The Line Between Anti-Consumerism vs Alienation of an Audience: Analysis of Godard’s Film Making During and After the French New Wave Movement.
Jean-Luc Godard began his career with much success after making Breathless, which became incredibly important during the French New Wave movement. At the beginning of Godard’s time as a filmmaker, he maintained somewhat of a traditional plot, like in Une Femme est une Femme and Vivre sa Vie, and illustrated his place within the French New Wave movement through his unconventional editing, cinematography and visuals, as well as the themes and topics he discussed.
Breathless, although it was not considered the best, it was considered the “most representative” of the French New wave movement (Graham, 221). Breathless, although unconventional in its storytelling, still remained focused on specific characters and how they interacted with each other and the world. The plot itself was slightly more abstract and winding, but could still be described as a plot. As Godard continues in his filmmaking, he begins completely discarding any kind of conventionality in his works. After the French New Wave movement, Godard continues to explore his own idea of what art is with films such as L’amour, One Plus One, and 2 or 3 things I Know About Her, while grappling with the idea that he may not want to make art films anymore in films like Tous Va Bien, where he tries to push for more commentary rather than entertainment and any kind of consumability in his work. The question is whether or not Godard’s lack of consumability creates art, or if making his work purposefully intellectually impenetrable results in alienating the audience, leaving the viewer feeling nothing.
Une Femme est Une Femme is one of Godard’s more narratively focused and conventional films compared to a lot of his others. It is sometimes referred to as “lightweight Godard” (Dixon, 28) because it is one of his less intellectually provocative pieces. Being one of his earlier films, he likely was still exploring his style as a filmmaker and relied on more traditional storytelling techniques in order to convey this narrative. Une Femme est Une Femme establishes certain traits or visuals evident in future Godard films, like his use of book covers or signs to communicate things. Une Femme est une Femme “anticipates his use of books in subsequent films,” for example, “the pornographic bookshop sequence in One Plus One” and “near the end of Le Mépris, … having Camille sunbathe with nothing covering her save for a Série Noire novel on her backside.” (Hayes, 80). Many of the visuals in Une Femme est Une Femme are unconventional and that the audience must “permit a certain kind of freedom of continuity we would not countenance in a conventional drama” (Young, 10). Despite it being one of Godard’s more conventional films, it is still not conventional enough to certain viewers, while to others it seems simple. It is somehow a film that is not intellectually engaging enough for those of his viewers that value his role as an art film director, but also takes a certain suspension of disbelief for a more casual film viewer.
Vivre sa Vie is similar in the sense that it has a general story that is followed, with a set of characters and the main focus on one woman, Nana, throughout the film, but has aspects to it that hint at Godard’s nonlinear approach to filmmaking. Godard uses her as a way to illustrate his artistic vision, but the character is more of a means to an end. He gets to have his points come across through her story, while also using her appearance to dictate the choices he makes in his cinematography. He focuses on different parts of her face, and then deliberately hides her face to make you focus on what is being said. Colin Young points out that Godard’s style is “simple” in regards to the narrative he creates, and yet is an intelligent piece because of how he uses visuals. He claims that “We are caught by [Nana], she is rarely off the screen, but Godard, as we shall see later, does not rely on her so totally,” (Young, 5). This is her story, and yet Godard allows himself to spill into the film as the characters talk about something Godard wants to say in a movie, instead of what makes sense in the narrative. We are focused on Nana’s story, then we get a scene like the one in which she has a long conversation with the philosopher, and we are reminded that this is Godard’s film, not hers. So the narrative is in fact “simple,” because it does not have the complexities or separate plot points many other films rely on, but that is because Godard cared more about what he is saying with his work and how it looks, rather than a story he’s depicting. This style of his only expands as he continues making films, falling further from narrative and focusing on purely visual and politically driven work.
In 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, we open after a series of repetitive colorful title cards, then whispers from an unknown narrator talking about politics and describing a girl. “Now she turns her head to the right, but that means nothing” in a sense, that is what Godard is about. A man, a pretty girl, and politics. But he does so in a way that convinces you that it is deeper than that. You are looking at this woman not just because she is beautiful but because, to him, she is art. His use of the female body makes it seem almost ridiculous to picture these women in a sexual or erotic sense, because it almost feels as if he’s making fun of it. The scene in Contempt does so at the beginning of the film. He places the naked Bridget Bardot on a bed and jokes about the things that make her lovely, pointing out the absurdity of attraction by having her ask “are my knees pretty?” Later in the film she does it again, telling her husband he can make love to her while she lies there naked and bored. A lot of these feminine visuals are bored, and perhaps it’s because of the sense of realism he’s going for, but he purposefully makes these women sort of uninterested and unhappy. Even during these seemingly erotic scenes, the moments are shallow rather than being intimate or tender. The presence of a woman’s body becomes the shocking art Godard is going for, and the women who are seemingly relaxed and unquestioning of these positions are supposed to elicit even more shock. They are not demure or shy, but freely or exploitatively baring themselves in a routine manner. Think of the woman in the garden during L’amour, kicking her feet up among the leaves while lying naked on the ground, or Bridget Bardot stripping and jumping into the water or sunbathing in the nude. These scenes are not erotic. The presence of a woman just turns them into a piece of art because the woman’s nature and comfort makes it unconventional, which makes it art.
In the opening scene of 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, she is not nude, but wearing a midnight blue sweater with two yellow stripes, she is Juliette and she is not important to how she fits into the events he describes before or after her, she is as how she looks. But she discusses Brecht! And yet again her hair is light brown or dark chestnut, she turns her head to the right and it means nothing. Her presence does not mean much for the story, but her presence is what makes it art. That, and his discussion of politics immediately after.
Godard discusses current events as if that is what will add substance to the film. The woman is the visual motif he requires, the beauty he seeks, the movement, the art, and he uses her to comment on something else, without addressing her. She is something you get to look at as she walks into the room in a red skirt while men whisper about the natural tendencies of capitalism listening to the radio and it feels like it means something but it means nothing. At one point, Juliette says she started to cry and a voice whispered that she is indestructible. And she says, “me, myself, and I. All of us,” she could be referencing all of us as many people, but it seemed as if she was treating herself as “all of us.” Godard’s women turn out to be “all of us,” because each one is built on the other in some way, or at least the way he treats them is quite often the same. In describing another woman, she is her fellow creature, her sister, as if they are one in the same, or made of the same fabric. “It’s all very mixed up,” and it is.
In a section of the book, The French New Wave, by Peter Graham, he claims that Godard is not the best of the New Wave, but is the most representative of the movement. What is being represented in this movement? What is it that Godard does that makes this the peak of New Wave art films? What does this have to do with what Godard thinks art is? He seems to be interested in depicting a kind of mundanity, in looking at things in ways he feels have not been shown before. The signs he places in view in seemingly random moments, the car horns, the repetitive movement of her car, the small kiss to her husband. The focus is always on ordinary life and how it can be made into art. Even the idea that she is a prostitute was mentioned as if it was a commonplace thing. We also get the scene right before she has sex rather than the act of it, showing the sort of awkward and vulnerable moments that come before.
He claims that we pay more attention to objects than to people, and in doing so those objects exist more than those people. It’s about his discussion on capitalism towards the beginning of the film, and how a TV is more important to people than paying rent, or having a car, or going on vacation. He sees objects becoming a more valued commodity than human connection, which may be the reason he focuses so much on small characters describing their likes and dislikes and issues in detail. He stops the plot (or at least shifts focus from the main character of Juliette) to other characters to talk about how they can’t work as a secretary or that they like to ride bikes and read sometimes. He believes that capitalism and consumerism takes us away from those small moments in life and distracts us with complex stories and exciting adventures of other kinds of cinema. He wishes to disconnect from those forms of media and consumption by slowing down a narrative and focusing simply on other people. It almost feels like a disconnect as well or at least a branching off from some of his past films like Breathless, and leaning in more towards his abstract narrative style shown in films like a more toned up version of Vivre Sa Vie, stating that “I’ve changed yet I’ve remained the same,” in 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, although not speaking as himself specifically, it seems as if he has a habit of referencing himself, or inserting his himself into this films. Breathless was more active and followed a less mundane character. It had betrayals and chases, and although the excitement was played down and made to seem less so, it still used that narrative in a fairly traditional way. As Godard continues to make films during and following the New Wave, he strays further and further from a traditional narrative structure, and falls into the plotless, moment by moment progression while only loosely following a set or singular character.
In L’amour it’s treated similarly in its mundanity. It shows a conversation between a man and a woman paralleled to a man and a woman being filmed for a movie. The conversation itself is not interesting in its action, in fact the two are sitting still at a table, and the discussion itself is very commonplace and boring. They discuss the movie, they discuss politics. I would not say the film is self aware, but more of a true description of what Godard sees as art. The characters in the film are discussing his own film, and the characters that are meant to be in reality are paralleled to the characters in the film within the film. He is describing his own interest in showing an augmented artistic vision of a mundane reality. “It is as political as it is poetic”
Godard also seems to critique the use of a narrative in his piece Tous Va Bien. It is made a good 10 years after the French New Wave Movement, marking the start of his films outside of the the movement he began his films in. The film begins with a man and a woman discussing how to make a movie, and mention a great deal of the staples of filmmaking, like money and love on screen. The man speaking seems to be more reluctant, and the woman’s voice keeps jumping in to point out the part of the narrative that will be unsuccessful. They discuss this film in abstract language, like “there’d be him and her,” with the woman saying “that’s still too vague,” as so he continues to add more details to the film, of workers and rich people, and what they do in society.
He seems to be outlining the way traditional films are made, and criticizing the formula and its nonchalant abstractness and repetition of the narrative structure. He seems to be critiquing those who disagree with his style of narrative by showing how that narrative is often thrown together and just like everything else. This is likely because of films like 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, as it has no plot and refuses to follow a storyline. He also makes the “plot” portion or at least the discussion of the necessary characters seem more mundane to make the audience feel as if the narrative storyline is less important to his social commentary. His establishment of these characters is dull while the long monologues on the union strike and the corrupt depiction of the capitalist CEO are full of emotional performances, focusing on one character speaking while facing and looking directly at the camera for long stretches of time.
The entire point of the film seems to be about depicting struggles of the working class, and their efforts to point out these injustices and fight for better working conditions and payments. The woman at the beginning referenced as “her” turns out to be a journalist, having seemingly no other affect or impact on the story in the beginning of the film outside of documenting the stories of these people. It’s almost documentarian in its depiction at times, where they show the working conditions at the factory, and have everyone doing their jobs while describing what makes it difficult to work there. It’s like a long piece of social commentary or an expose that masquerades as a piece for entertainment and commercial success at the beginning, then switches after establishing a kind of connection and backstory between the reporter and her husband.
In terms of how his film is affected by the passing of New Wave cinema, he actually addresses it towards the middle of this film. He interviews a man filming a commercial, the journalist’s husband, but he is adamant to state that he is a filmmaker who “sometimes makes commercials” just so he can make a living and pay rent. He said he was a screenwriter for the New Wave but he got tired of making art films, and yet, he also says that changing from films to commercials did not feel like the easy way out, and was a struggle for him to adjust to because of the corrupt advertising industry. It was as if he was not ready to give up on his filmmaking but was ready to move onto something new in film. He said he was working on a political film about France for 3 years, and it seemed a lot to be a stand-in for how Godard was dealing with making films post New Wave as well. There’s also this hopelessness in the way he’s speaking, as if he wants to have this political mindset and interests, and he wants to make a difference, but feels as if maybe it's no use. Almost as if he and maybe Godard feel trapped or lost in their filmmaking, but still feel it to be a compulsion they can’t avoid. “My problems started when I stopped doing my job as a progressive intellectual.” Godard’s identity as a progressive individual seems more important to him than his identity as an art film director, and this could be his movement towards his desire for a more authentic form of filmmaking.
The filmmaker references the events of May ‘68 often in this interview. This was a time of civil unrest and calls for political reform in France started by student activists that led to many worker strikes but also resulted in a suppression of protests in France. It was also a time when Godard was filming One plus One (Sympathy for the Devil), a film that begins with his recording of the Rolling Stones as they practice and jumping to different events of political importance. Godard seems to be obsessed with political unrest, in France and in the United States, which may have been what he was referencing when he was talking about his work as a progressive intellectual. His political works were what made him passionate in filmmaking, and movies that followed his more progressive pieces were like a sense of yearning for the years he made works he saw as important to the world. He also seems obsessed with the study of filmmaking and film makers, depicting the woman, Eve, while she’s being filmed by a camera crew asking her questions. He seems to also depict it as a form of exploitation, even asking Eve if she feels “exploited by the moment [she] steps into an interview” and she responds with “yes” and says that there is no good way of conducting an interview. It’s almost as if he’s criticizing himself for using this style of filmmaking, or at least recognizing that he is exploiting his subjects. It could also be in response to films he has made in the past, or at least addressing his past films, like Contempt, Vivre sa Vie, or L’amour, to show that he disagrees with how these women are being used, but wants to point out that it depends on the techniques of the filmmaker to do it in the right way. This, however, does not change the fact that he is still the one exploiting women and the working class to create his art.
An issue I have with much of Godard’s work, however, is that despite his focus on powerful topics and moments of unrest and complicated political movements, he doesn’t make you feel for the characters in the way a narrative would. These mundane moments of almost interviewing background characters leave the audience with a disconnect, not because of the content, but because we don’t know these characters. Learning about how much they like to read or ride bikes creates an artificial or almost forced connection between the audience and the characters. Just because we know some facts about a character, does not mean we can understand them as people, or connect with them on a deeper intellectual and emotional level, which I would argue should be a goal for a filmmaker focused on discussing the importance of human connection. “If you feel something, you feel something,” it sounds kind of simple, but that’s because it is (“All the Little People” Leichliter). You should feel something when you’re watching a movie, and if you feel nothing, doesn’t that defeat the point of watching a movie? I’m not saying every movie has to follow a simple narrative structure and be easily marketed and consumed, but shouldn’t we know who we’re watching? Shouldn’t they matter outside of the color of their hair, their sweaters, and the political climate they exist within?
As we have seen and discussed in class, a lot of the quintessential art films, or at least the ones that seem to check the most boxes of being art films are considerably less exciting to watch than those with fewer traits that make it an art film. Godard seems to fall into this category of being almost too much of an art film to provide much pleasure to the audience. Of course, not every film is meant to create pleasure for the audience, but a film should at least make you feel something. If a piece of film is too impenetrable that it creates a disconnect in the audience, then maybe the film itself should be examined for how it is depicting content, especially if the content it is depicting is as important as some of what Godard is trying to convey and advocate for.
Sources:
Graham, Peter. French New Wave: Critical Landmarks. BFI Publishing, 2022.
Young, Colin. “Conventional-Unconventional.” Film Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 1, 1963, pp. 14–30. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1210324.
TARROW, S. (1993). Social Protest and Policy Reform: May 1968 and the Loi d’Orientation in France. Comparative Political Studies, 25(4), 579-607. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414093025004006
Seidman, Michael. “Workers in a Repressive Society of Seductions: Parisian Metallurgists in May-June 1968.” French Historical Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1993, pp. 255–78. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/286966.
Hayes, Kevin J. “‘Une Femme Est Une Femme’: A Modern Woman’s Bookshelf.” Film Criticism, vol. 25, no. 1, 2000, pp. 65–82. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44019068.
“All the Little People.” Adventure Time, Director Larry Leichliter, Story by Patrick McHale, Kent Osborne, and Pendleton Ward, Written and Storyboarded by Ako Castuera and Jesse Moynihan, season 5, episode 5, Frederator Studios, December 3, 2012. Cartoon Network.