Streaming Review: Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville

[@kriitikko]

My favorite noir mash-ups: Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Dark City.

[@patanouketgersiflet9486]

Great choices to be sure

[@alanbash2921]

The Closing Minute is Unforgettable ....Especially The Closing MUSIC !

[@briansmith2163]

I watched a review of Clockwork Orange that credited Kubrick for using existing modernist architecture instead of sets. I laughed because of COURSE Kubrick had seen Alphaville.

[@carlwilkerson9722]

My stomach tied itself in a knot when I heard that Godard had died. Just not the kind of news I wanted to hear. OTOH, I admit I am curious as to how many Experience Points it takes to become a Level 3 Seductress.

[@ramengamer4806]

@carlwilkerson9722 I believe that to be a Seductress of any level requires some points put into Speechcraft.

[@RavenHouseMystery]

Alphaville has always been kind of an enigma for me. I've seen it at least twice and yet I've never felt that I just saw something profound. The film is well made and the whole look of the city gives it the right touch of "future noir" that's maybe only a few years away. I guess Alphaville may fall into the same category as Rollerball (1975). It's not the story that is important, but the world in which our story takes place and how it may reflect on our society now.

[@fernandomaron87]

Blade Runner as well

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@fernandomaron87 Blade Runner has a much clearer narrative and a much less ambiguous point. This is more like "A bunch of stuff that happens, then stops happening without much explanation."

[@mahatmarandy5977]

I politely disagree. Rollerball (1975) was about hero worship and spectacle, which is used to distract people from more important concerns, and hence manipulate them. It's not particularly well made, so it's easy to miss that point, but that's the point of it as per the folks who made it. If I were looking to compare Alphaville to a classic American SF film, I'd say probably "Colossus: The Forbin Project," in which a computer takes over the world, which is presented as a horrifying thing, even though the movie makes it very clear that this is exactly what humanity wanted all along. In Alphaville, a computer controls the entire galaxy, and this is presented as a bad thing, though no one seems to mind much, and we don't know the circumstances that caused it (I always felt it was implied to have been like this for a very long time) That said, I really have no idea what Alphaville is about. Not a clue. I tend to put it in the "Weirdness for Weirdness Sake" category.

[@RavenHouseMystery]

@@mahatmarandy5977 Thanks for the insightful reply. I will make it a point to see Colossus: The Forbin Project as well.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@RavenHouseMystery Oh, definitely do! It's just a wonderful forgotten classic!

[@marienbad2]

I love this film! It is so effortlessly chic, cool and stylish. I love how Caution seems as lost as we do in this strange world, yet seems to fir right in style-wise. It looks amazing and the black and white just heightens the feel of it. As for noir mash-up, perhaps the original Solyaris (Tarkowski version) could be considered somewhat noir-ish. Certainly the protagonist is confused by what it happening, and it all takes place in a sort of surreal other-universe. The Russian anti-war movie Ballad of a Soldier might also fit into this category as there are no heros in it (well, sorta - the protagonist is considered a hero at the start for what he did, but as the film progresses he becomes more of an anti-hero.)

[@DamnedSilly]

Variations on Noir are often attempted but seldom successful. The best usually only take elements while bringing something fresh. Oddly my favorite is probably _Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid_ because on one level it's pure in it's emulation and on another it's pure camp.

[@CourteousKitsch]

One of my favorite sci-fi films. Now I feel like doing a Godard marathon!

[@splifftachyon4420]

Great review! I love Alphaville. The first time I saw it was in a film course I took in university. RIP Monsieur Godard. Thank you for all that you gave to the world of film.

[@gavinmillar816]

I grew up in the rather remote countryside of Northern Ireland. As I started to fall in love with cinema I found it incredibly hard to find any avenue to watch/purchase the films I was reading about with so much excitement. As a pre-teen in the mid to late 90s my mother went shopping in Belfast for the day and I came along so I could visit the various large scale virgin megastores and HMVs located there. Surely somewhere in these vast multi level stores there would be a section filled with all the works of great masters I had read so excitedly about. Scorsese had waxed lyrical about the French New Wave and I was a film noir and Sci fi fan. AlphaVille sounded so incredibly exciting. I had £20 with me and I wanted a copy on VHS ( dvd either didn't exist then or we didn't have a player yet) I nervously approached the much older boy at the till and asked if they had a copy for sale The store employee looked confused but taped a few keys on some computer then informed me. "We don't seem to have it. I've never heard of it. Whose in it ? I might be able to find it that way." I was a shy kid and I could feel my face turning red. I didn't know who was in it. I muttered something about Godard which just confused the poor lad at the till even more. I ran off empty handed to find my mum and returned home with a crushing sense of disappointment. Not that I hadn't got the movie. But that even in the biggest media store in a bustling metropolis like Belfast ( I know it a small city,but to young country boy me it was more than I could imagine) there was no one else to share my love of cinema with. I had expected the place to filled with chin stroking cigarette smoking movie buffs. Instead it was filled with loud teenagers trying to buy crash bandicoot. I still vividly remember how crushed I felt. I saw and enjoyed some Godard films years later at university, but ive still never seen Alphaville.

[@a.champagne6238]

Pulling this off my dvd shelf tonight. Bon soir, M. Godard

[@seanledden4397]

Good review of an enjoyably weird movie. But there's one sentence I want to focus on, "The brilliance of Alphaville is not its deconstruction of genres, it's the way it uses that deconstruction to make its director's point." I would argue that in Alphaville's case Godard wasn't deconstructing genres, but combining them. He transposed a noir crime thriller onto a future sci-fi mise-en-scene. Just as Scott did in Bladerunner. I would argue that in both cases "deconstruction" wasn't going on. As in both cases the directors loved the classics they were monkeying with. They were practicing a kind of creative cross-pollination. Genuine deconstruction, as with The Last Jedi, comes from contempt for the classics coupled with an adolescent conviction that merely breaking the rules makes something good.

[@vivalaminion2936]

Do ya have to...do ya have to...do ya have to let it linger?

[@williamblakehall5566]

You say "noir mash-up" and I immediately think of Cast a Deadly Spell, a made-for-TV movie starring Fred Ward as a detective named Lovecraft, working in an alternate universe 1940s Los Angeles where magic is real and common, basically as a metaphor for corruption.

[@fmac6441]

Apparently as ignorant as I am about the subject of the film, or very ironic, a Brazilian real estate company created a high-end closed community with that name. The venture worked and now Brazil is full of suburbia like places called Alphaville.

[@ashleys9397]

As I discovered myself on Wikipedia.

[@chong2389]

My favourite scene: Lemmy Caution shows a photo of Dr. von Braun to a passerby and says "Do you know this man?" Passerby: Look, says "Yes" and continues on his way.

[@jamescappio7434]

My favourite Godard and one of my very favourite movies-in my top 5, depending on how I'm feeling that day.

[@paulforder591]

I've only seen bits and pieces of Alphaville. One day I'll see it in full. 😊🇫🇷

[@punchfisttop]

MY FAV FILM OF ALL TIME!!!!! EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@euansmith3699]

I saw Alphaville decades ago, on BB2 or C4, when I was a callow youth. The biggest impression I got was from the weird, gulping voice of the narrator. Strange stuff, but interesting.

[@briansmith2163]

Inherent Vice is a perfect example.

[@dirkstarbuck6126]

I just wanna say before I watch this video, that I checked the movie out on IMDb when I saw this thumbnail. And even though I know the movie has nothing in common with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the IMDb images strike me as being what a 1960s, faithful rendition of DADES would’ve looked like if it been made into a movie right after being published. Not that I don’t love Blade Runner, it’s one of my favorite movies, but I’ve always wondered what a movie closely crafted on the book might look like. And this is it! So… don’t know why I felt compelled to write that. But carry on…

[@euansmith3699]

VALIS compels you! WRITE!

[@ashleys9397]

I could really get behind a more literal adaptation of the great Philip K. Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? As much as I've always loved BLADE RUNNER (which I've seen, like, a kazillion times more or less) , the screenplay took quite a few liberties with the original source novel; one must assume that this creative decision was due to commercial considerations. It's worth noting too that the late & equally great Harlan Ellison wrote an alternate BLADE RUNNER screen adaptation; now THAT might make for one helluva good flick. Somebody really oughta see about greenlighting the son of a bitch. Oh...and speaking of sheep, someone really should consider undertaking a film version of John Brunner's classic eco-catastrophe novel THE SHEEP LOOK UP. However, given its length, any halfway faithful adaptation might well face some logistical issues. (And just BTW your comments are right on the mark. Thanks for posting them.)

[@dirkstarbuck6126]

@@ashleys9397 A The Sheep Look Up movie would be terrifying!!

[@leonptr]

I keep meaning to watch this

[@normandrichardson3721]

Angel Heart was a good noir mash up with horror

[@coyoteartist]

I've never been lucky enough to see this although I remember reading many years ago about it. I recall a few years back, a book about the New York neighborhood of the same name and what I'd read of the movie coming to mind when I looked at it. I had the impression the movie was of a near future in which one man searched for the lost against brutalist despair. The book, being about a cop in the late '80s would have seemed a bookend then in a recent past in which one man search for the lost against crumbling despair. Also for some reason a band in the '80s named themselves after this movie.

[@thrashpondopons8348]

This Movie is on my Film Bucket List!

[@HotDogRock]

I love Alphaville, to me it's poetry.

[@peterschadenberg9045]

Don't get me wrong, I perfectly understand that Jean-Luc Godard was a maximumly important filmmaker. But boy his movies are really not my thing.

[@ashleys9397]

They ain't exactly this man's cuppa tea there neither, hoss.

[@Malum09]

Godard love for classic movies was really shown in the way that he very much avoided making his movies like that

[@rodneykelly8768]

You asked for a favorite "Mash-Up," here's mine-Science Fiction/Cosmic Horror. You might say that the two are the same thing, to which I would say, "Not Really." Two examples of science fiction/cosmic horror films are "The Event Horizon," and the "Alien" franchise. One is a haunted house, the other is an infestation. The only franchise that comes close to doing cosmic horror well is "Altered Carbon." The society in altered carbon is one that has enriched itself by plundering the equivalent of an Indian burial mound, and leaves you with the impression that this will not end well. In my opinion, the best cosmic horror is where a star spanning civilization realizes that it is nothing more than an ant hill, that's in Normandy France, during "D-Day."

[@skylx0812]

All I know of Alphaville is the striking video to their hit song, "Forever Young". The lyric, _"Are you going to drop the bomb, or not?"_ defined my geenera-shun. ...yeah, we were kinda into ourselves

[@haroldjones8521]

I met Goddard in 1972 when he was making a tour showing Tout Va Bien. He was a fascinating speaker, even though a lot was done through a translator. I loved Tout Va Bien. I was about the only one. I appreciated his sense of humor mixed with revolutionary politics. I was about the only one who liked the film. But I also loved Weekend.

[@briansmith2163]

Sorry to keep bringing up professor Leonard Heldreth, but the semester I took "Film and Literature" we focused on the "detective" genre, which has been very instructive for so many Noir - like films that have come, and continue to come, down the line. I recognize all of the tropes.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

RIP Jean Luc

[@achecase]

Thanks for the tip, just my cuppa.

[@MrAlsachti]

This is the only film by Goddard that I liked, but not for the reasons you would expect. I am French thus I watched (and listened to) the movie in its original version, without dubbing or subtitles. And the fact is (1) the sound is mediocre, (2) Eddie Constantine has an American accent, and (3) Alpha-60 has an awful voice. As a result, I didn't understand a word of what the characters were saying. I am not sure that the movie would have made more sense with the dialogues, but it was quite a surrealistic experience, and I made myself the promise to rewatch the film while smoking a joint (it has been 20 years and I didn't watch this film again.) (I remember the scene where Lemmy Caution walks through a corridor, opening doors, it was used in the 80s in the trailer of a French TV show about cinema)

[@ashleys9397]

But do you know why it sounds so awful? As it so happens Alpha 60 was voiced by a man with a mechanical voice box replacing his cancer-damaged larynx. (In the Southern parts of the U.S. these medical devices are colloquially known as "cancer kazoos".) The particular raspy voice effect was reportedly inspired by Fritz Lang's effective use of Dr, Mabuses's disembodied voice in the 1932 movie THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE. Let me in passing say that I too like ALPHAVILLE. I 've watched it several times in both its dubbed & subtitled versions---so I guess that must mean I really like it. It's also the only one of Godard's movies that I actually do like.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

Just a quibble: I don't think the movie is in the future. I can't *swear* to that because there's an odd kind of dream logic going through the whole thing that sort of defies completely logical, definitive answers, but in the movie they mention that Lemmy is an American and he fought in Iwo Jima during WW2. He's driving a 1965 Ford Mustang, and of course he uses that vintage mid-60s 35mm camera you showed in a clip here. We're told that Alphaville is the capital of the galaxy, and that he *drove* to the planet from earth in some sort of sidereal interstitial gateway wormhole thing (Which we never see) and that he's heading back to it in the end. So I really think the movie takes place in the then-present, just on some other plane of reality that's connected to ours, but that we aren't really aware of. Just a thought.

[@floydlooney6837]

That is interesting. In the end she could ask where he is going and be told he's going home. What will happen to us, she will ask. She will be told "I don't know, maybe he'll imagine us again one day".

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@floydlooney6837 I don't pretend to know. I have always had the very weird feeling that you can remember the outside world from Alphaville, but you can't remember Alphaville from the outside world. There's no reason to believe that, nothing in the movie implies it, it's just the odd dream logic of the film. You know when you have a recurring dream that you can't quite remember when you're awake, but as soon as you're having it again, you're like, "Oh, crap, this again" - on some level alphaville feels like that to me.

[@floydlooney6837]

@@mahatmarandy5977 I think that sounds more interesting, I wonder if that was unintended. Might be an angle for anyone who might try a remake.

[@ashleys9397]

Actually he was driving a classic Ford Galaxie. You know..."Galaxie"..."Galaxy". Well, whatever. It's a nifty visual pun.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@ashleys9397 Are you sure? [checking] Damn, you're right! I feel like a dope...

[@rondemkiw4492]

ALPHAVILLE seems to be a very loose spoof of AE van Vogt's THE WORLD OF NULL-A, which seems to have been a popular book in France.

[@rsacchi100]

This looks like an interesting movie. It looks good.

[@AlexMiller-v6v]

Francis E. Dec brought me here.

[@lurkerrekrul]

I watched this many years ago and didn't really like it. As I recall, the dialog (or maybe it was the subtitles on the copy I watched) indicated that he was traveling to another planet (or galaxy?) by driving there. This immediately rubbed me the wrong way, because it seemed like a huge cop-out to suggest space travel and then just show him driving a normal car. If they had simply said that Alphaville was a city on Earth, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. I also found it ridiculous that Caution is supposed to be a "secret" agent, but he keeps pulling out a box camera and conspicuously taking photos of everything. I watched a lot of science fiction while growing up, much of it low budget. but Alphaville was a miss for me.

[@lakrids-pibe]

Lemmys mærkelige eventyr - Lemmy's strange aventure

[@kildogery]

This is literally one of the first films I downloaded, when I realised the internet was going to be the ultimate repository for all media I couldn't buy in Woolworths or rent from Global Video. Still haven't watched it though. It's the thought that counts.

[@kildogery]

As in, I've had this on a hard drive for 20 years.

[@billmurray7473]

I wonder if the director was the inspiration for the character of Jean-Luc Picard. What do YOU think?

[@Bigbadwhitecracker]

Godard (and Fellini), to me, is one of those true artists that don't exist anymore in filmmaking. Personally, I have found him less accessible than others in his league such as Kurosowa, Welles. Breathless I thought was very distancing; I preferred the remake with Richard Gere which was almost shot for shot Godard's film, I think because I rooted for the characters in the remake. Godard and Felini must have been influenced by Brecht as far as the philosophy that art must present an issue in which you must confront and deal with in lieu of getting emotionally wrapped up in the story and forgetting about the social issue being presented.

[@josephmatthews9866]

this movie is set in the future? When I first saw it , the narrator said it was another planet. And that somehow , not explained , he drove to this planet by car . Strange, but , exceptable . ( perhaps I saw a different translation) when I saw this movie, back in college, it was called TARZAN VS I.B.M. ( really!! )

[@DarkCornersReviews]

I'm sure I read somewhere that was Goddard's preferred title, but I can't remember where I read it/

[@dbsommers1]

Interesting choice.

[@beyondz55]

Did this influence the film Delicatessen??

[@krzysztofporadzinski9183]

Great movie. Who will win fight Braun's Alpha60 VS Forbin's Colossus?

[@euansmith3699]

WOPR, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

[@jimb2879]

Doesn't matter either way we lose

[@a.champagne6238]

I wish someone would adapt Charles Bukowski's novel Pulp into a film. If done right, it could be the perfect noir mash up. If only I were ridiculously wealthy to the point where I could finance it...

[@nedludd7622]

There is a 1972 British movie "Pulp" with Michael Caine. It is a good mash-up of film noir.

[@a.champagne6238]

@@nedludd7622 Bukowski's novel was written in 1994.

[@nedludd7622]

@@a.champagne6238 I know. I probably read it before you were born.

[@a.champagne6238]

@@nedludd7622probably not unless you read it 13 years before it was written.

[@ashleys9397]

I think just about any of the Mighty Bukowski's novels would make for good movies, but only so long as any adaptation truly adhered to the spirit of the text. I also think that HAM ON RYE in particular could be turned into quite a fine movie, depending on the creative forces guiding the filmization. A tough & unsentimental coming of age story done Bukowski-style.

[@buzzawuzza3743]

Our crew of friends who are making our first horror film are planning on using some of these French New Wave techniques in our movie. Right now that means the chicks will be wearing very little.

[@ashleys9397]

Sounds like there's some real possibilities there. But if I may offer a bit of an admonition---Leave out all the cigarettes & all the cigarette smoking (which I refer to as "chaining coffin nails' as well as "jonesing for a cancer-rette"). So no ciggies & no smoky-smoky. It would really send the wrong message to young moviegoers. Oh...and just one other suggestion: Leave out those damn berets. UGH! I hate those faux bohemian French berets. So bury them. No fucking berets.

[@buzzawuzza3743]

@@ashleys9397 No cigs??? No berets? Next thing you'll be saying no trench coats!! No one will be smoking in our film because no one can AFFORD cigs anymore! Thanks for the advice and stay cool!

[@NerdyWillowTree]

I actively despise Godard, I find his films pretentious and pseudo intellectual, but I actually like Alphaville. I like the atmosphere, the black and white cinematography which transforms Paris into this dystopian nightmare world.

[@fernandomaron87]

I like the first part of his career only. After the New Wave craze, he started to go on dubious and pretentious ways with his films

[@ashleys9397]

I'm in full agreement with you on that. I don't particularly like Godard's body of work for the very same reasons you cited. But I really like ALPHAVILLE. In fact I've watched it several times over the years.

[@lamecasuelas2]

He was annoyingly insufferable

[@nedludd7622]

Can "The Stalker" by Tarkovski be considered a film noir?

[@lamecasuelas2]

I don't think so. For me It's almost like a lovecraftian tale minus the monsters and the horror. Great movie though!

[@jimb2879]

How about Cast a Deadly Spell. Noir/Lovecraft i saw the humor

[@tuckerbowen4626]

"Much of the dialogue was improvised -- which the subtitles do occasionally struggle to keep up with" okay, but what's every _other_ movie's excuse?

[@BigSlimyBlob]

How did I miss this review. Also... if you're illogical, you will be machine-gunned into a swimming pool where your corpse will be recovered by synchronized swimmers? Who came up with that, has he been machine-gunned into a swimming pool for coming up with it, and are we constantly machine-gunning politicians into swimming pools for continuing such an illogical practice? I can totally believe that some of the dialogue was improvised, a few of those sentences weren't quite proper French.

[@kali3665]

Rest in Power, Jean-Luc Godard.

[@vivalaminion2936]

Is rest in power from Black Panther? Can we stop with this cringe take on death?

[@theelderskatesman4417]

The title is misspelt in your thumbnail

[@mauriciogutierrez2145]

I dont particularly like goddard movies but i think hes probably one of the most influential and important filmmakers and auteurs of all time and a huge loss for cinema

[@ViaFerrataCH]

I ran this one at our school film society but didn't like it, I guess I was just too young to understand it

[@Schneekardinal]

Concerning noir mash-ups: That neo-noir remake of Wizard of Gore is spectacular nonsense.

[@sirequinox4874]

I was bored. It's a symphony of dullness pretending to be something more.

[@OneOfThoseTypes]

Oh neat, thanks, I've been looking for something to help me sleep.

[@ashleys9397]

Godard's movies usually have that somnolent effect on myself. But then just about any French New Wave picture would well suffice as a sleep-aide.

[@tylermane77]

Godard was the most overrated filmmaker ever.

[@ashleys9397]

I ask all of you: What accounts for the continuing appeal of the French New Wave? What bizarre hidden mind-fucking alien influence compels highbrow cognoscenti and cinema arts professors to practically cream all over themselves while spewing ecstatically over the likes of Godard and Truffault and Bresson and Resnais and Rohmer and all the rest of their like ilk? Why do such people admire these intentionally tedious, largely inscrutable movies? For the average neophyte/first-timer , just a cursory viewing of a typical New Wave picture can turn into a profoundly discombobulating event: Black & white. Often muddy sound quality. Long camera takes. Long meaningful silences. Long blank/bored expressions. Long pensive sighs. Long traveling oblique stares. Long traveling stares doubling as knowing smirks. Existential angst. Ennui. Detachment. Indifference. Obscurity. Banal dialogue. Philosophical arguments. Slogans. Sartre. Marx. Mao. Cafes. Marx over cafe au lait. Cigarettes (Gauloises, n'est-ce pas?) More cigarettes. Lots of cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes. Smoking revolvers. Shades. Snap brim hats. Trench coats. Hoodlums. Gangsters. Waifs. Whores. Gamins. Ingenues. Young lovers. Old lovers. "Je t'aime, Je t'aime". Sex games. Infidelity. Adultery. "Amour". "Liasion" "Chansons d'amour" Betrayal. More betrayal. Despair. "Tristesse". Jean-Paul Belmondo. Jean-Pierre Leaud. Jean-Louis Trintignant. Yves Montand. Eddie Constantine. Anna Karina. Amouk Aimee. Jeanne Moreau. On and on and on...and on. So that's French New Wave all neatly itemized. Yep, there are some people who actually love this stuff. But I'm not one of them, and probably neither are you. And there has to be quite a few of you out there who have hated HATED New Wave films ever since your prim, snobby, stuck-up high school French teacher made you and your entire class sit and watch JULES ET JIM. Oh the inhumanity...Oh the horror...the horror.

[@a.champagne6238]

It's influence was felt from the moment it launched. A Hard Day's Night is an example of a film done in the style of the New Wave. A more modern audience would think of those Calvin Klein commercials from the 80's and 90's when watching these films but time does that. What is cutting edge becomes standard eventually.

[@AdAstra78]

What a brilliant rant that was, bravo! Whilst I'm a huge admirer of many New Wave films, that was a damn funny read.