Movies into Film
A Woman is a Woman
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
France, 1961
One Wave Lapping 
Why has Godard’s elegant yet botched attempt at a movie musical A Woman is a Woman been re-released theatrically? If anything, this intermittently amusing dry martini reinforces what we sadly know: that the bad movies of 42 years ago seem positively stellar compared to the trash on our screens today. Which doesn’t excuse Godard’s folly. As a cabaret chanteuse who spends a good deal of time flirting with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina can barely carry a tune—although that scarcely matters with lyrics such as “I’m the girl who says yessirree/When a fella says c’mon sweetie.” The scenes of these frustrated lovers clowning around gay Paree have style and verve; the dreary domestic passages between the leading lady and Jean-Claude Brialy bring Woman to a halt. Godard chops most of the music in mid-note, lest we dare forget that we’re watching a movie. In the lone exception, our nutty auteur shoots a café sequence in real time: Karina and Belmondo lounge dejectedly as a jukebox spins Charles Aznavour’s bittersweet ballad “You’ve Let Yourself Go.” This lovely song captures a kind of magic that eludes Godard (and us) for the remaining 80-odd minutes. – NPT
September 2003
Movies into Film
© N.P. Thompson, 2004
npt [at] moviesintofilm [dot] com
Photo: Karina in Woman (Rialto Pictures)