Product Description

Two restless young men (Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur) enlist the object of their desire (Anna Karina) to help them commit a robbery--in her own home. French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard takes to the streets of Paris to re-imagine the gangster genre, spinning an audacious yarn that's at once sentimental and insouciant, romantic and melancholy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22355 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-01-07
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Described by its maker, Jean-Luc Godard, as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka," this 1964 film noir stars Anna Karina as a naive woman who takes up with couple of would-be bad guys (Claude Brasseur, Sami Frey) in a disastrous effort to rob her aunt of a fortune. Along the way, the motley group joins the Godardian (and Hollywood gangster) tradition of characters who walk a line between reality and invention, in this case distracting themselves by running around the Louvre, taking a stab at learning English, stumbling through some dance steps, and reenacting the death of Billy the Kid. A uniquely spontaneous work in Godard's canon, Band of Outsiders also continues the Brechtian strain in the director's merged relationship with Karina, his then-wife and artistic muse. Yet it is also more buoyantly unpredictable in its sense of romantic doom than any of the director's movies since his seminal debut, Breathless (also a gangster film, not coincidentally). --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Essential French cinema: Godard's 'Bande à part .'
Band of Outsiders (1964) is perhaps Jean-Luc Godard's (1930) most accessible French New Wave film. Drawing from politics, film history, French intellectualism, existential and Marxist philosophy, Godard's radical films challenged the conventions of Hollywood cinema. He describes this film as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka." It tells the simple story of two would-be criminals, Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey), who both fall in love with Odile (Anna Karina), a naive student in their English-language class. The three free-spirited outsiders conspire to rob Odile's aunt. (Godard considered Karina to be his artistic muse, and the two were married from 1961 to 1967.)

The unlikely trio of Godardian gangsters create film history against a Paris backdrop in three unforgettable scenes. In the first, Arthur, Franz, and Odile decide to observe a minute of silence in a crowded café, and the film's soundtrack falls into 36 seconds of total silence. In the second, Odile, Arthur, and Franz perform a spontaneous dance (called "the Madison dance") in the same cafe. (This scene later inspired the Uma Thurman-John Travolta dance in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (Two-Disc Collector's Edition).) In the third, the three attempt to break the world record for seeing the Louvre in just nine minutes and 43 seconds.

Romantic yet melancholy, light yet dark, playful yet stark, Band of Outsiders was the only Godard film selected for Time Magazine's 100 Best Movies of All Time in 2005. It is also among my all-time personal favorites. The Criterion edition offers a crisp digital transfer with a clear soundtrack, as well as an interview with Godard.

G. Merritt

Light, playful with a gray undertone
Even though I haven't gotten around to finish watching Jean-Luc Godard's celebrated Breathless (1960) despite trying a couple of times, I'm pretty sure I like Band of Outsiders better. Main reason: Anna Karina. I have little doubt that most women would prefer Breathless since it stars Jean-Paul Belmondo who, as cinematic history has it, anticipated Richard Gere's performance in Truffaut's American Breathless (1983).

What I love about Karina's Odile is her incredible naivete. Although 20-years-old playing perhaps an 18-year-old, Karina, then Godard's wife, manages the complete and total personality of someone say 12-years-old. It is her naivete that makes the film work as two petty, would-be criminals, Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey) seduce her into helping them rob a surprisingly large number of francs from her Aunt's house. At least they think they're going to score. We'll see how the fates feel about that.

They meet in a beginning English language class. Obviously it is not just Godard who admires American culture, our three beginners in life do as well. Appropriately enough the film is adapted from Fools' Gold, an American novel by Dolores Hitchins. In a sense this is a French film imitating not an American film but an American attitude toward life, a free and easy world in which riches are liable to just fall into your lap, where it's chic to be young and run with the wind and drive your convertible onto the sidewalk when you feel like it and in crazy circles for no reason at all, and it is especially fun to jump into the vehicle without opening the doors while it is moving. It is an existence in which you feel spontaneous and uninhibited and can dance the Madison without looking at your feet.

Well, Odile and Franz can. Arthur watches his continuously. And this tells us something about Arthur, who is a bit mean and a bit shallow, but intent on getting his and getting it right. It is he with whom Odile falls into puppy love. She is attracted to his confidence and his crude masculinity, and his interest in her, nothing more. She is further seduced by the joy of finding friends and something exciting to do. She hasn't a clue about who they are or who she is, and that in part is the charm of the film.

She has lovely limbs that we do not see. She runs gracefully, stretching her legs out like a colt. She delights in sitting in the front seat of the Simca, the men on either side of her. Steal the money she has spotted in her uncle's closet, money that she herself would never think of stealing? Okay. And then we go to England or better yet, South America like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Childish, very childish and charming because Odile is so pretty, just that, pretty as every young girl should be. But surely something tragic is going to happen. Surely this is a cautionary tale about how innocence is lost.

There are gray day shots of Paris and the suburbs now covered with concrete and asphalt. There's a nine-minute run through the Louvre, young people just having fun; and then the denouement and tragedy. Of some sort. And then the fantasy life returns as the film ends.

Godard's story, his plot, isn't to be taken seriously, but his characters are. Arthur is the bad guy, the primitive, just an animal acting out his animal life. But Franz is sly, reflective, reads books, is well-mannered, is finding himself. Odile is a child who will be a woman soon.

The Criterion Collection DVD is nicely presented with some of the usual extras, including excerpts from interviews with Godard and Anna Karina. The subtitles are excellent. There's a booklet with a review by Joshua Clover and part of an interview by Jean Collet from 1964 entitled, "No Questions Asked: Conversations with Jean-Luc Godard."

Band of Outsiders
Like Godard's "Breathless," the exhilarating "Outsiders" is one of the director's most accessible and enjoyable outings from the 1960s. Part buddy film, part crime-gone-wrong drama, it tells the story of three disaffected friends whose ill-advised adventure in armed robbery is really a way for Godard to capture their devil-may-care youthfulness. Tracking the trio's romp through the Louvre (to beat the nine-minute record of an American tourist!) or staging a cool, dazzling three-way dance (the Madison) next to a café jukebox, Godard is at his most invigorating here. In all, "Outsiders" is atmospheric, free-spirited, and fun.