Whereas an actress often inhabits a character and wants the audience to guess what she is feeling or thinking, an artist’s model forgoes character to focus on the aesthetics of performance and the myriad ways a human face and body can be articulated.Ī number of scholars in cinema studies have been critical of this, most notably Laura Mulvey, who opposes the exhibition of women on screen in her hugely influential essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, published in 1975. Like an actress, the artist’s model can appear in motion pictures, but the emphasis is on physical presence. She was at once beautiful and vulnerable, sexy and mysterious, and she paved the way for what is often called the “artist’s model”. Unlike a muse, who serves as inspiration for an artist, Karina worked with Godard in active collaboration, and her performances are essential to his filmography. Karina was more than Godard’s muse, and we must acknowledge that she contributed significantly to his cinema. It’s understandable that critics give Godard all of the artistic credit, especially considering that the auteur theory was started by Cahiers du Cinéma, but we must not forget the artistry of performers like Karina who elevated his films in meaningful ways. This applies to Godard, who is arguably the most revered auteur besides Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. The problem, however, is that we place too much of an emphasis on the director’s authority and not enough on the contributions of performers. We can’t always explain it, but we know an auteur when we see one. In general, it’s fair to say that filmmaking is a collaborative practice, but there’s no denying that certain filmmakers mark their projects with a personal stamp. ![]() ![]() Much has been written to either support or denounce the auteur theory since its establishment, and it’s not worth getting into every single response. According to Sarris, the director gives a film a distinctive quality, and he claims that “the way a film looks and moves should have some relationship to the way a director thinks and feels.” Filmmaker François Truffaut elevated the importance of the director in his 1954 essay, “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema”, in which he coined the term “la politique des Auteurs” to refer to filmmakers like Jean Renoir and Jacques Tati who expressed a distinct cinematic style and often developed the screenplays for their films.įilm critic Andrew Sarris subsequently introduced an expanded version of the theory to the United States with his essay “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”. This problematic omission stems from the general acceptance of the auteur theory, which more or less defined the ideology of the French New Wave. ![]() However, most of the credit is given to Godard, and not enough people are willing to acknowledge Karina’s contributions to cinema in general and Godard’s oeuvre, in particular. If you’re a cinephile, chances are that you’ve seen the collaborations between Karina and Godard, not merely because the films are situated within the now iconic la Nouvelle Vague, but because they’re among the most playful, joyous films ever created. They married in 1961, and their emotionally intense relationship continued until they divorced in 1964. As the story concludes, Karina and Godard finished shooting Le Petit Soldat and returned to Paris together. Rendezvous at midnight at the Café de la Prez.” Later that evening, Karina decided to leave her boyfriend and meet Godard. As Godard and Karina were shooting Le Petit Soldat in Geneva, Godard slipped Karina a note that said, “I love you. Three months later, Godard asked Karina to star in his next film, Le Petit Soldat (1963), and she agreed. They met, and he offered her a role in À bout de souffle, which she turned down because she refused to take her clothes off for the part. ![]() Godard saw one of the commercials, became attracted to Karina, and asked her to meet with him. At the time, Karina had a boyfriend, and she was modeling in various commercials. The year was 1960, and Godard was about to begin work on À bout de souffle ( Breathless, 1960). There is a touching moment in Richard Brody’s biography of Jean-Luc Godard, Everything Is Cinema, in which he describes the blossoming romance between Godard and Anna Karina.
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