Description

My guest for this month is Serenity Caldwell, and she’s joined me to discuss the film I chose for her, the 1965 French science fiction noir film Alphaville. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

• Jean-Luc Godard is perhaps the most famous of the Nouvelle Vague directors
• Noir is a genre I love, with a fairly poor definition. It’s definitely a know-it-when-you-see-it kind of thing
• Lemmy Caution is basically the French version of an American James Bond
• The Stranger is an existentialist novel by Albert Camus, it’s a fun one
• Babar is so damn cute
• The Criterion way is pretty much what we do around here
• Metropolis is basically the grandparent of all modern Science Fiction films
• Blade Runner and Dark City are noir influenced Science Fiction films that feel somewhat similar to this one
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick is what Blade Runner was based on. The book is better
• Lemmy Caution is incredibly well played by Eddie Constantine
• Capital of Pain seems like a breezy read
• Synchronized Swimmers aren’t usually performing as state sponsored murderers
• Nineteen Eighty-Four definitely comes off as a pretty strong influence on this film
• Instamatic cameras were super new when this film came out, it was part of the futurism
• Anna Karina is one of the most well known French actresses of all time
• A Wrinkle in Time is a super well loved novel by Madeline L'Engle, with some series science themes
• The emperor is from The Empire Strikes Back, which is a film in the Star Wars series. Just in case you didn’t know
• JRPGs are pretty well known for their ridiculously overwrought stories and themes
• I didn’t like Last Year at Marienbad. There, I said it, now you can judge me
• Sith lords are also from Star Wars. We like Star Wars a lot
• E = mc2 is a concept we got from Albert Einstein. It has to do with energy. Godard is apparently enamored with it
• Surrealism and Dadaism are concepts, somewhat explored here
• Tarzan vs IBM would probably not have been a title he could have legally used
• 4:3 is a description of the aspect ratio of this film
• Breathless is the French film that got me into French films. I think I’m not alone on that
• A Woman is a Woman is another great Godard film with Anna Karina

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