SCREENING ON SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7TH.

In their third collaboration, Anna Karina, Godard’s muse (and now wife), plays Nana, a Parisienne would-be actress who finds herself drifting towards prostitution, her downward spiral imaginatively depicted in a series of distinct tableaux. Featuring some of Karina and Godard’s most iconic moments, Vivre sa vie is a landmark of the Nouvelle Vague. A significantly personal note is revealed when Nana and a lover read Poe’s The Oval Portrait, since it’s Godard himself we hear narrating the tale of an artist who spends so long perfecting a picture of his spouse that she ultimately expires.

Notes by David O Mahony

Screening as part of Truth, 24 Frames per Second: The Films of Jean-Luc Godard