Godard Marathon Day 4: Alphaville (1965)

I was only able to squeeze in one movie for Day 4, but it was a doozy.


Alphaville (1965); viewing: first

Godard's follow up to 1964's A Married Woman was the stylish and strange Alphaville, a blending of classic noir and sci-fi genres that saw Godard cast French star Eddie Constantine in the role of Lemmy Caution, an agent from the Outer Lands who has infiltrated the city of Alphaville posing as a journalist, who in reality is on a muti-part mission: to destory Alpha 60, the super-computer that runs Alphaville, and locate and kill its creator Dr. Von Braun. Anna Karina (divorced from Godard by this point but present nevertheless) plays a prostitute named Natasha, who in addition to being Eddie's eventual love interest, is also Von Braun's daughter. Complicating matters further, Alpha 60 has outlawed the expression of any emotion in Alphaville, so the brainwashed Karina has no concept of "love", and thus can't reciprocate Eddie's feelings.

It is a wholly unique and interesting entry into the Godard canon, and it once again felt like Godard at still this early point in his career was pushing himself into new and exciting territory. There is a bit of a sci-fi nerd within me, so seeing Godard put his unique spin on this specific genre was pretty thrilling. With the city of Alphaville he creates his own version of a future dystopian society, flooded with an ominous atmosphere that's made all the more fascinating as he explores the intricacies of this crazy place and inevitably sprinkles on one philosophical reflection after the other. Among those discussed is one that was also prominent in A Married Woman, and that is the idea of people living in the past versus people living in the present. I think it marks a subtle, yet interesting parallel between the two films, each that in one way or another deal with a female in dire need of liberation.

Eddie Constantine is just remarkable as Lemmy Caution. With his no bullshit attitude, awesome voice, and scarred face in all its haunted glory, he literally could have popped right off the page of any old private eye cartoon. Karina is equally good as the innocent who has in most ways been robbed of her soul. The voice of Alpha 60 (a constant throughout the movie) is quite a trip; a guttural and disturbing ooze of a voice, a character in itself, and the scene where it interrogates Constantine in a room was one of my very favorites. Another chilling scene comes when Constantine is led by Karina to a large swimming pool, where people who have shown "illogical behavior", that is, shown human emotion, and are given last words before being shot to death and dumped in the pool, as spectators look on unaffected. Alphaville did become a little muddled for me in the middle, but my attention was always sustained during these periods by the sheer screen presence of its stars and by Godard's always arresting visuals, of which there is certainly no shortage of here. It's a weird, yet captivating and occasionally poignant tale, constantly brimming with ideas, about the worth of human emotion. It also contains one of the strongest and most touching endings I've seen in a Godard picture yet. As food for thought, I'll leave you with this interesting excerpt from Richard Brody's book Everything Is Cinema :

"Alphaville would be another attempt, like A Married Woman, to show that Karina's true emotions had been distorted and suppressed by irresistible external influences and forces. The main drama of the film would be the effort of Lemmy Caution to teach Karina's character to say the words "I love you." Through an extraordinary filter of genre, it would be a film in which Godard was desperate for life to imitate art."

Godard Marathon Day 3: Band of Outsiders (1964); A Married Woman (1964)

Day 3 brought me a couple of Godard films from 1964, one an acknowledged classic that I am fairly lukewarm on, and the other a lesser known gem that proved to be quite surprising.


Band of Outsiders (1964); viewing: second

After the troubled production and disappointing box-office return of Contempt, Godard conjured up Band of Outsiders, a much more accessible and critic friendly offering. Ostensibly a crime picture, Outsiders deals with Odile (Anna Karina), a lonesome and easily impressed schoolgirl who falls in with a couple of young criminals (Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur), and who together decide to rob an old man living in Karina's house. The plot is simple enough, but of course it merely works to service Godard's intentions of flouting conventions and giving this genre tale his own, distinct spin.

It's tough for me to pinpoint exactly why, after two viewings now, Band of Outsiders has failed to have much of an impact on me. Richard Brody's excellent book Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard says of Outsiders: "Though otherwise free from direct interference from Columbia's executives, Godard did too good a job of internalizing their standards and fulfilling their wishes. Band of Outsiders is one of Godard's least substantial and adventuresome films, as well as his most conventional one." The word that sticks out to me there is "adventuresome". It occurs to me that this adventurous feeling is a big part of what makes these 60's films feel so alive and potent. Even if that sense of adventure doesn't necessarily come from the content of the narrative itself (Vivre sa vie), it is nevertheless always present in one form or another. If that adventure is in Band of Outsiders, then it is present to a much lesser degree; despite its warm and free atmosphere, the film sometimes just feels like it's lacking a charge. Karina does a good job, but the limits of Odile's character inhibit her from being able to bring all that much to the part. Likewise, Frey and Brasseur are fine as Franz and Arthur, but part of the problem is that these characters, who have their occasional charm, are mostly just flat and unappealing. Even some of the typically "Godardian" touches added to the film feel a bit unsure, such as Brasseur's over-the-top demise.

Of course, there are some glorious moments. Probably the best known scene (and my favorite) is the Madison Dance, a sequence where Karina and the two guys do a charming dance to a jukebox in a diner, and Godard as the voice of the omniscient narrator tells us precisely what's going through their heads during this seemingly joyful act of expression. Another great little moment comes when the trio, killing time before their big heist, decide to break a world record by running through the Louvre as fast as they can. Band of Outsiders, I should make clear, is not a film I dislike at all, and though I've harped on some of the negatives, I actually do still have an affection for it. Godard continues showing a striking command of his visuals, and you can always count on him to at least make an interesting movie, which Band of Outsiders certainly is. It just simply feels slight compared to what I've watched up until now.
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A Married Woman (1964); viewing: first

Why isn't this movie more well known? It's actually really wonderful. I quite frankly had never heard of it before putting together this marathon, and only included it after being told it was an essential part of Godard's 60's oeuvre. Like other Godard films of this time, the broad plot outline is fairly simple: A married woman, Charlotte (Macha Meril) is engaged in an affair with older actor Robert (Bernard Noel), while living out a mundane, materialistic day-to-day life with her husband Pierre (Phillipe Leroy) and son. When she finds out from the doc that she's pregnant, and she doesn't know who the father is, she must make a decision on how to proceed with her life.

Godard made A Married Woman in the wake of his divorce from Anna Karina, after finding out she was having an affair. This obviously accounts for some of the deep connections the film has to Godard's real life situation: Meril's hair is of course done in the typical Anna Karina style giving her a remarkable resemblance, and as Brody points out in Everything Is Cinema, the age of the actors playing the roles all corresponded to their real life counterparts; those being Godard, Karina, and the actor she was having an affair with. But aside from those touches, what also makes A Married Woman feel like an extremely personal film (maybe his most personal yet), is that it is the most overtly philosophical work Godard had done at this point in his career, possibly reflecting an existentialist mindset he was experiencing in the wake of his divorce. It also has a very abstract and experimental visual style as well, and for me it very often felt like an early draft of the kind of thing he would go on to do with 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. Meril's narration is mostly comprised of a string of associative, stream of conscious thoughts that bolster this existentialist mood. The full title of the movie is A Married Woman: Fragments of A Film Shot in 1964, and indeed many of the shots we get of Charlotte are only as fragments, individual body parts, being caressed and cared for as almost materialistic items, disconnected from a person.

Godard also employs all kinds of visual tricks and interesting editing throughout, making this a compelling follow up to the charming yet slight Band of Outsiders. I am baffled as to why this is not as well known as his other 60's work; it is equally as impressive and original as any of them. It's a fascinating film to watch, and felt like Godard both trekking into new, exciting territory and laying new ground for things to come. A Married Woman was the first of four films in a row in my marathon that I will be viewing for the very first time, and if this was any indication of things to come I should be in for a real treat.

Godard Marathon Day 2: Vivre sa vie (1962); Contempt (1963)

My Godard marathon continued today with a couple of early 60's essentials. Here are some brief thoughts on each:

Vivre sa vie (1962); viewing: Second

Talk about going from one extreme to the other; A Woman Is A Woman was by far the lightest Godard I've seen yet, and likewise Anna Karina spent the movie dolled up, batting her eyelashes playfully and floating on a cloud of charm. With 1962's Vivre sa vie, things got decidedly more somber. The film deals with the tragic tale of Nana (Karina), tracking her course from an independent minded free spirit working at a record store, through her poverty, eventual plunge into prostitution, and ultimately her death. The film is structured within 12 "tableaus", each starting with a kind of chapter heading, telegraphing the action that is to take place on the screen for us. It's an interesting idea, and is further evidence of how Godard's early 60's films pushed the limits of how stories can be told on the screen.

This was originally one of the first Godard's I saw, and I remember really responding to it on that first viewing. Likewise, I enjoyed it quite a bit this time as well. The film really underlines how good of an actress Anna Karina was; de-glamorized and forced to use body language as much as words, we see a much different actress here than in A Woman Is A Woman. Her performance is quite remarkable, and undoubtedly the most famous scene from the film, where she watches Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc on the big screen as her gorgeous eyes burst with tears, is a beautiful, emotional gut punch, and it works so well because of the sheer authenticity Karina brings to the moment. Another fantastic scene towards the end has Nana (unknowingly) waxing philosophic with an old man in a restaurant, and here Karina invokes the perfect mixture of curiosity and perturbed defensiveness. The movie also marks a difference in the way Godard's camera captures all of this; the wild, restless and bouncy movements on display in Breathless give way here to a calmer, more observant and thoughtful approach. The scene where Nana sits in a police station, having been arrested for attempting to rob an old lady, has her framed in almost a silhouette, and as she bows her head down and admits her crime, coming to the realization that she can't even cut it as a criminal, it strikes a poetic chord that I've yet to really see at all in the first two films I've watched in the marathon. I do feel that the "12 tableaux" structure occasionally gives the film a somewhat disjointed quality, possibly keeping the viewer from fully engaging with Nana and her plight, simply for the sake of being novel. But the film works for so many reasons, among them showcasing the versatility of Karina and the rapid maturation of Godard's visuals, that it was an absolute treat to watch again.
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Contempt (1963); viewing: fourth

As I alluded to in my initial post on Preparing For A Godard Marathon, Contempt was the only Godard film that I unabashedly loved out of the ten seen by me prior to this marathon. I remember watching it for the first time and being so bowled over that I went back and watched it again the very next night, and then again with the wonderful Robert Stam commentary merely a few nights later. Michel Piccoli and Bridget Bardot are both wonderful as the couple whose marriage rapidly disentegrates as Piccoli's Paul becomes involved in the re-writing of a Hollywood adaptation of The Odyssey, helmed by Fritz Lang (playing himself) and produced by the predatory Jerry Prokosh (Jack Palance).

I really love everything about this film, and feel pretty strongly that it flirts with perfection. I love that, despite the epic feel of the movie, Godard was still able to give it a remarkably personal spin, most notably in the sequence taking place in the couples apartment (my favorite in any Godard film), where Piccoli wears a tie and hat, and Bardot dons a short black wig ala Karina in Vivre sa vie, and as their fight quickly descends into dire, irreversible territory, it's virtually impossible not to see it as a bleak, lifelike recreation of the director's tumultuous marriage. I was aware of the troubled marriage between Karina and Godard, but reading Richard Brody's Everything Is Cinema, which goes into the gritty and uncomfortable details, it really paints the whole thing in a new, almost operatic light. I love how Georges Delerue's sweeping, haunting score swells up constantly throughout, giving even the most insignificant moments a monumental feeling. I love the entire, almost mythic third act, set on the astoundingly gorgeous Villa Malaparte in Italy. And certainly I loved going back and experiencing it all again with this viewing. I don't hesitate in calling Contempt one of my very favorite movies ever. Even if Godard would never go on to make another film on quite this scale, it at least showed that he was capable of branding his own, personal style onto such a rich, extravagant cinematic experience.

Godard Marathon Day 1: Breathless (1960); A Woman Is a Woman (1961)

Breathless (1960); viewing: third

Naturally the only way for me to have kicked off my Godard marathon was with his legendary 1960 feature debut, Breathless. Appropriately enough, it was also the very first Godard film I was ever exposed to, watching it one Christmas Eve a few years ago. It's no secret the impact Breathless has had on all of cinema; with its innovative jump cuts, handheld technique and star-making performances, Godard's tale of the doomed, Bogart-obsessed cop killer Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo), and his American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg) was the watershed movie of the French New Wave movement and showed Godard as a bold, new voice in the world of film whose influence carries on even today.

It happens to be a movie that I've found more and more enjoyable upon each successive viewing. I remember watching it that first time, and having a sense that I was seeing something important, but still feeling a kind of disconnect with the material that ultimately left me out in the cold. Having just watched it for the third time (as noted above), and being somewhat more familiar with Godard's style and process, I find I am able to engage with it much easier these days. The thing that sticks out to me now as being really quite remarkable is how fresh and energetic the picture feels, even 50 years later. Despite dealing with such dire situations as murder and robbery, there is a spontaneous, almost giddy vibe ingrained in the fabric of the film. One gets the sense of Godard being like a kid in a candy store, running around Paris finding all of these new ways to capture images. And aside from the notable stylistic achievements of the film, the acting is equally as impressive and important. There's a reason Breathless turned Belmondo into an overnight icon; he plays Michel as a cool, narcissistic force of nature, and his screen presence can't be denied. Seberg's Patricia is lively and engaging on the surface, but her face is the picture of internal conflict, and indeed Seberg relies solely on the power of her expressions in her most effective scenes.

Viewing Breathless again was a pleasant, instant reminder of why I am embarking on this Godard marathon. I still have some reservations about the movie - the pacing occasionally falls victim to the loose structure, and frankly some of Godard's touches just don't make sense. But this is challenging, fascinating cinema, and if Breathless isn't a film I love, then it's certainly one that I deeply admire. It's the bang that started out Godard's career, and it should be quite interesting to see the progression from here.
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A Woman Is A Woman (1961); viewing: first

As I picked up and read the back of the quite eye catching Criterion DVD of Godard's 1961 A Woman Is A Woman, one phrase in particular caught my eye: that this was apparently a "neorealist musical - that is, a contradiction in terms." Hmmmmmmm. What does this mean exactly? I actually knew nothing about this film whatsoever before throwing together this marathon. Godard made a musical, huh? Well of course, as my minimal exposure to Godard has taught me, it's never that simple. It becomes quite apparent early in the film that one of its more obvious goals was to explore Godard's fascination with sound and visuals, letting Michel Legrand's rich score swoop down into any given scene and just as easily stopping it abruptly, with no concern for its relation to the action taking place. This objectifies the action on the screen in a sense and is I believe a method referred to as "Brechtian", which will come to define a healthy part of Godard's style; it's certainly interesting to see this early display of it.

The movie itself is a light, playful affair, concerning couple Karina and Brialy who have a falling out after Karina begs Brialy to give her a child, and he denies her with no explanation at all. She seeks out Belmondo, Brialy's friend, and begins looking at him as a possible substitute. There is great screen chemistry between all three, but it's Karina who steals the show; her petulant but determined character has a willful charm and obvious beauty that lights up the screen whenever she is on. My favorite sequence is when the couple have an argument at night in their bed, however instead of verbalizing their points like normal people would, they rush over to the book shelf to retrieve titles that will say everything for them. There are all kinds of neat details and self-reflexive moments throughout the movie; at one point Belmondo even takes it upon himself to remind everyone that Breathless is coming on tv tonight. Another of my favorite touches is a couple who is perpetually making out on the periphery of the screen beside Brialy/Karina's apartment, all throughout the movie. It's a humorous, small detail, but it also seems to work as a constant reminder to the conflicted characters that there is love effortlessly on display all around their unfulfilled lives, which seems to underline the question that the movie keeps (literally) asking: Is this a comedy or a tragedy?

Godard's sentiment seems to be that it doesn't matter which, as long as it's a masterpiece. Which begs the question, is the film in fact a masterpiece? I wouldn't go that far, but it was certainly a highly enjoyable and original early offering from Godard, and if Breathless worked as a reminder to why I'm doing this marathon, then A Woman Is A Woman was affirmation; it's just not everyday that you see movies brimming with this much creativity. Of course in the early-mid sixties, this would often be the case with Godard's films (at least the ones I've seen), and I am anxious to get to the 70's- 80's period, where I am much less familiar with his work, but for right now it is simply a pleasure for me to go back and view these early, intriguing films.

What Happened Was... (Tom Noonan, 1993)

(note: this will be my last regular blog before the Godard marathon, which will be starting Monday)

Tom Noonan has, for a long time now, been one of the most recognizable and ominous of all character actors. Tall, slim, and balding, with an icily vacant yet omniscient stare, as if he has intimate knowledge of every fact about you and plans on using it for the most sinister of reasons, Noonan is probably best known for his breakthrough role as the murderous Frances Dollarhyde in Manhunter, Michael Mann's 1986 adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon. In addition to his two films with Mann (he also has a small but important role in Heat), the list of directors Noonan has worked with is quite awesome; Cassavetes, Cimino, Jarmusch, Sean Penn, David Gordon Green and Charlie Kaufman, among others. That impressively high pedigree of collaborative history aside, a lesser known but equally as interesting (at least to me) fact about Noonan is that he actually stepped behind the camera twice himself, writing and directing a pair of early nineties independent films, the first being 1993's What Happened Was... , a wonderfully beguiling look at a troubled first date.

This date takes place over a single night in real time, involving Jackie (Karen Sillas), a secretary for an unnamed New York law firm, and Michael (Noonan), a paralegal who works with her. Jackie has had an eye for Michael since she started working for the firm, and has finally made the move to ask him out. As the film opens, she's cleaning her apartment and downing wine in equal measure as she awaits Michael's arrival. The entire movie will take place in this apartment, and after Michael arrives, everything initially goes just fine. They enjoy dinner and an abundance of wine. Michael, an intellectual with a Harvard background, has an answer for everything, and nonchalantly tosses his high-minded opinions around as Jackie becomes simultaneously more impressed and intimidated by him. Michael reveals, after some probing, that he is in the process of writing a tell-all book that will expose the law firm they work for as a corrupt, heartless, money-siphoning machine. Karen eventually reveals that she writes as well; not only that, but she's actually been published. She leads Michael to a small, dark room in the back of her apartment to read him one of her stories, which turns out to be a gruesome modern day fairy tale in the Brothers Grimm tradition. And while it may not be quite apparent at first, this scene is in many ways the turning point of the movie. Watch Michael's face as Jackie reads aloud; his smug demeanor twists into an unsure, nervous pause. He drips sweat, as his eyes dart around the room with an intense caution. From here the rest of the night will take on a kind of volatile life of its own, as we watch and wonder with increasing interest where these two awkward souls will ultimately land.

Cassavetes biographer Ray Carney apparently once deemed Noonan "the greatest living American director", and watching Noonan's screenplay slowly strip the Jackie and Michael characters of their mundane surfaces - revealing the throbbing, naked and frightened humanity beneath - it is awfully tough to not be reminded of what Cassavetes did in his often astonishing work. The acting from both Noonan and Silas is quite marvellous as we slowly watch these two characters' insecurities morph, shift, and eventually converge; they are the key to the movie, and are truly worthy of being called tour-de-force performances. What Happened Was... is also admirable for the way it closes with a certain authenticity; no questions are answered, no easy truths are arrived at, and we are left with a very palpable sense of two people caught in the balance, hanging on for dear life. If it is not apparent by now, let me be clear: I absolutely loved this movie. Unfortunately, Noonan has since directed only one other film (1994's The Wife, unseen by me, but by most accounts equal in quality), before seemingly shifting his sole focus back to his exquisite work as a character actor. Whatever the case may be, What Happened Was... remains a film to seek out and treasure, not only as a top-flight character study, but also as a precursor to a wonderful directing career that sadly never materialized.