"Heartfelt, headstrong... Godard's experimental melodrama. What the man and his-then-muse deliver along the way is a joy to behold, as Karina pouts, dances, poses, converses and preens through transcendently long takes. It may have been Nana's life to live, but we voyeurs in the audience are richer for having looked on."
– David Fear, Time Out New York

"Not so much gathered but dissolved into twelve episodes... Despite Godard's many distancing devices and dissociations, Karina's vivacity and soulfulness unify the portrait and make the ending one to grieve over."
-- David Denby, The New Yorker. Click here to read full article

“The best films open doors, they support our impression that cinema begins and begins again with them. Vivre Sa Vie is one of those films.”
– François Truffaut

“Godard’s most classically tragic film and one that has had the greatest practical influence on the subsequent history of cinema.”
– Richard Brody

“A film of extraordinary purity." – Manny Farber

“Starts out as a documentary on prostitution, ending as a Monogram B movie... Its true subject is the enigmatic beauty and troubling presence of Karina.”
– Tom Milne, Time Out (London)

"A PERFECT FILM! One of the most extraordinary, beautiful, and original works I know of."
– Susan Sontag

(1962) As that vital 2000 francs proves elusive, and an ill-placed foot gets her in trouble with les flics, record store clerk and would-be actress Anna Karina slides almost inevitably onto the game. An old and simple story, too often descending into the maudlin — but not here, as Godard’s detached, objective treatment, while also a “passionate celluloid love-letter” to his thenwife/ muse, brings a Brechtian quality to an almost case study of prostitution, while attaining its own kind of pathos. From the initial breakup, shot solely from behind the participants in a bar; to the tearstained viewing of Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc; to the equally tearstained interview with a cop; to the awkward, painful encounter with that first customer; to the voiceover of FAQs while a montage of day-today routine unreels; Godard’s elliptical style finds beauty in the banal via the pearly grays of the great Raoul Coutard’s camerawork. With some typically eccentric asides: the by-hand height measurement (metrically-converted, Karina is 5'61/2"); a test on how to tell a lady from a tramp; a drive past an endless queue to see Jules and Jim; Karina’s café discussion with an elderly man (distinguished real-life philosopher Brice Parain) that ranges from Dumas to Plato to le mot juste to German philosophy; and the legendary exuberant dance around the trying-to-concentrate billiards player. Approx. 85 min.
A JANUS FILMS RELEASE.

“The camera by its discipline discourages us from interpreting Nana’s life in a melodramatic way. . . Curious, then, how moving Anna Karina makes Nana. She waits, she drinks, she smokes, she walks the streets, she makes some money, she turns herself over to the first pimp she meets, she gives up control of her life... The effect is astonishing. It is clear, astringent, unsentimental, abrupt. Then it is over. It was her life to live.”
– Roger Ebert

EVERYTHING IS CINEMA: THE WORKING LIFE OF JEAN-LUC GODARD, a new book by New Yorker writer Richard Brody Listen to the author Richard Brody on The Lenny Lopate Show (WNYC Radio) Listen to our podcast: Introduction of LA CHINOISE by author RICHARD BRODY (MP3 file - Recorded May 14, 2008)