Numéro deux (1975)

An analysis of the power relations in an ordinary family.

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writers:

Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Miéville

Stars:

Sandrine Battistella, Jean-Luc Godard, Pierre Oudrey

Cast

Credited cast:
Sandrine Battistella	...	Wife
Jean-Luc Godard	...	Himself
Pierre Oudrey	...	Husband
Alexandre Rignault	...	Grandfather
Rachel Stefanopoli	...	Grandmother

Storyline

An analysis of the power relations in an ordinary family.

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Plot Keywords:

husband wife relationship | television | hand job | penis | adultery | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

4 November 1976 (USA)

Also Known As:

Number Two

Company Credits

Production Co:

Anne-age-Bela, Bela Productions, Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Due to financial matters, the film was shot on Video. The finished Movie (on Video) was filmed back into 35mm to distribute it that way.

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Connections

Referenced in Cinemania (2002)

User Reviews

Godard's last top-shelf work

Depicting an "alienated" French family on video monitors that

swim in a black void, Godard creates a kind of mystical proletarian

naturalism that carroms against strange folkloric proverbs, surreal

interaction played utterly flat, and a quiescent sexual explicitness

that has the calm uninflection of hardcore pornography. At first it

seems like a Franz Xaver Kroetz play on a video monitor (which

gives it an occult-like power); then the family goes on to take on the

primal, iconic qualities of a Henry Moore family group. An

exploration of the hidden properties of the image, and the

global-scale forces that (in Godard's view) pull all the strings of our

intimate lives, NUMERO DEUX ranks with Godard's greatest work.

Not even the finest of his later work has the immense force,

striking simplicity or blinding insight of this picture.