While Francois Truffaut is the most consistently
excellent director of the French New Wave movement, Jean-Luc Godard is easily
the genre’s most compelling, adventurous and political filmmaker.
And because Godard is so unique and productive over his nearly 60-year career as a director, the quality of his films range
from among the greatest to among the strangest.
There are few films that can match the quality and
brilliance of Godard’s 1960 full-length-film debut, A bout de souffle (Breathless), or 1964’s Bande a part (Band of Outsiders). Other great Godard films include
1963’s Le Mepris (Contempt) as well
as Masculin, Feminin, and Made in U.S.A. (both released in 1966).
I highly recommend all of them.
But, at times, Godard made films, heavily influenced
by his far-left-wing, anti-American politics, that leave me wondering: “What am
I watching?” I end up being disappointed that the film never seems to go
anywhere.
An example would be 2 ou 3 choses que ju sais d’elle (2 or 3 Things I Know About Her)
from 1967. The film is about a French suburban housewife who becomes a
prostitute to make money in order to buy material things. It’s an interesting
subject, and something that was happening in France at the time, but Godard’s
effort to capture it on film fails. Women who become prostitutes for money
aren’t uncommon plots in Godard movies, as will become obvious shortly.
Because Godard’s films are compelling, even though
some are much better than others, and rarely boring, I’m always looking to see
as many as possible.
Here are three I recently saw through Hulu Plus.
(They’re in the order in which I saw them.)
Week
End (1967): This is definitely one of those films that left me
wondering: “What am I watching?” It’s a black comedy about a married couple,
Roland and Corinne, who want to kill each other. But first, they want Corinne’s
father to die – they unsuccessfully try to do it themselves a number of times –
in order to collect the inheritance.
The movie is a collection of bizarre scenes,
including one at the beginning that lasts for more than eight minutes. It’s a
traffic jam with angry and impatient people honking their horns. The camera
very slowly goes to the right, passing large animals and people picnicking, as
we get closer to what caused the tie-up. It’s a horrific accident that’s left
dead bodies all over the street and on the nearby grass – and nobody cares.
When they get to her parents’ house, the father is
dead, but Corinne’s mother won’t share the inheritance. Bad move on her part as
the two kill her. But their problems are hardly solved. On the way home, they
end up kidnapped by cannibal revolutionaries, led by legendary French actor
Jean-Pierre Leaud (Truffaut’s semi-autobiographical character, Antoine Doinel,
in four full-length films and one short).
The film is definitely black and has comedic and
absurd moments. The couple meets historical and fictitious characters, killing
some of them without concern because they’re not real. It seems as though
Godard was too busy focusing on the evils of a capitalist society and on the
look of the film to give the movie much of a plot.
Vivre sa vie: film en douze tableaux (titled My Life to Live in U.S.)
(1962): Anna Karina, Godard’s wife and muse at the
time, is outstanding as Nana, a beautiful woman with amazing eyes who leaves
her husband and young child to pursue an acting career even though she isn’t an
actress. It’s not a very well-thought-out plan and unable to make enough money
for rent and expenses as a clerk at a record store, Nana becomes…guess, and
remember it’s Godard…yup, a prostitute.
Film en douze tableaux is French for: A film
in 12 scenes, and that’s what we get. A title appears before each of the scenes
telling us what’s about to happen. It’s not one of Godard’s better-known
movies, but it is exceptional even though the ending is flat.
Tout va bien (titled All’s Well in the U.S.) (1972): Week End’s plot is crystal-clear in comparison to this
film starring Jane Fonda (who speaks most of her lines in French) and Yves
Montand. They’re a married couple with Fonda as a disillusioned American reporter
in France and Montand as a former film director who has to make silly TV
commercials to support their lifestyle.
However, it’s far more complicated than that
and far more complicated than it should be. The movie starts with people trying
to put together a film about a couple to be specifically played by Fonda and
Montand who end up at a sausage factory in which its employees are on strike.
Many characters break the fourth wall so we’re not sure what’s real and what
isn’t.
The factory strike is, by far, the most
interesting part of the film. Of particular note is the lack of a wall on the
outer part of each room at the plant allowing the camera to easily move and
give insight into what’s happening throughout the factory.
But the dialogue is too heavy-handed about the
struggles of the working-class and politics that I became somewhat annoyed that
I was getting too much dialogue and not enough action. Godard sometimes falls
into the trap of telling and not showing moviegoers his points and messages. Movies
are a visual medium. When Godard is at his best – like the classic dance scene
in Bande a part (Band of
Outsiders) – he’s brilliant. When Fonda and Montand are
interacting in this film, I’m waiting for the movie to end.
A final note: For those interested in learning about
the history of the French New Wave movement, I recommend this article: http://www.newwavefilm.com/about/history-of-french-new-wave.shtml
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