Word: godard
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...Woman Is a Woman is an unabashed display of cinematic bravura by French Director Jean-Luc Godard, whose first big success was Breathless. Breaking completely with the downbeat, darkly evocative themes that made his reputation international, Godard has brought off a flashy little showpiece so full of daring artifice and visual horseplay that it cannot fail to divide viewers into two camps: those who find its excesses unforgivable v. those who find its successes unbeatable...
Such trivia would hardly suffice for an 80-minute comedy, except that Godard uses story merely as a springboard into a series of gay, giddy improvisations. Filmed in 1961, Woman shows Godard's easy mastery of the style that was later used to antic effect in Tony Richardson's version of Tom Jones. Director Godard effortlessly bends his narrative into brightly colored free forms that glow with spontaneity. His three wistful misfits will not stay put as creatures of fiction. They keep popping in and out of it, sharing their secrets with the camera, affecting musical comedy poses...
During one lively, choreographed quarrel, Godard abruptly freezes the frames to announce in titles: "It is because they love each other that things will go wrong for Emile and Angela." Later, Brialy soliloquizes: "I don't know whether this is a comedy or a tragedy-but it is a masterpiece." It isn't, really. But for fans of offbeat films, it will seem a pungently detailed and disarmingly original effort by a man who makes his joy in his work contagious...
...whore to well-bred ten-year-old. And Nekhlvudov, the hero, trudging the paths of a Siberian village--photographed with the flavor of Italian neo-realism. And many other cinematic "quotes" which are appropriate and effective, not the kind of private joke they seem to be with Truffaut and Godard, for example...
...Woman Is a Woman is a 35-mm. salute to life, liberty and off-beat movies by Director Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless), whose joy in his work has never been more apparent. In this fresh and giddy free-form improvisation, Godard weaves all the bright idiocy of a Hollywood musical into some very je m'en fiche French rounds involving an ecdysiast (Anna Karina) who sheds her last flimsy inhibition and decides to have a baby with her lover, or-if it happens to work out that way-with her lover's best friend (Jean-Paul Belmondo...