A Woman is a Woman - Criterion Collection

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One of the landmark early films of the French New Wave, director Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless) weaves a tale of desperation and deceit. Anna Karina (Vivre Sa Vie) plays a stripper determined to have a child in the hopes that it will better her life. She tries in vain to convince her rough, selfish boyfriend (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to father the child, but he refuses. In desperation and sparked by anger she turns to his best friend to father the child, setting off a new round of recrimination and betrayal. Une Femme Est une Femme is one of Godard's first films and essential viewing for fans of the Nouvelle Vague, to chart the beginnings of the detached mood and style that influenced a coming generation of films. --Robert Lane

Description

With A Woman Is a Woman (Une Femme est une femme), compulsively innovative director Jean-Luc Godard presents "a neorealist musical, that is, a contradiction in terms." Featuring French superstars Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Jean-Claude Brialy at their peak of adorability, A Woman Is a Woman is a sly, playful tribute to - and interrogation of - the American musical comedy, showcasing Godard#s signature wit and intellectual acumen. The film tells the story of exotic dancer Angéla (Karina) as she attempts to have a child with her unwilling lover Émile (Brialy). In the process, she finds herself torn between him and his best friend Alfred (Belmondo). A dizzying compendium of color, humor, and the music of renowned composer Michel Legrand, A Woman Is a Woman finds the young Godard at his warmest and most accessible, reveling in and scrutinizing the mechanics of his great obsession - the cinema.

Customer Reviews:

A Woman is a Woman.......2007-06-27

Half musical, half madcap New Wave romantic comedy, Godard's highbrow take on a beloved Hollywood tradition remains dazzling not because of the musical sequences, which are jokey and deliberately amateurish, but because of Karina's refreshingly impetuous presence. Brialy and Belmondo play well against her chippy airs, coming off as adorably hip, chain-smoking straight men. With visual and sound gags galore, Godard's playfulness is at its peak in this French valentine to Bob Fosse, Cyd Charisse, and all those fickle, mercurial femmes.

terrible musical screenplay .......2007-04-27

only with watchable pretty actress. this early french movie is a typical clueless french deadbeat. the whole movie is like a randomly patched up work, every scene is independently separated with one another, the sound track and the musical scores are simply terrible, off and on abruptly without any logic connection. you don't need director or editor to make this movie, because it never looks like having both important key persons doing it. you must got high french fever to appreciate such junk and would say anything french is good.

One of Godard's most fun .......2007-03-05

Before the 'umbrellas of choubourg' there was a 'woman is a woman' a film which uses the format of the hollywood musicAL to explore the very nature, at its most abstract, of cinema.. This is some of jean luc godard's best commentary on the art of film-making... It is ablaze in color and glamour, making it one of Godard's most accesible films.. It is unique, however, to the point of questioning its own validity.. This is the first film to fully realize the potential of the new wave to capture the visual imagery of the popular hollywood musical and to turn it against itself.. it is also an introduction to the magic of Anna Karina - an actress with very revealing eyes.. Jean paul belmondo reunites with godard to create a fine companion piece to 'breathless' - they would later come together again in the incompareable 'pierrot le fou'.. One of the top new wave films..

What a Woman Wants..........2007-01-31

"Une femme est une femme" (1961) is the second Goddard's film - his dissection of a traditional Musical and Comedy. It may seem silly and naïve at times but it is a funniest and most enjoyable of his films that I've seen so far. A pretty stripper Angela (Anna Karina) wants a child. She decided to become a respectable bourgeois mother and wife but her dear husband Emil (Jean - Claude Briali) is categorically against her decision. He loves his wife but he loves his freedom even more, and the child means the end of freedom. Angela turns for help to Emil's friend, Alfred (Jean - Paul Belmondo). He is ready to do anything for Angela because he's been deeply and desperately in love with her ...But a woman is a woman and blessed is he who truly knows what she really wants.

3.5/5 or 7/10

Angela est tres mignon!.......2006-06-26

Reading the plot of this film is not going to be helpful to you in gaining a sense of it. It's not about the plot. If film is exclusively about narrative for you, I would suggest that you not buy this film. This film is about the characters, the incredibly adorable Angela in particular, the images, the playfulness and cleverness of the direction, and the music/audio.

Angela is winsome, irresistable. I've been trying to bat my eyelashes to such effect as hers, but with limited success. She pouts, she prances. She tells Emile and Alfred that she will go out with whomever does the most extraordinary thing. At this, Emile and Alfred take turns shadow boxing and generally behaving in a delightfully absurd manner.

We are aware that this is a Godard film from the beginning. The music strangely stops and starts in the opening scene, for apparently no reason. Godard also will focus on a character (Emile) and then do a very slow pan across the room to Angela, and then have some sort of textual explication at the bottom of the screen. In between scenes, he might do a rapid montage of one character's scenes throughout the movie, also for no apparent reason. And of course, his film often refers to film. For example, Alfred, on entering Emile's and Angela's apartment, tells them to make it quick, because "Jules and Jim" is on that night. All of these devices suggest a playfulness that, for me, defines the film. Everytime I see this film (and I have seen it many, many times) I am reminded that great art, and life in general, need not be staid and heavy-handed. We can have a lighter touch, to great effect.

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