Alphaville (1965)

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  November 12, 2007

  brooklynspo

  I think I gotta watch this a few more times.

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  March 19, 2012

  tolkienfan101

  Combining my favorite concepts of dystopian civilizations, much on the same wave lengths as Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World', and Film Noir, "Alphaville" is set in a technocratic dictatorship in which emotions are considered obsolete and public exhibition of them is... read more against the law. The concept of the individual self is explored throughout the film with great razor-sharp wit and accuracy by New Wave master, Jean-Luc Godard. The dangers of technologic advancement and abuse are in constant play, and no one else could have played the lead like Eddie Constantine, and we are treated to brilliant performances by the whole cast. A futuristic film that was shot on the streets of Paris makes this film far closer to home than expected.

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  April 10, 2011

  flixsterman

  Technically sloppy but effective science fiction from the directorial stewardship of Jean-Luc Godard. To me, Godard is like the Jackson Pollock of filmdom - I appreciate his contributions to the art-form but I wouldn't want his stuff in my house.

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  December 19, 2010

  LorenzoVonMatterhorn

  "Time is the substance of which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along. But I am time. It's a tiger, tearing me apart; but I am the tiger."
  
  Lemmy Caution, an American private-eye, arrives in Alphaville, a futuristic city on another planet. His very American ch... read morearacter is at odds with the city's ruler, an evil scientist named Von Braun, who has outlawed love and self-expression.
  
  REVIEW
  This film, from director Jean-Luc Godard, one of the luminaries behind the French "Nouvelle Vague" (or "New Wave") film movement, is science-fiction like you've never seen before. The story tells of tough private-eye Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), who arrives in the futuristic city of Alphaville to search for a missing scientist. Controlled by the powerful computer Alpha 60, the brainwashed citizens of Alphaville live lives devoted to logic and devoid of emotion. The film was made entirely on location in Paris, selectively shot to give the appearance of a futuristic city, and Lemmy Caution travels through intergalactic space in a Ford car. The film is interesting and quite entertaining if you know what to expect. Some viewers may find Godard's offbeat style irritating and the frequent, long academic discussions dull, but ti is worth making the attempt if only to experience something completely unexpected. Inevitably dated, the film has still aged quite well. Glamour is provided by the lovely Anna Karina, Godard's wife at the time, as the scientist's daughter.

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  October 19, 2010

  guttersnipe28

  Ace, my introduction to Nouvelle Vague, and what an experience. Noir married perfectly to paranoid sci-fi, and a great influence on my beloved Blade Runner. The camerawork is resoundingly fresh and its concepts still pertinent. Follow Godard, he knows what he's doing...

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  August 27, 2010

  ceWEBrity

  Alphaville is a textured, surreal grandfather to many science fiction films before it, which makes its unchallenging ending all the more disappointing. In light of the more cogent, hard-hitting themes that preceded it, "love conquers all" seems awfully sophomoric for Godard. That... read more said, this is a provocative, beautifully lensed, appropriately unusual mixture of Fahrenheit 451 and Chinatown...a city teeming with danger, and a sinister inhuman monarch sitting atop it all, monitoring its citizenry's every move and feeling and action. For his apparently very limited budget, and the apparent lack of any constructed sets to depict a futuristic world, Alphaville does an amazing job creating its setting - the city seems polished in a jarring way, shadowy and harshly bright in alternation. The plot isn't quite as lucid, a rather hazy tale of governments at war and double crossing, as if Godard needed a backdrop on which to hang his emotional parable.
  
  Anna Karina is stunning here. In her I see a bit of Marion Cotillard (though I guess I have that backward); beautiful, intelligent, perhaps a bit passive. She exudes a convincing naivete when confronted with concepts that have never been introduced to the people of Alphaville. Her character is deceptively important to the plot, even though she seems incidental; in some ways, she's the biggest culprit for the awkward double blind ending. Eddie Constantine does fine, but I don't think the movie is all that preoccupied with him so much as his mission and the theater of operations in which it takes place. Most sinister, however, is the voiceover of the scarcely-seen computerized head of Alphaville, Alpha 60. Apparently played by a man with a mechanical voice box, his guttural French non-sequiturs are immensely discomforting.
  
  An excellent, fresh little bit of New Wave. Perhaps not for everyone in light of its narrative obtuseness, but I found that it gave ample opportunity and subtext for a creative audience to make of it what they will.

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  March 30, 2010

  JonathanHutchings

  Alphaville, Jean-Luc Godard's first and only (that I'm aware of) foray into the world of science fiction, is about a dystopic city, set an undefined number of years in the future on another planet, where our main character Lemmy Caution has just arrived from the ambiguous "Lands ... read moreWithout." Posing as a journalist, he checks into a hotel which offers complementary, unthinking prostitutes. He soon starts to ask questions and it becomes apparent he isn't quite who he says he is. Godard directs with his usual postmodernist chic cool that anyone who has seen any of his films before will be well versed in. However, amidst all the contemporary hipness, the film's main influence is clearly that of which the French New Wavers were often very fond of: film noir. Stylistically there are the dark tones, dramatic music, and gritty realism, and the narrative has the classic mystery elements recalled from detective thrillers; characterization, too, falls in line: the lead, Caution, is a thoroughly pessimistic, downbeat individual, with the fashion sense of the typical private eye of the 40s. This dystopia shows an explicit and continual transference from a knowledge culture to that of a mechanized technocratic society where logic and reason rule. It'd be fair to assume that this is a stark message of caution (the protagonist's name, after all, is "Lemmy Caution") from Godard about our already technologically advanced existence, and its dehumanizing effects -- and furthermore its role in governance (a snapshot of a totalitarian state). Of course, sci-fi with a political/societal message isn't anything new (even then), but Alphaville, with its general philosophizing on existence and other issues, and its absorbing story arch, is a magnificent film. I'd certainly recommended it for all those open-minded enough to look past the menacing presence of Hollywood. It's one of the absolute best examples of pure science fiction, a flick with true depth and uniqueness.

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  February 1, 2010

  sanjurosamurai

  a bizarre and severely underrated sci-fi/noir/thriller. alpha 60 is probably one of the best movie villains ever, and the infrastructure of alphaville that is set up by this master computer is truly daunting. lemmy caution is the perfect hero, an anti-hero in many ways that sti... read morell stands up for what we all believe in. the film sets the stage for intrigue perfectly in the opening sequences, as we dont even know what the film is about, but it all builds to clarity in the final act. its obvious the influence that this film has had on subsequent sci-fi films, as its equally obvious which of its predecessors it borrowed from. unlike any other godard film ive seen, its possibly his best film despite being more fun and less profound. the film just works on so many levels, not the least of which is the beautiful anna karina.

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  December 7, 2009

  SirPant

  The king of new wave, Jean-Luc Godard has directed what I'd describe as probably the coolest sci-fi film ever. It's been hugely influential in sci-fi, Blade Runner being the first film that springs to mind, other films have failed miserably though in not realising that it's not a... read morell about the special effects, it's about the story, the idea and most importantly the humanity. Oh the humanity... Great film, one of my favourite from Godard.

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  November 21, 2009

  bbcfloridabound

  This is a movie selected from the Criterion Collection, Spine NO #25, so its an early pick. Movie was filmed in 1965 a French entry. Most say this is a Sci-Fi Movie, didn't appear that way to me. Kind of a Orwell 1984 type movie, A man who appears to be a secret agent named Lemmy... read more Caution is sent from the outlands to destroy a computer (Alpha 60) that is controlling everyone and everything. To me it was slow and boring, most movie from Criterion Collection I can blend with and take an interest, this one just didn't work for me. Will have to give director Jean-Luc Godard another try further down the road. 3 stars on this one.

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• Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution
• Anna Karina as Natasha Von Braun
• Akim Tamiroff as Henri Dickson
• Laszlo Szabo as Chief Engineer
• Howard Vernon as Professor Leonard Nosferatu / Von Braun
• Jean-Louis Comolli as Prof. Jeckell
• Michel Delahaye as Von Braun's Assistant
• Jean André Fieschi as Prof. Heckel
• Christa Lang as seductress

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