Godard describes his "Bande à part mood": "...characters who live off the cuff and whose speech is recorded directly. It is constructed on the actors. The interesting thing is this sort of fluidity, being able to feel existence like physical matter; it is not the people who are important, but the atmosphere between them. Even when they are in close-up, life exists around them..." "Bande à part," wrote Richard Roud, "is in some ways a return by Godard to the world of Breathless-the world of the outsiders, the fringe people. Most of the film takes place in the suburbs of Paris, and Godard and his photographer have succeeded in transforming its essential hideousness into a setting of dreamlike beauty and poignancy. His three characters are trembling on the edge of crime, but as usual with Godard, this does not exclude a kind of hysterical gaiety-dancing on the edge of the volcano, as in one of the greatest of Godard's urban epiphanies: the Madison danced in a cafe at the gates of Paris." The influence of American musicals, particularly those of the fifties, on the films of Godard is acknowledged in comments such as those he made about The Pajama Game: "Life captured...The arabesques of dance movements reveal an unfamiliar grace, that of actuality...When the actor dances, he is no longer transformed into a dancer doing his act...he still remains in character, but suddenly feels the need to dance. Herein lies the novelty..."