Anna Karina


How does the interview affect your thoughts about Godard and his film 'Vivre sa Vie' (1962)?


The interview makes me think of Godard as a young melancholic man that had a desire to create art in such a genuine that way he needed a 'soulmate' to express his love for film. He wanted to fall in love with the main character in the way the audience would fall in love with her, capturing the essence of her personal character instead of constructing one.

One thing Godard wanted to achieve was to represent the real lives of the post-war french youth, instead of sensationalising lifestyles that were out of touch and prominently displayed in the french filmscape at the time. Anna Karina was not like other actresses, but a Danish immigrant that worked her way up all by herself without losing herself and her mind. She stood out to Godard just as she stood out to us in the film, which gives us a sensee of individualism as an audience, as she was not sensationalised as a character or an individual.

I see 'Vivre sa Vie' as a helpless loveletter from Godard to Anna Karina. He reflects their realtionship in the opening scene when Nana talks to Paul about if she does not leave him she will betray him again. This reflects Godard and Anna Karinas marriage as she cheats on him a year into their marriage. Although I do not know the reasons behind what she did I believe Godard tried to reignite their love by working together.

In the eleventh sequence of the film Godard reads from the Edgar Allan Poe story 'The Oval Portrait'.
Godard recites passages regarding a painter that grows obsessed with a painting depicting his wife that he pays no attention to the real woman. When he is finished he looks at the work and exclaims, “This is indeed life itself!” Then turns to see his bride, and discovers that she has died and her spirit has transferred into the lifelike painting. The inference is clear; Godard saw it as fate that he would lose the woman he loved as the price of their artistic collaboration, and that is the bitter irony of the film. 





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