Anna Karina Dies: Remembering the Muse of French New Wave Cinema

The French actress passed away at the age of 79 on Saturday night, December 14, 2019.

Anna Karina was born in Denmark on September 22, 1940 in Copenhagen. She only left for France when she was 17. Before becoming an actress, she worked as a model, posing for Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin. Hanne Karen Bayer, her real name, was spotted by director Jean-Luc Godard in a soap commercial.

After that, she made her film debut in A Woman is a Woman (1961). The film won her the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival. Her partnership with Godard was one of the richest in the history of cinema. Anna Karina became not only his intellectual muse, but also his leading actress and wife. There were eight films in all. Anna even worked in an American film, Justine (1969) and wrote three books? Vivre ensemble (1973), Golden City (1983), On n’achète pas le soleil (1988) and Jusqu’au bout du hasard (1998), in addition to being a singer. The actress had been married to Dennis Berry since 1982. Her agent Laurent Balandras confirmed that Anna died in a Paris hospital due to cancer. She was with her husband, Dennis. Le Monde also reported on her death. The French Minister of Culture wrote on Twitter:

Son regard était le regard de la Nouvelle Vague. It would never last again.
Chez Godard breakout, more like Rivette or Visconti, Anna Karina irradiait; it magnétisait the world everywhere. Aujourd’hui, le cinéma français est orphelin. I lost one of these legends.

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Carla Marinho Leal

Writer, traveler and above all, curious about many subjects. She has studied cinema since 2002 and is a Specialist in Cinematographic Studies from UNICAP. Founder of the blog Purviance and the website Cinemaclássico. She loves Charles Chaplin, Raj Kapoor and constantly browses films from all over the world.

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