Every Man for Himself

Scorpio Velvet

Much is happening with three characters in four chapters (watch carefully!), Godard loved to experiment his cinematic storytelling with a style for which this film marked as his "second first" work he described when first got into production. Terrific editing with the slow-motion technique (plus having a young Huppert joining in its cast), call it a piece of modern art for the beginning of a new decade for Godard.

Wee Hunk

New decade, new Godard. It's 'composed' by Godard, which is apt because he experiments with the sound. It also has visual tricks which tend to disengage the viewer. Lots of jokes about butt sex. I think of it as a starting point for some of his great films in the 80's. Unfortunately there's still a lot of misogyny going on. Huppert is great in a thankless role.

Jérémy Poirier

Okay, I get the message: Everyone is alone and selfish in the world, every man is a cold-heart pervert and every woman is a whore. Nice. The two stars are for Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye, but not for Godard here (I admire some of his films, but not this one).

Matthew Martens

With the revolution on indefinite hiatus, and nothing better to not do, Godard relents and resorts to his old tricks. The romantic marketplace, it seems, is open for business, just like all the others. You're going to have to seize your own day, so get out there and make some profit-maximizing choices already. But is that passion? Is it tragic? If not, what will it take? After all, every man dies for himself, too.

josé neves

Cinematography by Renato Berta and William Lubtchansky. "Desire" list: my first Godard, in 81, was also my first Jacques Dutronc, great singer-songwriter who started for me as an actor of an incomparable charm, ironic and affectionate in his nonchalance. My first Godard, with my first Dutronc, is still my "first" of both, despite "Le Mépris", "Passion", "Nouvelle Vague" or Pialat's "Van Gogh".

Jason

Excoriating, ridiculous, utterly sublime. Godard found himself reborn by bring critique back to a site where it could be genuinely useful, enriched by a new aesthetic regime w/ which the critique arrives in tandem. Anne-Marie Miéville might not be the greatest artist of the twentieth century, but she was certainly the greatest artist-as-interjection. The Criterion, shockingly, is superior to my 1.33/1 bootleg.

Ethan

This was Godard's first return to form after his revolutionary period in the 70s. This is also one of Godard's more personal films.

ginobartolomi

The moment when Dutronc leans in to share his personal revelation with Baye just as the train arrives on the platform leaving the audience completely deaf to what he shared...I think one of the most stunning moments in the history of cinema.