Cult Classics from the Rialto Collection
Saturday, November 5 | 5:30 pm
A seductive mixture of film noir, dystopian sci-fi, and pop-art pastiche that anticipates (post)modern classics like Blade Runner (1982) and Dark City (1998), Alphaville is a prescient, darkly romantic meditation on the nature of love, art, and identity in the age of global capitalism and artificial intelligence. Set sometime in the distant future, the film follows undercover secret agent Lemmy Caution (Eddy Constantine)—a hard-boiled fixture of French B-movies—as he attempts to locate a missing colleague; disable Alpha 60, a sentient computer that speaks in Borgesian riddles and controls the city; and capture or kill its inventor, the sinister Professor von Braun. Along the way, Caution begins a relationship with von Braun’s mysterious daughter, Natasha (Anna Karina), which threatens to throw both of their worlds into chaos. Produced on a miniscule budget, Godard’s film completely eschews futuristic special-effects and set design, allowing Paris’s nighttime streets and its new, modern office buildings and hotels to stand in for Alphaville’s eerie, gleaming metropolis.
Director Jean-Luc Godard 1965 France/Italy 99 minutes NR DCP
