DVD
Le petit soldat
Call Number
- DVD FOREIGN (CEN)
Edition
DVD special edition.
Languages
In French, with English subtitles.
Performers
Michel Subor, Anna Karina, Henri-Jacques Huet, Paul Beauvais, Georges de Beauregard, Jean-Luc Godard, László Szabó.
Publication Information
[Irvington, NY] : Criterion Collection, [2020]
Physical Description
1 videodisc (88 minutes) : sound, black and white ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 folded sheet (illustrations ; 19 cm.)
Audience
Not rated.
Summary
Before his convention-shattering debut, Breathless, had even premiered, Jean-Luc Godard leapt into the making of his second feature, a thriller that would tackle the most controversial subject in France: the use of torture in the Algerian War. Despite his lack of political convictions, photojournalist Bruno Forestier is roped into a paramilitary group waging a shadow war in Geneva against the Algerian independence movement. Anna Karina (in her first collaboration with Godard, whose camera is visibly besotted with her) is beguiling as the mysterious woman with whom Forrestier becomes infatuated. Banned for two and a half years by French censors for its depiction of brutal tactics on the part of the French government and the Algerian fighters alike, Le petit soldat finds the young Godard already retooling cinema as a vehicle for existential inquiry, political argument, and ephemeral portraiture--in other words, as a medium for delivering "truth twenty-four times per second."
Notes
Originally released as a motion picture in 1963.
Special features: High-definition digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard ; interview with director Jean-Luc Godard from 1965 ; interview with actor Michel Subor from 1963 ; audio interview with Gogard from 1961 ; new English subtitle translation.