Appreciation: Anna Karina, more than Jean-Luc Godard's muse, helped define the French New Wave
If Anna Karina had done nothing more than dance on-screen, she would be one of the lasting treasures of the cinema.
Her most famous dance remains as fresh and vivid now as it was 55 years ago. Midway through "Band of Outsiders" (1964), Jean-Luc Godard's exquisite, movie-mad dream of a youthful crime caper, Karina, Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey give themselves over to an impromptu Madison. Commandeering the floor of a crowded cafe, they snap, clap and turn to the music several times over, with a swinging precision that feels marvelously unrehearsed. The camera watches, unblinking and enraptured: They may be hopelessly lost, these three beautiful young fools, but for
