Review: A Woman Is a Woman

Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman, along with his great My Life to Live, remains one of the director’s more accessible works.

A Woman Is a Woman
Photo: Pathé

Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman, along with his great My Life to Live, remains one of the director’s more accessible works. Never heavy-handed, the film defies genre-placement. This subversive musical celebrates female empowerment and takes sly jabs at Hollywood film conventions. Godard’s use of music is at its best here, not to be rivaled until the impeccable, metallic soundscape of Alphaville. Godard pokes fun at film tropes such as the inconsequential supporting players when two detectives inexplicably invade the home of Angela (Anna Karina) and her boyfriend Emile (Jan-Clause Brialy). The film’s absurd underpinnings are heightened by Emile’s need to ride around his apartment on a bicycle. When he refuses to impregnate her, Anna turns to Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to do the job. Godard is a man who loves women but has never really understood them though you’d never know it from watching A Woman Is a Woman. Angela’s emotional turmoil is flatteringly complimented by Godard’s formal yet airy compositions. Angela may be stubborn and irrational but she’s completely hellbent on self-actualization. Godard’s pastiche is self-consciously tongue-in-cheek, riddled with constant references to other films: Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player is mentioned during a game of charades and one character asks “how Jules and Jim is progressing.” Godard’s especially potent reference to Breathless is an act of self-love. A Woman Is a Woman, in the end, is less a film about the perils of romantic love as it is an act of love for the creation of film.

Score: 
 Cast: Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy, Marie Dubois, Ernest Menzer, Nicole Paquin  Director: Jean-Luc Godard  Screenwriter: Jean-Luc Godard  Distributor: Pathé Contemporary Films  Running Time: 84 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1961  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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