Jean-Luc Godard's 'Bande à part', BFI Southbank

Jean-Luc Godard made his name in the early 1960s as part of the ‘Nouvelle Vague’ (‘New Wave’) of French cinema; an experimental heterodoxy that favoured untutored, amateurish film-making, rejecting the careful decorum of mainstream cinema. Alongside directors like Francois Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, Godard pioneered a new mode of philosophically informed and formally innovative filmmaking.
His first feature-length À Bout de Souffle (Breathless, 1960) is an enduring classic of French cinema, an irreverent and erudite tale of youth and crime. So too is the director’s lesser-known Bande à part (Band of Outsiders, 1964) which is to be screened at the BFI Southbank on November 2 and 3.
Bande à part tells the story of three young Parisians, Odile, Franz and Arthur, as they plan and execute a robbery. As the film progresses, it reveals itself as a deeply-felt tribute to the Hollywood B-movies that Godard loved, and a warning about art’s capacity to lead astray.
The film is beautifully and distinctively shot, making bold and effective use of handheld cameras. One scene in particular has earned its place in the annals of cinema history: having heard of an American who saw the Louvre in under ten minutes, the trio attempt to break his record, hurtling with reckless abandon through its otherwise silent galleries. This surely ranks as one of cinema’s most memorable scenes of youthful iconoclasm.
Bande à part is being screened at the BFI on November 2 and 3. It’s a must-see for cinephiles and New Wave-neophytes alike.