Prénom Carmen (1983)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writers:

Anne-Marie Miéville (scenario)
Anne-Marie Miéville (adaptation)

Release Date:

11 January 1984 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Crime | Romance

Plot:

Carmen is a member of a terrorist gang who falls in love with a young police officer guarding a bank that she and her cohorts try to rob...

Plot Keywords:

String | Shooting | Kiss | Masturbation | Hospital

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Maruschka Detmers	...	Carmen X
Jacques Bonnaffé	...	Joseph Bonnaffé
Myriem Roussel	...	Claire
Christophe Odent	...	Le chef
Pierre-Alain Chapuis
Bertrand Liebert	...	Le garde du corps
Alain Bastien-Thiry	...	Le valet du grand hôtel (as Alain Bastien)
Hippolyte Girardot	...	Fred (as Hyppolite Girardot)
Odile Roire
Valérie Dréville	...	La noutrice
Christine Pignet
Jean-Michel Denis
Jacques Villeret	...	L'homme qui mange des yaourts dans les toilettes de la station-service / Man eating jam
Jacques Prat	...	Violon (as Quatuor Prat)
Laurent Dangalec	...	Violon (as Quatuor Prat)

Also Known As:

First Name: Carmen (USA)

Runtime:

France:85 min | USA:85 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:14 | Australia:R (2007) | Australia:R | Argentina:18 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Singapore:R(A) | Sweden:15 | UK:18

Company:

Sara Films

Quotes:

Oncle Jeannot: I know that if I stuffed my thumb into your ass while you counted to 33 C,D,E,F,G- I would get a fever.

Movie Connections:

Version of The Loves of Carmen (1948)

Soundtrack:

String Quartet n. 14 op. 131

fantastic

The thing I love most about Godard it that he is entirely unlike any other filmmaker out there. His films from the eighties to Notre Musique are my favorite of his. They are incredibly beautiful and poetic. While watching this one (and also Oh Woe is Me, from the same box set) I was moved to tears. I prefer Godard over any filmmaker any day.

People complain a lot about the structure of his films, but quite frankly I entirely disagree with those complaints. The man values poetry over plot. There is nothing wrong with that. There is no rule for how to make a movie, except that it should have a beginning, a middle and and end (not exactly in that order though). Godard's plot structure is the skeleton for his movies, not the point. There is so much more than story that he wants to express in films, emotions that he considers more important. I agree with him.

The fact of the matter is, that you are not going to find anything different in the realm of cinema if you are looking for a new story. There's only ever been one story, and everything has worked off of that. Godards doesn't separate himself from that, but he builds off of it in a direction that very few filmmakers are willing to.

I'll take Prenom Carmen over any Woody Allen film any day. I'll take Prenom Carmen over any Hollywood film any day. I'll take Prenom Carmen over any indie-flick any day. Godard's world is so fresh.

Hell, I'm just seventeen. I have an entire lifetime to fully understand everything that is happening in his films. That's how one should go into a Godard film. If you look at understanding as a progression, you are already on your way to grasping the genius of Godard. Godard is like Kierkegaard in his sprawling poetry--I thought he was a philosopher, but this is better. Just like Kierkegaard embodied more than the sphere of philosophy (philosophy still being his core, his initial means of expression), Godard goes beyond the boundaries of film, beyond the boundaries of structure. Simply put, Godard is an artist. He is a composer, just as well as a filmmaker. He is a poet, just as well as a filmmaker. He is Balzac and Renoir. Because Godard understands what all these things really are. They are in his movies, and movies are just his his way of manifesting all those art forms. Prenom Carmen is a perfect example.