GODARD: Les carabiniers (1963)

Godard has always been a filmmaker who pays as much attention to the politics behind his work as the images in his work. Les carabiniers (The Riflemen), his fifth film, displays this dualism at work, criticizing the act of war and the politics of nationalism and imperialism while at the same time interrogating the aesthetics of the war and anti-war film.

The story of Les carabiniers is fable-like in its simplicity. Ulysses and Michelangelo are two peasants living on a wasteland with a mother and daughter, Cleopatra and Venus. Two riflemen come to their shack and convince Ulysses and Michelangelo to join the army and fight for the King, seducing them with all the riches in the world. They go to war, sending letters home to Cleopatra and Venus. However, when they finally get home, they find that their rewards are not quite how they imagined them.

Les carabiniers did not do well on release, and it isn’t hard to imagine why. It is gritty, nasty, plotless, ugly, the characters are vulgar stereotypes, the events are shocking, the soundtrack is a constant barrage of explosions and gunfire. It is an angry, abrasive little film, but it chooses its targets with intelligence and its critique and the way this critique is made are fascinating.

Ulysses and Michelangelo are promised everything, from money to the monuments of the world to any sadistic little wish they may want to carry out. The criticism is obvious – any horror is permissible in war – but it also alludes to colonialism in its acknowledgement of the gleeful seizure of lands and property regardless of the human toll it may take and to nationalism in the blindness with which Ulysses and Michelangelo gets suckered into signing up for the war. Given these characters’ grotty and aimless existences at the beginning of the film, it is clear that king and country have not done anything for them so far, and is unlikely to do anything in the future. Indeed, the extended punchline of all of this is that the two soldiers return home only with photos of their promised rewards – pointing towards the illusionary nature of all nationalism and, by extension, colonial gains. By the end of the film, the country has erupted into what seems like several distinct civil wars between the republicans, the democrats, the communists, the anarchists, the state and the army. The film ends on a disused, ugly bus shelter in which Ulysses and Michelangelo are shepherded and gunned down.

The film’s critique of war suggests that the men and women who fight are not those who receive the rewards and the acclaim and that it is not in their interests to fight their king’s wars. But the film also holds a critique of the aesthetics of the war film. The film is fractured, loud, uncomfortable viewing and the war scenes are intentionally choppy and confused. Godard opts for short scenes of sadistic war crimes rather than some grand narrative of war. Godard’s point is that war films, like action films, entertain an audience when they should be horrifying them. Compare the battle scenes in Les carabiniers to the same in Saving Private Ryan, in which the violence is certainly horrible but the film does allow the war to have a heroic and redemptive quality. War films tend to validate war even as they criticize it. Les carabiniers then, because it denies the audience a fluid narrative line with which to understand and digest the war on screen (even down to the simple cutting between weapon fired and damaged caused), can be said to be a truly anti-war film.

It even goes so far as to suggest, in the scene inside the cinema in which Michelangelo is fooled by the projection while everyone around him silently imbibes whatever the screen throws at them, the brainwashing nature of cinema and the need to engage intellectually with what is being shown. As such, Les carabiniers is a distancing and confrontational film, a bombardment of ugliness and noise, but all to an extremely moral purpose. There is nothing enjoyable or aesthetically pleasing about this war, nothing cathartic, nothing whatsoever to validate the horrors onscreen – because this film is truly a pacifist one.

With Les carabiniers, Godard unites form and message to create one sustained and powerful critique, which will make one rethink one’s opinions about wars past, present and future as well as rewatch war films looking for the signs that they are as much pro- as anti-war. It is one of Godard’s most difficult sixties films and one of the hardest to like, but it is one of real intellectual rigour - with this film, Godard could not be dismissed as just a stylist. Despite being one of Godard’s least financially successful films, it is one of his most important early films.

Up next was Le Mepris

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GODARD: Vivre sa vie (1962)

Vivre sa vie is split novelistically into twelve distinct parts, each detailing Nana’s (Anna Karina) descent into prostitution through economic necessity and what happens after. No other Godard film, to my knowledge, is as committed to realism as this one is, both social and emotional and in terms of form. In some ways then, it can be considered the truest of Godard’s films and the saddest.

Nana is a young woman who harbours ambitions to be an actress. These dreams have not come into being and Nana, dissatisfied, leaves her husband Paul (Andre S. Labarthe) and tries to make it on her own. She has no cash and no one she knows can lend her any money – she has to cadge a cinema ticket of Paul and her landlady locks her out of her apartment. Following an unsuccessful attempt at petty crime, Nana is forced to take up prostitution.

Karina gives her best performance for Godard here, playing a woman who is still young but who knows even at this early stage that she has failed to do what she wants to do with her life. Karina brings out this frustration and disappointment and, after she becomes a prostitute, self-loathing brilliantly. In one scene, Nana rambles about her newfound economic independence and her responsibility for herself, pretending that she is happy, only for her face to suddenly dissolve into silent, choking unhappiness in the instant that she runs out of words. Then she silently watches a couple across the café. These two moments together are amongst the most moving that Godard ever achieved. We do not know what Nana is thinking when she looks at this couple – it could be that she is thinking of her own loneliness, it could be that, since the man seems to be a little cold, that she is thinking about her comfort depends on such taciturn men, showing her feelings of independence as a delusion. What is significant in this moment is that Godard holds back on the tricks and delivers a ‘straight’ moment of performance and drama.

Other parts of the film are more experimental, but the experimentation is muted here in favour of a depiction of the state of prostitution in France and the lot for the women who do it. One part of the film belongs squarely to documentary – Anna questions her pimp Raoul (Sady Rebbot) about the laws and practices of prostitution and he replies coldly and scientifically about how the job works and the laws that need to be followed. It is a dehumanising sequence, displaying how stark the options are for those who do this job. Godard frequently films Karina in close-up in profile and in low light, detailing stages of her descent in her face. This culminates in a scene towards the end of the film in which Godard reads in voiceover Poe’s ‘The Oval Portrait’ to Nana, a story and the theme of the film about a man who is an artist and the woman he loves. A brief insight into their marriage (on the rocks at this point) and an examination of how the films have got in the way of their love. It is also another example of a woman subjugated by a man. The film concludes then with a stark and sudden, powerfully undramatic sequence detailing Nana’s betrayal by Raoul and her death at the hands of two uncaring men. The film ends with her body on the street, the camera suddenly tilting down, giving Nana an ascension that nevertheless must remain ruthlessly in the gutter.

The battle between Nana’s emotions and the reality of her existence plays out underneath the main current of the film. We see Nana’s trying to overcome her self-disgust – just as we see attempts to live as if nothing is wrong despite the embarrassment of asking friends for money and trying to hide from her landlady. Her moments of happiness are rare and usually tainted. She dances alone to some music in a pool hall and despite her loneliness and the fact that the three men ignore her. We watch her dance, not caring if it’s sad, happy despite everything – and then Godard cuts to her POV – we see now the bare, ugly room, the unpleasantness of her journey and the faces of the men who ignore her. Like the singing scene in Une Femme est une femme, Godard shows the disconnect between how the character feels and where the character is, though here we are left more with the impression of denial rather than irrepressible joy. In another moment, we see her happy with a young man, a man she incidentally picks up at the pool hall. She talks of ending her life as a prostitute and returning to normality and yet we know she won’t be happy. The young man refuses to leave the apartment and prefers to read ‘The Oval Portrait’ to her from a book he has just happened to find. The only time Nana is happy without consequence is, intriguingly, when she goes to the cinema to see Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc and experiences a transcendent moment of (self-)recognition.

Vivre sa vie was an experimental film – its direct sound, long takes and lateral, arbitrary but direct camerawork were rarely seen – but here the technique and the form of the film work towards and heighten the film’s tragedy, rather than commenting ironically on it. Vivre sa vie is one of Godard’s most moving and soberest films, one in which it seems that Godard’s primary focus was on his wife’s performance and the plight of the prostitute. It would be foolish to read the film as feminist necessarily, but it does recognise the difficulties of an economically deprived woman who wants to be independent in a man’s world. In one moment, Nana is paid by a client who then wants another woman. Nana gets the woman for him and when she asks what she is to do, she is told to do nothing and just remain seated. Nana sits, immobilised, in low lighting and in profile and when the film’s theme plays, it is a quietly heart-breaking image of a woman in invisible chains.

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Monthly Film Challenge Part 5: La Chinoise (1967)

La Chinoise is a 1967 film made by Jean-Luc Godard at the beginning of his political phase. It is commonly considered a classic because of its apparent prophetic nature since it is supposed to have predicted the May 1968 student revolt in Paris. It is commonly, and too easily, dismissed as socialist propaganda, ineffective because of the near incomprehension of its artistic sensibilities. There is no real plot, the film jumps between dramatic scenes, political speeches, intertitles, images and a variety of Brechtian devices intended to confuse the audience, force them out of their comfort zone of passive watching and actually engage with the film’s debate. Hence the key line comes at the beginning: “A film in the making.” As much as this may suggest that the film is an improvisation – Godard was never one for extensive planning – it also suggest that the film begins on screen but finishes inside the active viewer’s mind, where opinions are formed and the film’s message is finally chosen.

In this sense, the second key line in the film comes later, in a speech by Kirilov (Lex de Bruijn): “We demand the unity of politics and art. The unity of content and form…Works lacking artistic value, no matter how politically advanced are ineffective. In literature and in art we must fight on two fronts.” Here, Godard explains his methodology – a political film is only effective if it marries its message with revolutionary aesthetics. A truly political film is a film that cannot be used by the marketplace dominated by Hollywood, which promotes passivity and uncritical identification. The ways of viewing a political film must be different from the ways of viewing Hollywood films - later Godard would reject the means of production and exhibition of mainstream cinema entirely, making esoteric, homemade films on video. As an example of a political film usurped by Hollywood, Godard would point to the acclaimed The Battle of Algiers – a fantastic faux-documentary about the Algerian war, which shows the violence on both sides. Though the film is certainly educational, the viewer might leave without their opinions changed, much less radically altered, since the film can be viewed, or consumed, just like any other less politically-orientated Hollywood blockbuster. A more recent example might be Tarantino’s latest, Django Unchained. Though Tarantino uses the horrors of slavery as a backdrop, the audience will get less of an impression of the evil of slavery, their outrage softened by a busy plot, likable characters and a happy ending.

The reason this introduction is so long is because La Chinoise is the kind of film that needs to be approached with an awareness of certain ideas already in place. A viewer must be ready for the film in a way that they don’t have to prepare for a Hollywood blockbuster – which, too often, you don’t even have to pay attention to. It is not really an emotional film; any thrills one might get from it are purely those of ideas. Similarly, the film does not provide any answers, instead insisting that one comes up with one’s own. The viewer has to engage with the film, actively watch and deconstruct and think about the film. The joy of La Chinoise, or any film like it, and possibly the reason why some many would dismiss it, claiming incomprehension, is that it is a film that is alive with invention. Godard’s love of the medium comes through via the range of aesthetic devices that he includes, but also because of his willingness to question our very definition of what constitutes a film. To dismiss La Chinoise as mere propaganda, as a result, is to deny that film can be more than what Hollywood thinks it should be.

La Chinoise takes its slight plot from Dostoevsky’s fantastic novel “Demons”, in which five amateur revolutionaries fill themselves with political dogma, chose an enemy and murder him. Dostoevsky’s target was the growing idea of nihilism; Godard’s, tackled much more ambiguously, is Maoism, best represented by Mao Tse-tung’s “Little Red Book.” La Chinoise follows five students, lead by Veronique (Anne Wiazemsky, then Godard’s wife), as they live in an empty apartment during the summer holidays, trying to apply Maoist teachings to their lives and possibly create the conditions to start a revolution. The film is divided into three movements. The first deals with the education of the students, showing them reading, attending lectures and being interviewed by Godard himself on their beliefs. The second movement is the shortest and deals with arguments about the applications of the theory that the students have now taken on board. Some advocate a new form of political art – providing the film’s manifesto – whilst others speak of the need for violence. The final movement is, hence, their plan of action once terrorist activity is decided upon.

As a film about left-wing terrorism, La Chinoise is seem rather sinister, or at least highly naïve, to some. However, Godard is a lot less didactic as he may initially appear. He is open to all of the divergent opinions within the group and can even be quite critical. Early in the film, we hear Veronique reciting some political dictum to the amusement of her boyfriend Guillaume (Jean Pierre Léaud, the child actor from The 400 Blows) – his later extremism suggesting a form of indoctrination or, simply, insincerity. Perhaps. Godard does not wish to make anything too easy for his audience, preferring instead that they listen to each of the characters as they present their arguments, then decide for themselves. The most sympathetic character is Henri (Michel Semeniako), but then he is the least hard-line and the one who promotes peaceful co-existence. He is called a reactionary and expelled from the group. Yvonne (Juliet Berto) is the working class member of the group and, despite the group’s supposed socialist values, she is frequently seen tidying up around them. We also frequently see her education – or, if you want, indoctrination - Berto’s performance moving from wide-eyed innocence to unblinking devotion to the cause. Most ambiguous of all, and possibly the best scene in the film, is Veronique’s encounter with Francis Jeanson, a real-life revolutionary. They meet on a train and discuss her right to commit terrorist acts, Godard filming the conversation from a fixed position, the frame balanced between Veronique and Jeanson – in other words, neutral. Here, Godard’s key desire comes to fruition. We sit and listen to the points being made by both characters, without sympathetic or biased editing or camerawork, and then, at its conclusion, make up our own minds.

La Chinoise is very much a true essay film, with imagery and text inserted into the onscreen action just as one would place a citation in a thesis. It is politically charged cinema, thoroughly in love with dialectical thinking and committed to engaging with an audience. La Chinoise does not wish to educate, or even convince; it merely wishes to communicate. Its key flaw may be that it is too daunting for most viewers, especially now that it is somewhat dated, but it remains a unique form of cinema that cannot be ignored by anyone who is truly interested in what cinema can do.

So give it a go and tell us what you think.

Next month: The Tree of Life

La Jetee

Un Chien Andalou

The Seventh Continent

F For Fake

ARTICLE: Breathless vs. Breathless

  Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless was recently re-released. Having seen both it and Jim McBride’s poorly reviewed 1983 remake recently, I began to wonder which was better. Godard’s original is regularly hailed as the masterpiece of the French Nouvelle Vague, slick and cool, while full of subtext and vigorously innovative. To many, McBride’s decision to remake Breathless was sheer egotism, on a par with Werner Herzog’s well-meaning remake of Nosferatu. You have to admit, it’s a brave thing to remake a highly regarded masterpiece and, like Herzog, McBride pulls it off.

  McBride’s film is a modern look at the outlaw, giving us a new, post-modern look at the myth of the American outsider, and it’s  just as rewarding as Robert Altman’s early work. Richard Gere plays the outlaw as a hipster in an interesting performance. Oddly, coming as it does before Quentin Tarantino made his mark on cinema, it can’t help but feel anachronistic. It’s a performance that some may find tiresome, but who is really that taken by Belmondo’s cool but post-human lead performance in Godard’s 1959 original? Instead, Gere tears through every scene as his character tears through life.

  While the original invites audiences to consider how much they depend on conventional film making codes and techniques, McBride questions issues that affect real life, such as, “How much would you be willing to throw away in order to live?” Gere’s hoodlum demands that the shackles of education and employment are tossed aside and forgotten. Valerie Kaprisky’s character, the object of Gere’s demands, is an aspiring architect. Why design buildings to last when, as one character states, nothing can. Gere’s car door is open and love beckons, so what will Kaprisky choose? Her inability to take the jump brings her back to the prison of a secure job.

  The remake may be devoid of the infamous jump cuts and it may conventionally frame a scene, but it is not without its artistic touches. In what other Hollywood thriller would you see a big star strip naked while singing along to Suspicious Minds, which only he can hear, before jumping into Kaprisky’s shower for some more sex? And what about the red-tinted car sequences where the background is as fake and intangible as the ties that keep people stuck in dead-end jobs? And, without giving too much away, McBride’s ending is much more stylish, much more romantic and much more interesting than Godard’s bit of Gallic mistranslation.

  The argument as to which version of Breathless is better will rage on. Stereotypically, the arty film fans will prefer Godard’s original and those who prefer non-challenging Hollywood movies will prefer the remake (if not dislike both). Both films are rewarding but completely different and cannot be compared; McBride’s film is about personal choices while Godard’s is about cinematic revolution. However, how much relevance to our real lives does Godard’s film really have? Is a critique on our cinema-going habits as important as, say, remebering bin day? Or is remebering bin day more important? This may be the argument of a philistine, but its an intriguing one nonetheless. Afterall, McBride’s film points out that we have choices in life, that not everything is pre-determined. And it’s more fun too.