Ah...Anna.

Anna Karina is not only an incredible actress who has been in seven of Jean-Luc Godard's movies, she is also a model, singer and novelist, even to this day she is still active.

Originally from Denmark, the moved to Paris at age 17 and very quickly was approached by an advertisement company, became a fashion model and met Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel, who advised her to use the name Anna Karina instead of her real name Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer.

I found a fairly recent interview of Anna Karina, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Serge Gainsbourg who she collaborated with on a musical. (The interview is not translated in English sadly, but here's the video anyway!)

In that interview, she talks about how she ended up in that musical called Anna."I simply got a phone call saying "Would you like to be in a musical?" I was so happy, it was my dream, ever since I was a little girl. When they said it would be called Anna, I asked them why they chose my name. They answered "Because we haven't found another title!" "

Serge Gainsbourg wrote and collaborated with Anna on seven songs in that musical, two of which are "Sous le Soleil Exactement" and "Roller Girl" who were great successes at the time.

 

 Anna Karina - Sous le Soleil Exactement

 

Serge Gainsbourg's version of Sous le Soleil Exactement 

  

In 2010, she has collaborated with a French singer Philippe Katerine (known as a very eccentric "crazy" performer in France) for the audio version of her rewrite of "The Ugly Duckling". She said about this novel by Hans Christian Andersen: "I modernized it. It's the first story I read when I was little. Immediately I felt close to the ugly duckling. When I was little I was very ugly. I'm not pretty today but I was a very ugly girl until the age of 13-14. It's around that time that boys started turning around in the street to look at me and sometimes they would whistle!" she says laughing and hiding her red face behind her two hands. "It doesn't seem like it, but I am very shy."

DORT ON BRECHT/GODARD AND BRECHT

Written in 1960 and published in the Cahiers du Cinéma, Bernard Dort's text "Towards a Brechtian criticism of Cinema" exposes the Brechtian methods, aims and structures in theater and how those can be looked at in cinema, though Dort says that Brechtianism "rejects and strongly refuses all relation with the cinema in its open claim to be specifically and exclusively theatrical." Though it is specifically theatrical, since Brecht focused on theater, Brechtianism does not exclude cinema per se, and Godard proves it. Brecht's aesthetic is based on the involvement of the viewer in the story to make him an active member of the spectacle. Indeed, rather than implicating the spectator in a piece, Brecht's epic theater turns the spectator into an observer, an active thinker, by creating a distanciation or alienation effect ("Verfremdungseffekt").

Moreover, "the audience should never forget it is at the theater" and will therefore study what it is seeing and instead of being involved in something, it is made to face something of a social and political nature. Brechtian methods remind the spectator that this is a spectacle, would make sources of light visible by the audience, have billboards to indicate the time and place or to summarize action.

Brechtian theories which seem to deny cinema, actually reject its continuity and the viewer's identification with a character, which lead the viewer to become a passive watcher of the action.

Therefore, because of that, one can say that it excludes cinema. But how can a film still be considered Brechtian since in its nature cinema can seem contradictory to the Brechtian philosophy? Can a film not exist as an autonomous language?

Any film author can choose what he wants to deal with in a movie, and it can deal with its own process, a part of alienation coming from Brecht - cinema can chose to reflect cinema and remind the viewer that this is a film we are watching.

In accordance with this perspective, elements of Brechtianism can be found in many of Godard's films, whether it be in "Le Mépris" which deals with the making of a film (film inside a film, "metafilm"). In fact, the credit sequence is given in a voice-over in the opening scene and in the first scene we see a camera filming.

Le Mépris — Opening Scene

Le Mépris — Shooting scene

Another example would be "Week End" where the actors actually comment on the film, such as Roland: "What a rotten film. All we meet are crazy people." The intertitles offer a running commentary on the action: “A film adrift in the cosmos’’ — “A film found on a dump’’—“The Lewis Carroll Way’’—“From French Revolution to Gaullist weekends: freedom is violence.’

In his essay, Dort suggests when giving the example of Dudow's 1932 "Kuhle Wampe" that a modern viewer wouldn't grasp the message conveyed in the film since it doesn't know the German political and historical references that appear throughout the film.

However, Godard does give us the information necessary to understand the location and time the film is taking place in, though the questions it asks remain timeless in certain cases like in "Vivre Sa Vie".

The most obvious Brechtian element would be the fact that it is divided into twelve parts -"tableaux" - each chapter having a title and a small resume of what is to come, but also like as a commentary of what is to come.

Vivre Sa Vie — First three tableaux

Also, the music used throughout the film is more of a commentary to the film itself and what is happening in the film rather than music "simply" appearing at the peak moments of sadness, to make sure that the audience understands "this is a sad moment", like in most films.

The fact that the music keeps repeating itself also comments on the lack of free will of Nana's character. The movie is divided into tableaux, which breaks with the continuity of film, as we are reminded that it is a film we are watching. Godard also said "“Why twelve, I donʼt know; but in tableaux to emphasize the theatrical, Brechtian side", clearly an strong influence in his films.

A Woman is a Woman

"LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!"
 
This was the first film of Godard's that I've seen. I was about twelve years old and remembered it solely as being this "cute" comedy with a pretty girl in it...

Directed in 1961, (after Le Petit Soldat, Karina's first movie with Godard - which wasn't released until 1963) Godard intended to make a musical, a "comic spectacle" but when he began his relationship with Karina, he added deeper issues and conflicts to the relationship between the two main characters Angela and Emile, making this film somewhat about his life with Karina: she is a heavy-accented Danish entertainer (in the movie she talks about having to call her parents in Copenhagen), they live together but are not yet married.
Originally, Godard wanted to make a musical and too often, it is advertised as being one, but it is rather a film with music, a film with an entertainer who wishes she was in a musical. As Angela says, "Je voudrais être dans une comédie musicale!" ("I would like to be in a musical !").

Since its creation, cinema has been codified whether it be in the script-writing or narration or the relationship of the actor to the camera: looking at the camera, jump cuts or the 180 degree rule were not to be used, so that the action on screen is coherent and understandable, the camera being at the service of the action. Nouvelle Vague filmmakers, in particular Godard, put a stop to this narrative logic. A Woman is a Woman fits into this new wave of thought and film-making: the beginning of the film -which like all of Godard's films is very stylized- is made up of titles in the colors of the French flag, saying  "ONCE UPON A TIME"; "GODARD"; "MUSICAL"; "LUBITSCH" etc. 

The credits end when we hear "LIGHTS" with a photo of Brialy, "CAMERA" with a photo of Karina and "ACTION!" with a photo of Belmondo. 

Godard makes the viewer aware that it is a film that is being watched, whether the actor is actually commenting on the film (like in Weekend Roland: "What a rotten film.") or making a film in several chapters, or tableaux, like in Vivre Sa Vie. In A Woman is a Woman, Karina winks at the camera, Belmondo comments into it about Karina when she leaves "et elle s'en va" ("and she leaves.") and Karina even tells her lover that he has to greet the spectators, so they both bow into the camera, it is almost like a spectacle we are watching.

As for the production of the film, this was Godard's first Cinemascope and color film, which not only affected the size of the crew and the shoot schedule but also the amount of artificial light to be used, which was not to Godard's taste, since him and Coutard mostly used available light in other films. Godard also mapped out the film based on an apartment he was going to rent from a couple, but not too long before the shoot was to begin, the couple withdrew, which made Godard's crew happy since filming in a studio would be a lot easier: the camera would be able to move anywhere since the walls could be shifted, there would be no ceiling, so the lights could be placed anywhere. However, they were quickly disappointed, as Godard decided to construct an exact replica of the apartment, with its walls and ceilings and disadvantages.
As for the dialogue, Godard is known for giving their lines to the actors the same day (which for some actors such as Jean Seberg was a problem, as they couldn't study the character). In A Woman is a Woman, Brialy, Karina and Belmondo would have to learn their lines immediately before shooting, as Godard could not call the lines out to them during shooting because of direct sound, which made Karina -an untrained actress still- run off the set on many occasions.

As Brialy said, "[Godard and Karina] tore each other apart, argued [...] hated each other, screamed at each other." but they loved each other, like Angela and Emile. 

It is a wonderful film, which will never get old. And yes, a woman is a woman. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

-J.