My Life to Live
(Vivre sa vie)
Screening on Film
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
With Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, André Labarthe.
France, 1962, 35mm, black & white, 85 min.
French with English subtitles.
With Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, André Labarthe.
France, 1962, 35mm, black & white, 85 min.
French with English subtitles.
Using interview techniques, direct sound, long takes, texts, quotations, and statistics, Godard creates a documentary tone for this film about Nana S. (Karina), a girl from the provinces who can’t pay her rent and is initiated into prostitution in Paris. Godard’s film is a probing and dazzling examination of prostitution but, above all, a passionate celluloid love letter to Karina, then the director’s wife. His close-ups of her face bring to mind the incomparable faces of another era: Louise Brooks, Lillian Gish, and Falconetti.
