Vivre Sa Vie (1962/Criterion Collection Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: C+ Extras: B Film: B
On
Blu-ray from Criterion, you get yet another key Jean-Luc Godard film in Vivre Sa Vie (1962, aka My Life To Live) and it is a fine
release of yet another key Godard work.
Only his third French New Wave film, he could have stuck with the jump cut
editing style of Breathless (1959)
but had other ideas about breaking up the Classical Hollywood Narrative and the
approach here takes another turn in his deconstruct/reconstruct approach that
would become more and more radical until he collapsed as an auteur in 1967 with
Weekend.
The film
announces that it is in 12 parts and is a tribute to B-movies (visually, the
link is to American Film Noir, the French equivalent and cheap fiction in a
cheap world) as Nana (Anna Karina) wants to become an actress, but lands up
becoming a street prostitute. Of course,
the objectified woman became a focus in Godard’s films and a real issue for
feminist critics in particular (still alive today in other media, like Melodie
McDaniel’s relatively recent, classic Music Video for Linger by The Cranberries) but Godard did it in such a casual, well
photographed style that it was not like anything anyone had done before or
since.
The film
blames the emptiness of the world and that pop culture does not fill that
vacuum any if the soul is not satisfied and no one ever seems very satisfied in
a Godard film, but then that is the point.
Of course, Godard gets referential to literature and even other films
(with Nana, et al, watching Dreyer’s Passion
Of Joan Of Arc) but with reference and meaning that tries to go deeper to
the point of Nana and the world she lives in.
Godard
still did the occasional short film in this period and each of the 12 segments
has that kind of closure, except for the fact that we are following Anna. The film has other interesting and memorable
moments, enhanced by the visuals as much as anything and as I watched the solid
playback performance on this Blu-ray, realized it was the format that finally
brought the art house to anyone’s house with a Blu-ray player and not just a
16mm or 35mm projector. This was the
second film with Godard and Karina working together and it is a very smooth
work.
The 1080p
1.33 X 1 digital black and white High Definition image (bookended on the sides
by black bars) was lensed by Godard’s great Director of Cinematography Raoul
Coutard and the booklet included explains the 35mm camera negative was used to
make a new HD master via a Spirit Datacine telecine machine and it is easily
the best the film has ever looked outside of a film print. My only quibble is that the finest detail
does not come through, but everything else works here. Video Black is great, Video White in the
ivory zone, shadow detail impressive and depth often impressive. The result is very visually involving and
brings out much of the feel of the film as the duo intended.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono comes from an original monophonic soundmaster
(though it is never said whether it is magnetic or optical) and transferred at
24-bit digital sound while cleaned for pops and clicks. Except for still showing its age and some
slight, minute compression, it sounds as good as the film will likely ever
sound. I wondered if Michel Legrand’s
score was ever recorded by him in stereo, but it is one fop the most underrated
aspects of the whole film.
Extras
include a booklet with tech information, illustrations, original promo text by
Godard, 1962 essay on the film by Godard, Jean Collet’s essay on the film’s
soundtrack and Michael Atkinson essay, while the Blu-ray has a rich
feature-length audio commentary track by critic/writer/film scholar Adrian Martin,
video interview with film scholar Jean Narboni by historian Noel Simsolo, 1962
TV interview with Karina on the film, excerpts from a 1961 French TV
documentary on prostitution, Stills Gallery, Illustrated Essay on La
Prostitution, the book the film was the basis of and Godard’s great
theatrical trailer for the film.
- Nicholas Sheffo
