Their collaboration started with Le petit soldat<\/em>, which was shot in 1960, but barred from release until 1963. (The French government was touchy about anything regarding the war in Algeria while it was still going on.) In the meantime, Karina top-lined 1961\u2019s A Woman Is a Woman<\/em> (for which she won Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival) and 1962\u2019s Vivre Sa Vie<\/em>, and co-starred with Godard in Agn\u00e8s Varda\u2019s Les fianc\u00e9s du pont Mac Donald<\/em>, the slapstick short incorporated into Cl\u00e9o from 5 to 7<\/em><\/a>. Band of Outsiders<\/em> was their first feature together in two years, and it presented Karina with a tricky role to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unworldly and more than a little na\u00efve, Karina\u2019s Odile nevertheless seems interested in broadening her horizons since she\u2019s taking an English class. After class one day, she tells another student about a stash of money belonging to one of the boarders at her aunt\u2019s house and he, in turn, tells a friend who decides the thing to do is steal it. That\u2019s where the film begins, with Odile\u2019s classmate Franz (Sami Frey) driving his friend Arthur (Claude Brasseur) out to the suburbs so they can case the place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far from hardened criminals, Franz and Arthur play at being thieves in the same way they play-act Billy the Kid getting gunned down by Pat Garrett (resulting in Arthur performing an extended \u201cdeath\u201d scene) or a bull fight (with Arthur as the bull). They even take their cues from movies, insisting on waiting until nightfall to commit the robbery, \u201cin keeping with the tradition of bad B movies.\u201d One detail they make their own, though, is borrowing Odile\u2019s black stockings to wear over their faces at the appointed time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The allusions to American crime films start right out of the gate with the Columbia logo, but Band of Outsiders<\/em> is nowhere near as straightforward as the noirs released by that studio. For starters, Godard\u2019s narration is rife with digressions, and he even provides a recap eight minutes in \u201cfor latecomers arriving now.\u201d The editing is also noticeably slack in places, with certain actions and lines of dialogue repeated across cuts. What would be considered sloppy in another director\u2019s work comes across as an intentional exposure of the artifice of filmmaking when Godard does it, though. The same goes for having characters look directly into the lens or comment on the plot. (\u201cThe situation\u2019s clear enough,\u201d Albert says at one point. \u201cBut what isn\u2019t clear is the part I personally have to play in it.\u201d) Then there are the scenes for which the film is most famous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Foremost among them is \u201cThe Madison,\u201d which arrives at the exact midpoint \u2013 and hot on the heels of the \u201cminute of silence\u201d when the three of them run out of things to say. To demonstrate this, Godard kills the soundtrack entirely, but only lets it go on for 37 seconds before Franz says, \u201cThat\u2019s enough. I\u2019ll put a record on.\u201d That\u2019s the cue for Arthur, Odile, and Franz to do their dance routine, but even then, Godard cuts the music at intervals to narrate the inner thoughts of the characters as they\u2019re literally going through the motions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other iconic scene is the trio\u2019s mad dash through the Louvre the afternoon of the robbery. Of course, if they were serious about killing time, they might have stopped to look at a painting or two, but they had a record to beat \u2013 one set by an American, naturally. That they\u2019re holding hands in the home stretch, with Odile between the other two, reflects the tug of war she\u2019s in between them, although it\u2019s obvious from whom she accepts a cigarette when both offer one who she\u2019s drawn to. (Franz also pointedly misses Arthur and Odile\u2019s first furtive kiss.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the closing moments, Godard teases a sequel \u2013 \u201cin CinemaScope and Technicolor\u201d \u2013 that never materialized. Instead, he and Karina made three more features (Alphaville<\/em>, Pierrot le Fou<\/em>, and Made in U.S.A.<\/em>) before calling it quits. (They divorced in 1967 and never worked together again.) Even if audiences didn\u2019t flock to It at the time, Band<\/em> is an integral part of Godard\u2019s \u201960s run and a film of many pleasures. There may be more groundbreaking Godards out there, but few this fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBand of Outsiders\u201d isn\u2019t streaming at present, but it can be had for a steal on <\/em>Blu-ray<\/em><\/a> from Criterion.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/band_of_outsiders_2-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n