A truly timeless, radiant ‘Woman’

Jean-Luc Godard’s radiant and larky 1961 “A Woman Is a Woman” is back, more glorious than ever and also inevitably more poignant with the passing of time (especially for one who reviewed it the first time around, in May 1965).

It is surely Godard’s most lighthearted movie, a charming Valentine to his adored -- and adorable -- then-wife Anna Karina, a Danish actress in her first major role, with whom he made many more New Wave classics. She and her co-stars, Jean-Claude Brialy and Jean-Paul Belmondo, are young and beautiful, and Paris never seemed more exquisite than when seen through Raoul Coutard’s camera. “A Woman Is a Woman” also pays homage to the Hollywood musical without ever quite becoming a musical itself, a deft accomplishment.

When Angela (Karina) declares, “I want to be in a musical with Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly, choreography by Bob Fosse,” she is saying she wants life to be like a musical. She works afternoons as a singularly demure stripper in a truly tacky, haphazardly run cabaret; the contrast between the luminous actress and this dreary atmosphere is surely intentionally jolting.

She does this work to augment the slim income of Brialy playing Emile Recamier, with whom she lives in a small but charming apartment on the top floor of an old building. (We are left to consider, amusingly, that Karina would be a far different Mme. Recamier than the famous and worldly French Empire beauty of the same name, yet surely just as beguiling.) The apartment, which art director Bernard Evein has decorated with a captivating spare simplicity, is the perfect romantic setting for young lovers.

Emile is taken aback when he learns that Angela is not interested in pursuing a chance to appear at the legendary Lido and that motherhood is the only thing on Angela’s mind. Emile says he’s no ogre, that they’ll have children when they’re married. The hitch is that he doesn’t feel ready for marriage just yet.

They wrangle a bit, and Angela announces that she will ask the first man she meets to make her pregnant. Emile winds up summoning Alfred (Belmondo) from a cafe. Belmondo, playing a bit of a con man who lives by his wits, has already made a play for Angela but is no crass opportunist.

Because this film is about emotion and behavior rather than sex and betrayal, it skittishly works its way through its dilemma of two people at loggerheads yet deeply in love with each other.

In unraveling a story with more than a touch of Lubitsch -- the surname of Belmondo’s character -- Godard draws on his penchant for punctuation with written statements, inside jokes and a slew of references to other movies. There all kinds of complications and asides and improvised man-on-the street encounters, yet despite the film’s casual, offhand tone, this effervescent work is all of a piece. Godard’s tone is exceptionally jaunty, and he abruptly accentuates his people’s emotional ups and downs with grand flourishes from Michel Legrand’s lush score.

“A Woman Is a Woman” won a prize at Berlin for its “originality, youth, audacity and impertinence,” a description that sums up its qualities perfectly. “I don’t know whether it’s a comedy or a tragedy,” Godard has said of the film, adding: “At any rate, it’s a masterpiece.” Serious or not, Godard is probably right.

*

‘A Woman Is a Woman’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Some nudity, adult themes

Anna Karina...Angela

Jean-Claude Brialy...Emile Recamier

Jean-Paul Belmondo...Alfred Lubitsch

Marie Dubois...Suzanne

Jeanne Moreau...Woman in bar

A Rialto Pictures release. Writer-director Jean-Luc Godard. Based on an idea by Genevieve Cluny. Producers Georges de Beauregard, Carlo Ponti. Cinematographer Raoul Coutard. Editor Agnes Guillemot. Music Michel Legrand. Art director Bernard Evein. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

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