becker (11/19/82)
#N:uiucdcs:10700021:000:397 uiucdcs!becker Nov 19 02:35:00 1982 has anyone out there ever seen a movie called Alphaville? about 12 years ago i saw about a half hour of it, and it was really different. i think it was about a detective in the future, and i seem to recall that a whole bunch of people got killed. i would like to know basically what the movie was about (ie the plot), as well as the director and the name of the main character. thanks, craig
dmmartindale (11/21/82)
Alphaville was made in 1965 and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Interestingly, its original working title was "Tarzan Versus IBM". I haven't seen it, so don't know the plot or characters. Dave Martindale
tas (11/22/82)
I saw Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville about 3 years ago. I remember that it concerned the efforts of a detective named Lemmy Caution to destroy a computer that controlled the hearts and minds of the residents of Alphaville, nee Paris. The whole movie had a kind of comic strip aura about it; as a matter of fact, one of Caution's associates was named Dick Tracy. It was filled with strange images of a world dominated by technology and violence: Godard periodically flashed neon signs proclaiming "e=mc**2" or "E=hv", or, when he really wanted to get transcendent, "mc**2=hv". Every day, new dictionaries were distributed sans the words that had been banned the previous day. And the computer itself was a strange gobbledygook of swinging microphones and flashing lights. I remember liking the movie, but I was never quite sure why. Tom Skrobala