Alphaville (film)

Alphaville
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJean-Luc Godard
Written byJean-Luc Godard
Produced byAndré Michelin
Starring
CinematographyRaoul Coutard
Edited byAgnès Guillemot
Music byPaul Misraki
Production
companies
  • Chaumiane Productions
  • Filmstudio
Distributed by
  • Athos Films (France)
  • Filmstudio (Italy)
Release dates
  • 5 May 1965 (1965-05-05) (France)
  • 7 August 1965 (1965-08-07) (Italy)
Running time
99 minutes
Countries
LanguageFrench

Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution) is a 1965 French New Wave tech noir film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It stars Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Howard Vernon and Akim Tamiroff. The film won the Golden Bear award of the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965.[2][3]

Alphaville combines the genres of dystopian science fiction and film noir. There are no special props or futuristic sets; instead, the film was shot in real locations in Paris, the night-time streets of the capital becoming the streets of Alphaville, while modernist glass and concrete buildings (which in 1965 were new and strange architectural designs) represent the city's interiors. Although the film is set in the future, the characters also refer to 20th-century events; for example, the hero describes himself as a Guadalcanal veteran.

Expatriate American actor Eddie Constantine plays Lemmy Caution, a trenchcoat-wearing secret agent. Constantine had already played this or similar roles in dozens of previous films; the character was originally created by British crime novelist Peter Cheyney. However, in Alphaville, director Jean-Luc Godard moves Caution away from his usual twentieth-century setting and places him in a futuristic sci-fi dystopia, the technocratic dictatorship of Alphaville.

  1. ^ a b "Alphaville (1965)". British Film Institute. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
  2. ^ "Prizes & Honours 1965". Berlin International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 20 February 2010.
  3. ^ MacCabe, Colin (2005). Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy. Macmillan. p. 347. ISBN 0-571-21105-4.