Main Cast: Marino Masé, Albert Juross, Geneviève Galéa, Catherine Ribeiro
Release Year: 1963
Country: UK/IT/FR
Run Time: 80 minutes
Plot
Jean-Luc Godard directed this brutal and purposefully harsh satire (adapted from a play by Benjamino Joppolo) which explores the grim folly of war. Ulysses (Marino Masé) and Michel Ange (Albert Juross) are a pair of thickheaded peasants living in a nameless country who receive a visit from a pair of military recruiters informing them the king wants a favor of them. Impressed that the king regards them as friends, Ulysses and Michel Ange join the army and set out to see the world's battlefields, having been told they can claim any spoils as their own and live a lawless life on the nation's behalf. Ulysses and Michel Ange often write their equally dim girlfriends, Venus (Geneviève Galéa) and Cleopatre (Catherine Riberio), with tales of the places they've seen and the people they've killed, but when the soldiers return home, their women discover the riches they were promised are not quite what they imagined. Filmed and recorded in a deliberately harsh and murky style, Les Carabiniers (aka The Riflemen and The Soldiers) features a brief appearance from Barbet Schroeder, years before he would become an acclaimed director, as a car salesman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Cast
Marino Masé - Ulysses
Albert Juross - Michel Ange
Geneviève Galéa - Venus
Catherine Ribeiro - Cleopatre
Pascale Audret - Woman in Car; Jean Brassat - Second Carabinier; Jean-Louis Comolli - Soldier with Fish; Catherine Durante - Heroine of the Film-within-the-Film; Vladimir Faters - Revolutionary; Odile Geoffrey - Young Communist Girl; Alvaro Gheri - 3rd Carabinier; Jean Gruault - "Bebe's" Father; Roger Coggio - Man in Car; Anna Karina; Jean Monsigny; Barbet Schroeder - Car Salesman
Credit
Charles Bitsch - First Assistant Director, Jean-Luc Godard - Director, Agnès Guillemot - Editor, Lila Lakshmanan - Editor, Philippe Arthuys - Composer (Music Score), Raoul Coutard - Cinematographer, Carlo Ponti - Producer, Georges de Beauregard - Producer, Jacques Maumont - Sound/Sound Designer, Jean Gruault - Screenwriter, Jean-Luc Godard - Screenwriter, Roberto Rossellini - Screenwriter, Benjamino Joppolo - Play Author
