Jean Luc Godard - Une Femme est une Femme

After the ban of Le Petit Soldat, Godard was practically forced to come up with sort of a crowd-pleaser, since another gloomy character portrait with political undertones might well follow its predecessors faith. And Une Femme est une Femme is strangely just that: Godard going "mainstream". Godard "selling out". A comedy. A musical. In technicolor. With all the usual romantic shenanigans of Hollywood. Oh boy...

However frustrating it may sound - Une Femme est une Femme is the first film where Godard accomplishes to fully realize his ambitions. Godard takes an idea from mainstream filmmaking and turns it into a semi-Avant Garde romp, which includes him breaking the fourth wall repeatedly, addressing his own and Truffaut's career (in one scene, Belmondo turns around to face a suddenly present Jeanne Moreau just to ask her how the shoot of Jules et Jim is coming along) and some of the most striking usage of color ever seen in a film.

The story of the film is actually quite pointless. We are introduced to an exotic dancer (Karina - today we'd call her a stripper), her boyfriend (Brialy) and his best friend (Belmondo). The dancer wants to have a child. Her boyfriend isn't very keen on this idea, thus leading the woman to approach his best friend to sleep with her. Chaos ensues, fronts vary, and in the end it's all back to where it began, more or less.

This makes it especially hard to point out the many amazing traits of this film - there are enough Godard's with a striking characterization or plot to watch apart from this light comedy. Most of the film has been made up in a matter of minutes. A mess of improvised acts, childish games and immature behavior. Not to mention the songs that could be straight out of any random Hollywood musical. So why bother?

One big reason is Anna Karina. After her rather small involvement in Le Petit Soldat, Godard allows her to fully explore her ambitions here, singing, dancing, goofing around, flirting and being gorgeous all around. It is her charm that carries most of the film, and her voice that shouts "Camera! Lights! Action!" over the titles in the first minute, and her girlish spleens allow the viewer to identify with her in a film mostly comprised of caricatures.

Another reason is Godard's visual style. It's not only the striking use of color and the great cinematography, but also his ability to supply his audience with information on characters and places without explaining them. One example for this is the girls neighbor who seemingly owns the single phone of the house. Every time the girl rings on her door, the neighbor opens just to let another different man (or is it costumer?) get out of her apartment. Some more can be observed in the couple in front of the house that seemingly never stops to make out, or in the run down, curiously empty and gloomy strip local. It's important to note that fellow Nouvelle Vague director Jacques Demy came, some years later, up with his own re-imagination of the musical genre, in which he took the elements provided by Godard and exaggerated them into what can only be summarized as a saccharine dreamscape. Like Demy or not, it's obvious that Godard provided food for thought just how far the musical genre can be stretched, further allowing artists like Baz Luhrman 40 years later to build upon his ideas.

But the main attraction here is Godard's amazing eye for experimentation, which allows him to come up with one striking and insane idea after another. Be it title cards, the aforementioned fourth wall breaking, the actors improvising or bursting into songs, or the wide array of ideas that Godard came up with on the spot. Near the end, the couple refuses to talk to another, lying in bed silently, refusing any kind of communication. Thus, the girl switches on the light, carries the lamp over to a book shelve, picks one up and returns to the bed, to give her boyfriend the book, insulting him through its title. The scene continues with each picking up a different book, the two characters communication by hurling books at each other.

Une Femme est une Femme is the first film where Godard finds his own language, which he went on to apply with every future film over the course of at least the next ten years. It is easy to watch and very entertaining, without using any of its artistic merit. It's one of those rare examples where an artist achieves to both woe his audience with his artistic vision and to entertain them. The film was - of course - highly successful, and is a stepping stone of Godard's career, which allowed him to continue with his cinematic experimentation in his next film, which once again would be a turn of 180 degrees in theme and style, and allow Karina to further proof that she was one of the most exciting actresses of her generation.

FINAL VERDICT: 9/10 - amazing, has to be seen!

Jean Luc Godard - Le Petit Soldat

For three years, Le Petit Soldat didn't see the light of day. shot in switzerland right after A Bout de Souffle was premiered, the film was banned upon inspection of the ministry of culture, apparently due to a number of violent torture scenes.

It's not the follow up to A Bout de Souffle that Godard's growing fanbase had anticipated, that is for sure. Finally released in 1963, it can only be speculated what Godard's career would have looked like if this would have been released as his second feature, instead of the colorful and romantic musical comedy Une Femme est une Femme. Le Petit Soldat is bleak, political, demanding, intelligent and disturbing, and deals with questions about political intentions and their consequences as much as with film theory. It is shot on faded black and white film, and even though the cinematography is highly aestheticized, the film is nowhere near the beauty of A Bout de Souffle, and rather aims for a cinéma verité look.

It's also notable that this was the first film of Godard featuring his future wife, Anna Karina, who became his actress of choice and muse. It's also highly debatable what would have happened with Godard - the artist - if he wouldn't have cast her in Le Petit Soldat. As little as her role here is, she radiates with charisma and charm.

Our protagonist is a young french man: Bruno - 26 years old, a deserter of the algerian war who has fled to switzerland and works as an agent of the french government. At times even as an assassin. In flashbacks, which can hardly be discerned from the main narrative, the relationship of him and Karina's character is introduced: she, the girlfriend of a friend, asks the young man, who is a photographer and art-conoisseur, to take her picture. Upon agreeing, he is contacted by two agents, who force him to agree to assassinate a leftist activist that is working with algerian intelligence. Even though Bruno is suspected to work as a double agent he refuses, which leads the agents to plot an arrest warrant. Either the young man agrees to kill the target, or he is delivered to france by the police, where he will be charged for deserting his unit. But any attempt to assassinate the target fail, until Bruno is captured suddenly by arab intelligence, brought to an apartment and tortured.

Godard's focus in the main storyline lies with the lack of difference in the means of either side. Bruno himself is exploited both by the french and arab side, which use him for their means and care little for his own personal or political agenda. Even though the images of torture themselves are disturbing and repelling, the message that both sides are essentially the same and only differing in their political point of view (Bruno even mentions at some point that when the right gain power they reign like the left, and the left the other way around) was likely to be the true cause of the ban. In the end, in showing that the actions taken by both groups are more important than their agenda, Godard came up with a much dangerous message than any visualization of torture could be.

But apart from the political themes, the film also deals with art and cinema. During the photo shoot, Bruno talks a lot about his intention of photographing - how he thinks a photo has to capture the soul of the person in the picture, and that he refers to a photography as the truth (and continues that cinema is 24 truths per second - an often quoted statement). Throughout the film, he compares various things to paintings ("The sky looks like a Klee." "Her eyes were Velasquez grey.") and at some point even states he would like to open an art gallery. In those moments, Bruno is more than just a deserter or assassin - we see him as a young man of intellect with ambitions and dreams, who is caught in a web of international intrigue. During the last act, he even goes as far as to comment on the state of youth in politics. "Each generation had their revolution, but what have we?" This monologue shows Godard's lack of hope in politics, which led him to extreme socialism a few years later. From his point of view, the youth of the early 60s was tired and lacked a sense of purpose. Godard was hungry for a revolution (though one of art and intelligence instead of one equipping torture and assassination).

As for our protagonist, the entire affair ends in tragedy, rendering Le Petit Soldat even more bleak than it already is. Obviously, it didn't need a ban to make Godard decide that his next film would be the entire opposite. Le Petit Soldat, as great as it is, could only be followed by something light and optimistic.

Final Verdict: 8.5/10 - Very Good, should be watched

Jean Luc Godard - A Bout de Souffle

In 1960, Pier Paolo Pasolini struggled with his directorial debut, Accattone - the story of a troubled roman pimp. He had shot some test material, which reportedly looked terrible, and wasn't able to formulate his thoughts into a coherent story. Thus, his friend Bernardo Bertolucci, recommended to Pasolini to go see A Bout de Souffle. Pasolini went, together with his friends - a wild mix of crooks, rent boys, pickpockets, all living on the streets, most teenagers, many of them having had affairs with Pasolini.

A few days later, Pasolini met with Bertolucci, and asked why he had recommended the film to him. Bertolucci answered that he thought it was an accurate depiction of todays youth and small time crooks. Pasolini laughed. "But I went with my friends, who are all gangsters. They laughed at the screen and mocked Belmondo! This isn't about gangster - it's about spoilt brats having nothing to do, boring the audience with their talk."

Upon inspection of A Bout de Souffle, two things are important to remember: one is that the film was written by fellow nouvelle vague director Francoise Truffaut, who went on to write and direct Jules et Jim. Both films share a common trait: their main protagonists are assholes. Dumb assholes, actually. Both Michel (Belmondo) and Catherine in J&J are not very nice, treat everybody around them like shit and only care for themselves. Why exactly Truffaut, who has proven with the Antoine Doinelle series as well as many other great films, seemed to deem it necessary to have unlikeable characters be his protagonists is quite baffling. When we are introduced to Michel - stealing a car, driving through the countryside, killing a policeman, spouting nonsensical banter - he's neither interesting nor charismatic in particular. Thankfully, the vibrant editing and beautiful cinematography distract from this fact. To be honest, A Bout de Souffle may be one of the most beautiful shot films of its era. Bu that doesn't distract from the non-existent plot or character development.

On the run from the police Michel drives to Paris, and in the one iconic shot of the film picks up a young girl (Jean Seberg) who sells the NY Herald Tribune. The two have met before (even if only briefly) and had an affair. Desperate to crash somewhere, Michel (after being rejected by her) breaks into her apartment and tries to convince the girl to sleep with him. What follows is one of the most bland second acts in any Godard film. The next 30 minutes comprise of the two talking about nothing of interest or meaning. While the girl tries to discuss books and music with Michel, he quickly shifts the conversation to sex. It's a weird scene for the audience to observe - here we have a girl, who name drops artists and musicians as if they were street names ("Do you like Faulkner?") and a guy who can only respond in immature jokes which reveal his lack of self-confidence ("Is that a boy you slept with?"). Both have nothing to say, and the girls interest in pop culture seems to stem from a lack of character than an actual understanding of or interest in the matter.

Indeed, Godard went on to further undermine the youth of the 60's in his future films. Both Masculin, Féminin and La Chinoise further proceed to depict the french youth as a pack of spoiled brats that spout political and ideological nonsense in the firm believe that their intellectual emptiness was actually a political manifest (in this, Godard was very close to Pasolini's opinion about the youth of the 60s, but more on that with Masculin, Feminin).

Here, however, Godard doesn't seem to criticize rather than glorify this believe system. And so, while both protagonists may look splendid lying in bed, their characterization takes a step back. We further get to know that Michel is an asshole, and that the girl has an interest in journalism (which leads to a scene which could be seen as a critique of the intellectual emptiness denounced later on in Godard's work: during an interview with a writer, the journalists fight almost physical over the literary star, shouting random questions at him, which he often negates and answers with sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek responses). But else, those two pretty puppets are empty and devoid of anything of interest. They are - as Holden Caulfield would put it - phony's. Poseurs of the highest order.

Of course this may be where the film did indeed succeed. The 1950s provided a large amount of cinematic heroes that had to stand in for a good cause or had meaningful and tragic situations to cope with. And even though most films of the 50s had the typical Hollywood Happy End, the road to happiness was rocky and littered with tears and melodrama. So protagonists who had nothing to do but sit around and talk about... well, nothing in particular, with no problematic than those they brought upon themselves, might have been a welcome breath of fresh air. But from todays point of view, the film would work a lot better if the characterization would match the vibrant and stylish photography.

In the end, the resolution comes as meaningless as it is sudden, with both the protagonists and the audience pondering why the characters decided to act the way they did. In one final moment of emotional and characteristic emptiness, Godard breaks every rule he had set up in the 70 previous minutes - maybe to end the film like one of the tragic film noir's of the 40s he adored so much (and paid homage to with many of his works). But the why of it all weighs heavy on the film, and in its closing minutes, this french version of Bonnie and Clyde feels rather like a stylisher, old-school version of Antitrust - just with Paris instead of computers.

But credit where credit is due: Jean Seberg is beautiful and at least fills the little she has to work on with a lot of grace, sex appeal and charm. The soundtrack, comprised of atmospheric jazz songs suits the film and enriches it. Paris may have never looked more appealing (or more like Chicago). And even though I am not the biggest Belmondo fan, he plays the asshole with a lot of dedication (maybe more than he would admit).

But all of these merits can't really help the emotional emptiness of A Bout de Souffle. Luckily, Godard would move on, and manage to portray entertaining and interesting characters and set up a clever and sophisticated plot.

FINAL VERDICT: 6/10 - OK with flaws, worthy a watch.

Jean Luc Godard - introduction

Jean Luc Godard may be both one of the worlds most rewarding and disappointing filmmakers. His work ranges from masterful to utterly terrible, and during the 60s alone, he has dabbled in such varied genres as in war films, musical, sci-fi and political thriller, among others. Always colorful - even if directed in black and white, his films were an unique oddity back when they were conceived, and still stand out today.

However, there is one major problem with his body of work. As enjoyable as some of his films may seem, Godard himself has always tried to push his own intentions into the foreground, resulting in works that seem helmed by a professor of sociology rather than a director, bordering on boring and even wanky excursions on socialism and dadaism.

As curious I was in the beginning, the more cautious I have become with this mans body of work as I further followed his lead. Among the 16 films he directed during the 60s (resulting in a dead end - the two essay-films Le Gai Savoir and Un Film commes lest autres - but not before turning a documentary on the Rolling Stones into a raging and messy political manifest) are some of my favorite films and some which I hope I never have to lay an eye on again.

As I worked my way through these films, many I talked to about his work requested I should review or analyze his films one by one. So after finally finishing all 16 aforementioned works, and with Godard all over the news again (the now 80 year old was awarded with the lifetime achievement academy award as well as others, released his latest feature, Film Socialisme and will have eight highly experimental and divisive films previously not released in germany included in a DVD box-set), I decided to give this a go, and write down my thoughts on his run during the 60s.

But before I start, it is necessary to sum up Godard during that period of time. It is important to note that Godard did not start a filmmaker, but earned his money as a film critic of the popular journal Cahiers du Cinéma, mostly composing reviews not too keen on "classic filmmakers", such as Ingmar Bergman and Henri-Geroges Clouzot. It is of high importance that Godard himself felt frustrated with the filmmakers of his age, requesting a style to match his generation. With hardly any budget, he set out to direct his first short films "on the run" - with hardly a script and equipped only with a camera (mirroring the manifest of the Dogma-movement three decades later). No matter what one might think of Godard's opinion as a critic during that time, this approach has to be applauded, especially in a time in which shooting without a proper studio attached was unthinkable.

Thus, Godard was looking for the language of a generation. And he found it in two slackers.