Band Of Outsiders by Ian Stout

Band Of Outsiders/1964

Director- Jean-Luc Godard/Birth Country-France (Parents from Swiss decent)/ Born 3 Dec. 1930

Budget $120,000 (estimated) -IMDB

Gross $182,857

Synopsis: Two reckless young men and a naive young girl become caught in a playful love triangle surrounding the central idea of stealing money from her aunt. It's a poorly planned robbery that ends in one of the young mens death. Each of the three are way in over their heads.

Narrative and Visual Keywords: Godard gives us a voice over narration as we follow these young fools through there folly. Each of the characters in the film gives a V.O. narration of what state they find them selves in at given points of the film.

Characterization/ Dialogue: Arthur and Franz carry on as friends. Arthur is the top dog and the girl tends to spend most of her attention on him. Playful dialog and a slow moving narrative keep the film in the realm of realism.

Camera/lighting/editing technique: Long takes with the camera, often static or possibly panning with action. Nothing fancy. The characters drive the scene. We open with jump cutting fast images of faces. Sound cuts out for key moments of V.O. dialog. We end with a quote that reminds us yet again that we are watching a film.

Political/ Social Commentary : We get a feel for how the youth of a country not currently at war have wondering thoughts of crime and possibly lack of respect for all that they do have.

Historical Relevance/ Recognition: A French spin on Dolores Hitchen's novel Fool's Gold. - (Rotten Tomatoes) As with all of Godard's work, we feel a removed, non perfect world for our charters to inhabit.
An interesting credit in the beginning. "For the last time on screen Music by Michel Legrand.

1. Can you detect object and subjective reality as well as authorship? Please describe.
The characters all behaved in their own ways so I would say each was living in their own subjective world. Arthur was self centered and didn't really care about the girl, only what he was after. Franz had the big heart and loved Odile for who she was. And Odile was just plain naive. You could feel Godard's touch in his characters and they way they went about their life as if the rest of the world didn't even exist.

2. How does the film treat political and or romantic or religious commitment?
Arthur, the protagonist treated romance lightly and the film didn't show any concern for religion or politics. It was a self involved film very much about three individuals and their dilemmas.

3. After researching your auteur, can you see elements of their personality in their characters? If so, which? Can you guess what their take on society is? As a critique himself Godard criticized main stream cinema. He didn't care about happy films where everything turned out right. He loved the dramatic and often more true to life sad ending.