NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Alphaville, a Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution

Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Alphaville, a Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution) is a 99-minute black and white 1965 science fiction film. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, it stars Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Howard Vernon and Akim Tamiroff. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (600x827, 82 KB) The 1965 French poster. ... Jean-Luc Godard (photograph by David Horvitz) Jean-Luc Godard (born 3 December 1930 in Paris) is a Franco-Swiss filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave. Born in Paris to Franco-Swiss parents, he was educated in Nyon, later studying... Jean-Luc Godard (photograph by David Horvitz) Jean-Luc Godard (born 3 December 1930 in Paris) is a Franco-Swiss filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave. Born in Paris to Franco-Swiss parents, he was educated in Nyon, later studying... Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine in Jean-Luc Godards Alphaville Eddie Constantine (born Edward Constantinowsky in Los Angeles, California, October 29, 1917 - died Wiesbaden, Germany, February 25, 1993) was an expatriate American actor and singer who spent his career working in Europe. ... Anna Karina in the Jean-Luc Godard film My Life To Live (1962) Anna Karina (born September 22, 1940) is a Danish born actress. ... Akim Tamiroff (October 29, 1899, Baku, Azerbaijan - September 17, 1972, Palm Springs, California) was an American actor. ... Paul Misraki (January 28, 1908 - October 29, 1998) is a French composer for films and songs, etc. ... Raoul Coutard is a French cinematographer who has contributed to over seventy five films. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_France. ... May 5 is the 125th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (126th in leap years). ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_States. ... October 25 is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... A black-and-white portrait. ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Poster for 2001: A Space Odyssey, an archetypal science fiction film Science fiction film is a film genre that uses speculative, science-based depictions of imaginary phenomena such as extra-terrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic spacecraft, robots, or other technologies. ... Jean-Luc Godard (photograph by David Horvitz) Jean-Luc Godard (born 3 December 1930 in Paris) is a Franco-Swiss filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or French New Wave. Born in Paris to Franco-Swiss parents, he was educated in Nyon, later studying... Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine in Jean-Luc Godards Alphaville Eddie Constantine (born Edward Constantinowsky in Los Angeles, California, October 29, 1917 - died Wiesbaden, Germany, February 25, 1993) was an expatriate American actor and singer who spent his career working in Europe. ... Anna Karina in the Jean-Luc Godard film My Life To Live (1962) Anna Karina (born September 22, 1940) is a Danish born actress. ... Howard Vernon Howard Vernon (15 July 1914 - 25 July 1996) was a Swiss actor. ... Akim Tamiroff (October 29, 1899, Baku, Azerbaijan - September 17, 1972, Palm Springs, California) was an American actor. ...

Plot and style

Alpahville is a dystopic sci-fi film-noir starring 60's French heart-throb Eddie Constantine in his most famous recurring role as Lemmy Caution, a character created by British pulp novelist Peter Cheyney. Caution is the hero of dozens of French films but while normally situated in a 20th century setting, sometimes FBI and CIA agent Caution finds himself in a futuristic sci-fi dystopia, yet in the same character role - something like Casablanca meets Nineteen Eighty-Four. As an 'outland' agent, arriving in the technocratic dictatorship of Alphaville (fascist France), Caution is on a series of missions. First, to search for missing agent Henry Dickson, second, to capture or kill the creator of this Dystopia, Professor Von Braun, and lastly, to destroy the city of Alphaville and its dictatorial computer, Alpha 60. Created by Von Braun, Alpha 60 is a sentient computer system with an overriding Marxist-Nihilist worldview, in complete control of all of Alphaville. It outlaws free-thought and individualist concepts like Love, poetry, emotion for the inhabitants of the city, replacing these with new, contradictory concepts or eliminating them altogether. The result is an inhuman, alienated society of mindless drones - many the apparent victim of re-education campaigns by Alpha 60 - shadows of Nazism and Communism. Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine in Jean-Luc Godards Alphaville Eddie Constantine (born Edward Constantinowsky in Los Angeles, California, October 29, 1917 - died Wiesbaden, Germany, February 25, 1993) was an expatriate American actor and singer who spent his career working in Europe. ... Peter Cheyney (1896 - 1951) was a British author of hard-boiled fiction. ... This article is about the 1942 film. ... Nineteen Eighty-Four (commonly abbreviated to 1984) is a dystopian novel by the English writer George Orwell, first published by Secker and Warburg in 1949. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Love Look up love in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... Emotion, in its most general definition, is an intense neural mental state that arises subjectively rather than through conscious effort and evokes either a positive or negative psychological response to move an organism to action. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Caution enlists Natascha Von Braun (Anna Karina), the daughter of Prof. Von Braun, to assist him. Anna Karina in the Jean-Luc Godard film My Life To Live (1962) Anna Karina (born September 22, 1940) is a Danish born actress. ...

Out of this unique science fiction scenario, Godard creates a brilliant film-noir, stylistically years ahead of its time and politically in tune with an utterly pro-individualistic philosophy - almost Libertarian or Objectivist in outlook. The film is dark in terms of physical lighting as well as in its use of elliptical philosophical dialogue, often pointing to a highly critical view of the State and its power over the individual. See also Libertarianism and Libertarian Party Libertarian,is a term for person who has made a conscious and principled commitment, evidenced by a statement or Pledge, to forswear violating others rights and usually living in voluntary communities: thus in law no longer subject to government supervision. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Some of Alpha 60's dictates include "people should not ask "why", but only say "because". People who show signs of emotion (weeping at the death of a wife, or a smile on the face) are presumed to be acting illogically, and are gathered up, interrogated, and executed. Caution is told that men are killed at a ratio of fifty to every one woman executed. We are told that Swedes, Germans and Americans assimilate well. Images of the famous E=mc² equation are displayed several times throughout the film as a symbol of the regime of logical science that rules Alphaville. At one point, Caution passes through a place called the Grand Omega Minus, from where brainwashed people are sent out to the other "galaxies" to start strikes, revolutions, family rows and student revolts. A display of the famous equation on Taipei 101 during the event of the World Year of Physics 2005. ... An equation is a mathematical statement, in symbols, that two things are the same. ... The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 during the French Revolution. ...

Caution is a archetype of an American private eye and anti-hero: wearing a trench-coat and with a weathered visage reminiscent of a lost era of common sense and unbridled masculinity. Caution's love for Natascha introduces emotion and unpredictability into the city that the computer has crafted in its own image. Caution eventually destroys Alpha 60 by posing a riddle who's answer culminates at the climax of the film. The word "I", as in Ayn Rand's Anthem (novella), has been lost to the collectivized citizens of Alphaville, and if not the word, certainly it's meaning. This is the key to Caution's riddle. Paul Misraki's captivating musical score reaches its crescendo at the very moment that Natascha realizes that it is her understanding of herself as an individual with desires that saves her, and destroys (philosophically) the power of Alpha 60. It has been suggested that The Ayn Rand Collective be merged into this article or section. ... Anthem is a science-fiction novella by Ayn Rand, first published in 1938. ...

Godard originally wanted to entitle the film Tarzan versus IBM.^{[citation needed]} James H. Pierce and Joan Burroughs Pierce starred in the 1932-34 Tarzan radio series Tarzan, a character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1914 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in twenty-three sequels. ... now. ...

There are no special effects or elaborate sets to enhance the science fiction elements of the film. The film was shot in real locations in 1960s Paris, the night-time streets of the capital becoming Alphaville with modernist glass and concrete buildings being used for interiors, locating the problems of the future in contemporary France. City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Location Coordinates Time Zone CET (GMT +1) Administration Country France RÃ©gion ÃŽle-de-France DÃ©partement Paris (75) Subdivisions 20 arrondissements Mayor Bertrand DelanoÃ« (PS) (since 2001) City Statistics Land...

Characters and sources

Lemmy Caution

The Lemmy Caution character is borrowed from the hard-boiled novels of British author Peter Cheyney, and Eddie Constantine had in fact played the role of Lemmy Caution in earlier French films based on those novels. Hard Boiled (Chinese: è¾£æ‰‹ç¥žæŽ¢; Hanyu Pinyin: ; literally: Hot-Handed God of Cops) is a 1992 action film by director John Woo. ... Peter Cheyney (1896 - 1951) was a British author of hard-boiled fiction. ...

In this film he poses as a journalist, calling himself Ivan Johnson, claiming to work for Figaro-Pravda, and always wears a huge tan overcoat where he keeps various items. He carries a camera with him always and photographs everything he sees, particularly the things that would ordinarily be unimportant to a journalist. As a spy, he kills many people particularly in bizarre circumstances, and the fights/shots themselves are displayed in such an unusual way that the intended purpose is not clarity.^{[citation needed]} He falls in love with Natasha von Braun, and kills Alpha 60 and Professor von Braun at the end of the film. The opposition of his role to logic (and that of other dissidents to the regime) is symbolized by faux-quotations from La Capitale de la Douleur (The Capital of Pain), a book of poems by Paul Éluard. The actual poetry used in the film was written by Godard himself. Le Figaro is one of the leading French morning daily newspapers. ... The front page of an issue of Pravda. ... La Capitale de la Douleur (The Capital of Pain) is a book of poems by French surrealist poet Paul Ã‰luard. ... It appears that this entire article has been copied and pasted from http://www. ...

Natascha von Braun

Natascha is the daughter of Professor von Braun, although she says herself "I have never met him". She is a citizen of Alphaville, and when questioned says she does not know the meaning of "love" or "conscience". She works as a programmer for Alpha 60. She discovers, with the help of Lemmy Caution, that she was actually born outside of Alphaville, and the film ends with her line, "Je vous aime" ("I love you").

Alpha 60

Alpha 60 is a huge super-computer created by von Braun, with supposedly large intelligence capabilities. It converses with Lemmy Caution several times throughout the film, and its voice is seemingly ever present, serving as a sort of bizarre narrator. Caution "kills" or confounds it by telling it a riddle that involves something Alpha 60 can not comprehend: poetry. However, Alpha 60 is not without knowledge of poetry: many of its lines are actually quotes from the Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges; the opening line of the movie, along with others, is an extract of his essay "Forms of a Legend", and other references throughout the movie are made by Alpha 60 to Borges's "A New Refutation of Time". Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 â€“ June 14, 1986), was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. ...

Another source for the character is George Orwell's 1984; Alphaville features its own version of Orwell's Newspeak as in each room there is a "Bible" which is actually a dictionary that is continuously updated when words that are deemed to evoke emotion become banned. Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903[1][2] â€“ January 21, 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... (Redirected from 1984 (novel)) Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes 1984) is a darkly satirical political novel by George Orwell. ... Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwells novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. ... The word Bible refers to the canonical collections of sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity. ... A dictionary is a list of words with their definitions, a list of characters with their glyphs, or a list of words with corresponding words in other languages. ...

Prof. von Braun

The Professor was originally known as Leonard Nosferatu (a tribute to F. W. Murnau's 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. F W Murnau Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (December 28, 1888 - March 11, 1931) was one of the most influential directors of the silent film era. ... Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror in German) is a German Expressionist film shot in 1922 by F.W. Murnau. ...

The Professor's name may be borrowed from Wernher von Braun, at the time a figurehead for irresponsible science.^{[citation needed]} Wernher von Braun stands at his desk in the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama in May 1964, with models of rockets developed and in progress. ...

Awards

The film won the Golden Bear award of the Berlin Film Festival in 1965. The Berlin International Film Festival, also called the Berlinale, is one of the most important film festivals in Europe and the world. ...

Influence

The most notable legacy of Alphaville has been on computers in film. Once described as a 'chain smoking Hal',^{[citation needed]} Alpha 60 may well be an 'ancestor' of HAL 9000 in the film version of 2001, with Alpha's fanned 'eye' translating into Hal's unblinking red 'eye'. HAL 9000 (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a fictional computer/character in the Space Odyssey series, the first being the novel and film 2001 A Space Odyssey, written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1968. ...

Aside from Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), where a network of distributed computer systems becomes sufficiently coordinated that they elect to take over the world, the 1977 film, Demon Seed delivers the same kind of tyranny closer to home, where a megacomputer attempts to take over a house and ultimately the world. In both instances, Alphaville appears to have been highly influential: if the story lines were not enough, Proteus IV's croaky voice (as played by Robert Vaughn) is similar to Alpha 60's. Colossus was a fictional computer featured in the 1969 apocalyptic science fiction movie, Colossus: The Forbin Project loosely based on the 1967 novel Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ... Demon Seed is a 1977 film, starring Julie Christie, and directed by Donald Cammell. ... Robert Vaughn as Albert Stroller in Hustle Robert Francis Vaughn (born November 22, 1932) is an American actor noted for stage, film and television work, and best known as suave spy Napoleon Solo in the popular 1960s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., although he continues...

Alphaville may have influenced the creation of Paranoia's Alpha Complex, which is another city with a totalitarian regime completly under the control of a single computer mind. For other senses of this word, see paranoia (disambiguation). ... Paranoia is a humorous role playing game set in a dystopian future similar to 1984, Brazil, Brave New World and especially Logans Run; however, the tone of the game is rife with black humor, frequently tongue-in-cheek rather than dark and heavy. ...

The scene appears to have inspired similar scenes in episodes of Star Trek ("I, Mudd", "The Ultimate Computer"), The Prisoner ("The General") and the movie Rollerball.^{[citation needed]} Star Trek is an American science-fiction franchise spanning six television series, ten feature films, hundreds of novels, computer and video games, and other fan stories. ... I, Mudd is an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series first broadcast November 3, 1967 and repeated April 5, 1968. ... The Ultimate Computer is a season two episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast on March 8, 1968 and repeated June 28, 1968. ... The Prisoner was a 1967 UK science fiction television series, starring Patrick McGoohan. ... The General is a name which has been applied to several things: The General (The student voice of Wooster), the school newspaper of Wooster School, Danbury, CT The General, a locomotive stolen in the Great Locomotive Chase of the American Civil War The 1927 movie The General: Buster Keatons... Rollerball is a 1975 science fiction film directed by Norman Jewison from the short story Roller Ball Murders by William Harrison. ...

Contents

Plot and style

Characters and sources

Lemmy Caution

Natascha von Braun

Alpha 60

Prof. von Braun

Awards

Influence

See also

External links

Contents

Plot and style GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Characters and sources

Lemmy Caution

Natascha von Braun

Alpha 60

Prof. von Braun

Awards

Influence

See also

External links

Plot and style