A Woman is a Woman
By Chris Hyde
July 27, 2004
Jean-Luc Godard’s breeziest film sparkles in a spectacular new restoration by the Criterion Collection.
Following the unexpected success of Breathless and the political controversy of Le Petit Soldat, French iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard turned his incisive eye towards his first project shot on color stock, A Woman is a Woman (Une Femme Est Une Femme). Starring a Danish-born revelation named Anna Karina (who was to eventually become the wife of the director), the film is a dazzling display of cinematic technique and onscreen presence. At times referential and at others reverential, this Cinemascope classic possesses an easy charm that is almost unique in Godard’s oeuvre - for there are few of his works that shine with the sort of offhand humor and celluloid love that this one does for its entire 85 minute length.
Like many of the main figures to emerge from the French New Wave, Godard was a perceptive critic in addition to being a helmsman of films. This steeping in cinema tradition helped to lay the groundwork for the radical re-invention of the cinema that the director would undertake in the '60s and early '70s with an amazing run of motion pictures that would both reflect upon and expand the art of the film. Most of Godard’s earliest tales are filled with allusions to other movies and to the Hollywood dreamscape in general, and A Woman is a Woman is certainly no exception to this rule.
A casual reading of the movie turns up references to Robert Aldrich’s Vera Cruz, Ernst Lubitsch, Shoot the Piano Player and the musicals of Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly, among others. To modern audiences well-conditioned to accept this sort of inside celluloid jokery, this technique - as well as some of Godard’s other devices such as jump cutting and dissonant soundtrack cues - may not seem nearly as shocking or as fresh as they were in the year of its release. The four decades that have passed since the film’s debut have dulled the edge of Godard’s brilliance, as many of the methods that he utilized have since become utterly assimilated into the perceptions of the average viewer and as such no longer retain much of their revolutionary flavor.
Putting A Woman is a Woman in its proper historical context, however, allows it to stand as the stunning and innovative work that it is. The story itself is disarmingly simple: a stripper named Angela (played by the breathtakingly vivacious Karina) decides that she wants a child and attempts to cajole her reticent boyfriend (Jean-Claude Brialy) into the deal. When met with much resistance on that front, she turns towards his pal Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and this trio engages in a dance of love, wit and confusion that plays out against a bewitching backdrop of swirling color and blaring sound.
One of the most oft-quoted notes on Une Femme Est Une Femme is the filmmaker’s description of it as a “neorealist musical”, but this provocative summing up seems much more of a bit of Godardian misdirection than a truly accurate reading of the movie. For while the setting of nightclubs, apartments and streets might be somewhat realist in form, the rest of the proceedings are decidedly fantastic: characters wink at the audience and act as if they might burst into song; the soundtrack often intrudes on the visuals and the cinematography oozes with a neon pop candy flavor. But whatever sort of philosophical obfuscation the director might be playing with here in tagging his illusory flight of fancy with a sobriquet more closely associated with gritty tales of the downtrodden, there’s little doubt where the true heart of this film lies - in the exceptional performance of its undisputed star, the exquisite Anna Karina.
Karina’s marvelous turn as Angela is remarkable, with her captivating presence holding things together almost single-handedly. This is not to disparage the excellent dramatic performances of her male co-stars or of the other craftsmen who contributed their skill to the proceedings, but there’s simply no question that this film is ultimately a success due to the magnetic charisma of its lead actress. Carrying off cinematic and literary insinuations without appearing all too self-consciously hip is no easy task, but Karina handles it with an emphatic grace that is almost hypnotic. Her simple existence is distracting both to the audience and the characters onscreen, and this quality allows Godard’s intellectual insights to be given free rein in a playful manner that avoids the rigid humorlessness of his later work. It’s this riveting frivolity that marks Une Femme Est Une Femme as perhaps the director’s most accessible piece of cinema, blissfully free of the sort of polemicism and artful obtuseness that would follow in its wake.
While the contributions of the Karina/Godard team are certainly paramount in assessing this wonderful postmodern “musical”, it would be remiss to dissect this visual and aural treat without at least a brief word on its cinematographer and composer. Cameraman Raoul Coutard collaborated with the director on a number of his movies, but none of the others explode with color in the manner that this one does. The photography here is consistently eyecatching and filled with radiant exuberance, which is worthwhile in its own right as well as echoing the epic style of the musicals that are being celebrated and criticized by the narrative.
The soundtrack of the prolific Michel Legrand is also reflective of the classic song and dance numbers of days gone by, though it’s utilized in a way far different than the traditional let’s-put-on-a-show trope of hackneyed Hollywood history. The musical cues in this instance are much more likely to be off-key in relation to onscreen action than on, and are generally used as counterpoint rather than to underline. It’s a fitting example of the way that Godard apes celluloid tradition throughout the picture while at the same time turning things inside out to create a form that’s completely new; it’s this kind of insightful juxtaposition that brands the '60s work of the director with the mark of a true narrative genius and makes him such an indispensable figure of movie history.
Given their near perfect record in ushering classics into the digital medium, we should be glad that the excellent craftsmen at the Criterion Collection have handled this one’s transition to DVD. The transfer is just gorgeous, and there are some tasty extras included to make the entire package all the more attractive. One is a 20 minute short by Godard entitled Tous Les Garcons S’Appellent Patrick (All Boys Are Named Patrick), a 1957 piece that allows a look at the filmmaker’s early experiments with the medium. There’s also a nice quarter hour television interview with Karina from 1966, as well as extensive photo and poster galleries, the original theatrical trailer and a booklet with a Godard/Coutard interview and a new essay on the movie by critic J. Hoberman. One final bonus is a 35 minute audio promo that is accompanied quite well by graphics inserted by Criterion; it’s this sort of additional material that makes the somewhat steeper priced disks by this company so worth what one has to pay for them.
With last year’s release of Band of Outsiders (Bandé A Part) and this year’s A Woman is a Woman, Criterion has now released the two most accessible works of a cinema legend to the wider public. Far easier to digest than the denser films of Godard that would follow, both of these early projects shine with a love for film while at the same time they blaze their own unique path into cinema history. The pair also act as showcase for the adorable Anna Karina, and this current DVD especially makes a lustrous testament to her particular qualities as an actress. But it’s a tribute to the artistic skill of the movie’s maker that the greatness of this one doesn’t simply revolve around the attractive presence of its star; to the contrary, there is so much more here that ruminates upon the peculiar art that is cinema that it bears repeated viewings to catch all of its masterful ramifications. Few films before or since have so successfully expanded the art while also expounding so smartly on its past - it’s an authentic masterpiece, and to have it issued in this form is a bravura performance by the company that has brought it back to us.
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