Made in U.S.A

With its giddily complex noir plot and color-drenched widescreen images, Made in U.S.A was a final burst of exuberance from Jean-Luc Godard’s early sixties barrage of delirious movie-movies. Yet this chaotic crime thriller and acidly funny critique of consumerism—starring Anna Karina as the most brightly dressed private investigator in film history, searching for a former lover who might have been assassinated—also points toward the more political cinema that would come to define Godard. Featuring characters with names such as Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, David Goodis, and Doris Mizoguchi, and appearances by a slapstick Jean-Pierre Léaud and a sweetly singing Marianne Faithfull, this piece of pop art is like a Looney Tunes rendition of The Big Sleep gone New Wave.

France
1966
85 minutes
Color
2.35:1
French
Spine #481

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Interviews with stars Anna Karina and Lászlo Szábó
A video piece on the personal and the political in Made in U.S.A and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, featuring Godard biographers Richard Brody and Colin MacCabe
A visual essay cataloguing the multiple references in the film
Original and rerelease theatrical trailers
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by film critic J. Hoberman

New cover by Jason Hardy

DVD 1 Disc Out of Stock SRP: $29.95

Special Features

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Interviews with stars Anna Karina and Lászlo Szábó
A video piece on the personal and the political in Made in U.S.A and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, featuring Godard biographers Richard Brody and Colin MacCabe
A visual essay cataloguing the multiple references in the film
Original and rerelease theatrical trailers
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by film critic J. Hoberman

New cover by Jason Hardy

Cast & Credits

Cast

Anna Karina: Paula Nelson
Jean-Pierre Léaud: Donald Siegel
László Szabó: Paul Widmark
Marianne Faithfull: Herself
Ernest Menzer: Edgar Typhus
Kyôko Kosaka: Doris Mizoguchi
Marc Dudicourt: Barman
Yves Afonso: David Goodis
Jean-Luc Godard: Richard Politzer (voice)
Roger Scipion: Dr. Korvo
Sylvain Godet: Robert McNamara
Jean-Pierre Biesse: Richard Nixon
Claude Bouillon: Inspector Aldrich
Philippe Labro: Himself

Credits

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard
Based on the novel The Jugger by: Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Editing: Agnès Guillemot
Sound: Jacques Maumont
Sound: René Levert

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Jean-Luc Godard

Writer, Director

A pioneer of the French new wave, Jean-Luc Godard has had an incalculable effect on modern cinema that refuses to wane. Before directing, Godard was an ethnology student and a critic for Cahiers du cinéma, and his approach to filmmaking reflects his interest in how cinematic form intertwines with social reality. His groundbreaking debut feature, Breathless—his first and last mainstream success—is, of course, essential Godard: its strategy of merging high (Mozart) and low (American crime thrillers) culture has been mimicked by generations of filmmakers. As the sixties progressed, Godard’s output became increasingly radical, both aesthetically (A Woman Is a Woman, Contempt, Band of Outsiders) and politically (Masculin féminin, Pierrot le fou), until by 1968 he had forsworn commercial cinema altogether, forming a leftist filmmaking collective (the Dziga Vertov Group) and making such films as Tout va bien. Today Godard remains our greatest lyricist on historical trauma, religion, and the legacy of cinema.