Fri 11 at 8:00 Morton 235

Band of Outsiders (Bande à Part)

France, 1964, 97 mins, 16mm print
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Anna Karina, Sami Frey


As anyone who has seen a Godard film might guess, there is very little concern for plot--the attraction of BAND OF OUTSIDERS lies not so much in its actual story as in Godard's telling of it. His voice-over narration is confrontational; his characters talk to the screen; there exists a strange, somewhat uneasy relationship between comedy and violence; and the frame is filled with various allusions to film, literature, and Godard himself. This was his seventh film in only five years and, as in Truffaut's SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, it attempts to find a new truth by retelling a familiar story in a new way. Particularly memorable is the trio's nine-second tour of the Louvre. If this film is less engaged with social and political realities than most of Godard's other work from this period and seems like nothing more than a playful attempt to re-create an old Hollywood genre, one must remember that even a lesser Godard is likely to be much more stimulating than another director's better films. At the height of his impish self-awareness, the filmmaker credits himself here as Jean-Luc Cinema Godard. Among the more entertaining of the director's output; looks delightfully mellow today. Short to follow: Starewicz Shorts

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