Danish-born (in 1940) actress Anna Karina, who was married to nouvelle vague enfant terrible Jean-Luc Godard (who was born in 1930) from 1961 until 1967 is forever fresh and carefree in "Bande à part" (Band of Outsiders, 1964), "Une femme est une femme" (A Woman is a Woman, 1961) and "Le Petit Soldat" (The Little Solider, 1963) -- and as a zombified love object in "Alphaville" (1965) and as an arbitrary flibbertigibbet in "Pierrot le fou" (Pierre goes crazy, 1965). Her immortality rests on the films she made with or for Godard, though she also was memorable in Jacques Rivette's "Le religeuse" (The Nun, 1966) Tony Richardson's "Laughter in the Dark," Rainer Marie Fassbinder's "Chinese Roulette" (1976), and, especially Franco Brusati's "Bread and Chocolate" (1973) and appeared in some disastrous Hollywood adaptations (Justine, The Magus).

In "Vivre sa va" (literally, to live one's life, the usual English-language title is the more assertive "My Life to Live"), as Nana, the record-store clerk who wants more money and turns to prostitution to get it, Karina is involved in almost every second of the 80 minute running time. (There is one conversation in which she is heard but not seen; otherwise she is almost always onscreen.) Her charm and even her modesty are not undermined by the work. It seems that she becomes proficient and professional -- and treating sex work as work is the epitome of professionalism in "the world's oldest profession."

Nana looks just a bit more whorish, but is still fresh and interested in the world and other people when she decides she wants to quit the streetwalker trade, as her friend and role model Yvette (G. Schlumberger) did. Her pimp, Raoul (Sady Rebot). is not willing to let her go, sells her "contract" to someone else, and in a death scene even hokier than the one with which (Breathless) ends, she is shot by both new and old pimps. The epigram from the movie derives from Michel Montaigne: "Lend yourself to others but give yourself to yourself." Nana rents her body to others but does not giver herself to anyone, but is betrayed by trusting that her contract is terminable (while she is marketable at least). Seemingly, even where prostitution is legal, the prostitute gives herself to a pimp -- and in Nana's instance, the first one whom she happens to meet.

Not before having a lengthy discussion about thought and words and the inseparability of thoughts and words in a cafe with philosopher Brice Parain (playing himself or a caricature of a pipe-smoking philosopher).

The jaggedness of the editing was jolting to 1960s audiences, but has become commonplace. I still wonder why Nana wanted or needed 2000 francs at the start of the movie. And what the interlude of gunfire was about (and why it was included) I still find the lengthy opening scene of the back of Nana's head as she sits conversing at a bar with her boyfriend Paul (André Labarthe) annoying and the discussion with the philosopher tedious as well as pretentious, revealing nothing about Nana's character beyond some frustration at not being able to say all that she wants to say. And there is another scene in which Karina is not seen in a conversation she has. Since Godard had Raoul Cotard shoot it that way to put off audiences, I am ready to pay it my tribute of being annoyed by it.

Karina's inherent likability carries me along through several minilectures Nana receives from Raoul about her new profession. She can withstand the scrutiny of the many tight closeups, though she doesn't emote. The exception is the tear that forms as she watches Falconetti (in tight closeups) being interrogated by Antonin Artaud when she goes alone to watch Dreyer's intense 1928 silent film "Passion of Joan of Arc."

With a haircut reminiscent of Louise Brooks (in "Pandora's Box"), Karina is a 1960s (re)incarnation of the inscrutable, unsullied prostitute... who is killed in the end. Nana lacks the joy of Karina's third of the band of outsiders, but is not as blank as in "Alphaville" (Nana says she was in a film with Eddie Constantine, which is funnier knowing that Karina would in a film starring Constantine -- "Alphaville" in 1965) or as Bardot is in "Les Mépris" (Contempt, 1963), Godard's other early look at objectifying women. (I think he was agin' it, but the project of showing your wife as a prostitute and killing her off raises questions in my mind about the extent to which Godard saw himself as pimping his wife onscreen. I very well remember that in the French New Wave film class in which I first saw "Vivre sa vie," my classmates considered the suggestion that there was any autobiographical link silly even though the conception and execution of the story of this woman was Godard's, not an adaptation of some literary property, like, say Zola's Nana.... I wish I could find the papers I wrote for that course, especially the one on Resnais films...)

The transfers on the Fox Lorber DVD are good, but there are no bonus features. (Karina appears in a DVD bonus feature on the "Bande à parte" DVD.)


© 2008, Stephen O. Murray


This is a French find for Barbara's French find writeoff.

Recommended:
No