Anna Karina: 1940-2019

Anna Karina (real name Hanne Karin Bayer), Jean-Luc Godard’s muse and ex-wife, has died at the age of 79. Her iconic dance number from the movie Bande à part was filmed the year before I was born. I sometimes get the feeling that in a past life I lived in a better world than the one I live in now. But in a way I did. I was a small child in the middle and late 1960s, when American and European culture was cool and innovative. In her later life, Karina became a novelist (like so many French actresses seem to do). Quentin Tarantino was so impressed by the dance scene in Bande à part he not only named his film company “Band of Outsiders” he tried to recreate the dance in his film Pulp Fiction. But somehow Uma Thurman and John Travolta don’t quite match up to Anna Karina and two obscure French guys.

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