(Prénom Carmen) F 1983, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, with Maruschka Dettmers, Jacques Bonnaffe, 85 minutes (German version)

The only thing this film’s story has in common with the eponymous figure from literature and opera is the fatal ending. Godard’s figure uses fake film shootings to cover up for her bank robberies. His Carmen gets caught up in an exchange of gunfire with a guard at the bank she is robbing, which only ends when both cartridges are empty. This is followed by a struggle that ends passionately in a kiss. The two figures, Carmen and Joseph, decide to flee with one another. But Joseph is finally captured and put on trial. He is acquitted, and several months later meets Carmen in a hotel as she is planning her next coup: the kidnapping of the daughter of an industrialist, again disguised as a film shooting. On the appointed day, Joseph keeps Carmen from carrying out her plan.

Godard’s uses the film not just to tell this story: the music in particular becomes an essential part of the film. “By experimenting with image, sound, and music, and combining narrative elements with non-narrative ones, he explores the possibilities of the medium and expands the limits of the traditional Hollywood narrative cinema,” as the German film guide Lexikon des Internationalen Films put it. “The profound and the burlesque, optic and acoustic impressions are captured in an extraordinarily artful composition that invites many interpretations.” First Name: Carmen won the Golden Lion in 1983 at the Venice Film Festival.

Friday | Jan. 16 | 10 pm

Lecture 3