Made in U.S.A. | Jean-Luc Godard

Made in U.S.A is a 1966 French crime comedy film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and starring Anna Karina, László Szabó, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Marianne Faithfull, Yves Afonso, and Jean-Claude Bouillon. It was a loose and unauthorized adaptation of the 1965 novel The Jugger by Richard Stark (an alias of Donald E. Westlake), and was also inspired by the 1946 Howard Hawks film The Big Sleep (which was, in turn, an adaptation of the 1939 novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler).

Because neither Godard nor the producer got permission or paid for the rights to adapt The Jugger, Westlake brought legal action, and the film was not released in the United States for over four decades. A newly restored print of the film was distributed by Rialto Pictures in 2009, starting with a screening at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on April 1, which was three months after Westlake's death. The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD in July 2009.

With it's giddily complex noir plot and widescreen, color-drenched images, Made in U.S.A was a final burst of exuberance from Jean-Luc Godard's early-sixties barrage of delirious movie-movies. Yet this chaotic crime thriller and acidly funny critique of consumerism, featuring Anna Karina as the most brightly dressed private investigator in film history, rummaging through an intricate plot for a former lover who might have been assassinated also points toward the more political cinema that would come to define Godard. 

Featuring characters with names such as Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, David Goodis, and Doris Mizoguchi, and a sweetly singing Marianne Faithfull, this piece of pop art is like a Looney Tunes rendition of The Big Sleep gone New Wave. Special edition features include: new, restored high-definition digital transfer, Interviews with stars Anna Karina and Laszlo Sabo, a video piece on the personal and the political in Made in U.S.A and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, featuring Godard biographers Richard Brody and Colin MacCabe, a visual essay cataloguing the multiple references in the film, original and re-release theatrical trailers, New and improved English subtitle translation, and last but not least a new essay by film critic J. Hoberman.

Cast and Crew

Director

Jean-Luc Godard director (as JLG)

Writers

Jean-Luc Godard, writer
Donald E. Westlake novel "The Jugger" (as Richard Stark)

Cast

Anna Karina
Paula Nelson
László Szabó
Richard Widmark
Jean-Pierre Léaud
Donald Siegel
Marianne Faithfull
Yves Afonso
David Goodis