Alphaville

Original title: Alphaville, une etrange aventure de Lemmy Caution

Jean-Luc Godard/ French/ 1965/ black and white/ 99 minutes

It is a science fiction film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The meaning of original title is Alphaville, a Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution.

Lemmy Caution is an agent from the Outlands. He poses as a journalist named Ivan Johnson, and claims to work for the Figaro-Pravda. He wears a tan overcoat that stores various items. He carries a camera with him and photographs everything he sees, particularly the things that would ordinarily be unimportant to a journalist. Despite the futuristic setting, references made in the film still set the action in the Twentieth Century.

Lemmy Caution has a series of missions. First, he must search for missing agent Henry Dickson. Second he must capture or kill Professor Von Braun, the creator of Alphaville. Also he must destroy Alphaville and its dictatorial computer, Alpha 60. Alpha 60 is a sentient computer system created by Von Braun which is in complete control of all of Alphaville.

Alpha 60 outlaws free thought and individualist concepts like love, poetry, and emotion in the city. One of Alpha 60's dictates is that people should not ask 'why', but only say because. People who show signs of emotion are presumed to be acting illogically, and are gathered up, interrogated, and executed. In an image reminiscent of George Orwell's concept of Newspeak, there is a "Bible" in each room: actually a dictionary that is continuously updated when words that are deemed to evoke emotion become banned. As a result, Alphaville is an inhuman, alienated society of mindless drones - many the apparent victims of re-education campaigns by Alpha 60 that are implicitly reminiscent of Nazism and Communism.

Caution enlists the assistance of Natacha Von Braun. She is a programmer of Alpha 60 and daughter of Prof. Von Braun. Natacha is a citizen of Alphaville, and when questioned says she does not know the meaning of "love" or "conscience". Caution falls in love with her. Natacha discovers, with the help of Lemmy Caution, that she was actually born outside of Alphaville.

Professor Von Braun was originally known as Leonard Nosferatu, but Caution is repeatedly told that Nosferatu no longer exists. The Professor himself talks infrequently, referring only vaguely to his hatred for journalists, and offering Caution the chance to join Alphaville, even going so far as to offer him his own galaxy. When he refuses Caution's enticement to go back to the outlands, Caution kills him with a pistol shot. The film ends with her line, "Je vous aime" ("I love you").

Set far in the future on another planet, there are no special effects or elaborate sets; instead, the film was shot in real locations in Paris, the night-time streets of the capital becoming the streets of Alphaville, while modernist glass and concrete buildings represent the city's interiors.

Award

Golden Bear award of the Berlin Film Festival

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Producer: André Michelin

Writer: Jean-Luc Godard

Cast: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff

Music: Paul Misraki

Cinematographer: Raoul Coutard

Distribution: Athos Films