Band of Outsiders (1964, Jean-Luc Godard)

"For latecomers arriving now, we offer a few words chosen at random... Three Weeks Earlier. A pile of money. An English class. A house by the river. A romantic girl."

The recipe for the most effortlessly cool movie ever made. It's the sort of thing Tarantino has been trying to make for what seems like an eternity, what "Pulp Fiction", in occasional bursts, comes close to being. But that movie is too self-conscious, tries too hard. That's not to suggest that Godard wasn't conscious of what he was doing when writing this film- all writers are, we have to be. But I don't think Godard was trying too be cool, I think he just was. It's a cheap crime flick, according to some nothing too interesting at all, a rehash of "Breathless", and even some of the other New Wave giant Truffaut's movies... "Jules and Jim" and "Shoot the Piano Player" have been mentioned.

But that's all part of this film's charm. Godard, a favorite of mine, can be awfully pretentious and HAS been awfully pretentious. If you're consistently making experimental movies you think are challenging, if you are always changing your mind on what constitutes good cinema, if you're obsessed with quotes and references and philosophy and philosophers, you're bound to be pretentious on occasion. "Band of Outsiders" is a pulpy crime flick with great wit, fun characters, good performances and a well-told story, and that's all it is. It's a great film because it's great at being what it is.

The screenplay is glorious. The dialogue is gold, the narrative momentum never slows down, we know all we need to know about these people and their goals, and the movie's irreverent, hip air is a thing to behold. Or experience, rather. Great photography by Raoul Coutard. Everyone knows the best bits: the minute of silence, the dance scene, the visit to the Louvre. Depth is not needed in this sort of movie, it's a romp, plain and simple (though one with some amount of complexity- you can read it as Godard examining the need for escapism, specifically in the form of cinema, among other things). A glorious delight from start to finish and one of my favorite films. Unforgettable, still Godard's best film.