Crooks and Croques

The best part of Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à Part occurs within the first half of the film, when the three protagonists execute a dance number in a café to a jukebox tune. The scene has little to do with the rest of the plot, which concerns two small-time hoodlums and their attempts to convince a beautiful woman to help them in their larcenous endeavors. Subverting the usual laws of cinema, Godard takes a moment from the mundane plot to breathe and indulge in a few minutes of pure, surreal joy. It is this kind of moment for which Godard is known, and it is his willful disregard for narrative convention that revolutionized filmmaking. Come see where Tarantino got most of his good ideas.
Thu., May 15, 7 p.m., 2008