Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

dromasca I usually try to form my opinion about films based on how entertaining or interesting or enriching or none of these I felt that they were during the time spent watching them. Only afterwards I try to understand why I liked or disliked the film, what caused me to find it funny, what I had learned from it, whether I exited as a better being (or not) at the end of the film. In the case of 'My Life to Live' (the original French title is 'Vivre sa vie' - 'Living her own life') going back to the roots of the pleasure of watching this movie also means placing it in the context of the cinema at the beginning of the 60s, and the extraordinary revolution brought by a handful of French directors Jean-Luc Godard was part of, in the way movies are made and the way spectators watch movies and relate to them.The story in 'Vivre sa vie' is pretty straight-forward and there are no explicit social or political messages as in other films by Godard or his colleagues. Nana (Anna Karina) is a young woman trying to build a path for herself in the Big City, failing, and sliding slowly on the slope of prostitution. The film follows her unsuccessful attempts to meet ends, followed by a decision that mixes innocence and reluctance to engage in the oldest profession, while keeping alive her ingenuity and desire to live her life. There is no moral hesitation and no risks assessment in what she does. Godard approaches what can be otherwise described as a descent in hell with an apparent phlegmatic approach, almost as in a documentary or as in what we call nowadays a docu-drama. This is reflected in the places he is filming (more or less chic areas of Paris) and in the selection of his actors - the pimps and the customers of the sex trade look no different than any of the other guys next table in the brasserie. There is only one violent incident in the story that could have been a warning about the dangers ahead, but it is dully ignored. The desire to live a good life prevails.The choice of the actress may have been quite obvious, as Godard had married Anna Karina the year before the film was made. The role may even have been written for her, but the way he directs the young actress is part of his manner of telling the story. Karina's Nana is beautiful and ingenue, she just makes her choice about the way she wants to live her life without awareness about the price to be paid. Is there a final realization of her mistake? Maybe she gets it in the last second of the film, but it's mostly to the viewer to draw the conclusions.There are so many cinematographic innovations in this film made at the beginning of the 60s that any list risks to be partial. Filming some of the dialogs without seeing the faces of the actors, using live and sometimes hand-held camera on the streets of Paris, inserting legal and documentary book texts to illustrate the decision of Nana at the key moment when her destiny takes a turn, using close plans of the actors faces to emphasize their feelings (some times with help from the wonderful music of Michel Legrand) are only part of these. I especially loved two scenes: the film in film screening of 'Jeanne d'Arc' which is a fascinating declaration of love for cinema, and the dance scene which predates by more than three decades what John Travolta will do in Pulp Fiction. No wonder, as Quentin Tarantino lists Godard as one of his idols. One element which may seem today experimental was not such actually - it's the black-and-white film - that was the period of transition to color, which still was expensive and - luckily - the young French new wave directors and their producers could not afford it.The final of the 12 chapters of the film includes a glimpse on the streets of Paris where people stand in line at the cinema house to see François Truffaut's Jules and Jim. A reverence to his colleague of generation who broke through a few years before, and whose fame Jean-Luc Godard was soon to equal.

Jackson Booth-Millard I found this French film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I wouldn't have known about it without being entered in the book, and I didn't know what to expect, but I hoped it would be worth it, directed by Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless, Alphaville, Pierrot Le Fou). Basically the story is told as twelve brief unconnected episodes, exploring the life of young beautiful Parisian woman Nana Kleinfrankenheim (Anna Karina). Nana is in her early twenties, she leaves her husband and infant son to try and achieve her ambition to become an actress, however without money she is forced to become a shop girl. Unable to enter acting, Nana slowly descends into the world of prostitution, in order to earn better money, she soon gets herself a pimp, Raoul (Sady Rebbot). He later, at an unspecified time, sells her to another pimp, during the exchange an argument breaks out between the pimps, Nana is caught between the crossfire and killed by gunshot. Also starring André S. Labarthe as Paul, Guylaine Schlumberger as Yvette, Gérard Hoffman as Cook, Monique Messine as Elisabeth, Paul Pavel as Journalist and Brice Parain as Philosopher, with voice narration from Jean-Luc Godard. Karina, also the director's wife at the time, gives a marvellous performance as the tragic unconventional heroine, the film is all unconventional, it is part of the New Wave, this was one of the first major films to have sex earning money, so it gained notoriety, there is the gangster element, it has good techniques of camera angles, and it is stylish in black and white, all together it is a most worthwhile drama. Very good!

Michael_Elliott Vivre Sa Vie (1962)*** (out of 4) Jean-Luc Godard's tale of a young woman named Nana (Anna Karina) who slowly finds her desperate situation in life turning her towards prostitution to make some money. Once you see Godard's name then you know we're not going to get a straight story of a woman entertaining prostitution. Instead, the film is told in twelve chapters that really play out more like vignettes than anything else but I think this actually helps the film in a few ways. I've been quite critical with the director and several of his films but I think that style of his really doesn't go over-the-top here and for the most part it works. This is especially true in the first couple chapters where we see the woman's desperate situation and how she keeps waiting for a break to happen but of course it never comes. Godard's style of storytelling also works beautifully during a sequence where the woman is given all the information and rules about being a prostitute. This sequence here is perhaps one of my favorites from any Godard film I've seen up to this point. With that said, I found the final two chapters to be rather boring and to me they simply didn't fit in with the rest of the movie. I don't mind how the picture ended but chapter eleven takes place in a restaurant and has the woman talking to an older man. I'm sure some will get something out of this conversation but it just left me flat. I think the best thing working here is the performance of Karina who is simply divine in the lead role. It's hard to work your way through the director's style but Karina makes for a very believable role and actually makes you care about this woman and the trouble she's in. VIVRE SA VIE isn't something that I found to be a masterpiece but it is one of the better films I've seen from Godard.

Rockwell_Cronenberg So far in my exploration of Jean-Luc Godard I have remained in his masterful decade of the '60s, and as a result I've been treated mostly to films that are fun and exciting, toying with structure and cinematic conventions. Vivre Sa Vie fits firmly in his career, but it's also a surprising contrast to his other work which I have seen so far. Even in his more narratively focused Breathless, there's still a very cinematic quality to it, portraying a sense of freedom of expression and romanticism. Vivre Sa Vie strips away all of that and elects instead to present an almost documentarian look into the descent of the young Nana (Anna Karina, naturally) into prostitution.The structure of the film is split into twelve episodes that bring us through Nana's progression. She's a young Parisian girl working at a record shop who wants to be in the movies, but needs money to pay her rent. It's a simple story, but the way Godard tells it is what makes it so intriguing. He presents Nana as an object of desire to many but an object of interest to very few. The men around her aren't interested in what she has to say, they put up with her words in order to get to what they are really looking for, her body and ways to profit off of it.Karina's dance scene is classic Godard, but his unique approach to this film makes it much less freeing than in his other works. The dance in Band of Outsiders is a jaunty display of youthful rhythm and A Woman Is A Woman is loaded with fun numbers, but here the art of dance takes on an entirely different, and much more tragic, meaning. For Nana, it's a desperate plea to get attention using the only thing that she knows how, her body. In regards to the film, Godard stated, "The few episodes in her life that I am going to film are very likely of little interest to others, but most important to Nana," and I feel that he accomplished his goal very well here.These episodes to most would seem relatively mundane, just normal days in the life of a prostitute, conversations and interactions of the daily routine, but for Nana they mean so much more. Her trip to the cinema to see The Passion of Joan of Arc has become almost iconic in Godard's legacy, and for good reason. In this moment Godard removes us from our state as voyeurs and instead plays us into Nana's position. He displays Nana as the film viewer, presenting the kind of emotional impact and life revelation that cinema can have on someone and getting the audience to completely empathize with her. Nana becomes the audience and, as a result, the audience becomes her.The descent into prostitution is intriguing here, thanks in large part to the captivating and expressive work by Godard's muse, but Godard's metaphor for the life of an actress is also a fascinating theme that one can't help but notice. Displays Nana as the prostitute in her world of pimps and photographers, people passing her back and forth like a piece of meat, it certainly seems that he's making a statement on the film industry and the nature of exploitation in how actors are treated. They are passed back and forth by directors, producers, even the audience, and used for their image, much like a prostitute, and it's up to the actress to keep themselves in tact. As the opening quote of the film states, "Lend yourself to others. But give yourself to yourself".I've seen people refer to the film as the "morning after" state of the Godard/Karina dynamic and I think that's an interesting way of looking at it. They had collaborated several times before, and would collaborate for many years after still, but Vivre Sa Vie seems to be the most intimate and exposing look into the relationship between the two of them as lovers and the relationship between actor and director at large. It's a very introspective journey that Godard takes us on, and certainly one of the most impressive I've seen from him yet.