Begun at a time when the romance between director Jean-Luc Godard and his muse, actress Anna Karina, was at its happiest, A Woman Is a Woman (Une femme est une femme) is giddy and colorful, with a touch of screwball, an upbeat Michel Legrand score, and occasional bursts of song. It is the closest the austere director ever came to making a musical comedy like those American films of the 1930s and '40s that he and his New Wave compatriots so adored.

Godard met the teenaged Danish model and aspiring actress when he was casting his first feature film Breathless in 1958. He had spotted a soap ad featuring Karina in a bubble bath. Thinking she might be right for a small role as one of Jean Paul Belmondo's former girlfriends, he offered her the part and mentioned that she would have a nude scene. Karina was outraged and rejected his offer, saying that she refused to take her clothes off. Undaunted, once he finished that film, Godard offered Karina the lead in his second feature, the political drama Le Petit Soldat (1960). This time, she accepted, and during production the two fell in love. When the film wrapped, they moved in together.

A Woman Is a Woman marked several firsts for Godard. It was his first film in color, his first shot in wide-screen, and the first made with direct sound. It may be Godard's homage to Hollywood musicals (although the always-cerebral director refused to call it that, referring to the film as "the idea of a musical," or even "a neorealist musical") but in spite of its heightened production values, A Woman Is a Woman is no candy-box valentine. If anything, it subverts the conventions of the traditional musical. Godard himself called it "my first real film." Karina plays Angela, a somewhat diffident stripper in an often-empty club. She lives with her bookseller boyfriend Emile, played by Jean-Claude Brialy, in a drab and scruffy neighborhood, where she occasionally bursts into song while Emile rides his bicycle around their shabby but enormous apartment. Angela wants to have a baby, but Emile is opposed to the idea. So Angela considers having the couple's friend, Alfred, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, impregnate her. In a wink to one of his romantic comedy inspirations, Godard gives Alfred the last name Lubitsch. In one scene, Angela bursts into an impromptu number in an alley, singing that she'd "like to be in a musical starring Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly, and choreography by Bob Fosse." The film also contains a couple of cameos that acknowledge the support of Godard's fellow New Wave director, Francois Truffaut. Alfred sees Jeanne Moreau at a bar, and asks how Jules and Jim is going. On the street, Angela shares her man troubles with Marie Dubois, who co-starred in Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player.

As filming progressed, the pressures of the production began to affect the couple's relationship, and the tensions between them mirrored that of Angela and Emile. Godard was consumed by his work, Karina was lonely and insecure. Brialy recalled screaming fights between them. To further complicate matters, Karina became pregnant, and the couple married, but their stormy union suffered another blow when she miscarried. Unable to cope, Godard withdrew even more into his work. The two attended the premiere of A Woman Is a Woman at the Berlin Film Festival in June of 1961, where both Karina and the film won prizes. But in spite of the awards and good reviews, the film flopped at the box office, although Karina was hailed as a major new star. The marriage deteriorated, but the couple continued to work together through five more films, bitter breakups, and two suicide attempts by Karina. They finally split for good in 1965. Years later, Karina said of Godard, "He was and will remain the greatest love of my life."

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Producer: Carlo Ponti, Georges de Beauregard
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard, original story by Genevieve Cluny
Editor: Agnes Guillemot, Lila Herman
Art Direction: Bernard Evein
Music: Michel Legrand
Principal Cast: Anna Karina (Angela), Jean-Claude Brialy (Emile), Jean-Paul Belmondo (Alfred Lubitsch), Jeanne Moreau, Marie Dubois
84 minutes

by Margarita Landazuri