Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution is a 99-minute 1965 science fiction film (dystopia) directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Howard Vernon and Akim Tamiroff. Several scenes incorporate concepts from La Capitale de la Douleur (The Capital of Pain), a book of poems by Paul Éluard. 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still, an archetypal science fiction film Science fiction as a genre of film making has been an element of the cinema experience since the earliest days of the motion picture industry. ... A dystopia (alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia or anti-utopia) is the antithesis of a utopian society. ... Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard (born December 3, 1930) was one of the most influential members of the nouvelle vague. ... Anna Karina (born September 22, 1940) is a Danish born actress. ... Akim Tamiroff (October 29, 1899, Tiflis, Georgia _ September 17, 1972, Palm Springs, California) was a Russian actor. ... Paul Éluard was the nom de plume of Eugène Grindel (December 14, 1895 - November 18, 1952), a French poet. ...

Plot details

The plot is simple - Lemmy Caution (played by Constantine), an 'outland' agent, arrives in the futuristic city of Alphaville to search for missing agent Henry Dickson. The city is under the control of Professor von Braun and run by the Alpha 60 computer system. Love, poetry, emotion and so on are outlawed for the inhabitants of the city creating an inhuman and alienated society. Caution enlists Natascha (Anna Karina), the daughter of von Braun, to help him. Love has many meanings in English, from something that gives a little pleasure (I loved that movie) to something one would die for (patriotism, pairbonding). ... Bust of Homer, one of the earliest European poets, in the British Museum Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-04-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... For the 1991 hit single from Mariah Carey, see Emotions (Mariah Carey song). ... Anna Karina (born September 22, 1940) is a Danish born actress. ...

Godard uses this straightforward SF scenario to produce a bizarre, messy film deliberately unbalanced in its action. The film is dark in terms of physical lighting as well as in its use of elliptical philosophical dialogue and cynical humour. Caution is a parody of an American private eye: wearing a trench-coat and photographing people carelessly he is defiantly erratic in the logical city, dominated by the Alpha 60 computer which he has sworn to destroy. Caution's love for Natascha introduces emotion and unpredictability into the city that the computer has crafted in its own image.

The film was shot in 1960s Paris, the night-time streets of the capital becoming Alphaville with modernist glass and concrete being used for interiors, reflecting the problems of the future onto contemporary France. There are no special effects to enhance the science fiction elements of the film. Additionally, Godard apparently wanted to title the film Tarzan versus IBM. The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Tarzan, a character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first appeared in the 1914 novel Tarzan of the Apes, and then in twenty-three sequels. ... International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) (NYSE: IBM) (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services. ...

The film also features its version of George Orwell's Newspeak. In addition, it is interesting to note that while the English subtitles refer to 'outlands' and 'galaxies', the French phrase is 'pays exterieur' which translates to 'outer countries' not implying 'galaxies' in the least. George Orwell George Orwell was the pen name of British author Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950). ... Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwells famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. ...

Characters

Lemmy Caution

As a journalist he calls himself Ivan Johnson, claiming to work for Figaro Pravda and always wears a huge tan overcoat where he keeps various assorted items. He carries a camera with him always and photographs everything he sees, particularly the things that would be ordinarily 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 surely not clarity. He falls in love with Natasha Von Braun, and kills Alpha 60 and Professor Von Braun at the end of the film. Le Figaro is one of the leading French morning daily newspapers. ... The front page of an issue of Pravda published during the attempted coup of August 1991. ...

Natasha Von Braun

She 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 touching phrase "Je vous aime" ("I love you").

Alpha 60

Alpha 60 is a huge super-computer, with supposedly large intelligence capabilities (although keeping in mind the capabilities of computers in 1965, Alpha 60 would be easily outclassed by a modern Pentium IV). This aside, he is an interesting character. A machine created by Von Braun, he converses with Lemmy Caution several times throughout the film, and his voice is seemingly ever present, serving as a sort of bizarre narrator. Caution "kills" him by telling him a riddle that involves something Alpha 60 can not comprehend: poetry. 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ...

Prof. Von Braun

The Professor was originally known as Leonard Nosferatu (a tribute to F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu), however, Caution is repeatedly told that Nosferatu no longer exists. The Professor himself talks infrequently, referring only vaguely about how he hates journalists, and offering Caution the chance to join Alphaville even going as far as offering 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. ... Max Schreck as Count Orlok Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horrors in German) is a German Expressionist film originally shot in 1922 by F.W. Murnau. ...

This character is most certainly modeled on Wernher von Braun, at the time a figurehead for irresponsible science. In May 1964, Wernher von Braun stands at his Marshall Space Flight Center desk in Huntsville, Alabama with models of rockets developed and in progress. ...

Influence

The most notable legacy of Alphaville has been on computers in film. Once described as a 'chain smoking Hal', 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'. Also, the 1977 film, Demon Seed in which a megacomputer attempts to take over a house and ultimately the world appears to have some influence, notably in Proteus IV's croaky voice (played by Robert Vaughn). HAL 9000 (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a fictional character in the Space Odyssey series, the first being the novel and film 2001 A Space Odyssey, written by Arthur C Clarke. ... A movie poster from the original release of 2001 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is an immensely popular and influential science fiction film and book; the film directed by Stanley Kubrick and the book written by Arthur C. Clarke. ... 1977 was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1977 calendar). ... Demon Seed is a 1977 film, starring Julie Christie, and directed by Donald Cammell. ... Robert Francis Vaughn (born November 22, 1932) is an American actor noted for stage, screen and TV work. ...

See also

• Cinema of France
• List of French language films

France has been influential in the development of film as a mass medium and as an art form. ... There are two lists of French language films: Organized alphabetically by French title Organized alphabetically by title of English release Alphabetical by French title 5x2 Ah! Si jétais riche (If I Were a Rich Man) Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (The Lovers on the Bridge) LAmour à vingt...

External links

• Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058898/) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Criterion Collection (http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=25)