Alphaville (film) - Influences

Influences

Jean Cocteau was one of the artists who exerted significant influences on Godard's films, and parallels between Alphaville and Cocteau's 1950 film Orpheus are evident. For example, Orphée's search for Cégeste and Caution's for Harry Dickson, between the poems Orphée hears on the radio and the aphoristic questions given by Alpha 60, between Orphée's victory over Death through the recovery of his poetic powers and Caution's use of poetry to destroy Alpha 60. Moreover, Godard openly acknowledges his debt to Cocteau on several occasions. When Alpha 60 is destroyed, for instance, people stagger down labyrinthine corridors or cling blindly to the walls like the inhabitants of Cocteau's "Zone de la mort", and, at the end of the film, Caution tells Natasha not to look back. Godard compares this scene with Orphée's warning to Eurydice, and it is also possible to detect a reference here to the flight from Sodom.

The voice of Alpha 60, played by a man with a mechanical voice box replacing his cancer-damaged larynx, descends from the hypnotic power of Mabuse's disembodied voice in the 1933 film The Testament of Dr Mabuse.

The film production company Alphaville Pictures, co-founded in 2003 by Danish director Christoffer Boe, is named after the film.

German synthpop band Alphaville took their name from the film.

Alphaville also inspired the London based organisation Alpha-ville, to create a festival that explores the intersection between art, society and technology.