Synopsis
Band of Outsiders (Bande à part, 1964) is Jean-Luc Godard's playful crime drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Two Paris drifters, Franz and Arthur, are hooked on Hollywood gangster pictures. At an English class they meet the quiet Odile and pull her into a reckless scheme.
A fat stack of cash sits hidden in the villa of Odile's aunt, and the trio plans to lift it — yet the heist is hardly the point. Along the way they break into a spontaneous Madison dance across a café floor, sprint through the Louvre in a record-chasing nine minutes, and test who can hold a full minute of silence. Friendship, flirtation and jealousy tangle tighter than the robbery itself, until Arthur's uncle forces their hand too soon.
Godard shot the film fast and loose, loosely adapting a Dolores Hitchens pulp novel, with Anna Karina at the center. It's a tender, ironic, melancholy piece of the French New Wave, where genre is just an excuse for play. For anyone who loves art-house cinema or studies film language, it's essential. Stream Band of Outsiders (1964) online on iFILM.
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