Jean-Luc Godard

Band of Outsiders

Band of Outsiders

Four years after Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard reimagined the gangster film even more radically with Band of Outsiders (Bande à part). In it, two restless young men (Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur) enlist the object of both of their fancies (Anna Karina) to help them commit a robbery—in her own home. This audacious and wildly entertaining French New Wave gem is at once sentimental and insouciant, effervescently romantic and melancholy, and it features some of Godard’s most memorable set pieces, including the headlong race through the Louvre and the unshakably cool Madison dance sequence.

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Film Info

  • France
  • 1964
  • 95 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • French
  • Spine #174

DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • Digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Raoul Coutard
  • Visual glossary of references and quotations found in the film
  • Interviews with Coutard and actor Anna Karina
  • Excerpts from the documentary La nouvelle vague par elle-même, featuring director Jean-Luc Godard discussing the New Wave and rare behind-the-scenes footage from Band of Outsiders
  • Filmmaker Agnès Varda’s 1961 silent short Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald, featuring Godard, Karina, and other members of the Band of Outsiders cast
  • Godard’s original trailer and the 2001 U.S. rerelease trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by poet and critic Joshua Clover and a 1964 interview with Godard

    New cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang

Purchase Options

DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • Digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Raoul Coutard
  • Visual glossary of references and quotations found in the film
  • Interviews with Coutard and actor Anna Karina
  • Excerpts from the documentary La nouvelle vague par elle-même, featuring director Jean-Luc Godard discussing the New Wave and rare behind-the-scenes footage from Band of Outsiders
  • Filmmaker Agnès Varda’s 1961 silent short Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald, featuring Godard, Karina, and other members of the Band of Outsiders cast
  • Godard’s original trailer and the 2001 U.S. rerelease trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by poet and critic Joshua Clover and a 1964 interview with Godard

    New cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang
Band of Outsiders
Cast
Anna Karina
Odile
Claude Brasseur
Arthur
Sami Frey
Franz
Danièle Girard
English teacher
Louisa Colpeyn
Madame Victoria
Ernest Menzer
Arthur’s uncle
Chantal Darget
Arthur’s aunt
Georges Staquet
Arthur’s cousin
Claude Makovski
English students
Michèle Seghers
English students
Jean-Claude Remoleux
English students
Michel Delahaye
School doorman
Jean-Luc Godard
Narrator
Credits
Director
Jean-Luc Godard
Director of photography
Raoul Coutard
Assistant director
Jean-Paul Savignac
Screenplay
Jean-Luc Godard
Based on the novel Fool’s Gold by
Dolores Hitchens
Original music
Michel Legrand
Editor
Agnès Guillemot
Continuity
Suzanne Schiffman
Production manager
Philippe Dussart
Camera
Georges Liron
Camera
Théo Robichet
Sound
Antoine Bonfanti
Sound
René Levert
Clothing and hair
Christiane Fageol
Clothing and hair
Janou Pottier
Still photographer
Marie-Lou Parolini

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Jean-Luc Godard

Writer, Director

Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard

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.

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