Le Petit Soldat

Le Petit Soldat (1963)

Despite his lack of political convictions, photojournalist Bruno Forestier is roped into a paramilitary group waging a shadow war in Geneva against the Algerian independence movement.

Date of release
1963-01-25
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (189)
Runtime
1h 27m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
Jean-Luc Godard

Casting

Interesting facts

Le petit soldat is a French film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard in 1960, but its release was delayed until 1963 by censorship. It was the first project on which Godard worked with Anna Karina, who stars alongside Michel Subor, but the third to be released. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.

Production

Jean-Luc Godard wanted to start on his second film immediately after his first feature, Breathless (1960), for a variety of reasons, one of which was that he believed his opportunity to make a second film would disappear if Breathless failed at the box office. Another was a desire to catch up to his French New Wave contemporaries, many of whom had already made multiple films.

Godard devised the idea for Le petit soldat in wanting to make a film on the theme of "brainwashing," which he claimed he "got from reading [Arthur] Koestler." While working on Breathless, Godard told journalist Marc Pierret that his next film would be shot in Switzerland, "with three times less money," and be "something about torture." Godard was criticized by the French left for the perceived apolitical nature of Breathless, or, in some cases,…

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