Anna Karina

Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer;<ref name="Clarke">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="obituary">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":92"/><ref name=":102"/> 22 September 1940 – 14 December 2019)<ref name="www.lemonde.fr">"Anna Karina, légendaire actrice de la Nouvelle Vague, est morte" Le Monde. Retrieved 15 December 2019</ref> was a Danish and French film actress, director, writer, model, and singer. She was an early collaborator<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, her first husband, performing in several of his films, including The Little Soldier (1960), A Woman Is a Woman (1961), My Life to Live (1962), Template:Lang (Band of Outsiders; 1964), Template:Lang (1965), and Alphaville (1965). For her performance in A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival.<ref name="berlinale 1961">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1972, Karina set up a production company for Vivre ensemble (1973), her directorial debut, which screened in the Critics' Week lineup at the 26th Cannes Film Festival.<ref name=":8">Template:Cite news</ref> She also directed the French-Canadian film Victoria (2008). In addition to her work in cinema, she worked as a singer and wrote several novels.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" />

Karina was an icon of 1960s cinema, and referred to as the "effervescent free spirit of the French New Wave, with all of the scars that the position entails".<ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":6">Template:Cite news</ref> The New York Times described her as "one of the screen's great beauties and an enduring symbol of the French New Wave".<ref name=":4">Template:Cite news</ref>

Early life

Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer<ref name="Clarke" /><ref name="obituary" /><ref name=":92">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":102">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="newwavefilm.com" /> was born on 22 September 1940 in Frederiksberg, Denmark,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> during the German occupation of the Second World War. Her mother was a dress shop owner and her father was a ship captain who left the family a year after she was born.<ref name="LonTimesobit">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":7" /><ref name="newwavefilm.com" />

She lived with her maternal grandparents for four years, then spent the next four years in foster care before returning to live with her mother and her abusive step-father when she was eight.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" /><ref name="Gates">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Telegraphobit">Template:Cite news</ref> As a child, her mother belittled her appearance, and told her that her eyes and forehead were too big.<ref name=":0" /> She has described her childhood as "terribly wanting to be loved", as she felt unwanted and unloved. She made numerous attempts to run away from home, trying to find boats that would take her to Sweden or America.<ref name="MacCabe">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="newwavefilm.com" /> She dreamt of becoming an actor from a young age and wanted to attend drama school but at the time the age requirement for Danish drama schools was 21.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" />

As a student, she rarely attended school and when she achieved good grades in her certificate exams, her school refused to believe she had done so without cheating. The injustice made her leave school at the age of 14.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" />

Career

Les Deux Magots, the café where Anna Karina was discovered

Beginnings and modeling

After leaving school, she went on to find work as a lift operator in a department store and as an assistant to an illustrator.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" />

She began her professional career in Denmark, where she sang in cabarets and worked as a model playing in commercials.<ref name=":92"/> Aged 14, she was spotted in the street by Ib Schmedes, who cast her as the lead in his forty-minute short film Pigen og skoene (The Girl and The Shoes, 1959), which won a prize at Cannes.<ref name="MacCabe, 126">MacCabe, p. 126.</ref><ref name="newwavefilm.com" /><ref name=":102"/> However, as things did not seem to be going well at home, where one evening her step-father beat her very badly, she decided to leave.<ref name="MacCabe, 126" /><ref name="newwavefilm.com" /> With the equivalent of $15, which she'd received from her grandfather, she hitchhiked to Paris.<ref name=":6" /><ref name="newwavefilm.com" /> She has said that although she grew up in Denmark, she was "fascinated" by France and after traveling to Paris at age 14, she wanted to go back and live there.<ref name=":112">Template:Cite web</ref>

In the summer of 1958, aged 17, Karina arrived in Paris.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" /><ref name=":92"/><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":112" /> With only 10,000 francs and unable to speak French, she struggled to find a place to stay and had to ask neighborhood priests for somewhere to sleep. Finally, a young priest found her a small room on the rue Pavée, just behind the Bastille.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" /><ref name=":6" /> One day, while starving and wandering through Paris, she found herself in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. She sat down at Les Deux Magots café,<ref name=":6" /><ref name="Gates" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":112" /> where a woman called Catherine Harlé approached her and asked her if she would be willing to do some photos. Suspicious at first, Karina finally agreed when she found out it was a professional shoot for the French newspaper Jours de France.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" /><ref name=":112" /> After finishing the shoot, Harlé, although telling Karina that she wasn't very talented, gave her some contacts.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" />

She began to work as a model and eventually became successful, posing for several magazines, including Elle,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and meeting Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel.<ref>MacCabe, 126–7.</ref> Karina has said that when she met Chanel on the set of the Elle photoshoot, Chanel told her: "I believe you want to be an actress… You need to learn French. What's your name little girl?" "Hanne Karin Bayer." Karina replied. And Chanel said: "No: Anna Karina – call yourself that."<ref name=":112" /> It was deliberately coined to evoke Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina.<ref>MacCabe, p. 127.</ref><ref name="Smith">Template:Cite news</ref> She also appeared in commercials for products such as Coca-Cola, Pepsodent, and Palmolive.<ref name="Telegraphobit" /> She was still underage but received enough money to find herself a place to stay. And as she still wanted to attend drama school, she sat in movie theaters and watched French movies to teach herself the language.<ref name="newwavefilm.com" /><ref name=":6" />

Film

Jean-Luc Godard, then a film critic for Cahiers du cinéma, first saw Karina in the Palmolive adverts in which she posed in bathtubs.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite news</ref> He was casting his debut feature film Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960), and offered her a small part in it, but she refused when he mentioned that there would be a nude scene.<ref name="LonTimesobit" /> When Godard questioned her refusal, mentioning her apparent nudity in the Palmolive ads, she is said to have replied, "Are you mad? I was wearing a bathing suit in those ads—the soapsuds went up to my neck. It was in your mind that I was undressed."<ref>Karina, Anna (2003). DVD extra. Band of Outsiders. DVD. "Anna Karina".</ref> In the end, the character Godard reserved for Karina did not appear in the film.<ref>MacCabe, 124–5.</ref> Godard offered her a role in The Little Soldier (Template:Lang, not released until 1963) which concerns contentious French actions during the Algerian War. She played a pro-Algerian activist. Karina, then still under 21, had to persuade her estranged mother to sign the contract for her.<ref name=":1" /><ref>MacCabe, 127–8.</ref> The film was immediately controversial, outlawed from French theaters for its content referencing the Algerian War.

After the filming of The Little Soldier, Godard wanted Karina to give up acting, but when Michel Deville offered her the leading role in his next movie, Tonight or Never (Ce soir ou jamais), she accepted immediately, and despite his displeasure Godard drove her to the studio each morning; it was after seeing the rushes of Deville's movie, in which she played an ambitious actress and had to learn her lines before shooting, that he decided to cast her in his own next movie, A Woman Is a Woman (Une femme est une femme, 1961).<ref>Template:Cite book, pp. 104, 108.</ref>

As Angela in A Woman Is a Woman, Karina's role was as an unattached striptease dancer who nevertheless wishes to have a child and daydreams about appearing in MGM musicals. Her school-girl costume emulated Leslie Caron in Gigi (1958), worn even while performing her act.<ref name="LonTimesobit" /> Karina won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 11th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance.<ref name="berlinale 1961" /> In all, Karina appeared in eight films directed by Godard, including My Life to Live (Template:Lang, 1962), Band of Outsiders (Template:Lang, 1964) Template:Lang and Alphaville (both 1965). In Template:Lang, Karina's character is on the run with her ex-boyfriend, while in Alphaville, a science-fiction film often equated to Bladerunner, Karina's role requires her to have difficulty saying the phrase "I love you."<ref name="Smith" /> The last film in the sequence was Made in USA (1966). Anne Billson, in an article querying the concept of the female muse, wrote that Godard in his films with Karina "seems to have trouble conceiving that the female experience revolves around anything other than prostitution, duplicity, or wanting babies."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Karina herself did not object to being described as Godard's muse: "Maybe it's too much, it sounds so pompous. But of course I'm always very touched to hear people say that. Because Jean-Luc gave me a gift to play all of those parts."<ref name=":6" />

Her career flourished,<ref name=":5" /> with Karina appearing in dozens of films through the 1960s, including: The Nun (La Religieuse, 1966), directed by Jacques Rivette; Luchino Visconti's The Stranger (Lo straniero, 1967); the George Cukor/Joseph Strick collaboration Justine (1969); and Tony Richardson's Laughter in the Dark (1969). She continued to work steadily into the 1970s, with roles in Christian de Chalonge's The Wedding Ring (L'Alliance, 1970), Andre Delvaux's Rendezvous at Bray (Rendez-vous à Bray, also 1971), The Salzburg Connection (1972), and Franco Brusati's Bread and Chocolate (Pane e cioccolata, 1973).

Karina with Marcello Mastroianni in 1967

In 1972, she set up the production company for Living Together (Vivre ensemble, 1973), her directorial debut, in which she also acted. The film screened in the Critics' Week lineup at the 26th Cannes Film Festival.<ref name=":8" />

She starred in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Chinese Roulette (Chinesisches Roulette, 1976); Fassbinder allegedly wrote the film for her and Ulli Lommel, her partner at the time.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She later wrote and acted in Last Song (1987) and appeared in Up, Down, Fragile (Haut bas fragile, 1995), directed by Jacques Rivette, and sang in The Truth About Charlie (2002), a remake of the film Charade (1963).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Karina wrote, directed and starred in Victoria (2008), a musical road movie filmed in Montreal and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec. The lead character, played by Karina, has amnesia.<ref name="Gates" /> Richard Kuipers praised it in Variety as "a pleasant gambol through the backwoods of Quebec."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Music and writing

Karina maintained a singing career.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> At the end of the 1960s, she scored a major hit with "Sous le soleil exactement" and "Roller Girl" by Serge Gainsbourg. Both songs are from the TV musical comedy Anna (1967), by the film director Pierre Koralnik, in which she sings seven songs alongside Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Brialy. Karina recorded the album Template:Lang with Philippe Katerine, followed by a concert tour. In 2005, she released Chansons de films, a collection of songs sung in movies.

Karina wrote four novels: Template:Lang (1973), Golden City (1983), Template:Lang (1988), and Jusqu'au bout du hasard (1998).<ref name="newwavefilm.com">Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

Karina in 1994

While working together on Template:Lang, as the crew were having a dinner party in Lausanne, Godard wrote a note and gave it to Karina, saying: "I love you, come and meet me at midnight in a café called Café de la Prez." At the time Karina was in a relationship but she had already fallen in love with Godard so she ended her relationship with her then-boyfriend and went to meet Godard. They began a relationship and married in 1961.<ref name=":5" /> Eventually, Karina served as a cinematic muse to Godard, appearing in eight of his films, including Template:Lang, and Template:Lang, during their five-year marriage and after. Karina liked being the muse, stating in 2016: "How could I not be honoured? Maybe it's too much, it sounds so pompous. But of course I'm always very touched to hear people say that. Because Jean-Luc gave me a gift to play all of those parts. It was like Pygmalion, you know? I was Eliza Doolittle and he was the teacher."<ref name=":6" /> The couple became, according to The Independent, "one of the most celebrated pairings of the 1960s."<ref name=":1" /> A writer for Filmmaker magazine called their work "arguably the most influential body of work in the history of cinema."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Despite the critical success, their relationship behind the scenes was described as tumultuous; they fought on film sets, she fell ill several times, attempted suicide and was subsequently hospitalized in a mental health institution. Godard was often absent without explanation. He was also very jealous, questioned Karina's acting ability and told her: "How are you going to say these lines? They're so terrible! It's a comedy, you are never going to be able to do that."<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":5" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

One Godard film from this period which does not feature Karina, Contempt (1963) starring Brigitte Bardot wearing a black wig which resembles Karina's dark hair, is said to be based on their difficult relationship.<ref name="Telegraphobit" /> The couple divorced in 1965.<ref name=":6" />

Karina said in spring 2016 that she and Godard no longer spoke to each other.<ref name=":2" /> She described the relationship in an interview with W magazine:

It was all very exciting from the beginning. Of course we have a great love story and all that, but we were so different. He was 10 years older than me. He was very strange. He would go away and come back three weeks later... It was difficult, and I was a young girl, not even 21—at the time Godard was 30. I know he didn't mean to hurt me, but he did. He was never there, he was never coming back, and I never knew where he was. He drove me a bit crazy.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref>

After divorcing Godard, Karina remarried three times; she was married to French actors Pierre Fabre from 1968 to 1974 and Daniel Duval from 1978 to 1981, and to American film director Dennis Berry from 1982 until her death.<ref name=":6" /><ref>Anna Karina, légendaire actrice de la Nouvelle Vague, est morte Le Monde, 15 December 2019.</ref>

Karina died at the age of 79 on Saturday, 14 December 2019, at a hospital in Paris. According to her agent, Laurent Balandras, the cause of death was cancer.<ref name="Gates" /> However, her husband Dennis Berry said that the cause was not cancer, but a complication following a muscular rupture.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Legacy

Karina is regularly considered an icon of 1960s cinema,<ref name=":3" /> a staple in French New Wave cinema, as well as a style icon.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":7">Template:Cite news</ref> The Guardian described her as an "effervescent free spirit of the French new wave."<ref name=":6" /> The New York Times described her style as looking like a schoolgirl in her acting roles, regardless of whether she was playing a streetwalker or a terrorist. Her signature look was her dark hair, wispy bangs, heavy eyeliner and school uniform of primary-coloured sailor-uniform tops, knee socks, plaid headwear such as berets and boaters.<ref name="Gates" /> Refinery29 wrote that "her 60s French girl style – think sailor dresses, tartan, long socks, and hats – and mesmerizing doe-eyed beauty mean she continues to be referenced today by the super-stylish."<ref name=":0" />

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
1961	Tonight or Never	Valérie	Michel Deville
	Template:Sortname	Angela Récamier	Jean-Luc Godard
1962	Cléo from 5 to 7	The Fiancée	Agnès Varda	episode: "Les fiancés du pont Macdonald"
	She'll Have to Go	Toni	Robert Asher
	Sun in Your Eyes	Dagmar	Jacques Bourdon
	My Life to Live	Nana Kleinfrankenheim	Jean-Luc Godard
	Three Fables of Love	Colombe	Hervé Bromberger	segment: "Le corbeau et le renard"
1963	Template:Sortname	Veronica Dreyer	Jean-Luc Godard
	Shéhérazade	Shéhérazade	Pierre Gaspard-Huit
	Sweet and Sour	La pauvre Ginette	Jacques Baratier
1964	Band of Outsiders	Odile	Jean-Luc Godard
	Circle of Love	Rose / The Chambermaid	Roger Vadim
	All About Loving	Hélène	Jean Aurel
1965	Template:Sortname	Maria	Maurice Ronet
	Alphaville	Natascha von Braun	Jean-Luc Godard
	Template:Sortname	Elenitza Karaboris	Valerio Zurlini
	Un mari à un prix fixe	Béatrice Reinhoff	Claude de Givray
	Template:Lang	Marianne Renoir	Jean-Luc Godard
1966	Template:Sortname	Suzanne Simonin	Jacques Rivette
	Made in USA	Paula Nelson	Jean-Luc Godard
1967	Anna	Anna	Pierre Koralnik	TV movie
	Zärtliche Haie	Elena / Costa	Michel Deville
	Template:Sortname	Natasha / Eleanor Romeovich, Hostess 703	Jean-Luc Godard	segment: "Anticipation"
	Lamiel	Lamiel	Jean Aurel
	Template:Sortname	Marie Cardona	Luchino Visconti
1968	Template:Sortname	Anne	Guy Green
	Before Winter Comes	Maria	J. Lee Thompson
1969	Man on Horseback	Elisabeth Kohlhaas	Volker Schlöndorff
	Laughter in the Dark	Margot	Tony Richardson
	Justine	Melissa	George Cukor and Joseph Strick
	Dämonische Leinwand		Klaus Wyborny
1970	The Time to Die	The Unnamed Woman	André Farwagi
	Template:Sortname	Jeanne	Christian de Chalonge
1971	Rendezvous at Bray	She (The Waitress)	André Delvaux
	Carlos	Clara	Hans W. Geißendörfer	TV movie
1972	Template:Sortname	Anna Bryant	Lee H. Katzin
1973	Vivre ensemble	Julie Anderson	Anna Karina
1974	Bread and Chocolate	Elena	Franco Brusati
	Morel's Invention	Faustine	Emidio Greco
1976	Template:Sortname	Louise	Benoît Jacquot
	Scrambled Eggs	Clara Dutilleul	Joël Santoni
	Chinese Roulette	Irene Cartis	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
1978	Surprise Sock	Nathalie	Jean-François Davy
	Just like Home	Anna	Márta Mészáros
	Ausgerechnet Bananen	Natascha	Ulli Lommel
1979	Template:Sortname	Christine Olsen	Claus Weeke
1980	Charlotte, Tell Your Mother that I Love Her	Stéphane	Aly Borgini
1983	Vincent's Friend	Eleonore	Pierre Granier-Deferre
1984	Ave Maria	Berthe Granjeux	Jacques Richard
1985	Treasure Island	The Mother	Raoul Ruiz
1987	Last Song	Susan	Dennis Berry
	Last Summer in Tangiers	Myrrha, a cabaret singer	Alexandre Arcady
	Cayenne Palace	Lola	Alain Maline
1988	Template:Sortname	Catherine	André Delvaux
1990	The Man Who Wanted to Be Guilty	Edith	Ole Roos
1995	Up, Down, Fragile	Sarah	Jacques Rivette
1996	Chloé	Katia	Dennis Berry	TV movie
2002	Template:Sortname	Karina	Jonathan Demme
2003	I, Cesar	Gloria	Richard Berry
2008	Victoria	Victoria	Anna Karina

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• Anna Karina at Yahoo! Movies
• Anna Karina biography on newwavefilm.com
• Anna Karina fan site