Vivre Sa Vie
French New Wave/Drama + Tragic Melancholy + A fragmented portrait of a soul for sale. A woman's face, filmed like a landscape, dissolves into the grain of 1960s Paris, caught between the silence of thought and the noise of the streets.
Vivre Sa Vie
Vivre Sa Vie

Vivre sa vie: film en douze tableaux

"The many faces of a woman trying to find herself."

20 September 1962 France 84 min ⭐ 7.7 (683)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Anna Karina, Sady Rebbot, André S. Labarthe, Guylaine Schlumberger, Gérard Hoffmann
Drama
Existential Responsibility vs. Determinism The Commodification of the Body Language and Communication Cinema as Reality and Reflection
Budget: $64,000
Box Office: $24,517

Vivre Sa Vie - Characters & Cast

Character Analysis

Nana Kleinfrankenheim

Anna Karina

Archetype: Tragic Heroine / The Drifter
Key Trait: Melancholy resilience

Motivation

To find independence and "live her life" (vivre sa vie) on her own terms, even as her options narrow.

Character Arc

She begins as a hopeful aspiring actress leaving a stifling marriage, descends into the economic necessity of prostitution, briefly finds hope in a new artistic romance, and is abruptly killed.

Raoul

Sady Rebbot

Archetype: The Pimp / The Businessman
Key Trait: Cold pragmatism

Motivation

Profit and control; he views Nana as an asset.

Character Arc

He appears initially as a stabilizing figure who offers Nana a solution to her poverty but ultimately treats her as a commodity to be traded and sold.

The Philosopher

Brice Parain

Archetype: The Mentor / The Intellectual
Key Trait: Intellectual curiosity

Motivation

To explore the limits of thought and speech.

Character Arc

He serves as a sounding board for Nana, engaging her in a dialectic about the nature of language and truth. He is not a fictional character but a real philosopher playing himself.

Cast

Anna Karina as Nana Kleinfrankenheim
Sady Rebbot as Raoul
André S. Labarthe as Paul
Guylaine Schlumberger as Yvette
Gérard Hoffmann as Chef
Monique Messine as Elisabeth
Paul Pavel as Journalist
Dimitri Dineff as Dimitri
Peter Kassovitz as Young Man
Eric Schlumberger as Luigi
Brice Parain as Philosopher
Henri Attal as Arthur
Gilles Quéant as First Customer
Odile Geoffroy as The Cafe Waitress
Marcel Charton as Policeman