Vivre sa vie: The Lost Girl
By April 22, 2010
It’s easy to get anxious about the place of Jean-Luc Godard in our cultural slipstream. He’s held a top-shelf slot of honor that has seemed unassailable for nearly sixty years, but sometimes Read more »
- France
- 1962
- 83 minutes
- Black and White
- 1.33:1
- French
- Spine #512
SYNOPSIS: Vivre sa vie was a turning point for Jean-Luc Godard and remains one of his most dynamic films, combining brilliant visual design with a tragic character study. The lovely Anna Karina, Godard’s greatest muse, plays Nana, a young Parisian who aspires to be an actress but instead ends up a prostitute, her downward spiral depicted in a series of discrete tableaux of daydreams and dances. Featuring some of Karina and Godard’s most iconic moments—from her movie theater vigil with The Passion of Joan of Arc to her seductive pool-hall strut—Vivre sa vie is a landmark of the French New Wave that still surprises at every turn.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| Nana | Anna Karina |
| Raoul | Sady Rebbot |
| Paul | André Labarthe |
| Yvette | G. Schlumberger |
| The cook | Gérard Hoffmann |
| Elisabeth | Monique Messine |
| Journalist | Paul Pavel |
| The "guy" | Dimitri Dineff |
| The young man | Peter Kassowitz |
| Luigi | E. Schulmberger |
| Philosopher | Brice Parain |
| Arthur | Henri Atal |
Credits
| Director | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Producer | Pierre Braunberger |
| Cinematography | Raoul Coutard |
| Editing | Agnès Guillemot |
| Sound | Guy Villette |
| Assistant director | Bernard T. Michel |
| Sound mixer | Jacques Maumont |
| Sound editor | Lila Lakshmanan |
| Camera operator | Charles Bitsch |
| Music | Michel Legrand |
| Thought out, written, shot, edited, in sum, directed by | Jean-Luc Godard |
Disc Features
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin
- Video interview with film scholar Jean Narboni, conducted by historian Noël Simsolo
- Television interview from 1962 with actress Anna Karina
- Excerpts from a 1961 French television exposé on prostitution
- Illustrated essay on La prostitution, the book that served as inspiration for the film
- Stills gallery
- Director Jean-Luc Godard’s original theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring Godard’s original scenario, an essay by critic Michael Atkinson, interviews with Godard, and a reprint by critic Jean Collet on the film’s soundtrack
From the CurrentView the Current »
Film Essays
An Audacious Experiment: The Soundtrack of Vivre sa vie
By April 22, 2010
This piece originally appeared in La revue du son in December 1962, and was translated by Royal S. Brown for his 1972 book Focus on Godard. When Jean Collet submitted Read more »
Vivre sa vie
By January 07, 1997
Vivre sa vie, made in 1962, was the fourth of Jean-Luc Godard’s films. He had so far turned out a gangster-movie knockoff (Breathless), a dark political picture (Le Petit soldat), and a sort-of-musical comedy Read more »
Photo Galleries
Videos
Press Notes
Press Notes: Vivre sa vie
May 05, 2010
Critics have been lavishing praise on Vivre sa vie, “truly one of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard’s finest” (Dennis Dermody, Paper) since its recent Criterion Collection release. This Read more »
