Godard didn't deserve Anna Karina.

Clearly liked it a lot more than Breathless. At the end of the day I’m still pretty conflicted on how I feel. Like I love everything about this, the visual language, the editing, the performances, the philosophy in that 11th story. The only thing it’s missing is me giving any sort of shit about this woman. I will say, that final shot is absolutely tragic in the context of the entire film but that can’t be the only time I care about her. Ya know? Still though, I’m sure there’s a Godard for me that I’m gonna love, we’re getting closer.

Oh my God in heaven the machine gun pan.

I wish I cared more about the main character, not sure if I’m supposed to be devoid of empathy towards her, because maybe Godard intended for the film to be more of an objective look into her life. Either way whatever he was trying didn’t really work for me. The dialogue was really fascinating to me (lots of parallelism) and some of the scenes (the opening and the philosophy booth talk) were incredibly intriguing. Unlike Breathless I can appreciate a lot of the artistic choices made by Godard but unfortunately much like Breathless by the end of the film I felt a bit underwhelmed by the whole experience.

7.8 / 10

A stranger talks about the importance of words, when suddenly, Godard jump-cuts to a shot of Anna Karina's piercing eyes looking directly into camera. Afterwards, a man reads aloud a barrage of elegant, lustful prose, and yet all we see is an isolated Karina, framed like a monument against Godard's flat mise-en-scene. Words, images and sounds can only communicate so much. One must combine them to find the soul.

Jean-Luc Godard’s French new wave drama Vivre sa vie communicates a tragic inevitableness to men’s insensitive coveting and subsequent neglect of women. Told in twelve brief vignettes which continually shift style, Godard’s direction expresses his typical scope for a steep cinematic vision yet there's an uncommon tenderness in the movie where the thresholds imposed on the leading character Nana Kleinfrankenheim, portrayed by Anna Karina, are cared for sympathetically.

The film exemplifies an unbound attitude to filmmaking, as can consistently be anticipated from Godard, and there are some interesting discussions contemplating art and philosophy. Components of an assortment of diverse genres spring forth erratically, and the occasional termination of the sound associated with the close-ups of Karina’s face recalls some of the masterworks of silent cinema. It's rather gloomy material, but it touches down in a feminist territory that spotlights the unreasonably restrictive options available to women in the early sixties.

I’m not saying Godard’s a hack ... I’m just saying, he’s kind of a hack.

He loves his fragmented “storytelling,” his lingering but uninteresting close-ups, shooting the backs of his actors, doing lame dolly shots, having stone-faced actors deliver pseudo-intellectual nonsense, and generally trying to make banal, everyday moments worth watching.

And that ridiculous ending. Really? That’s your final thought about prostitution, loneliness, poverty, and youth?

Whatever.

Criterion Challenge #3: A film directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Misogyny, the movie! 
Jk but the fluctuations in tone make this movie so magnetic. Anna Karina’s presence keeps you front and center. So many intimate shots of her which create that sense of emotional connection. The scene where she’s watching The Passion of Joan of Arc is worth it all alone.

I wasn't ready for FIN!?! Man, that was a cold FIN.

Anyways in the Criterion extra features Godard babbles on about how after everyone loved Breathless he was bored and needed to make a film everyone hated so film making would be interesting again. Well I can't speak for everyone but I thought this was a masterpiece. So suck it Godard u arrogant, pompous, brilliant a-hole. 10/10

Criterion Challenge 2021 - Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Godard, Karina and the oldest profession in the world. Its 12 tableaux lined up side-by-side like dominoes ready to be knocked over. Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to this masterpiece.

[ENG] I do not understand all the praise. Beautiful cinematography, some excellent shots, amazing Anna Karina and that's it. Because the rest is, to my taste, simply bad: an empty story, a lazy script, wannabe deep dialogs that are just boring and undeveloped characters. Nouvelle Vague is not my thing, I guess. Or maybe it was the hangover I had today.

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[ESP] No entiendo todas las alabanzas. Una fotografía muy bonita, planos excelentes, maravillosa Anna Karina y ya. Porque el resto es, para mi gusto, simplemente malo: una historia vacía, un guion vago, diálogos pretenciosos que lo único que hacen es ser aburridos y personajes infradesarrollados. La Nouvelle Vague no es lo mío, supongo. O quizás era la resaca que tenía hoy.

My Life to Live is booming with ingenuity, curiosity, intelligence, romanticism, and cynicism - all in under 90 minutes. Godard is simply one of the best at truly exploring what movies are with an exquisitely trained yet fabulously open, creative mind. 

His interest in the power movies have to enlighten or obscure our self-understanding, and that of the world around us, is never a finished product, and to me that’s one of the most attractive things about him as an auteur, and Anna Karina plays a massive part in that here not just in her acting, but in their joint creation as a couple. That comes through quite clearly in a few of the vignettes. I really feel invited on a journey of meaningful discovery in their work.

Really want to watch/read more New Wave crit, because this is the good stuff that helps me see more in the medium of movies than I ever thought could be there.

nossa q brisa eh essa. Um dia eu vou ver de novo pra entender melhor

Anna Karina makes this as good as she possibly can, but I just can't seem to gel with Godard. I feel like Varda did this kind of movie way better with Cleo and Vagabond.

Maybe it'll grow on me with time.

Criterion Challenge #3: Directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

Really enjoyed the visuals, and Anna Katrina's performance is very good -- just overall a little unbalanced through each part; might just need a re-watch!

What life brings before us or what we encounter on the road. Random decisions, will or fate. I am very afraid of being crushed by my dreams one day.