Product Details

• Actors: Anna Karina, Saddy Rebbot, Gilles Quéant, Jean Ferrat, André S. Labarthe
• Directors: Jean-Luc Godard
• Format: Black & White, Full Screen, Special Edition, Subtitled
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion
• DVD Release Date: April 20, 2010
• Run Time: 85 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0035ECI0I
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,480 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Vivre sa Vie (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave were at the height of their power and creativity when Godard released Vivre Sa Vie (Living Her Life) in 1962. And watching it again, years later, instantly transports one to the era where an offhand remark, a lazy circle of cigarette smoke, a sidelong glance, a disaffected "I don't care about you" could all communicate deep, conflicted longing, alienation, postwar malaise, and infinite possibility. In fact, watching Vivre Sa Vie, starring Godard's lovely muse, Anna Karina, is at once both enervating--and exhilarating. The film is subtitled Film en Douze Tableaux, and the story shows Karina as Nana in 12 different short films, snapshots of her lonely, seemingly aimless life--in scenes that stay with the viewer for days afterward. In the very first tableau, Nana and a former lover, Paul (André S. Labarthe), are having a sad, disjointed conversation in a café--are they breaking up? Getting back together? The pain and power of the scene lies in its ambiguousness. And Godard and his brilliant cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, shoot this initial scene, of the most intimate conversation between two lovers, entirely from behind them. The sad, longing remarks, barbs, halfhearted entreaties--they are all communicated while the viewer looks just at the back of Karina's sleek black bob and Labarthe's scruffy hair. Only near the end of that scene, as the viewer is practically craning forward to connect to the characters, do we get a glimpse of half of a cheek, one eyebrow. And from this moment, Godard and the cast have the viewer enthralled. In a later tableau, we watch long, uninterrupted scenes of The Passion of Joan of Arc--in itself a treat--and the supposedly disaffected heroine Nana weeping rivers of tears, silently, in the theater. There are many layers to this lovely young woman, and each of the 12 snapshots of her life reveals more. Nana's life becomes a tragedy, as she descends into prostitution--yet along the way, her luminescence is revealed in small ways. In one scene, she recalls a writing exercise from when she was a child. "Birds are creatures with an outside, and an inside," she recites. "When you remove the outside, you see the inside. When you remove the inside, you see the soul." The shattering beauty of Vivre Sa Vie is that Godard and Karina allow us to see the outside, then the inside, and then finally, the soul. The Criterion Collection edition offers true cinema riches, especially in an interview with Karina from 1962, several modern commentaries putting Godard and the film in its historical context, reportage from early-'60s France on the dire situation of prostitutes at the time, a booklet of film criticism, and much more. --A.T. Hurley

Product Description

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 is 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite Godard films, April 21, 2010

By 

Le_Samourai - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vivre sa vie (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

My Life to Live is a highly stylized and extraordinarily unformulaic adaptation of a simple premise: a young woman, seeking the freedom and excitement of, what Federico Fellini calls La Dolce Vita, leaves her family to pursue an acting career, only to turn to a life of prostitution. From the opening sequence showing a detached, seemingly clinical exhibition of Anna Karina's face and profile, followed by an uneasy dialogue between Nana (Karina) and Paul (Andre-S. Labarthe) filmed at an angle showing the backs of their heads, we are introduced to the singular, iconoclastic vision that is Jean-Luc Godard. Stripped of expression and sentimentality, Godard, nevertheless, succeeds in creating a film that is visually stunning and full of pathos. We are drawn to Anna, not because of her seductive persona or compassionate actions, but because she is humanity, lost and desperate, incapable of comprehending her misery nor articulating her pain (Note the parallel character of Antonio Ricci in Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief.

Godard's revolutionary camerawork transcends nouvelle vague novelty: it serves as a cinematic extension of Nana's soul. The awkward angles and long panning shots during Nana and Paul's conversations reveals the underlying tension and emotional distance between them. Deeply affected (understandably) by Maria Falconetti's performance in Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, Nana's conversation proceeds in silent film intertitles - reflecting her own suffering and innate desire to achieve greatness and escape the banality of her sordid life. The seamless camerawork following Nana as she dances uninhibitedly around the billiard room feels intoxicating, almost mesmerizing - a fleeting glimpse of the few brief moments of pure joy she has ever known. My Life to Live is a truly remarkable film: a synthesis of artistic vision and moral tale, suffused with haunting melody, the ballad of a contemporary tragedy.

1.0 out of 5 stars Wrong DVD sent, January 16, 2012

By 

Thaddeus S Beblowski Jr (Nassau, New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vivre sa vie (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

The cheeper blueray disk was sent while I was charged for the more expensive DVD. I returned it, since I do not have a blueray player. So I cannot rate the disk.

5.0 out of 5 stars A GEM OF THE FRENCH NEW WAVE, January 14, 2012

By 

Robert - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vivre sa Vie (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

A fan of Godard's work, I had seen excerpts and the trailer on YouTube, which finally impelled me to buy this Blu-Ray disc. I love this film on many levels.

Primarily, I wanted to see the Paris of 1962 again, the Paris of my first visit as a child, to smell the Gitanes and Gauloises, to see the people, the cafés, the streets; the true Paris before it became an imitation of itself. I still love Paris, and am conscious of some of the less positive changes, but choose to ignore them (as much as possible). I mention this because Paris is very much a character in the film and is the page upon which the story has been written. People who knew Paris in earlier years will especially appreciate it. There is even a great shot of people standing in line for Truffaut's "Jules et Jim". Shots like that give it somewhat a documentary feel, of being there in the present; and also it is somewhat of a time capsule of life in that time and place.

Secondly, I of course love Anna Karina who is incredibly beautiful and has such a lovely inner quality, plus her Danish accent drives French guys like me crazy (lol). But when you see the filmed interview that comes with the disc, you will see how different she is in "real life" and appreciate even more her work as an actress, even if the character of Nana was a co-creation with Godard. I wanted to see her in this film also because she was not yet really a big star, and I find there is less self-awareness in performance in the early part of a career, which is more interesting to watch.

Thirdly, I love the way Godard explores new ways of telling a story on film. This was the type of film-making that inspired me in film school, and there are so many lessons one can learn from him. I find watching his work really can open up one's mind, inspire creativity, and help one think outside the box. So many films today seem very packaged and formulaic, so Godard for me is particularly refreshing. Only 83 minutes long, this film seems to have more in it than some major epics.

The opening of the film looks a bit grainy, perhaps because of the low light exposure, and I wondered if the blu-ray made an appreciable difference in definition, but as the film continued I saw that the blu-ray does add to the clarity and was worth getting.

The story itself is tragic, so be prepared for that, even if there are some wonderful lighter moments. One's heart breaks for all the Nana's who have met the same fate, but even so, Nana takes full responsibility for her actions. Godard asserts that she was able to "keep her soul", but I doubt this is often true in real life. In any case, it is refreshing to see a film from a time when one could have a 10-minute philosophical discussion on film, which I think would not really even be possible in France today. Don't expect to be titillated though, and I greatly admire Godard for this, especially with the subject matter. Today everything would unfortunately have to be very graphic, but Nana never is shown in more than the beginning stages of undress or finishing dressing. There are a few nudes in one scene, but each is more like a brief "still life". As a result, the sordidness of the "profession" becomes very real and believable, and for me it is proof that in film too, less is more.

There are a few nice extras, such as the interviews with Karina, and film prof Jean Narboni. And there is an interesting documentary about prostitution in Paris at that time, including an interview with the author of the work upon which the film is based. I would have liked to have an interview with Godard from the period, but it is not on this disc. The film however is itself very telling about Godard and his feelings about filming Karina, his wife at that time; feelings he expresses in a voice-over reading of the "Oval Portrait" by Poe, a story of an artist and his muse. "Vivre Sa Vie" is very much such a story.