Jean-Luc Godard's first two films (<i>À bout de souffle</i> and <i>Le petit soldat</i>) were thrillers that drew inspiration from American noir, but <i>Une femme est une femme</i> (A Woman is a Woman, 1961) shifts gears drastically to a riff on American musical comedies, with the characters occasionally singing and dancing, and the camera jumping between realistic depictions and these musical interludes. But as one of the seminal figures of the French New Wave with its desire to shake up conventions, Godard added some elements of his own. As the film opens, the soundtrack keeps cutting abruptl...