Band of Outsiders (1964)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Cinephile slackers Franz and Arthur spend their days mimicking the antiheroes of Hollywood noirs and Westerns while pursuing the lovely Odile. The misfit trio upends convention at every turn, be it through choreographed dances in cafés or frolicsome romps through the Louvre. Eventually, their romantic view of outlaws pushes them to plan their own heist, but their inexperience may send them out in a blaze of glory -- which could be just what they want.
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5 films that influenced Band of Outsiders
What critics say influenced Band of Outsiders
Its black-and-white, low-budget feel makes it a kindred spirit to the B-movies Godard loves (like Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour and Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin ).
It's hard to believe, but Jean-Luc Godard began his career as a director not 30 years after the French began to make talking picturesâand his Band of Outsiders often resembles René Clair's Under the Roofs of Paris more than it does a film from 1964.
More contemporaneous to Band of Outsiders, Godard owes as much, in terms of texture and tone, to Jacques Demy's Lola.
Unlike Truffaut’s Jules and Jim, where the central characters’ love triangle is so ludicrous that it destroys the entire narrative structure, Band of Outsiders only requires brushing reality aside for a few brief moments.
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In hindsight, everything that is most daring about it would be repeated to stronger effect in more interesting movies overall by the same director - most directly in Band of Outsiders and Pierrot le fou , though almost everything he made throughout the 1960s reworks some element of his debut - which makes it frankly a wee bit harder to regard it with the same esteem that besotted critics and cinephiles did when it was brand new.And yet, this is The One.
As an exhilarating challenge to familiar filmmaking, it stands alongside Breathless (1960), Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962), Masculin, féminin (1966), and Weekend (1967), as Godard's finest work.
Godard’s first few films (Breathless, My Life to Live, etc.) frequently focus on self-liberation, and Band of Outsiders smoothly continues the trend.
Though one could make a case for his masterworks like Vivre sa vie (1962) and Contempt (1963), Godard's so-called crime films like Breathless (1959), Pierrot le Fou (1965) and Band of Outsiders (1964) illustrate this duality best.