Friday Films: Filling in the Blanks

Since I got Netflix, I've been trying to fill in the blanks in my film education by watching classic movies, both foreign and American, that I have somehow managed to miss up until now. So far, there have been some misses ("Le Samourai" in particular), but on the whole, it's been a great project.

Last weekend, I watched Jean-Luc Godard's "Band of Outsiders," a movie that lends its name to a clothing company, Quentin Tarantino's production company, and an album by Nouvelle Vague. It's Godard at (I think) his best, a movie about would-be criminals undone by betrayal, featuring some romantic tension and a little bit of dancing. I really love "Breathless," and the movies seem to share the same DNA. The criminals are not very tough; in fact, they seem to be more inspired by movie gangsters than anything based in reality. It makes sense, considering the French New Wave's fascination with American film noir, that the characters who populate these movies would be similarly inspired.

The film revolves around two small-time crooks, Arthur and Franz, who decide to rob a man who lives in the same house as Odile (Anna Karina), who they meet in their English class. They plan the robbery, but of course everything goes wrong. The best scenes, though, have little to do with the heist itself. There's the run through the Louvre to break a record set by an American tourist, a "minute of silence," where Godard cuts the sound for a half a minute, and my favorite (which I mentioned earlier) the dance scene. I will not lie: I tried to learn the choreography in my living room. This scene was apparently a huge influence on the Travolta-Thurman dance scene in "Pulp Fiction":



One of the strangest things about "Band of Outsiders," for me at least, was the striking similarity between one of the characters, Arthur, and the lead singer of the Magnetic Fields, Stephin Merritt. They look like they could be related. It's kind of eerie.

Well, I will keep posting about my ongoing project to fill in the gaps, but for now, I want to share a really awesome project my friend Darren is trying to get together: over on his blog, he is asking everyone and anyone to send him birthday wishes for his grandmother, turning 80 this Valentine's Day. Send him a message for her!