During the shoot-out at the Café de la Paix (the luxurious restaurant of the Grand Hotel Intercontinental), an undisturbed man is reading a large book, holding it so that the cover is shown prominently, several times: 'Nouveau Guide des Paradis Fiscaux', published in 1982, and written by a specialist on Swiss banking. Godard's tongue-in-cheek political comment (in a French-Swiss co-production) may escape some viewers, though.
Maruschka Detmers's debut.
Prénom Carmen was originally intended to star Isabelle Adjani in the title role. Adjani, who had achieved international fame in François Truffaut's The Story of Adele H (1975) (1975), left the set after a week of filming, finding Godard's alienating approach to actors traumatic.
It was Alain Sarde who brought a twenty-year-old Dutch girl, Maruschka Detmers, to the attention of Jean-Luc Godard, just out of an acting class and without any film experience behind her. Godard accepts, persuaded both by the perfectly fitting physical type to give life to a sensual and melancholy Carmen, and by the ease with which she faces, during an audition, a nude scene in the presence of the male protagonist.
'Nouveau Guide des Paradis Fiscaux' translates into English as 'New Guide to Tax Havens'
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