Godard: Band of Outsiders and A Married Woman

After Contempt, a movie stuffed full with bold colors, lush instrumental music, and a naked Bridgette Bardot, audiences perhaps expected Godard's next film(s) to further develop these splashy and seductive formal elements.  It must have been quite a surprise then, when he chose to go back to black-and-white with an adaptation of a dime-store American gangster novel, followed by another examination of women's place in modern society.  However, if at first glance Bande A Part and Une Femme Mariee seem to be two steps back for Godard, upon closer examination they reveal themselves to be deeper and more humanistic dives into Godard's favorite subjects: Capitalism, Women, and Love.

Both movies revolve around a woman, or young woman, caught between two men, and her confusion with regards to whom she loves, if she loves anyone at all.  This seems to be the point of focus for Godard--not to question whether the woman loves Guy A or Guy B, but rather, to question love as an entity in itself.  What is love?  Why is it so transient?  And yet why do we feel compelled to keep it, chain it, lock it, and throw away the key?  It is this existential, philosophical quandary which interests Godard, in addition to his observations that love (sex?) for women is both a form of currency and a prison simultaneously.

In Band of Outsiders, Odile is the object of affection for two classmates, Arthur and Franz.  I say "object of affection," because both Arthur and Franz have a competition for who will basically own Odile, their callousness towards her becoming more apparent as the narrative progresses.  Odile chooses Arthur at first, and we know this by the fact that she will take a cigarette that is offered by Arthur, but not by Franz.  This is Godard's way of saying that ownership, or property, is the modus operandi of the film, and the Capitalistic world in general; as he will later whisper as the narrator in Two or Three Things I Know About Her, "Maybe an object is what serves as a link between subjects."  It is not a stretch to say that Odile becomes just another object which Arthur uses to get to what he and Franz set out for in the beginning: the stash of money at the house where Odile house-sits for an elderly wealthy couple.

Even the opening of the movie tells us Odile's inner turmoil at feeling the dichotomy between attraction and imprisonment.  The film begins with a fast montage cutting the three faces of the protagonists, each person staring intensely in a direction.  In the beginning, Franz stares right to left.  His eyeline does not connect with Odile, whose eyelines do connect with Arthur.  The look on their faces can be read as romantic.  Slowly, Franz shifts his gaze to Arthur and stares daggers.  Then, Odile shifts her gaze downward and seems unsettled.  She looks right to left and sees Franz.  The conflict of the film has been established: two men fighting over a woman, who feels the loneliness of objectification.

Also, in many of the shots in the movie, Odile is framed in the middle, between the two men.  In the famous dance bar sequence where the three of them dance for a very extended period of time as the sound drops out and the omniscient narrator tells us the thoughts of our protagonists (a technique which Godard seems to have mastered by this film), Odile dances between Arthur and Franz.  Even as they run "freely" through the Louvre in another iconic scene, Odile is still trapped between the two guys.

 

One may argue that the affect of the film does not support this reading, and indeed, the film and the characters have a carefree, ramshackle feel.  At one point, Franz says something akin to, "Let's form a plan."  Odile looks straight into the camera and says, "Why?"  This is a meta-moment where he's both challenging cinema's perceived need to have a narrative, but also the idea that plans are needed in real life.  However, as the film progresses, Arthur and Franz "carefree" attitude starts to look a lot more nihilistic and dangerous.  When the money is not where Odile says it was, the characters tie her up and we feel a very real threat, the threat of violence against Odile in the name of money (not unlike the end of Vivre Sa Vie) that basically serves to retroactively alter the perceived "recklessness of youth" that came before.

In Une Femme Mariee, Charlotte's husband at one point slaps her and basically rapes her (off-screen) after she refuses to turn off a record which he asked her not to play.  Though the presentation of the rape is not physically forceful, it is still acknowledged as such, and reminds us that rape is not always a physical violence -- it can be a psychological one as well.  Similarly, there is a scene where Charlotte's maid describes to her a sexual encounter she had with her husband where he left her "black and blue," and yet she says it while smiling and laughing and cleaning the dishwasher.  Godard seems particularly interested in the violence and prostitution of the domestic household in this film.  Though, like Godard's definition of prostitution (anyone who does something they don't want to), I gather that his definition of violence is similarly wide.  If I had to guess, violence is intimately tied to this definition of prostitution and would go something like this: any repercussions or negative consequences that come from attempting to escape the prison of Capitalism.

When Charlotte cheats on her husband, it is not because she doesn't love her husband anymore.  Perhaps she does not, but that is not the point.  We feel that Charlotte cheats on her husband as an expression of her freedom to choose her own fate in this life, to do what feels pleasurable.  But the question of love hangs over the film like a drifting cloud.  Why do we love?  And how do we know we are in love?  Godard shoots the scenes with Charlotte and her lover (and most of the movie) in close-ups which isolate parts of her body.  Her head seems severed from the rest of her body.  Her legs seem to exist on their own.  Her midsection.  Her lips.  Her hands.  The film seems to be objectifying her body, even as questions of love are put forth.

    

Pleasure and love are intimately intertwined in this film.  So intertwined, in fact, that Godard seems to be asking us, "Is there a difference?"  Charlotte used to feel pleasure with her husband, but now something feels missing and she wonders whether she still loves him.  Her boyfriend pleasures her, and she admits that she loves him.  However, how long can pleasure last?  As Charlotte is waiting to meet up with her lover, she flips through a magazine where advertisement after advertisement shows women in brassieres, seductively smiling at us and teasing the prospect of love.  What is love to Capitalism, but just another commodity?  And what is a commodity, but just something sold to us, promising increased happiness?  Godard seems to be saying that love, like pleasure, is just another temporary spike in happiness, just another lie sold to us by the Capitalistic structures in place.  In fact, Capitalism benefits from a transient love, a love that jumps from one person to the next and relies on our desires to impress, to be new.  

In the end of the film after Charlotte sleeps with her lover, she wonders whether he actually loves her, and how he knows that he does.  She does not trust love.  "It is over," she says at the end of the film.  She has accepted the transience of existence and has succumbed to her fate, a fate determined by Capitalism.

                                               

I would just like to add as an addendum that these movies show Godard as having very strong control over the formal techniques which he explored in his first six films, almost to the point where the rough edges have been sanded down.  The films no longer feel jarring, or experimental, but rather smoothly operating by the new rules that Godard had written for cinema.  I have no doubt that he again tries to jut himself out of his own comfort zone in the films that come after.

Early Godard (Breathless through Contempt)

I read in Richard Roud's book on Godard that perhaps a theme which could summarize or encapsulate so many of Godard's interests is the theme of prostitution.  Let's start there, since it would seem, at least in early Godard, that what might not be connected in subject matter or genre could in some ways at least share this theme.  To Godard, "a prostitute [is] anyone who does something he doesn't want to."  We can then safely say that the protagonists of all six of the movies [Breathless, The Little Soldier, A Woman is a Woman, Vivre Sa Vie, Les Carabiniers, and Contempt] either literally or metaphorically confront or are confronted with the question of prostitution.  Though each movie differs in its affect, tone, and story, all of the movies show what I assume becomes Godard's main political message throughout his career: Capitalism, consumerism, or just plain money, is an operating system which ask us to prostitute ourselves in order for the machine to keep turning.

However, in these first six feature films, Godard's political didacticism is set at a pretty low temperature, almost as if the political considerations of his story were a second-thought to the primary, driving force of these films: namely, their formal innovations and techniques.  In this way, Godard's first six films perhaps reflect more an attempt to make films politically, which is to say, that the way in which these films were produced was often as important as the story the films contained.  Not only was Godard using handheld cameras, faster film (which could shoot in low light conditions), new sound-recording technology, and bare locations... but he was also experimenting with the formal elements of editing.

Right off the bat, it is apparent that Godard is up to something entirely new in cinema's history with the introduction of the jump cut which he employs throughout Breathless.  Where many of the American films that Godard was influenced by were once focused on "suturing" a cut (making it invisible or as seamless as possible), Godard comes along to introduce the cut as something which is entirely noticeable, which keeps the viewer on a continual loop of never fully being able to forget he's watching a movie even as he can't stop watching.  Other factors in the movie contribute to this effect as well: the litany of pop culture references, the seeming amorality of the main character (and the movie), the jazzy score which comes in and out, the skeleton plot (or obfuscation of plot), the philosophical discussions about happiness, men, women, and money, and the fact that many scenes take place around movie theaters.

Many of these attributes could be found in all of the first six of Godard's movies.  Therefore, though these movies jump genres and sometimes skirt around political issues and themes, in their formal and tonal fabric is the making of a political cinema.  It is a cinema which is attempting to both a) remind the viewer they are watching a movie, and therefore think about the relationship between the movie and "the real world," and b) challenge the homogenized forms of cinema to show that, in fact, new forms are possible.  Really, these are one and the same-- to Godard, cinema and life seem to be inseparable.  They both reflect on and change the other.

Let's look at A Woman is a Woman, probably the second least political (next to Breathless) of these six films.  The film is Godard's first direct foray into the differences between men and women (with what seems to be an equal distribution of gender exploration and misogyny) but its affect is light and comical, and it resembles a musical comedy from the 50s in its color schemes and references.  However, the music in the film inexplicably cuts out at what seems like random times, leaving the only sound to be Anna Karina's clicking heels on the pavement and her singing with no backing track.  The effect is that the illusion of the film is broken -- instead of making the film disappear before your eyes, these techniques point out that what you are watching was constructed and built by somebody, that it is a movie.  That it is a product.  Somehow, though, we still become enveloped in the story.  Godard wants his cake and eats it too.

Godard is a dialectical thinker, and this is evident in his films, in his interviews, and in his writings.  He considered himself an "essay-writer" and his films filmed essays.  So, it is safe to say that Godard constructs an argument with each of his films and then sets out to prove his thesis.  (A question one could posit would be, "How is this different than Hollywood films of the era?"  And I would say, it's in the execution of course.  But this argument needs more thought and so it will have to be continued at a later date...)  It always seems like the films are at struggle with themselves, just like the characters, and probably just like Godard.  Both characters and movie seem to constantly be asking questions and answering them with other questions, never settling, never coming to a finite conclusion.

Even in a film like Vivre Sa Vie (My life to live), which ends on a dour note where the prostitute is killed in a shootout over a failed transaction (she is half of the transaction), we cannot be completely sure if Godard is saying that she chose her fate, or whether she could not escape it.  Most likely, he is saying both.  One could easily say that clearly the movie ends the way it does to show that it was in fact not "her life to live," that she was a product that was sold to hungry customers and in the end was treated as inhumanely as a non-human product could be.  However, in the middle of the film, the main protagonist says that, "I think we're always responsible for our actions.  We're free."  She goes on to say that if she's unhappy, she's responsible.  This is certainly one way of looking at the world, and it is unclear whether Godard includes this speech because he wants to paint a portrait of a very naive person, or if he includes it because he actually half-believes it.  One of the reasons Vivre Sa Vie stands out in this group of films is that it is perhaps the closest to a "traditional" narrative and affect, the sympathetic portrait of a woman trying to climb her way out of prostitution.  Again, though, Godard makes it his own: a scene where she dances around a billiards table makes us very aware of the cinematic and musical techniques being employed even as it keeps us engaged with the furthering of the story.  The opening scene begins on a long conversation that tracks laterally between the backs of two peoples' heads.  One of the characters even refers to Le Petit Soldat.  I would say that Vivre Sa Vie is a more subversive film than the others though, since its cinematic techniques are more familiar, the narrative more straight-forward, and the images prettier than something like Les Carabiniers.

Les Carabiniers, by far the most satirical and absurdist of the group of films, was probably the least financially successful.  It is a war film, in which the scenes of war which are depicted are mundane, ramshackle, and low-production cost.  Like Le Petit Soldat, Godard was figuring out new ways to tell genre stories with smaller and smaller budgets.  Le Petit Soldat is a film about spies in the French-Algerian war where most of the action takes place in bland rooms with white walls and white blinds and almost no production design.  The spaces act as both a reveal that the movie is a movie, and also reflect a more frightening reality than perhaps larger budget films: that the people who are spying and killing others operate out of rooms with nothing in them.  That torture is routine and takes place in a hotel bathtub with handcuffs fastened to the faucet.  However, while Le Petit Soldat uses these qualities to enhance its possibilities of depicting the real world, Les Carabiniers uses these tactics for opposite effect, to show the absurdity of war, the humorous physical dislocation of soldiers and the ridiculous lies of a King to his soldiers, his country.  In both of these ways, Les Carabiniers is a bit Orwellian, but only in subject matter, not affect.  Godard's tone is one of irreverence, nonchalance, anything-goes, amoral rambunctiousness.  Again, sound drops out of the film throughout, eradicating any notions that the film is an entity in itself, that it exists on its own.  Somebody made this ridiculous thing, just like somebody makes ridiculous wars.

Contempt seems to be an evolution of Godard's style, if only for the fact that it is only his second color film, and his use of color and music seem more expressionistic and less jarring.  One is seduced into that film in the way that the screenwriter is hired to write for a callous, vapid American producer.  The film is beautiful to look at and the music is gorgeous; the film even seems to be more linear, more focused on the narrative, even as Godard indulges many digressions where characters just walk, or talk philosophy, or have long, protracted arguments in their flat.  This is also one of the films I noticed was using more locked down shots (along with Vivre Sa Vie) and explores and employs Godard's lateral tracking shot on a grander scale than does Vivre Sa Vie.  Contempt, like Les Carabiniers, also feels like a fable, particularly a remake of the greek myth of Orpheus and perhaps even some of the Odyssey, which is the movie the screenwriter has been hired to write.  This shows that Godard is beginning to branch out from his dime-store gangster novel adaptations to something more timeless, and yet still brings himself to it and makes it his own.

Next up: Band of Outsiders, Alphaville, and A Married Woman.



     

   

Criterion Review #7: The Adventures of Zatoichi

The Adventures of Zatoichi (1964)

Like many good samurai movies, this one starts with our hero coming into town.  At first, Zatoichi seems to be a kind, harmless blind man.  His off-hand joke in the first scene of the movie lets us know he has a sense of humor about his disability, as does his interaction with the children whose kite falls in his face.  Perhaps this slight disturbance serves as foreshadowing for the event that follows: a suspicious man asks him to deliver a note into town.  At once we sense that this will send our protagonist into harm's way and entangle him in a web of danger.

However, if, like the corrupt town authorities he will eventually face, we underestimated Zatoichi, he soon surprises us with his swift movements and adept swordsmanship.  Secretly we knew he would be this good, but Zatoichi's disarming manner brought down our defenses.  The movie carefully reveals Zatoichi's capabilities, building to his frightening and merciless killings at the end of the film.

Though Zatoichi is clearly a good and virtuous person, as evidenced by his selfless desire to help a young woman in trouble, he has a weakness for sake and gambling.  In one tense scene, we first glimpse the skill which Zatoichi has the power to wield.  As he plays a game of dice, he quickly unsheathes his sword as the dice come down.  The dealer lifts his cup to find the dice split in two, and then Zatoichi swiftly chops off the man's tuft of hair.  He takes the man's tuft, fishes around, and finds the real dice which the dealer had swapped.

The movie is constantly surprising and pleasurable to watch.  Though it seems inevitable that Zatoichi will upend any dangerous situation which comes his way, the film and the main actor likewise upend our expectations of how it will happen.  The popular screenwriting phrase "surprising, yet inevitable" comes to mind... we know the genre, we know the tropes, we know the arc.  Watching it unfold remains an indelible experience.

Criterion Review #6: The 47 Ronin

The 47 Ronin (1941)

Honor, Revenge, and Sacrifice.  These are the values which drive at the hearts of the Ronin who are left "masterless" after their Lord Asano draws his sword against Lord Kira at a ceremonial event on sacred grounds.  Because Lord Asano hastily attacked Lord Kira without careful consideration of the time and place, he is ordered to commit harakiri and to sacrifice his house to royalty.  His retinue of Ronin, left without a home or master, express bitterness at the unfair verdict: Lord Asano must die, while Lord Kira remains unpunished.  The Ronin all agree that, according to samurai code, revenge must be had.

Though most of the Ronin seem hot-blooded and eager to exact revenge, the leader Oishi asks them to be patient and to place their trust in him.  Out of the 300 Ronin, only 46 remain.  However, Oishi keeps his thoughts to hiimself and leaves the Ronin to wonder if he is intent on carrying out revenge.  After 6 months and still no word, the Ronin get restless, and one even tries to sneak into an event and kill Kira himself, only to be stopped by the Lord of the House, himself a samurai.   

What is Oishi waiting for?  On the surface, it seems as if Oishi has lost his will for revenge.  Every night he partakes in all manner of debauchery.  His wife leaves him to return to her hometown.  Even his oldest son says he will depart with the other samurai to meet up in Edo and discuss their options.

Of course, we know that Oishi's act is a ruse, a careful waiting game he plays to find the exact right moment to strike.  A quick killing is not the goal; Oishi wants a perfect revenge which will not leave the samurai with any regrets or feelings of dissatisfaction.

This is the theme of the movie: that even revenge is a moral code which should be taken seriously, and has a right way and a wrong way.  A samurai always abides by the samurai code -- a virtuous, ethical path which requires patience and wisdom.

The film itself feels as if it abides by the samurai code.  It is patient, wise, strong and true.  After the 46 Ronin kill Lord Kira, which happens off-screen, we are ready for the film to end.  However, the film follows the samurai as they wait in captivity for their judgment and ultimate penalties: death by harakiri.  There is even a love story that surfaces in these last 30 minutes, between one of the younger samurai and a young woman who he promised to marry as a way to gain access to Lord Kira.  Did he want to marry her because he loved her, or did he just use her to get to Kira?

She comes on the eve of their deaths.  This is the final test for Oishi.  At first, he tells the woman to go away so that the young samurai can prepare himself to die.  He tells her that sometimes, a lie is necessary in service of a good.  However, she challenges him.  Is it okay to hurt a person in order to achieve a selfish need?  All she wants to know is if the young samurai actually loved her.

Oishi comes to his senses and calls the young samurai in, who admits that he in fact did love the young woman, but did what he had to so that they could carry out their revenge.  The woman, satisfied by this knowledge, commits harakiri as the samurais head to their deaths.  She becomes the 47th Ronin.

















What do we sacrifice when we follow what we feel is the right thing to do?  The Ronin sacrifice their lives, but never their code.  The film shows us that to sacrifice the right means to get to the desired end will rob us of our honor and our eternal peace.

   

Criterion Review #5: The 400 Blows

The 400 Blows (1959)

What is there to say that hasn't been said?  The film is sublime, perfect.  What I noticed this time was how upbeat it remained even as our main character has one misfortune handed him after another.  The spirit of the film (thanks to the wonderful score) is so tender, so full of mischief and wonder, even as the situations become tougher.  This is an autobiographical film, based on Truffaut's childhood experiences.  He seemed to remain in that realm for the rest of his career, and life.  He was tuned in to how it feels to be a child, and had unending empathy and respect for them.  This is such a delightful and humanistic film.  See it.

Criterion Review #4: 21 Days

21 Days (1940)

21 Days (or 21 Days Together) is a quick, to-the-point romantic thriller (is that a genre?) about a young man who comes back from his failed attempts at farming, only to kill a man accidentally, and then turn to his older brother for help.  His brother, it just so happens, is a very successful lawyer who is vying for a position as a judge in the British high court.  However unlikely this set-up, the film utilizes the disparity between the brothers to investigate issues of class, morality, and the justice system to pleasing results.

I forgot to mention that the film is also a love story.  Larry Durrant (Lawrence Olivier) is a young, aimless gent who has just returned to his hometown to find his girl, Wanda (Vivian Leigh), and start life over.  He meets her on the street, they go out for drinks, and then return to her place.  But when they get there, a surprise awaits: a man who claims to be Wanda's husband tells Larry that if he wants her, he'll have to pay.  A fight ensues, Larry accidentally kills the man and then dumps him in an alley that night.  However, on his way back home, Larry runs into a homeless man, who engages him in conversation.  Larry drops his gloves, the homeless man picks them up, and is then picked up himself, suspected of committing the murder.

Meanwhile, Larry turns to his brother Keith (Leslie Banks), a man of supposed high moral scruples but also one who exhibits a noticeable amount of arrogance and entitlement.  Keith, though he looks down on his brother, decides to help cover Larry's tracks, and when the homeless man gets picked up for the crime, Keith sees the perfect opportunity to allow Larry's escape.

But what about the homeless man?  Larry and the man connected on that fateful night, as the man confessed to having lost his self-respect -- he actually stole money off the dead body.  Why did he do it?  The money was not his and he should not have taken it.  However, the man admits that the incident oddly helped him regain his self-respect.  By taking the money, the homeless man realized that it was wrong, that it was beneath him, thereby restoring his self-respect.

Larry, having empathized with this man, sees that he cannot let the man take the blame.  Keith tries to convince Larry that the man will not be convicted as there is a lack of evidence, but the man does not help his case when he decries that he is guilty of stealing the money and that it is his opinion that he should suffer.  Therefore, Larry decides to ignore Keith's advice, and if the man is convicted of murder, Larry will turn himself in after the 21 days between the arrest and the jury's decision.

Larry and Wanda spend the next 21 days as if they are the last they will ever spend together.  Though they plan to marry and be together forever, Larry seems to know that he will have to turn himself in.  When, at the end of the 21 days, the man is found guilty, Larry leaves Wanda to go to the police.

The thematic crux and climax of the movie is the scene in which Keith tries to stop Larry from turning himself in.  Keith would rather the homeless man take the blame, because if Larry were to confess, Keith's chance of scoring the position as judge would be ruined.  In this one moment, it is clear who the morally superior of the two men are.  One is completely willing to sacrifice himself to do the right thing, and the other is willing to do the wrong thing in order to save himself.

By giving us this moment, the film points out the contradictions in society and the justice system.  On the surface,  Larry and the homeless man are lower class petty thieves, and Keith is not only an upstanding citizen, but a man who holds power in distributing justice.  However, though they may have been thieves in the past, Larry and the homeless man are men who think about what is right and are willing to suffer for their wrongdoings.  Meanwhile, Keith is shown to be morally weak -- he is willing to cheat and lie in order to get ahead.

What is the film saying about the classes, then?  Do the poor stay poor because they are too self-sacrificing?  Do the rich climb the ladder because they are inherently self-serving, no matter the consequence?

The film ends happily, and yet we cannot shake the questions that are presented to us by the end.  For whom does Lady Justice grant salvation? 

Criterion Review #3: 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)

Like many of Godard's films, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her is a political inquiry into the relationship between the macro and the micro, between society (at large) and the individual, and of course between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.  Specifically, this film seems to be an investigation into the connections between the city of Paris and its residents circa 1967, and a critique of consumerism and Capitalism, the residue of which can be seen in every frame of the film.  The eponymous "her" of the title refers to both the city of Paris and the protagonist, Juliette, a middle-class suburbanite who prostitutes herself for extra money.

To say that Juliette is a subject of the movie would be correct.  To say that the movie is about her would not be.  This is a movie in which the narrator asks which is more important: the main protagonist or the foliage above.  It is impossible to focus on both at once, he says.  Our narrator seems more interested in how the subject and her surroundings relate rather than he does in any kind of narrative centered around her. In one sequence, we watch swirls in a cup of coffee as the narrator speaks about the nature of one's self and one's connection to objects.


The movie seems to be commenting on the ways in which our cities and governments have gone on to do whatever they want by placating us with materials.  We no longer feel connected to one another, or have any sense of control over the big picture.  So instead, we prostitute ourselves in order to maintain a lifestyle driven by the desire for things.  In one hilarious sequence, a war correspondent watches as two prostitutes wear bags with competing airline designs over their heads.

The film ends with an image of cleaning products littering a field.  Somehow this is the perfect image to sum up the movie's themes.  Cleaning Products -- the perfect symbol of consumerism; of the consignment of women; of clean surfaces.  And yet there they are, removed from their "natural" habitat and put in an overgrown field of weeds.  How unnatural they look.  How excessive.  How surreal.