How did Godard could have let her go. He definitively didn't know what he had in his hands. Adorable, beautiful, and talented in one single woman, she's simply incredible.
@@democritusjunior6315 he said "how could he let her go" not who filled for divorce... He could have been distant or fucking around before she had to file for one
This is a question I love because I remember when I was younger, and just beginning to get into their film collaborations I had the same question. And I wasn't satisfied with small answers. Well… on the surface the closest we get are stories, anecdotes apparently coded films even ("L'amour fou" by Rivette apparently, although I am not sure 100% if that is true and though I love Rivette, this is one I haven’t seen but will hopefully sooner rather than later ) many years later, … We of course can do psychological analyses of them both and their needs and quickly see why he wasn't the love and stability she craved since childhood, but in many ways the opposite, no matter what things were able to keep them together for the years they spent together. The part in Vivre sa vie when an Edgar Allan Poe story is being read is true. He was in love with her image, not so much with her. It didn't help how he neglected her (Google her own anecdotes on his casual weeks-long abandonments where she would be left with no money or food; he'd say he was out to buy cigarettes and end up in London buying cameras) and just in general, his being a genius didn't take away the fact that he was also a jerk in general. Narcissistic, inflexible, mean. Try to find actors, or camera men, technicians who recollect fondly on working with him. I've found none. You CAN find people plainly saying he was hateful and they never would want to work with him again. IF you want the deepest perspective on Godard’s failure in his first two marriages, I found it in Anne Wiazemsky’s memoirs. I hope they get translated to English. I also read her memoir on working with Robert Bresson at age 17-18 which is how she and Godard first met. Godard was possessive, erratic, unstable, extreme, and misogynistic. His quote about women shouldn't be older than 25 wasn't a joke. He married Anna when she was 20 and Anne Wiazemsky when she was 20. Anna commented on Anne's memoirs. She said she had read them. However, when the journalists asked about whether she'd write some herself, she said no because for her it was too personal. It's not a "tell-all" or anything, what Anne Wiazemsky wrote. It's more of a reminiscence of being young and in such artistic circles during the late 60s. Anne Wiazemsky 's father died when she was 15, and she took sleeping pills even into her marriage with Godard in her 20s. she was down eating dinner with the crew and cast I suppose of a movie she was filming in Italy. He was so paranoid that she was cheating in some way in his head that he took a flight to Rome and showed up at the hotel. No matter what she said, he couldn't calm down or accept any truth. That night he took all of her sleeping pills and create insanity on the set. There was young Anne crying and apologizing to the director who didn't want a media circus … when he finally wakes up and sees her distraught, he's like "Oh, now I know you really love me." The next part in the memoir is : that's when the marriage began to fall apart, and she began to understand that they had two different ideas of what love was . She writes the rest of the details of how it fell apart aren’t relevant in general or special and that’s all she says, but wow. That one anecdote packs a punch. Doing that to your wife who is probably going to spend most of her life resolving the trauma of her father's much-too-soon death is cruel. Any grown man with sense wouldn't do anything like that. I hope he eventually found some sort of calm in his recluse life in Switzerland with Anne-Marie Miéville who vetted everyone he had known. Jean-Luc was capable of great acts of psychological violence and famously ruined his friendship with François Truffaut, you can read the letter Truffaut wrote to him, furious, bitter letter but in the right. I’ve never seen the Michel Hazanavicius film which took Anne’s story and made ir about Godard, and that’s how it gets reviewed by critics. Anne Wiazemsky’s memoirs do involve people but they ARE about HER. And they are very lucid, very fair, and very interesting, and it wasn’t until I read them that I fully understood both what Anna Karina and she must have gone through in their marriages. The difference was that Anna Karina always remembered things kindly. She was gracious. Anne Wiazemsky was French and from a different social background (wealthy family, Nobel literature laureate grandfather), as well as a different person. It’s valid to not remember him so graciously. But you see many parallels in both of them, trouble with the father or disappearance of the father. A whirlwind romance, an obsessive man in love with them, and then an intensity few people can handle or even understand . In the end, Anna was married to Dennis Berry for almost forty years, and that kind of peace and happiness is what she had always longed for, which allowed her to look back fondly on the Godard years. The short answer was that he didn’t deserve her or Anne Wiazemsky, either - she had the same problem of their private fights showing up in the scripts in the morning word for word when they filmed “La Chinoise”. Anna eventually complained about it too, after Brigitte Bardot basically plays her in “Contempt,” which is not the film he should have made if he wanted to keep his marriage.) When you see photos of them in the 1960s, they look like the perfect couple and one assumes the best. But he was not a man who was able to keep friendships, or nurture love, because he often didn’t see his women as equals. He said that dumb quote about how she left him because (I forget exactly) and he her because “he couldn’t talk to her about film.” In Anne Wiazemsky’s memoir, he felt SHE had to be taken to get film education by him, which is fun I suppose. He was the great director. But according to her, his speeches would be : East of Eden. It’s all Elia Kazan, James Dean is nothing but what Kazan created. That’s how he always viewed the actors he worked with in general, never mind the crew. Godard was a genius artist, but person who by almost all accounts was impossible , overbearing, arrogant, and cruel. Sorry for the long, long comment. I do hope I am forgiven for it and that SOMEONE enjoys it. Thank you. PS- maybe “Lamiel” is still on UA-cam. The year is 1967. There’s a moment when they’re both on screen at the opera house scene. Anna plays Lamiel. The director invited Anne to play “The Most Beautiful Woman In Paris.” She had a lot of people trolling her or insulting her because of Godard marrying her and her being a youth. I still suspect one of the reasons Anna’s career was never the same AFTER Godard in spite of many great films and many misses, my theory is the New Wave men directors and producers didn’t want to cast someone who wasn’t “in” anymore, but an ex. I think it wasn’t until 1995 that Rivette cast her again in Haut Bas Fragile though their collaboration in “La Religieuse” is objectively her best film, her best acting.
Even with playful shyness, she displayed enough disposition for self-confidence that, in my opinion, was somewhat being held back by the perception that her foundation of thought and intellectual tools were not sophisticated enough for profound engagement. RIP Ms. Anna Karina. You were a beautiful and intelligent "soul mate".
I am Danish like her and i can assure you that she would never fall in that sort of traps because she was from Denmark which is where feminist started in euope as a movement and where men and women have always been equals. She wouldn't even understand the point of dicsussing feminism as for us it is so natural to put men and women on the same level. We don't do it like in the rest of Europe or the US where feminism is a fight while for us it is a natural thing. So she wouldn't fall into this trap because she wouldn't see the point of those questions and wouldn't understand the vicious plan behind them. It is difficult to explain to me because every time i go to the US or Europe i see feminism aa fight while in countries like Denmark, Iceland, or even Japan, feminism is very natural. I don't think i ever met a man in any of these countries who believe that a man is superior to a woman. Different yes, sometimes unequal yes but superior no. It is like the whole LGBT issue where people ate still discussing gay rights and trans rights in europe and the US while in Scandinavia (especially Denmark and Iceland) this is not even a question to ask. And Japan (i know this country particularly well because i lived 30 years in Japan and i am half Icelandic) has already accept transwoman very widely and i never heard of any of Transwomen in Japan facing prejudice and definitely not in Iceland and Denmark. And as for gay rights i mean Iceland 's former president was gay and she was married to another woman so Icelandic people have learned not to judge long ago.
What a rude question he started out with: "Did you make this film so you could star in it?" So rude! He didn't understand the socio political messages in her film. "WhY did yOu put THAT in?" 🙄 He has no sense of humor. He hardly cracked a smile at any of her jokes. He only forced a small, condescending laugh sometimes when she really, really waited for his response. He made it all so awkward. She was very congenial but these interviewers/ interrogators I've seen her with... eugh. His agenda was to expose her as a feminist man hater, but she was too coy to fall to that. "The female character comes out better than the men, iS tHaT bC oF tHe WoMeN's MoVeMeNt?" 🙄 He seemed so condescending. Just another dry, cold, rude, sexist interviewer as she always had to deal with. But she sure did pander to them. 🤷♀️ She pandered to the patriarchy, even as she boldly, yet covertly changed the paradigm of it. What a woman!
Haha, no I don’t think he was particularly trying to do anything bad (or working for himself). There are interviews in which they truly are rude to her and she elegantly calls them out on the weird questions. If she thought a question was kind of rude, she’s make it known. Keep in mind the time period, and I don’t get that vibe. Also, I don’t think she “pandered to the patriarchy.” She didn’t think in that way. It’s admirable that instead of anger or protests or such, she simply did what she set out to do. It wasn’t easy to get a film done, and it was forgotten for almost 45 years. I’m so glad it was re-released (and on DVD) before her death. Honestly, Anna Karina didn’t pander. She simply always was that way . She never changed her story of how things happened in her life. She was consistent in things, levelheaded and her approach was truly that, not an act. Her answers were because she believed in that. She grew up in Denmark, Nordic countries were less “sexist.” She shows you don’t have to be combative or loud or angry to leave a legacy that is just as big as if she has been out fighting on the streets. There are endless ways to “change the world,” but it cannot be done without staying true to oneself and one’s real beliefs, and in that department I think she was always true to herself. She didn’t see the world in a conflict-based way. That much I can tell you for sure.
It's great to see that there is a focus on her career as a director for some moments other than just limiting her as Godard's muse!
As it unveils her personality so much more, than the limits of visual seduction do purpose.
I wouldn't say "limiting" ...on the contrary.
this is the first interview I've seen of hers from the 1970s. I'm impressed by how well she speaks english.
As many scandinavian people she spoke fluently english before she arrived in France. She was a model before she met Godard.
Anna was polyglot - besides her natal Danish, she also spoke French, English, Italian and Swedish.
The most beautiful woman who ever lived. Rest in peace.
Absolutely.
Anna had the most beautiful eyes
How did Godard could have let her go. He definitively didn't know what he had in his hands. Adorable, beautiful, and talented in one single woman, she's simply incredible.
she divorced him.
@@democritusjunior6315 he said "how could he let her go" not who filled for divorce... He could have been distant or fucking around before she had to file for one
This is a question I love because I remember when I was younger, and just beginning to get into their film collaborations I had the same question. And I wasn't satisfied with small answers.
Well… on the surface the closest we get are stories, anecdotes apparently coded films even ("L'amour fou" by Rivette apparently, although I am not sure 100% if that is true and though I love Rivette, this is one I haven’t seen but will hopefully sooner rather than later ) many years later, …
We of course can do psychological analyses of them both and their needs and quickly see
why he wasn't the love and stability she craved since childhood, but in many ways the opposite, no matter what things were able to keep them together for the years they spent together. The part in Vivre sa vie when an Edgar Allan Poe story is being read is true. He was in love with her image, not so much with her.
It didn't help how he neglected her (Google her own anecdotes on his casual weeks-long abandonments where she would be left with no money or food; he'd say he was out to buy cigarettes and end up in London buying cameras)
and just in general, his being a genius didn't take away the fact that he was also a jerk in general. Narcissistic, inflexible, mean. Try to find actors, or camera men, technicians who recollect fondly on working with him. I've found none. You CAN find people plainly saying he was hateful and they never would want to work with him again.
IF you want the deepest perspective on Godard’s failure in his first two marriages, I found it in Anne Wiazemsky’s memoirs. I hope they get translated to English. I also read her memoir on working with Robert Bresson at age 17-18 which is how she and Godard first met.
Godard was possessive, erratic, unstable, extreme, and misogynistic. His quote about women shouldn't be older than 25 wasn't a joke. He married Anna when she was 20 and Anne Wiazemsky when she was 20.
Anna commented on Anne's memoirs.
She said she had read them. However, when the journalists asked about whether she'd write some herself, she said no because for her it was too personal.
It's not a "tell-all" or anything, what Anne Wiazemsky wrote. It's
more of a reminiscence of being young and in such artistic
circles during the late 60s.
Anne Wiazemsky 's father died when she was 15, and she took sleeping pills even into her marriage with Godard in her 20s. she was down eating dinner with the crew and cast I suppose of a movie she was filming in Italy. He was so paranoid that she was cheating in some way in his head that he took a flight to Rome and showed up at the hotel. No matter what she said, he couldn't calm down or accept any truth. That night he took all of her sleeping pills and create insanity on the set. There was young Anne crying and apologizing to the director who didn't want a media circus … when he finally wakes up and sees her distraught, he's like "Oh, now I know you really love me."
The next part in the memoir is : that's when the marriage began to fall apart, and she began to understand that they had two different ideas of what love was . She writes the rest of the details of how it fell apart aren’t relevant in general or special and that’s all she says, but wow. That one anecdote packs a punch. Doing that to your wife who is probably going to spend most of her life resolving the trauma of her father's much-too-soon death is cruel. Any grown man with sense wouldn't do anything like that.
I hope he eventually found some sort of calm in his recluse life in Switzerland with Anne-Marie Miéville who vetted everyone he had known.
Jean-Luc was capable of great acts of psychological violence and famously ruined his friendship with François Truffaut, you can read the letter Truffaut wrote to him, furious, bitter letter but in the right.
I’ve never seen the Michel Hazanavicius film which took Anne’s story and made ir about Godard, and that’s how it gets reviewed by critics.
Anne Wiazemsky’s memoirs do involve people but they ARE about HER. And they are very lucid, very fair, and very interesting, and it wasn’t until I read them that I fully understood both what Anna Karina and she must have gone through in their marriages.
The difference was that Anna Karina always remembered things kindly. She was gracious. Anne Wiazemsky was French and from a different social background (wealthy family, Nobel literature laureate grandfather), as well as a different person. It’s valid to not remember him so graciously.
But you see many parallels in both of them, trouble with the father or disappearance of the father. A whirlwind romance, an obsessive man in love with them, and then an intensity few people can handle or even understand .
In the end, Anna was married to Dennis Berry for almost forty years, and that kind of peace and happiness is what she had always longed for, which allowed her to look back fondly on the Godard years.
The short answer was that he didn’t deserve her or Anne Wiazemsky, either - she had the same problem of their private fights showing up in the scripts in the morning word for word when they filmed “La Chinoise”. Anna eventually complained about it too, after Brigitte Bardot basically plays her in “Contempt,” which is not the film he should have made if he wanted to keep his marriage.)
When you see photos of them in the 1960s, they look like the perfect couple and one assumes the best. But he was not a man who was able to keep friendships, or nurture love, because he often didn’t see his women as equals. He said that dumb quote about how she left him because (I forget exactly) and he her because “he couldn’t talk to her about film.” In Anne Wiazemsky’s memoir, he felt SHE had to be taken to get film education by him, which is fun I suppose. He was the great director. But according to her, his speeches would be : East of Eden. It’s all Elia Kazan, James Dean is nothing but what Kazan created. That’s how he always viewed the actors he worked with in general, never mind the crew.
Godard was a genius artist, but person who by almost all accounts was impossible , overbearing, arrogant, and cruel.
Sorry for the long, long comment. I do hope I am forgiven for it and that SOMEONE enjoys it. Thank you.
PS- maybe “Lamiel” is still on UA-cam. The year is 1967. There’s a moment when they’re both on screen at the opera house scene. Anna plays Lamiel. The director invited Anne to play “The Most Beautiful Woman In Paris.” She had a lot of people trolling her or insulting her because of Godard marrying her and her being a youth.
I still suspect one of the reasons Anna’s career was never the same AFTER Godard in spite of many great films and many misses, my theory is the New Wave men directors and producers didn’t want to cast someone who wasn’t “in” anymore, but an ex. I think it wasn’t until 1995 that Rivette cast her again in Haut Bas Fragile though their collaboration in “La Religieuse” is objectively her best film, her best acting.
I like how she’s laughing at him at the start :) What a woman, what an Icon • LOVE
Even with playful shyness, she displayed enough disposition for self-confidence that, in my opinion, was somewhat being held back by the perception that her foundation of thought and intellectual tools were not sophisticated enough for profound engagement. RIP Ms. Anna Karina. You were a beautiful and intelligent "soul mate".
What a lovely interviewer as well, before this I watched the rudest interviewer interrogating her.
RIP, amazing woman
her perfect english
5:04 So lovely. Another evidence of how great Truffaut was, wish they had made a movie together.
she is such a nice person.
Gorgeous woman!
Thank you for uploading this. Wonderful lady, one of the best to grace the screen.
Such a mesmerizing woman...
thank you!!!!!
sim, com certeza a mulher mais bonita de todos os tempos
she's really the most beautiful woman I've ever laid my eyes on
Fantastic interview, thanks so much for sharing it but what happened to the ending?
RIP :(
I am Danish like her and i can assure you that she would never fall in that sort of traps because she was from Denmark which is where feminist started in euope as a movement and where men and women have always been equals. She wouldn't even understand the point of dicsussing feminism as for us it is so natural to put men and women on the same level. We don't do it like in the rest of Europe or the US where feminism is a fight while for us it is a natural thing. So she wouldn't fall into this trap because she wouldn't see the point of those questions and wouldn't understand the vicious plan behind them.
It is difficult to explain to me because every time i go to the US or Europe i see feminism aa fight while in countries like Denmark, Iceland, or even Japan, feminism is very natural. I don't think i ever met a man in any of these countries who believe that a man is superior to a woman. Different yes, sometimes unequal yes but superior no.
It is like the whole LGBT issue where people ate still discussing gay rights and trans rights in europe and the US while in Scandinavia (especially Denmark and Iceland) this is not even a question to ask. And Japan (i know this country particularly well because i lived 30 years in Japan and i am half Icelandic) has already accept transwoman very widely and i never heard of any of Transwomen in Japan facing prejudice and definitely not in Iceland and Denmark. And as for gay rights i mean Iceland 's former president was gay and she was married to another woman so Icelandic people have learned not to judge long ago.
What was that at 25:03 onwards 😭
What a rude question he started out with: "Did you make this film so you could star in it?" So rude!
He didn't understand the socio political messages in her film. "WhY did yOu put THAT in?" 🙄
He has no sense of humor. He hardly cracked a smile at any of her jokes. He only forced a small, condescending laugh sometimes when she really, really waited for his response. He made it all so awkward. She was very congenial but these interviewers/ interrogators I've seen her with... eugh.
His agenda was to expose her as a feminist man hater, but she was too coy to fall to that. "The female character comes out better than the men, iS tHaT bC oF tHe WoMeN's MoVeMeNt?" 🙄
He seemed so condescending. Just another dry, cold, rude, sexist interviewer as she always had to deal with. But she sure did pander to them. 🤷♀️
She pandered to the patriarchy, even as she boldly, yet covertly changed the paradigm of it. What a woman!
french men
Haha, no I don’t think he was particularly trying to do anything bad (or working for himself).
There are interviews in which they truly are rude to her and she elegantly calls them out on the weird questions. If she thought a question was kind of rude, she’s make it known.
Keep in mind the time period, and I don’t get that vibe. Also, I don’t think she “pandered to the patriarchy.” She didn’t think in that way. It’s admirable that instead of anger or protests or such, she simply did what she set out to do. It wasn’t easy to get a film done, and it was forgotten for almost 45 years. I’m so glad it was re-released (and on DVD) before her death.
Honestly, Anna Karina didn’t pander. She simply always was that way . She never changed her story of how things happened in her life. She was consistent in things, levelheaded and her approach was truly that, not an act. Her answers were because she believed in that. She grew up in Denmark, Nordic countries were less “sexist.”
She shows you don’t have to be combative or loud or angry to leave a legacy that is just as big as if she has been out fighting on the streets. There are endless ways to “change the world,” but it cannot be done without staying true to oneself and one’s real beliefs, and in that department I think she was always true to herself.
She didn’t see the world in a conflict-based way. That much I can tell you for sure.