Vivre Sa Vie: Film en douze tableaux

Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1962, 83 minutes

Nana Kleinfrankenheim (Anna Karina), a Parisian shop-girl, divorces her husband and aspires to break into movies. The furthest she gets, however, is watching Renee Falconetti in Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc. Needing money for the rent, Nana drifts into prostitution. Later, Nana appears to have found true love but, now with a brutal pimp/manager, finds herself unable to escape. Finally, she is gunned down in the street.

Working once again with his muse/partner Karina, Vivre Sa Vie: Film en douze tableaux sees writer-director Jean-Luc Godard develop an increasing interest in Brechtian techniques and the theme of prostitution, memes that were to recur again and again in his films such as Le Mepris/Contempt, Two or Three Things I Know About Her and Week-End over the following years.

To Godard modern society compels everyone into a state of prostitution - we all have to "sell ourselves" and do things we do not want to in order to exist, life being comprised of a million banal acts of Sartrean "bad faith" - a situation perhaps best summarised, indeed, by one of Brecht's verses, which Godard was later to cite within Le Mepris:

Every morning, to earn my bread,
I go to the market where lies are bought.
Hopefully, I queue up among the sellers.

But it's also important to emphasise that this is not an impossibly difficult film that takes an hostile stance towards its viewers. Yes, there are techniques and attitudes that are far distant from the mainstream (perhaps more as it was then than it is now, it has to be said) but there also moments of incredible power, not least the vision of Karina, tears on her face, (mis)identifying with Joan of Arc.

Truly great cinema that has the capacity to move us emotionally and stimulate us mentally is rare indeed. Vivre Sa Vie is such a film. Treasure it.

If you have enjoyed this you might also like: Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Klute

Review by David Khune Jr
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2002