Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard (born December 3, 1930) is a French filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or "French New Wave".

Cinematic period

The Godard canon has never been able to escape the critical desire to distinguish between, and in turn label, its visible periods. The first of which, spanning roughly from the onset of his filmmaking career and his first feature, À bout de souffle (1960), through to 1967's Week End, has been referred to as his productive, narrative, and even conventional period. The most fitting label for the period, however, is perhaps his cinematic period. The entire period is made up of films that primarily reference film history. In this sense, the films themselves are particularly cinematic. Furthermore, the term works in contrast to the period that immediately followed, in which Godard ideologically denounced so much of cinema?s history as "bourgeois" and therefore without merit.

Related Topics:
À bout de souffle - 1960 - 1967 - Week End

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Films

His first major feature film, A bout de souffle (1960), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, was a seminal work of the New Wave. It was a key determiner of the New Wave's style, incorporating quotation of extensive elements of culture — specifically American cinema. The distinct style of the film was manifest in its continuous jump-cuts in editing, use of real locations rather than sets, and freedom from convention with character asides and broken eye line matches. The film had been suggested by Francois Truffaut, who both wrote the film, as well as introduced Godard to the producer who would in turn fund it, Georges de Beauregard.

Related Topics:
A bout de souffle - 1960 - Jean-Paul Belmondo - Jean Seberg - American cinema - Character asides - Georges de Beauregard

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The same year, Godard made Le Petit Soldat, dealing with the Algerian War of Independence. Most notably, it was the first collaboration between Godard and Danish-born actress Anna Karina, whom he was later to marry. The film, due to its political nature, was banned from French theaters until 1963. Karina appeared again, along with Belmondo, in Une femme est une femme (1961) (USA: A Woman Is a Woman), which was in many ways an homage to the American musical. Karina desires a child, prompting her to leave her boyfriend, played by actor Jean-Claude Brialy, and seek out his best friend (Belmondo) as its father.

Related Topics:
Le Petit Soldat - Algerian War of Independence - Anna Karina - 1963 - Une femme est une femme - 1961 - American musical

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Godard's next film, Vivre sa vie (1962) was one of his most popular among critics. Karina starred here as Nana, a mother and aspiring actress whose poor circumstances lead her to the life of a streetwalker. It is an episodic account of her trials. The film's style, much like that of A bout de souffle, boasted the type of experimentation that made the New Wave as influential as it was. Les Carabiniers (1963) was a film about the horror of war and its inherent unjustness. It was the influence and suggestion of Roberto Rossellini that led Godard to make the film. It follows two peasants who join the army of a king, only to find futility in the whole thing as the king reveals the deception of war-administrating leaders.

Related Topics:
Vivre sa vie - 1962 - Les Carabiniers - 1963 - Roberto Rossellini

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His most commercially successful film was Le Mépris (1963) (USA: Contempt), starring Michel Piccoli and one of France's biggest female stars, Brigitte Bardot. A coproduction between Italy and France, Le Mépris became known as one of the pinnacle films in filmic modernism with its profound self-reflexivity. The film follows Paul, a screenwriter played by Piccoli, who is commissioned by the arrogant American movie producer Prokosch (Jack Palance) to rewrite the script for an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, which German director Fritz Lang has been filming. Lang's "high culture" interpretation of the story is lost on Prokosch, whose character is a firm indictment of the commercial motion picture hierarchy. Paul's marriage to Camille (Bardot) begins to fall apart during the course of shooting, bringing to the forefront of the film's themes the inability to reconcile love and labor.

Related Topics:
Le Mépris - 1963 - Michel Piccoli - Brigitte Bardot - Italy - Modernism - Jack Palance - Homer - The Odyssey - Fritz Lang - High culture

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In 1964, Godard and Karina formed a production company, Anouchka Films. He directed Bande à part, which was another collaboration between the two and described by Godard as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka." It plays on many conventions of the gangster film, following two young men looking to score on a heist and both falling for Karina. Une femme mariée (1964) followed Bande à part and found time for production while Godard was acquiring funding for Pierrot le fou. It was a slow, deliberate, toned-down black and white picture without even a real story. The film was entirely produced over the period of one month and exhibited a loose on-the-run formal quality unique to Godard. In 1965, Godard directed Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution. Alphaville was a futuristic blend of science fiction, detective, and satire filmmaking. Eddie Constantine starred as detective Lemmy Caution, sent into a city controlled by a giant computer named Alpha 60 to seek justice for the people oppressed by its fascist rule.

Related Topics:
1964 - Bande à part - Une femme mariée - 1965 - Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution - Eddie Constantine

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Pierrot le fou (1965) was one of his most cinematic pictures in terms of its complex storyline, distinctive personalities, and apolcalyptic ending. Gilles Jacob, an author, critic, and president of the Cannes Film Festival, called it both a "retrospective" and recapitulation in the way it played on so many of Godard?s earlier characters and themes. Pierrot overwhelms the viewer with vivid colors and constant narrative jumps through time and space. With an extensive cast and variety of locations, along with it being shot in color, the film was expensive enough to warrant significant problems with funding. It was a departure from Godard?s usual minimalism (that of À bout de souffle, Vivre sa vie, and Une femme mariée). He was forced to solicit the participation of the then-famous Jean-Paul Belmondo, with whom Godard had worked on two films previously, guaranteeing Godard the production capital necessary. Its release came shortly after the New Waves acknowledged end, but by no means meant an end to Godard's innovative streak.

Related Topics:
Pierrot le fou - 1965 - Gilles Jacob - Cannes Film Festival

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The first of the five last, and most politically stimulated films of the period was Masculin Féminin (1966). The film, based on two Guy de Maupassant stories, La Femme de Paul and Le Signe, was a study into contemporary French youth and its involvement with cultural politics. The credits announce the characters as "The children of Marx and Coca-Cola." Godard followed with Made in U.S.A. (1966), who's source material was Richard Stark's The Jugger, and Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (1967) in which Maria Vlady portrays a woman leading a double life as housewife and prostitute.

Related Topics:
Masculin Féminin - 1966 - Guy de Maupassant - Made in U.S.A. - Richard Stark - Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle - 1967 - Maria Vlady

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La Chinoise (1967) saw Godard at his most politically forthright yet. The film focused on a group of students and engaged with the ideas coming out of the student communist groups in contemporary France. Released just before the May 1968 events, the film is thought to foreshadow the student rebellions that were to take place. Later in the same year, Godard made a more colorful, and still more political film, Week End. Week End follows a Parisian couple as they leave on a weekend trip across the French countryside to collect an inheritance. What ensues is a confrontation with the tragic flaws of the over-consuming bourgeoisie. The film contains some of the most written-about scenes in cinema's history, including a ten-minute tracking shot that gives us an unremitting traffic jam the couple finds itself in upon leaving the city, cited as a new technique that Godard has assimilated to deconstruct bourgeois trends, and the enigmatic and audacious ending title screen, reading "End of Cinema," appropriately marking the temporary end to Godard?s dabbles in narrative filmmaking.

Related Topics:
La Chinoise - 1967 - Week End - Tracking shot

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Politics

Politics have never been far from the surface in Godard's films. One of his earliest features, Le Petit Soldat, dealt with the Algerian War of Independence, and was notable for its attempt to present the complexity of the dispute rather than pursue any specific ideological agenda. Along these lines, Les Caribiniers presents a fictional war, romanticized in the way its characters approach their service, but becomes a stiff anti-war metanym. In addition to the international conflicts Godard sought an artistic response to, he was also very concerned with the social problems in France. The earliest and best example of this is the potent portrayal of Nana, a prostitute played by Karina, in Vivre sa vie.

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In 1960s Paris, the political milieu was not specifically overwhelmed by one specific movement. There was, however, a distinct post-war climate that was shaped by various international conflicts such as the colonialism in North Africa and Southeast Asia. The side that opposed such colonization included the intellectual elite, the upstart university youth, and the Parisian artists and writers who positioned themselves on the side of social reform and class equality. A large portion of this group had a particular affinity for the teachings of Karl Marx. Godard's Marxist disposition did not become abundently explicit until La Chinoise and Week End, but is evident in several films — namely Pierrot and Une femme mariée.

Related Topics:
1960 - Karl Marx - Godard's Marxist disposition

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Vietnam

Godard produced several pieces that directly addressed the conflict in Vietnam. This was most notable in his participation in Chris Marker's film Loin du Vietnam Furthermore, there are two scenes in Pierrot that tackle the Vietnam issue. The first of which is a scene that takes place in the initial car ride between Ferdinand and Marianne. Over the car radio, the two hear the message "garrison massacred by the Viet Cong who lost 115 men". Marianne responds with an extended musing on the way the radio dehumanizes the Northern Vietnamese combatants.

Related Topics:
Vietnam - Chris Marker - Loin du Vietnam - Northern Vietnamese

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The second important coda to Vietnam is when the lovers are accosted by a group of American sailors along the course of their liberating crime spree. The two?s immediate reaction, expressed by Marianne, is "Damn Americans!" an obvious outlet of the frustration so much of leftist France was feeling regarding the American hegemony. Ferdinand then reconsiders, "That?s OK, we?ll change our politics. We can put on a play. Maybe they?ll give us some dollars". Marianne is puzzled but Ferdinand suggests that something the Americans would like would be the Vietnam War. The ensuing sequence is that of their makeshift play, with Marianne dressing up as a stereotype Vietnamese woman and Ferdinand an American sailor.

Related Topics:
Leftist - American hegemony - Vietnam War - American sailor

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Bertolt Brecht

Godard's engagement with German playwright Bertolt Brecht stems primarily from his attempt to transpose Brecht's theory of epic theatre and its prospect of alienating the viewer through a radical spearation of the elements of the medium (in Brecht's case theater, but in Godard's, film). Brecht's influence is inextricable from nearly all Godard's work, especially that before 1980, when Godard sought specific political ends through filmic expression.

Related Topics:
Playwright - Bertolt Brecht - Epic theatre - 1980

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It is as early as À bout de souffle that we see the suggestion of Brecht. The film's elliptical editing, which denies the viewer a fluid narrative as was typical in mainstream cinema, forces the viewers to take on more critical roles, connecting the pieces themselves and coming away with more investment in the work's content. Godard employs this device as well as several others including asynchronious sound and alarming title frames, with perhaps his favorite being the character aside. In so many of his most political pieces, specifically speaking of Week End, Pierrot le fou, and Le Chinoise, characters address the audience with thoughts, feelings, and instructions.

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Marxism

A Marxist reading is available to most if not all of Godard?s early work, however, Godard?s direct interaction with Marxism does not become explicitly apparent until Week End in 1967, a film in which the name Marx is cited in conjunction with figures such as Jesus Christ. The refrain throughout the cinematic period of Godard is that of the bourgeoisie?s consumerism, the commodification of daily life and activity, and man?s alienation — all central issues of Marx?s condemning analysis of capitalism.

Related Topics:
Marxist - Marxism - 1967 - Marx - Jesus Christ - Consumerism - Alienation

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Philosopher and aesthetics scholar Jacques Ranciere, in an essay of Godard, states, "When in Pierrot le fou, 1965, a film without a clear political message, Belmondo played on the word 'scandal' and the 'freedom' that the Scandal girdle supposedly offered women, the context of a Marxist critique of commodification, of pop art derision at consumerism and of a feminist denunciation of women?s false 'liberation', was enough to foster a dialectical reading of the joke and the whole story". The way Godard treated politics in his cinematic period was in the context of a joke, a piece of art, or a relationship, presented to be used as tools of reference, romanticizing the Marxist rhetoric, rather than solely being tools of education.

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Une femme mariée, made in 1964, is also structured around Marx's concept of commodity fetishism. Godard said of it that it is "a film in which individuals are considered as things, in which chases in a taxi alternate with ethological interviews, in which the spectacle of life is intermingled with its analysis". He was very conscious of the way he wished to portray the human being and the portrayal, as well as description, is overtly characteristic of Marx, who in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 gives one of his most nuanced elaborations, analyzing how the worker is alienated from his product, the object of his productive activity. Georges Sadoul, in his short rumination on the film, describes it as a "sociological study of the alienation of the modern woman".

Related Topics:
Une femme mariée - 1964 - Commodity fetishism - Georges Sadoul

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