Band of Outsiders - Criterion Collection (1964)

"Love is being stupid together." - Paul Valery

A really, really great movie. Simple, minimalist, and very expressive. As other people probably mentioned, the "minute of silence" and ensuing dance scene are worth watching the film for, for reasons which, like much of this film, I have a really hard articulating why...
Recommended for the sickly romantic and fans of beautiful, blessed inanity! August 23, 2008

Essential French cinema: Godard's 'Bande à part .'

Band of Outsiders (1964) is perhaps Jean-Luc Godard's (1930) most accessible French New Wave film. Drawing from politics, film history, French intellectualism, existential and Marxist philosophy, Godard's radical films challenged the conventions of Hollywood cinema. He describes this film as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka." It tells the simple story of two would-be criminals, Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey), who both fall in love with Odile (Anna Karina), a naive student in their English-language class. The three free-spirited outsiders conspire to rob Odile's aunt. (Godard considered Karina to be his artistic muse, and the two were married from 1961 to 1967.)

The unlikely trio of Godardian gangsters create film history against a Paris backdrop in three unforgettable scenes. In the first, Arthur, Franz, and Odile decide to observe a minute of silence in a crowded café, and the film's soundtrack falls into 36 seconds of total silence. In the second, Odile, Arthur, and Franz perform a spontaneous dance (called "the Madison dance") in the same cafe. (This scene later inspired the Uma Thurman-John Travolta dance in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (Two-Disc Collector's Edition).) In the third, the three attempt to break the world record for seeing the Louvre in just nine minutes and 43 seconds.

Romantic yet melancholy, light yet dark, playful yet stark, Band of Outsiders was the only Godard film selected for Time Magazine's 100 Best Movies of All Time in 2005. It is also among my all-time personal favorites. The Criterion edition offers a crisp digital transfer with a clear soundtrack, as well as an interview with Godard.

G. Merritt July 20, 2007

Light, playful with a gray undertone

Even though I haven't gotten around to finish watching Jean-Luc Godard's celebrated Breathless (1960) despite trying a couple of times, I'm pretty sure I like Band of Outsiders better. Main reason: Anna Karina. I have little doubt that most women would prefer Breathless since it stars Jean-Paul Belmondo who, as cinematic history has it, anticipated Richard Gere's performance in Truffaut's American Breathless (1983).

What I love about Karina's Odile is her incredible naivete. Although 20-years-old playing perhaps an 18-year-old, Karina, then Godard's wife, manages the complete and total personality of someone say 12-years-old. It is her naivete that makes the film work as two petty, would-be criminals, Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey) seduce her into helping them rob a surprisingly large number of francs from her Aunt's house. At least they think they're going to score. We'll see how the fates feel about that.

They meet in a beginning English language class. Obviously it is not just Godard who admires American culture, our three beginners in life do as well. Appropriately enough the film is adapted from Fools' Gold, an American novel by Dolores Hitchins. In a sense this is a French film imitating not an American film but an American attitude toward life, a free and easy world in which riches are liable to just fall into your lap, where it's chic to be young and run with the wind and drive your convertible onto the sidewalk when you feel like it and in crazy circles for no reason at all, and it is especially fun to jump into the vehicle without opening the doors while it is moving. It is an existence in which you feel spontaneous and uninhibited and can dance the Madison without looking at your feet.

Well, Odile and Franz can. Arthur watches his continuously. And this tells us something about Arthur, who is a bit mean and a bit shallow, but intent on getting his and getting it right. It is he with whom Odile falls into puppy love. She is attracted to his confidence and his crude masculinity, and his interest in her, nothing more. She is further seduced by the joy of finding friends and something exciting to do. She hasn't a clue about who they are or who she is, and that in part is the charm of the film.

She has lovely limbs that we do not see. She runs gracefully, stretching her legs out like a colt. She delights in sitting in the front seat of the Simca, the men on either side of her. Steal the money she has spotted in her uncle's closet, money that she herself would never think of stealing? Okay. And then we go to England or better yet, South America like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Childish, very childish and charming because Odile is so pretty, just that, pretty as every young girl should be. But surely something tragic is going to happen. Surely this is a cautionary tale about how innocence is lost.

There are gray day shots of Paris and the suburbs now covered with concrete and asphalt. There's a nine-minute run through the Louvre, young people just having fun; and then the denouement and tragedy. Of some sort. And then the fantasy life returns as the film ends.

Godard's story, his plot, isn't to be taken seriously, but his characters are. Arthur is the bad guy, the primitive, just an animal acting out his animal life. But Franz is sly, reflective, reads books, is well-mannered, is finding himself. Odile is a child who will be a woman soon.

The Criterion Collection DVD is nicely presented with some of the usual extras, including excerpts from interviews with Godard and Anna Karina. The subtitles are excellent. There's a booklet with a review by Joshua Clover and part of an interview by Jean Collet from 1964 entitled, "No Questions Asked: Conversations with Jean-Luc Godard." June 28, 2007

Band of Outsiders

Like Godard's "Breathless," the exhilarating "Outsiders" is one of the director's most accessible and enjoyable outings from the 1960s. Part buddy film, part crime-gone-wrong drama, it tells the story of three disaffected friends whose ill-advised adventure in armed robbery is really a way for Godard to capture their devil-may-care youthfulness. Tracking the trio's romp through the Louvre (to beat the nine-minute record of an American tourist!) or staging a cool, dazzling three-way dance (the Madison) next to a café jukebox, Godard is at his most invigorating here. In all, "Outsiders" is atmospheric, free-spirited, and fun. June 27, 2007

A Good Example of a Bad French New Wave Film.

While "Band of Outsiders" exemplifies French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's philosophy of overturning traditional filmmaking to bring a New Wave of cinema to France in the 1960s, it does not possess the charisma that spontaneity and natural environments lent the best of Godard's films. This is the underside of the New Wave, a lesson in why doing things simply because they have not been done before does not make good art. "Band of Outsiders" takes inspiration from American crime films of the 1940s and applies it to aimless youth of the 1960s to create a sort of lackadaisical caper movie. Best friends Franz (Sami Frey) and Arthur (Claude Brasseur) know pretty young Odile (Anna Karina) from English class, where they halfheartedly compete for her attentions. When Odile lets slip that the boarder at her Aunt's house keeps a large stash of cash, Arthur jumps at the chance to steal it, coaxing a passive Franz and reluctant Odile to take part in his plan.

Claude Brasseur is good as shameless, domineering Arthur. Anna Karina, who was married to Jean-Luc Godard at the time, gives an annoying stilted performance, however, as the witless Odile. The only emotion she does convincingly is fear. Beyond that, we have an endless stream of allusions to other films and literature, gimmicks that draw attention to themselves, and a wholly superfluous voice-over narration spoken by the director himself. There was hardly a scene in the first hour of the movie that didn't have me waiting impatiently for it to end. In Godard's defense, the interminable and often unnecessary scenes may be the result of the minimum feature film requirement of 90 minutes in France at the time. But I would suggest that he write a film with more substance in order to meet that requirement instead of padding a simplistic storyline with junk.

"Band of Outsiders" improves in the last half hour, as the need for filler decreases. But there is not enough depth of character or intricacy of plot to support a feature-length film. I'd like to be able to call it an exercise in style, but I think a project in self-indulgence would be more accurate. Maybe the reflexive elements such as removing the sound for 2 minutes or having actors speak to the camera were eye-openers when "Band of Outsiders" was released in 1964. But audiences are more sophisticated now. They're conscious of cinema's contrivances and their own complicity in them. If you show audiences that films are fake and manipulative, you insult their intelligence. Directors of the French New Wave are part of the reason that this is true today. But there were better examples of reflexive filmmaking in the 1960s than "Band of Outsiders". The film gets 2 stars. My 3 stars are for the Criterion Collection disc. In French with optional English subtitles.

The DVD (Criterion Collection 2003): "Visual Glossary" (18 min) explains the many allusions and references in the film. "Godard 1964" (5 min) features interview clips with Jean-Luc Godard from a 1964 French television documentary, in which he defines the Nouvelle Vague, as well as behind-the-scenes footage from this film. "Anna Karina" (18 min) is a 2002 interview with the actress. She talks about how she got into film, how Godard worked with actors, and the character of Odile. "Raoul Coutard" (11 min) is an interview with the cinematographer of "Band of Outsiders", who supervised the Criterion Collection transfer. He talks about Godard's "reportage" shooting style and camera and lighting challenges on the film. All interviews are in French with English subtitles. "Les Fiances du Pont Mac Donald" (3 min) is a short silent comedy by Agnes Varda featuring Karina, Frey, and Godard. (French & English intertitles) There are 2 trailers (2 min each), one original and one for the 2001 re-release. May 15, 2007

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