Details
Movie Description
With 1965's ALPHAVILLE--part sci-fi action film, part noir thriller--the acclaimed French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard achieves a stunningly clinical futurism using absolutely no special visual effects. The result is a moving, original film that, with its abstract, political, and intellectual themes, essentially redefines the apocalyptic science fiction genre. ALPHAVILLE, clearly the product of one of cinema's greatest contributors, is nothing less than a bona fide cult classic.
A bizarre space-chase across a glass and metal landscape of futuristic Paris--here called Alphaville--is the movie's premise. Creating a dystopian "tomorrow" characterized by alienation and cold corporate comforts, Godard slyly suggests that the future is now. Secret agent man Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) travels across the expanses of intergalactic space and time to uncover the fate of his missing predecessor. Working under the alias of Ivan Johnson, Caution is accompanied in his quest by the lovely Natasha Vonbraun (Anna Karina), the daughter of a supposedly missing professor. Caution later discovers that the elder Vonbraun is the mastermind behind Alpha 60--the rigid, masterful computer that governs Alphaville. Alpha's job is to crush individuality, eradicating any human being who does not conform. Ultimately, Lemmy is left with no other choice but to destroy the calculating chip-and-wire monolith, with the only weapons he has left: his heart and soul.
Synopsis
One of the touchstones of the French New Wave, Godard's classic is a cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters and surrealistic poetry. Intergalactic hero, Lemmy Caution, is sent to the city of Alphaville, which is run by an electronic brain, to rescue a group of scientists imprisoned there. The tyrannical brain has suppressed the people who live there by outlawing love, limiting information and keeping them on mind-numbing drugs. With the help of Natascha, the daughter of a well-known scientist, Caution tries to get to the heart of the computers grip on the city. Godard achieves a stunningly clinical futurism using absolutely no visual effects.
Film Notes
DVD Special Features:
Region 1 Encoding
Keep Case
French with Optional English Subtitles
Dolby Digital Mono
Chapters:
1. Logos
2. Opening Credits
3. Agent from the Outlands
4. Seductress, Third Class
5. Natasha
6. Stupid Questions
7. Can't Hear the Music
8. Dying Words
9. The Teachings of Alpha 60
10. Deadly Bathing Beauties
11. The Love of Money and Women
12. Professors Eckle and Jeckel
13. A Guarantee to Electrify
14. The Meaning of Conscience
15. Remembering Broadway
16. Natasha Defines Love
17. A Man and a Cup of Coffee
18. Reporter and Revenger
19. Escape
20. Rescuing the Princess
21. Color Bars
Released theatrically (in France): May 5, 1965.
U.S. theatrical release date: October 25, 1965.
Shot on location in Paris, France.
Winner of Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival.
Every scene was shot in one take in natural darkness; thus, many shots had to be destroyed because it was too dark for the film to record the image properly.
Script girl Suzanne Schiffman later served as a writer and assistant director on a number of Francois Truffaut films.
Quotations
"All things weird are normal in this whore of cities."--Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine)
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