My Life to Live

Released Sep 23, 1963

1h 25m

Drama

List

89%

Tomatometer

36 Reviews

91%

Audience Score

5,000+ Ratings

In director Jean-Luc Godard's landmark drama, Nana (Anna Karina), a young Parisian woman who works in a record shop, finds herself disillusioned by poverty and a crumbling marriage. Hoping to become an actress and break into films, Nana is once again disappointed when nothing comes of her dreams, and soon she turns to a bleak life of prostitution. When she meets a man (Peter Kassovitz) who truly cares for her, Nana's hope returns -- but Raoul (Sady Rebbot), her pimp, may have the final word.

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Critics Consensus

Anna Karina's arresting performance provides a humanizing anchor to Jean-Luc Godard's stylistically explosive portrait of a prostitute.

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Richard Brody

New Yorker

A series of poised, artful long takes, which highlight Karina’s vulnerable, tremulous performance and serve up the copious text as if in a picture frame.

Jan 2, 2023

Full Review

David Fear

Time Out

Rated: 4/5

Nov 17, 2011

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Steven Rea

Philadelphia Inquirer

Godard frames and edits his shots, moves the camera, uses music, and deploys his actors in ways that still seem radical -- even as several generations of directors since have cribbed and stolen from him.

Rated: 3.5/4

Nov 13, 2008

Full Review

Susan Sontag

Moviegoer

Vivre Sa Vie seems to me a perfect film. That is, it sets out to do something that is both noble and intricate, and wholly succeeds in doing it.

May 2, 2024

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Keith Garlington

Keith & the Movies

Anna Karina is a mesmerizing expression of energy, wonder, and reality. Surround her with intoxicating style, layers of cultural references, and a grounded story and you have “My Life to Live”

Rated: 4/5

Aug 24, 2022

Full Review

Sean Axmaker

Stream on Demand

Jean-Luc Godards fourth film marked a significant new direction for young turk director, away from the impassioned sketchiness of his furiously directed first films and into the realm of carefully composed scenes and formal visual strategies.

Mar 20, 2022

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Audience Member

This is the movie on which so many parodies of French cinema are based. It's a story about a disaffected young French woman (Anna Karina) who leaves her husband and infant son to pursue an acting career, but quickly realizes the difficulties inherent in her decision and resorts to prostitution on the Paris streets. Nana (Karina) at first works in a record store on the Champs-Élysées, always has a cigarette in her hand, went to watch The Passion of Joan of Arc in theaters, and always seems to have a shot of the Seine framing her profile in the background while she sits, woefully, on the edge of a boutique hotel bed — okay, maybe that last part was only one scene, but it was so perfectly Gallic that the only thing that would've made it more French would've been the "John" actually wanting to have the ménage a trois. Raoul (Saddy Rebbott) explaining the ins-and-outs of the business to Nana while scenes of her showcasing her experiences as a prostitute was the first time the film really grabbed my attention. I found it cumbersome to constantly be looking at the back of characters' heads while they talked to each other in cafes and bars. The ending, where Nana is suddenly shot and killed during a transaction gone wrong (Nana was the transaction, from one pimp to another) and "FIN" flashes on the screen, is the cherry on top of the French New Wave sundae. Vivre Sa Vie is definitely a must-see for a cinephile (or Francophile), as it is a bedrock for one of the most influential movements in cinematic history, but it lacks a certain je ne sais pas for the average viewer; I couldn't help but roll my eyes when our protag-prostitute begins discussing philosophy a propos of nothing with a stranger (Brice Parain) in a café. Oh, the French.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/01/23

Full Review

william k

Intense and intricate tale of a downward spiral, all told straightforwardly in chapters and in an almost exhilarated style, enhaced by Anna Karina's marvelously convincing and mesmerizing performance is arguably one of Godard's greatest masterpieces.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

"Vivre sa Vie" triumphantly demonstrates Godard's talent for bold, experimental stylizations, rendered all the more impressive in the employment of a riveting and thought provoking character study that holds our attention through the entirety of its short duration. We ponder the inscrutable complexity of the central character, all the while sharing the restless camera's search for some kind of revelatory mannerism. We hope in vain to scrape the surface of one of cinema's most mysterious and strangely empathetic characters, and we respect the film's wise refusal to explain her away in terms of comfortably simple truisms. Although the film wears its age on its sleeve and certain passages seem a tad labored and pedantic, Godard generally avoids pretension by brazenly announcing his uninhibited intentions through the film's first transfixing shots.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

william d

Back in 1962 I suppose this was considered avant garde. For me, sixty years later, it was just boring.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

andrey k

Very riveting and sublime movie, alluring with its simplicity, noticeably expert cinematography and startling storytelling; it's bleak in its poetic realism. It was the era when new filmmakers were experts in history of cinema and were surgeons of cinema, employing with extreme effect all the techniques invented by the former generations of filmmakers; just observe how he introduces themes and techniques from the movie 'Passions of Joanne of Arc' into his own story.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

renaldo d

Godard, has a unique storytelling technique, although he considers his way of representing his scenes to be radical, this is one of the best films he made

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

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Jean-Luc Godard

Director

Anna Karina

Nana Kleinfrankenheim

Sady Rebbot

Raoul

Monique Messine

Elisabeth

Guylaine Schlumberger

Yvette

Gérard Hoffman

Le chef

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Muriel

92%

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Cleo From 5 to 7

95%

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Mamma Roma

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Contempt

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Synopsis

In director Jean-Luc Godard's landmark drama, Nana (Anna Karina), a young Parisian woman who works in a record shop, finds herself disillusioned by poverty and a crumbling marriage. Hoping to become an actress and break into films, Nana is once again disappointed when nothing comes of her dreams, and soon she turns to a bleak life of prostitution. When she meets a man (Peter Kassovitz) who truly cares for her, Nana's hope returns -- but Raoul (Sady Rebbot), her pimp, may have the final word.

Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Screenwriter: Marcel Sacotte, Jean-Luc Godard
Production Co: Les Films de la Pléiade [fr]
Genre: Drama
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 23, 1963, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 15, 2020
Runtime: 1h 25m
Sound Mix: Mono

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