Godard Marathon Day 10: Tout va bien (1972); Letter to Jane (1972)

Tout va bien (1972); viewing: first

Tout va bien was the final feature film produced from Godard's collaboration with Jeanne-Pierre Gorin under the name of the Dziga Vertov Group. With its respectable budget and the presence of two stars cast in the leading roles, it was the closest thing to a commercially viable film Godard had made since Week End. Tout va Bien begins cleverly, citing its Brechtian influence during the opening credits with a voice repeatedly calling scene numbers and clapping the slate, eventually cutting to a hand signing a series of checks while two directors in voice-over (Godard/Gorin?) discuss various aspects of getting a political movie made. We are subsequently introduced to a couple (Jane Fonda, Yves Montand), she an American reporter living in Paris with her lover, a former director who's been relegated to commercial work. One day the couple visit a meat factory to conduct an interview with the manager, only to find him imprisoned in his office by the workers who have gone on strike. The couple become briefly trapped in the manager's office as well, and eventually the movie shifts its focus in the second half to a time in the future focusing on the couples struggles, both with their rapidly deteriorating relationship, and with their individual existential anxieties during the volatility of '72 France, where the echoes of the events of May '68 are still extremely palpable.

There are many extremely interesting things going on in Tout va bien, among them the daring mise-en-scene, which removes the fourth wall from the factory setting, rendering it a cutaway and showing all of the activities taking place inside at once. There is also a phenomenal back-and-forth tracking shot towards the end that nearly outdoes the famous one in Week End; this one taking place in a large supermarket that at first seems to be highlighting the mechanical nature of consumerism before turning into a stark outburst of violence and revolt. There are also unfortunately some stretches of tedium where Tout va bien feels ponderous and lacking in Godard's typically poetic visuals. Of course the movie indulges in Godard's leftist leanings and Maoist beliefs and becomes quite talky in spots that were a little too trying for me. Something about the film also felt antsy to me as it jumped all around; I wish it had sustained more of its ideas, and also developed the relationship between the Fonda and Montand characters more (they are actually quite good in their roles). Despite the emotional disconnect I felt with the couple, the film is at its best when it's drawing parallels between their relationship and the tumultuous political climate of France post-May '68. These moments are poignant, sobering and inspired, and by far the most successful and emotionally resonant achievements of the picture for me.

One of the more interesting things I read about Tout va bien in its (surprisingly little) section from Richard Brody's book Everything Is Cinema is that Godard had actually been in a motorcycle accident and month long coma prior to shooting, and was really only involved in the development of the film on a conceptual level. Gorin himself did the majority of hands on directing, and perhaps this accounts for the overall lack of, I dunno, spark(?) that I felt while watching the movie. Something was definitely missing here for me, visually speaking and just with its overall feel and energy. While Tout va bien didn't completely work for me, and doesn't really inspire me to rush and seek out other Dziga Vertov Group works, I am glad I watched it because, as I've said previously, you can always count on a film with Godard's name attached to be at least interesting, and on that level Tout va bien has a lot going for it.
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Letter to Jane (1972); viewing: first

Probably not the best thing to watch while on the verge of falling asleep (as I was), Letter to Jane is a 50 minute follow up to Tout va bien that focuses on a photograph of Jane Fonda during her controversial visit to North Vietnam, while Godard and Gorin talk through voice over throughout the duration of the film and scorn Fonda for not entirely clear reasons. Their critiques link the photo to everything from Tout va bien and its central question (what is the role of the intellectual in a revolution?) to the class struggle to capitalism and so on. It is analytically dense, going so far as to break down the blocking of the photograph into symbols of the respresented countries politics. It also analyzes the faces of both Fonda and the anonymous Vietnam man in the background and compares them to other notable mugs such as Marlon Brando, Renee Falconetti, John Wayne and Richard Nixon in an attempt to figure out why exactly Jane Fonda's face in the photo lends itself to separation while the Vietnam's remains a part of its surroundings.

There's not a whole lot for me to say about Letter to Jane; it is obviously quite didactic and was a bit of a chore for me to sit through, even at its slim running time (being tired of course made it more difficult). This isn't helped at all by the fact that Godard and Gorin are both speaking English here in consistently monotonous drones that quite simply aren't that rousing to listen to, despite the fact that a lot of the time they are actually saying some compelling stuff. The film is aesthetically and formally interesting however, and does make a good companion piece to Tout va bien, and certainly should be of some interest to Godard fans. Once again, didn't completely do it for me, but glad I watched it.

Godard Marathon Day 9: Vladimir and Rosa (1970)

Vladimir and Rosa (1970); viewing: first

Vladimir and Rosa was one of several films made by Jean-Luc Godard and his collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin under the name of the Dziga-Vertov Group. The group was formed to potentially usher in a new cinema - one that relied heavily on Brechtian technique to express its political ideologies in polemical, essay-style films. I've made no qualms about the politics in Godard's films being of little interest to me, and so needless to say the prospect of these films left me a bit wary. However if I want to come to the greatest understanding and appreciation of Godard as a filmmaker that I can (the ultimate goal with this marathon after all), no era must be left unturned, and so I stuck in a copy of Vladimir and Rosa and prepared for whatever was to come. My knowledge of the film prior to viewing was minimal; I knew it dealt with the trial of the Chicago Eight, and that's pretty much it. So I will tell you I was extremely (and pleasantly) surprised to find that viewing Vladimir and Rosa ended up being quite an enjoyable experience.

The title Vladimir and Rosa refers to the narrators of the movie, Vladimir Lenin and Karl Rosa (Godard and Gorin), who compare their omniscient perspectives to those of a bird in the sky who can see rain in the clouds before anyone else can, and indeed they will be our guides through the film, which is basically structured around a series of coarse Brechtian skits involving the trial of the Chicago Eight, the group of people arrested for protesting during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The Chicago Eight of the film however don't correspond exactly with the eight people in the real life trial; only two of the subjects in the film are actually patterned off the real people, those being Bobby Seale (Bobby X in the film), the black panther whose trial was eventually severed, and David Dellenger. We are introduced to the Eight being arrested in a overtly Brechtian scene involving fake blood and cops wielding phony batons, and from here a majority of the movie takes place in the courtroom where the trial is being overseen by the loud, annoying, fascist oaf Judge Himmler, a caricature if there ever was one. These scenes portray the courtroom as a kind of cartoonish bedlam, especially the moments with Bobby X on the stand, bound by chains with guns held to his head, where he eventually utters the best line in the film: "You can jail a cake, but not a revolution." There are also memorable scenes that take place out of the courtroom, one of the best being between Anne Wiazemsky (Godard's wife at the time), and Dellenger (Claude Nedjar), which takes place in an apartment and has the pair discussing and arguing the exploitation of women in the workplace and the oppression they endure due to the social status quo. The scene culminates with a text written by an African woman being read aloud by the characters and is probably the most overtly didactic scene in the film, but is so ripe with playful touches (including Wiazemsky handling Dellenger like a puppet) and honesty from the actors that it somehow feels remarkably real and interesting.

Godard and Gorin often appear themselves during the movie, in such notable scenes as one where they pace around on a tennis court with a microphone, interviewing each other with a machine that distorts their thoughts as they speak them, or in scenes where the pair portray a fascist cop and judge, one of the particularly interesting moments involving Godard zipping down his fly and pulling a baton out of his pants where it clearly appears as though he's about to pull something else out. Godard is energetic and spry during these scenes, bouncing around and doing physical routines with a sly grin on his face, and it made me think of a feature on the Pierrot le fou Criterion dvd, where Anna Karina in an interview talks about how youthful and energetic and vibrant Godard was all of the time in private, but few would ever see this side of him. I think one of the reasons Vladimir and Rosa works so well is because Godard does feel free and revived and energetic here, and we see it and feel it, not only in his appearances but in the flow and vibe of the movie. Godard and Gorin are obviously deeply fascinated with the subjects the film probes, and seem to be relishing the experience of making this film in their own style. Vladimir and Rosa is, when all is said and done, a serious yet winsome piece of filmmaking that balances out its polemical and political elements with a dose of cheeky humor and playful wit, and shows that though Godard had faded from the spotlight during this time, he was nevertheless still creating compelling and unique cinema.

Godard Marathon Day 8: Week End (1967); Le Gai Savoir (1969)

Day 8 wrapped up my viewing of Godard's 60's work with a rich sojourn into dark surrealism and a challenging essay film that I'm conflicted on.


Week End (1967); viewing: second

Week End was by all means the dividing line in Godard's career. It would mark the end of his "Cinematic Period", the prolific and impressive stretch of more narratively conventional genre films that lasted for most of the 60's, before giving way to the more intensely political and radical "essay" style of films that would mark the next phase of his career. Week End is, however, a fiery beast of its own; a blacker-than-black apocalyptic road comedy driven by a vignette structure and full of surrealist flourishes that attacks everything from the class struggle to consumerism to U.S. politics to (literally attacking) famous literary figures. In short, nothing is safe from its bite.

Audaciously asserting itself through intertitles at the beginning as both "A film adrift in the cosmos", and "A film found on a dump", Week End centers on a husband and wife, Roland (Jean Yanne) and Corinne (Mireille Darc), who at the beginning are discussing their wishes for Corinne's father to be killed so that they may collect the inheritance. The film follow the couple (who, it becomes quickly apparent, are planning each others deaths as well), endlessly across the country in a series of alarming vignettes as they travel to Corinne's parents house to collect the inheritance. The despondent, apocalyptic atmosphere is almost overwhelming in this picture, with fires on the road side and wrecked cars and dead bodies constantly littered about, all of this fully on display in the most famous sequence from the film, a nearly ten minute tracking shot detailing a seemingly endless traffic jam the couple must navigate through. Godard takes every opportunity to skewer his bourgeoisie caricatures, as in one scene where after a nasty car wreck and fire, Corinne screams in anguish for many seconds before we realize the source of her agony is the designer handbag burning in the car. Brechtian technique is also of course prevalent in Week End, as the couple is constantly making references to the fact that they are merely characters in a movie, and seemigly use this as an excuse for their own heinous actions, which includes one particularly venomous scene where they attack English poet Emily Bronte and burn her alive. Eventually the couple are captured by a group of cannibals who reside in the woods, hippies who address each other by codenames such as "Johnny Guitar" and "Battleship Potemkin", and here Rolando and Corinne will each meet a different fate - one becoming the predator and the other the prey - leading up to one of the most haunting final shots Godard's composed yet.

I initially watched Week End during a period where I was getting heavily into surrealism and viewing stuff by Bunuel and Cocteau and Rivette (among others) on a regular basis. At the time I knew I really liked it, but was hesitant to fully embrace it, probably because I was put off by some of its Godardian qualities: the occassional launches into political rambling, the use of Brechtian technique and the odd relationship between the visuals and music etc. But watching it again at this pivotal moment in both my marathon and Godard's career, I had no qualms in fully embracing this wicked, potent film - it's truly a maddeningly ambitious and angry work with poison coursing through its veins and teeth to spare, and it quite appropriately ends Godard's most famous period of filmmaking with a bang in the form of a bold declaration: Fin de Cinema. End of Cinema.
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Le Gai Savoir (1969); viewing: second

Godard's 1969 Le Gai Savoir was originally produced for (and subsequently rejected by) French national television, and instead received a brief release in French theaters before being banned and relegated to relative obscurity in the context of the rest of Godard's 60's output. The film stars Juliet Berto and Jeanne-Pierre Leaud as Patricia and Emile, two people of ambiguous origins (the film hints they may be otherworldly) who meet on a barren, blackened sound stage nightly over the course of three years to engage in various methods of dissolving image and sound in order to go "back to zero". Le Gai Savoir is thus an essay film built around this contemplation of the nature between sounds and images and layers and how they interact with one another, examining and deconstructing this relationship through use of stills, intertitles, and a dense barrage of philosophical abstractions.

The first time I saw Le Gai Savoir, I was left pretty mystified. I knew that the prominent aesthetic of the completely black room with only the mysterious characters lit was very appealing; there is a classicism and quiet beauty to it that - along with the presence of the two wonderful stars - makes it extremely interesting and pleasing. But I remember feeling almost overwhelmed at the density of the material and dialogue, and indeed a second viewing confirmed for me that this is, quite simply, a film that I have a hard time grasping. It is by far the most didactic film Godard had made at this point, and while it's not busy indulging in nearly inscrutable philosophical abstractions and reflections, it's heaping on a barrage of still photographs and thick political proclamations dealing with Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, among others. It at times becomes almost sensory overload, and I have a feeling that with the characters constantly talking over each other, and with the stills and intertitles likewise overlapping their dialogue, the subtitles can only do so much, and there is a ton of stuff that likely just didn't translate (a problem I've also heard some have with Godard's supposed magnum opus, the Histoire(s) du cinema series). There are plenty of charming moments here though, among them a word association game played with a small boy and an old ultra-fascist man, and various little references both Leaud and Berto make to past characters they've played in Godard films. I'm glad I watched Le Gai Savoir again, because it is quite the curious object and feels like it's spilling over with ideas, but it's one that still remains shrouded in a kind of murky obscurity to me. While it's not one of my favorites from the 60's when all is said and done, it's poetic aesthetic and interesting formal approach still make it worth watching for any Godard fan. At the end of the day though, I just have to admit it's one that went a bit over my head.

Godard Marathon Day 7: Anticipation (1967); La Chinoise (1967)

Day 7 saw the late addition of a lesser known short from this period, as well as an unexpectedly entertaining foray into the political youth.


Anticipation (1967); viewing: first

Anticipation was Godard's contribution to the 1967 Joseph Bercholz production The World's Oldest Profession, a compilation film dealing with the subject of prostitution through different periods in history. Bercholz tapped six French directors to each come up with a segment, and Godard concocted this extremely odd yet thoroughly interesting futuristic tale of John Demetrios (Jacques Charrier), a traveler from another planet visiting Earth who, immediately after he lands, decides to grab a prostitute and have some fun. However, his prostitute doesn't speak, a fact which bothers him a great deal, so he trades her out for one who can stimulate him on a verbal level. Thus arrives the replacement, Eleonore Romeovitch (Anna Karina, in her last appearance for Godard), and everything seems to be in order, but alas, when John asks her to take her clothes off, she replies that she can't; that's not what she's meant to do. She's a prostitute of "sentimental love" rather than a prostitute of "physical love". In other words, a prostitute who loves in language. On this version of Earth, true love, a reconciliation of the two types, is deemed illogical and outlawed. You just simply can't have both. Or can you?

Obviously Godard was a clear choice to participate in this anthology; prostitution may very well be the most consistent thematic thread running through all of his 60's work. Anticipation, with a running time of twenty minutes, is clearly meant to be somewhat of a companion piece to Alphaville. Both films are futuristic, sci-fi stories shot in black and white, dealing with outsiders and their relationship with a prostitute, and with true love prevailing in each to crash the computerized fascist regime around them. Interestingly enough, I got a mild Lynchian-vibe from many of the touches in Anticipation; the eerie, almost industrial score pervading in the background; the odd, deliberately clipped mannerisms with which John speaks; and most notably one absolutely bizarre sequence where John and Eleonore, as maybe a type of foreplay (?), engage in an utterly strange activity that involves spraying each other in the face with a water bottle as they eagerly lap up the liquid with their tongue; certainly a suggestive and, quite frankly, disturbing few shots. Overall I found Anticipation to be extremely interesting, both aesthetically and conceptually, filled with striking imagery and compelling ideas, and with not a moment of its twenty minutes wasted it manages to accomplish more in that brief time than the majority of features produced in Hollywood today. It's a highly interesting footnote to the body of work Godard produced in the 60's, and one well worth seeking out for fans of the director.
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La Chinoise (1967); viewing: first

Godard's 1967 loose adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed was the surprisingly entertaining La Chinoise. I say surprisingly because coming into this film, I was well aware that it was the most overtly political film Godard had made yet at the time, and seeing as how Godard's politics is one of the least interesting aspects of his films to me, I almost approached the film with the mindset of expecting to be a tad put off and uninterested. The result ended up being far from that. Set almost entirely in the apartment of its five main characters, all young French students and fervent Maoists, La Chinoise uses parody and humor to chart the course of this group through its initial plans in setting off a revolution to its eventual dissolution.

The group is centered on a couple, Guillaume (Jean-Pierre Leaud) and Veroniqe (Anna Wiazamsky), and also includes Henri, Kirilov, and Yvonne (the sublime Juliet Berto). Guillaume and Veronique slowly push harder and harder for a terrorist style attack to trigger off a revolution, and Kirilov and Yvonne seem to be content going along with this, but Henri vocally disagrees with this course of action, and the key moment in the film comes when he separates from the group after a vote leaves him in the lurch. Veronique, in particular, seems to be thoroughly blinded by her ideals, and the greatest sequence in the film comes when she and a former professor of hers sit on a train together and have a lengthy discussion on the practicalities of triggering a revolution using violence, and how in what ways Veronique's situation differs from past instances of successful revolution. In short, the professor is trying to give her a reality check, so disillusioned is Veronique. The two are positioned in front of a window which blurs the environment outside as the train hurtles on and they engage in this discussion, giving one the sensation of the world literally passing them by as they are stuck in the muck of these issues. I'm not sure if that's what Godard intended, but it's what struck me and I thought it was an amazingly poetic touch.

Eventually an assassination is planned of the Soviet Minister of Culture, though the film makes it clear from early on that this group is improbable to accomplish anything at all, and watching the assassination get completely bungled up is equally frustrating and amusing. The film is also ripe with Brechtian technique, giving us many shots of the slate in front of the camera, and even one of Coutard himself filming the action. Though La Chinoise is indeed firmly entrenched in the politics of its time, it still retains enough bite, playful humor and brilliant Godardian touches to make it an enormously interesting and entertaining affair, even for those, like myself, who lack knowledge of the myriad politics discussed in the film and the various references and gestures made towards them. It is a hopeful sign that the impending political films from Godard won't be entirely inaccessible for me, and will indeed retain his signature wit and impressive visual originality.

Note on the Godard Marathon & NCAA this week

For college basketball junkies such as myself, this week is one of the very best of the year, as I'm sure all of you who have filled out your multiple brackets for the NCAA tournament can relate to. And even with as much fun as I've been having with the marathon so far, the tournament takes precedent for me. With games on all day, my free time will mostly be dedicated to basketball, so needless to say my progress on the Godard films will slow down a bit for this week.



I have only three films from Godard's 1960's period left before I chart into unknown waters with the 70's stuff and his work with the Dziga Vertov Group. I should have no problem squeezing the three 60's ones in, but seeing as how I will want to be fully focused jumping into the 70's movies, I'm not sure how many, if any, of those I'll get to this week.

GO TECH!!!