Anna Karina

Model Anna Karina came to the attention of European filmmakers after appearing in a prize-winning Danish short subject. Relocating to Paris in 1958, Karina turned down more film roles than she accepted. One of her rejections was director Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1959); within a year, however, she was living with Godard, and by 1961 they were wed. During her six-year marriage to Godard, Karina appeared in several of his productions (Vivre Sa Vie, Pierrot le Fou etc.), and also played sensuous but ever-so-slightly distant heroines in many of the films of Godard's New-Wave confreres. From all reports, Karina and Godard's relationship was symbiotic; it is certainly no coincidence that both actress and director went into a temporary artistic eclipse after their 1967 breakup. In 1973, Karina took her own auteur plunge by writing, directing, and acting in Vivre Ensemble; five years later, she married another French filmmaker, Daniel Georges-Duval.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide