Alphaville - Criterion Collection
by Jean-Luc Godard
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Akim Tamiroff, Anna Karina, Eddie Constantine, Jean-Louis Comolli, Val?rie BoisgelDirector: Jean-Luc Godard
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Raoul Coutard
Writer: Jean-Luc Godard
Editor: Agn?s Guillemot
Producer: Andr? Michelin
Writer: Paul ?luard
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-10-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Alphaville - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: The big computer
Summary: 3 Stars
The action in Alphaville is set in a future where everything is run by the big computer Alpha 60. It's hard to take this film seriously, the futuristic vision is very 1960s: the fear of a computerized society where machines rule with cold rationality and so on. As an example of this vision it is interesting. But Godard doesn't elaborate this future society very much so it is never especially "believable" or consistent. It is more like a playful attempt to make a budget sci-fi: the special effects are restricted to blinking neon signs and close-ups of radios and stuff. A theme is the relation between logic and poetry, the latter is of course beyond the comprehension of the computer... I liked the impersonation of Alpha 60: a close-up of a light and/or a fan plus a weird voice talking about logic and stuff. Sort of a brother of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (an incredible movie which Alphaville is not to be compared to otherwise...).
Not one of Godard's best, but worth watching (try Breathless instead if you are new to his films). I wish this Criterion DVD had contained some extras to set it in the context of Godard's career.
Summary of Alphaville - Criterion Collection
A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Godard's irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time. Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60. Criterion's edition of this seminal film features a new digital transfer.As the French New Wave was reaching its maturity and filmgoing had evolved as a favorite pastime of intellectuals and urban sophisticates, along came Jean-Luc Godard to shake up every convention and send highfalutin critics scrambling to their typewriters. 1965's Alphaville is a perfect example of Godard's willingness to disrupt expectation, combine genres, and comment on movies while making sociopolitical statements that inspired doctoral theses and left a majority of viewers mystified. Part science fiction and part hard-boiled detective yarn, Alphaville presents a futuristic scenario using the most modern and impersonal architecture that Godard could find in mid-'60s Paris. A haggard private eye (Eddie Constantine) is sent to an ultramodern city run by a master computer, where his mission is to locate and rescue a scientist who is trapped there. As the story unfolds on Godard's strictly low-budget terms, the movie tackles a variety of topics such as the dehumanizing effect of technology, willful suppression of personality, saturation of commercial products, and, of course, the constant recollection of previous films through Godard's carefully chosen images. For most people Alphaville, like many of the director's films, will prove utterly baffling. For those inclined to dig deeper into Godard's artistic intentions, the words of critic Andrew Sarris (quoted from an essay that accompanies the Criterion Collection DVD) will ring true: "To understand and appreciate Alphaville is to understand Godard, and vice versa." --Jeff Shannon
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