Alphaville (Alphaville, une etrange aventure de Lemmy Caution)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Written by Jean-Luc Godard
1965/France/Italy
Andre Michelin Productions/Filmstudio/Chaumiane
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Alpha 60: Once we know the number one, we believe that we know the number two, because one plus one equals two. We forget that first we must know the meaning of plus.[/box]
Second viewing confirmed my opinion that Godard is just too full of himself for me.
The story takes place some time in the future in a city called Alphaville that is run by the Alpha 60 computer and logic. Alphaville looks exactly like the seedier side of 1965 Paris. Our hero secret agent Lemmy Caution (AKA Ivan Johnson) (Eddie Constantine) arrives from the Outlands (New York) on a mission to bring back Professor Leonard Nosferatu Von Braun, who controls the computer, dead or alive.
First he meets Von Braun’s daughter Natasha (Anna Karina) who has been assigned to accompany him on his travels through Alphaville. Then he meets with fellow secret agent Henri Dickson (Akim Tamiroff) who is on the verge of either suicide or murder.
Lemmy and Natasha fall in love – an emotion that is unknown and forbidden in Alphaville. The bulk of the movie is occupied by cool looking strangeness and pretentious philosophy.
Godard reminds me of a precocious teenager who thinks it is brilliant to just stuff every random idea that comes into his head, no matter how obvious or inane, into his movies. My readers are already sick of hearing about what I think about that.
Restoration trailer
I only vaguely remember Alphaville (it’s been almost ten years) but I’ve finally come to terms with Godard and lately I’ve been liking his movies a lot more. I saw Masculin Feminin and My Life to Live in the last few months and I liked them both. But I think my favorite is Week End, which I saw last year.
I’m glad you’ve made peace with Godard. Unfortunately for me the process was the other way around. I kind of liked him and then I noticed his self-indulgence and could never ignore it again.
Hear, hear!
I will join your anti-Godard club with vitriol and spite in plenty.
This could have been really good, an early version of Bladerunner, but because it is Godard it is just pretentious nonsense.
So nice to have another member of the club! Don’t recall your review of this.
Uh, that was a long time ago. I reviewed it as part of the old 1001 movie club so that is like six years ago. I did not like it at all though.
Too bad that club came to an end.
I was sad to see the Blog Club go as well. And without a word of farewell!
I have very mixed feelings about Godard. Quite obviously too full of his own pretentiousness, he still fascinates. This one I actually like a lot, together with the heartrending »Vivre sa vie«.
At some point, my reactions have just become knee-jerk as far as Godard is concerned. I’m not proud of this.