Jean-Luc Godard's ALPHAVILLE Plays at IFC Center Through December 28th

EDDIE CONSTANTINE AND ANNA KARINA IN JEAN-LUC GODARD’s ALPHAVILLE (1965). SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.

A brand new 4K restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s ALPHAVILLE (1965), made from the original 35mm negative by Studiocanal at Hiventy with the support of the CNC, opened at the IFC Center on December 15th and will play there through December 28th. GME distributes ALPHAVILLE to the North American university market as a Blu-Ray, DVD, and DSL file. Bonus material on this release includes an interview with the film’s star, Anna Karina, and audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas.

ALPHAVILLE combines the genres of dystopian science fiction and film noir. In Godard’s endless mission to interrogate and reinvent cinematic conventions and tropes, he took the well-known cinema hero and transposed him into a sci-fi setting. Secret agent Lemme Caution (played by Eddie Constantine) is sent to the distant space city of Alphaville, where he must track down and kill the inventor of the all-controlling computer, Alpha 60. With shades of George Orwell, Alpha 60 has outlawed free thought and individualist concepts like love, poetry, and emotion. People who show signs of emotion are presumed to be acting illogically and are gathered up, interrogated, and executed. As a result, Alphaville is an inhuman, alienated society.

The original theatrical trailer for ALPHAVILLE can be viewed below:

Godard’s “effects-free, black-and-white take on sci-fi is typically iconoclastic: cerebral, disorienting, at once beautiful and alienating,” and it remains one of the most celebrated works of the French New Wave. The 4K print playing at IFC this December originally premiered at The Museum of Modern Art back in April.

To learn more about other titles available in GME’s World Cinema Selects collection, click here.