing, and goes back to the kitchen.

PIERROT LE FOU Cast Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand Anna Karina as Marianne Graziella Galvani as Maria Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard Produced by Georges Photographed by Raoul Coutard Based on the novel “Obsession” by Lionel White Drama, Foreign, Indie, Thriller First, a brief preface. Every time I review a film

by Jean-Luc Godard, I receive outraged letters from readers who hated it. It is suggested that my reviews and myself join Godard on the trash heap of history; that the customers wuz robbed.

A common complaint is that Godard “made no sense.” And so on.

So let this be a warning: You probably won’t like “Pierrot le Fou.” One of Godard’s films, seen by itself, can be a frustrating and puzzling experience. But when you begin to get into his universe, when you’ve seen a lot of Godard, you find yourself liking him more and more. One day something clicks, and Godard comes together.

And then, perhaps, you decide that if he is not the greatest living director he is certainly the most audacious, the most experimental, the one who understands best how movies work.

In passing, the camera notes a dead body. It is just there. Nothing is made of it, but its presence changes the tone of the scene. Godard goes into a series of three close-ups: of her, of him, of her again. These shots cannot quite be described, but watch the movement of the actors’ eyes.

Instead of moving his camera, Godard moves Belmondo’s eyes so that we “see” Karina moving. And we know she is going past the body again. This is an extraordinarily complex, effective scene: Not that it means anything, but that it is something. It is a feeling, a mood.

“Pierrot Le Fou” marked the beginning of Godard’s current period. Before it came the blackand-white films -- cool, quick and austere, with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships. After it came the Godard of color, wide screen and an increasing preoccupation with politics, American culture, violence, Vietnam and movies. (All of Godard’s films since “Pierrot le Fou” have essentially been movies about themselves a statement hard to explain unless you’ve seen

There are other such moments. At a party for advertising people, everyone talks like people talk in ads. But there is one misfit, an American film director (the auteur hero Samuel Fuller playing himself). He talks about being in Paris to make an action movie. His presence and language, and the movie he plans to make, seem infinitely more “real” than the artificial party. He is shot in full color; the others in tinted monotone.

15

As Belmondo and Karina march across France, they also march through movie history. At a gas station, they steal a car. It is necessary to deal with the gas station attendant. “Wait,” says Karina, “I know a trick from Laurel and Hardy.” She points up. The attendant looks up. She hits him in the stomach. Why not?

But all you can do, in writing about Godard, is to describe such scenes. And they don’t travel well.

Godard, a former film critic, once said that the only valid way to criticize a movie was to make one of your own. That is true of his own work, at least.

Jean-Paul Belmondo, Iconic actor of the French New Wave.

Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo Iconic kiss from the movie Pierrot le fou.

Anna Karina taking a break on the set of the movie Pierrot le fou.

16

Jean-Luc Godard first saw Karina in a soap ad for Palmolive, in which she appeared in a bath up to her neck in soapsuds. At the time he was in the middle of casting À bout de souffle (Breathless) and needed an actress to play the small role of one of Michel Poiccard’s (Jean-Paul Belmondo) previous girlfriends. He sent her a telegram asking her to come to Georges de Beauregard’s office. When she appeared, she found the director waiting for her. He looked at her through his dark glasses and told her she had the job. “Mind you,” he said, “you’ll have to take your clothes off.”

Anna took immediate offence and told him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t take her clothes off. Godard replied, “But I saw you in the soap ad.” At this she lost her temper. “Are you mad? I was fully clothed in those ads, and the soapsuds went up to my neck. It was in your mind I was undressed.” She then stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Later in 1959, after he had finished filming À bout de souffle, Godard sent her a second telegram: “Mademoiselle, this time it’s for the principle role.” Anna was initially reluctant, but friends, including the actor Claude Brasseur, assured her that Godard, on the strength of press reports and the first private screenings of his debut film, was already the most talked about new director in town. Karina presented herself at the audition.

Godard looked her up and down and told her “you’re right for the part. We’ll sign the contract tomorrow.” Anna was shocked. She asked him what the project was about. He told her it was a political film. “But I don’t know anything about politics,” she said. “All you have to do is what I tell you,” was his reply. Then Anna remembered that as a minor she could not sign a contract. “Well then, your mother can sign.” Anna explained that her mother lived in Copenhagen and was still angry with her. Godard said they would get her on a plane and handed Anna the phone. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in a year and her mother put the phone down on her. But another phone call persuaded her, and the next day she arrived by plane. Another crisis was averted when France Soir, the most popular newspaper at the time, published some gossip that said Jean-Luc Godard had found his “amie” for his next film. When Anna read this, she was furious at the implication that she had won her role by becoming the director’s girlfriend.

17

Jean-Luc Godard

a in r a

A

K a n n une

femme est une femme (1961)

indielisboa

indielisboa

indielisboa.com

FESTIVAL DE CANNES 14 - 25 MAY 2019

18