American Translation

With regard for Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, a film that I’ve seen quite a few times in the past few years, I agree with Robyn completely.  Like Robyn, I find that portions of (5070) class discourse really benefit my comprehension of the influence New Wave directors like Godard and Truffaut continue to exert on filmic practice.

 

For instance, despite having seen the film three or more times, I never noticed some of the stylistic characteristics that Penn borrows from the French directors.  Similar to Truffaut, Penn is particularly interested in what multiple and divergent perspectives contribute to the comprehension of a single event.  This is especially the case with his portrayal of the gang’s highway adventures.  Halfway through, the film, Bonnie and Clyde meet up with Barrow’s brother.  When the group undertakes a bank job, they damage the oil pan of their vehicle and are forced to find another.  After they steal a new car, the group decides to kidnap the couple to which the car belongs.  As Bonnie, Clyde, and the rest of the gang surround the couple’s car, Penn gives the audience numerous different perspectives of the same vehicle, both inside and out.  Here, Penn spends an almost exhaustive period of time documenting each gesture that the group makes at the frightened couple.  Bonnie and Clyde’s brother rub their noses on different windows while Clyde gestures at the driver with his gun.  Though the effect is more subtle, Penn seems motivated by similar concerns as Truffaut. 

 

This comparison becomes most relevant with consideration for Truffaut’s period piece, Adele H.  Turning to this film, one observes that Truffaut gives similar attention to perspective.   Notably, midway through the film, Truffaut provides an extended tracking sequence in which Adele H. views her supposed lover engaging with another woman.  The camera follows the couple’s movement throughout the house, watching them from various positions outside of the house.  Adele climbs a flight of stairs, near the end of this scene, and stares at the two from a wooden structure adjacent the house.  

 

Although the comparison might seem a stretch, other scenes in Penn’s film serve to accentuate this point of reference.  This is, most assuredly, the case with the thematic concern for celebrity that is present throughout Bonnie and Clyde.  When the couple meets up with Clyde’s brother and sister-in-law initially, Clyde’s brother decides to take some pictures of the group.  In sequence, Bonnie and Clyde take turns posing for each picture, adjusting their clothes and playing with guns.  Although there is room to interpret that this is simply Penn’s attempt to render the very self-obsession that drives the couple’s criminal acts, I’m not particularly satisfied with this reading.  Instead, I think there is something similar occurring here as in Godard’s Masculin Feminin.  One will remember the scene where the protagonist steps into a both to record a record for his girlfriend/fiancé.  Both Godard and Penn seem interested in what new technologies contribute to process.  This is to say that Penn is concerned with what it means that the gang has access to a camera and how this changes the dynamics of their criminal action.  He even gives indication of this as he intercuts police chases with images of policemen getting their pictures taken.  In a very simple sense, celebrity as connected with technology modifies the criminal act itself.

 

Though it is difficult to assess exactly what Penn is trying to do with this film, he definitely takes his cue from the French New Wave.  This becomes even more apparent in the strange family scene that he provides near the end of the film.  In order to accentuate the centrality of Bonnie and Clyde’s families to the couples’ criminal life – it is rumored that the gang moved in circular patterns, visiting family members at regular intervals – Penn crafts a brilliantly rendered family picnic.  IN this scene, family members converse with one another as children play on large mounds of sand.  In direct contrast to the cooler tones that Penn uses in other portions of the film, here, he emphasizes vibrant yellows and oranges.  Though Penn uses color less severely, and crafts his images differently, one can see that he is dramatically influenced by Godard’s use of filters in the mid to late 1960s. 

Overall, Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde can hardly be interpreted independently of the French New Wave.  Any critical attempt to engage this film must first turn to those of Godard, Varda, and even Truffaut. 

Towards a Imago-Linguistic Exodus

In the final paper for this class I’m trying to remain particularly attentive to Jean Luc-Godard’s emphasis on language and the linguistic exodus.  As I noted in previous posts, I’m interested in reading Godard’s use of certain stylistic conventions as being indicative of his movement away from traditional Hollywood cinema and conventional narrative language.  Although this observation is validated with consideration for 2 ou 3 choses, I want to devote some attention to Weekend (1967).  With Weekend, Godard’s interest in what Paolo Virno refers to as a linguistic exodus really becomes most intelligible.  Here, the audience witnesses a more intense and radical departure from the conventions of mainstream or narrative based cinema.  In a sense, one can see that Godard even goes as far as to purposefully disturb the viewer, including scenes that document the slaying of livestock and lengthy tracking shots of devastating car accidents.   

 

Before I get to the stylistic conventions that Godard employs, it seems necessary to comment on the ways that Godard alludes to this move in both films.  As will soon become apparent to any viewer, Godard is an incredibly self-conscious director.  With these two films, this comes out in the exchanges that occur between different characters.  Whereas the female protagonist in 2 ou 3 choses argues that we are in need of a new language, considering that the old one really fails to represent anything accurately, in Weekend the dialogue serves to further emphasize Godard’s departure from more traditional forms of representation; what he refers to as the “grammatical.”  What Godard argues for instead, is the “flamboyance” of cinema.  Although what this actually means remains a little confusing, one can see that he is departing from traditional narrative form and structure with more intensity than in any of his previous films. 

 

As I remarked in a previous post, Godard seems to be interested in the same type of departure that Paolo Virno discusses with regard for language.  Whereas Virno argues that in order to escape the political institution the human-animal must find a new or different language, Godard seems interested in different forms or styles of expression.  In Multitude: between Innovation and Negation, Virno argues that if the current system of language (the grammatical plane) is too oppressive, we need to move somewhere else.  Unfortunately, just as Virno remains a little ambiguous as to where we might go or what effects this might have on people and language, Godard is ultimately a little vague himself. 

 

I guess the one redeeming factor of Godard’s work in Weekend is that he seems to be working towards a new type of language or grammar; a new formula for rendering the horrors that we encounter on a daily basis.  This is to say that whereas Virno simply alludes to the linguistic exodus, Godard at least tries to figure out what the new language – the endpoint – might look like.  Of course, for a more traditional audience, this language might not be the most appealing.  Weekend includes a nine minute long tracking shot of a traffic jam and car accident, a slow circling view of a barnyard and pianist playing Mozart, and includes, as a cast, a highway rapist and a band of gypsy cannibals that marinate their victims with egg yolk. 

 

In my reading, Godard’s film is less of an attempt to confront than an effort to confound.  This is to say that Godard seems less interested in perversity than in the rather blank confusion that he renders brilliantly in various scenes.  As our discussion at the end of class indicated, the viewer is left in a strange state of stasis, neither wholly sure nor unsure what to make of each scene or situation.  Should we be horrified that the images of youth rebellion are tied to cannibalism and general savagery or amused with Godard’s portrayal?  This evidences Godard’s interest in moving into a system of language that is still completely confusing to the audience; an audience that has largely been instructed as to how film should be read. 

Masculin Feminin and the (Dis)junction Junction

In a previous post I wrote about my interest in reading Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou (1965) as demonstrating the type of highly methodological progression that Roland Barthes lauds with regard for print media (see The Pleasure of the Text – page 18).  I argued that in addition to simply alluding to Godard’s filmic transgressions – the obvious and often critical gestures he makes towards dominant Hollywood cinema – we also have to account for Godard’s move towards the method of “drift” or “cruise” that one can read in some of his later texts; the more highly segmented, and perhaps seminal, works that make up his extended oeuvre.  And, it must be noted, that any serious investigation of Godard’s work would also have to account for some of the other stylistic conventions that define his corpus (i.e. the dramatic use of filters/color, and his emphasis on disruptions and disjunctive diegetic sound).  Although I focused on Pierrot le Fou most specifically, Masculin/Feminin also demonstrates the focus on segmentation I referred to in the previous post.  First though, in order to get at the relevance of previous observations to this film I want to turn to Andre’s comments over at La Nouvelle Vague. 

 

Specifically, I am interested in Andre’s first (narrative-driven) consideration of this film.  Although I agree with some of his more basic observations, I’m ultimately dissatisfied with his take on the moments of “shock” that occur throughout this text.  

 

Andre initiates his discussion by reflecting on the disruptive moments that the audience witnesses throughout the course of this film.  Namely, he is interested in both the Vietnam War protestor’s “self-immolation” and the rather brief murder scene that occurs in the beginning minutes of Masculin/Feminin.  For Andre’s purposes, these highly disruptive moments serve as dramatic precursors to the final and invisible moment of shock; the protagonist’s death. Though there is surely some import in discussing these strangely and humorously tragic moments, especially considering the frequency with which they occur, I’m not sure that I agree with the type of narrative emphasis that Andre gives these events.  Though, in a later post, he argues with an emphasis on thematic concerns as opposed to plot motivations, a move that I appreciate, this particular analysis refuses to move beyond the limitations of narrative driven logic:  Andre insists on discussing that which the audience is ultimately inhibited from seeing; the narrative developments that result in Paul’s death.  Instead, what the audience gets is Madeleine’s rather cold and disaffected testimony. For his purposes, Andre’s narrative assessment seems to fit pretty coherently with a certain feminist imperative – to decry Godard’s rendering as wholly problematizing any involvement with the feminine being.  That is to say, that if one were to take Andre’s argument to the extreme, Madeleine ultimately becomes somewhat of a femme fatale.  Though there is, perhaps, room to make this argument, I’m a little more interested in the attention that Degregoris gives Marx and Coca-Cola. If Madeleine, as some of the other characters, is representative of a younger generation torn between two “irreconcilable” poles, one would have to read this invisible moment of “shock” as being something else entirely.   

 

The problem with reading these strange instances or moments as something other than narrative indications of Madeleine’s deceit (the “Evil behind a Pretty Face”) is that it is much more difficult to assess what these renderings might mean otherwise.  In a sense, it seems that reading Godard’s Masculin/Feminin as the prototypical anti-narrative forces one to reconcile Marxism and Coca-Cola. The moments of shock that Andre is getting at seem, ultimately, less of a plot or narrative convention than another play on binary.  Perhaps, there is room to read that Godard is playing with the theme of oscillation as we witnessed in some of his earlier texts.  This is to say that just as Godard plays with what DeGregoris refers to as the seemingly “irreconcilable” nature of Marxism and Coca-Cola, Godard is also interested in another contrast; the juxtaposition of violence and extreme action with otherwise mundane circumstances.  Here, of course, one has to be careful.  To move away from this film understanding it as a series of rather simplistic oscillations or comparisons would actually do great injustice to the film.  As I suggested earlier, this move seems highly methodological. This is to say that Godard is trying to create meaningful juxtapositions.  His texts really operate on these disjunctions; at the very seams of image, sound, and even, with consideration for later texts, language.  This is the drift, in a strange sense, exemplified.  As I also argued in a previous post, it is important to consider whether or not Godard is attempting to enact what Virno refers to as the exodus; whether he is attempting to exit a particular system of language (dominant Hollywood film) for a wholly different and experimental form of expression. 

Godard and Virno’s Linguistic Exodus

 

“Cause they spell mad problems from Watts to Harlem
And the bullshit won’t stop long as the world’s revolvin
And I recall when niggaz knew my pops had clout
But they didn’t know my sorry ass was gettin kicked out
And they was seein if I wanted to come bubble with them
And make my ends triple and double with them
And get in trouble with them, now memories of them
I wear em in my heart like a emblem
I doubt we’d ever be bigtime sellin dope coke or dust
It’s killin us, let’s take our people and make a exodus”

(Gang Starr – “My Advice 2 You”)

 

Jean Luc-Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966) is really one of the more complicated films that we have seen this semester.  In essence, we are viewing the dramatic intensification of the stylistic conventions that Godard used previous texts.  The sound, for instance, is arguably much more disruptive in this film than with any of his other works.  Furthermore, on a thematic level, this film evidences Godard’s continuing, perhaps increasing, preoccupation with the war in Vietnam.  In a short scene on the stairs outside the family’s apartment, the young boy holds a toy machine gun up to the camera.  Suddenly, the boy pulls the toy trigger, sending a series of orange rounds through the upper part of the plastic mechanism.  His father later emulates this very action while discussing Adolf Hitler.  In both cases, the sound that the gun makes is much louder than one initially expects.  In fact, it seems as though Godard has intercut the actual sound of machine gun fire into the soundtrack each time the toy gun is fired.  The plastic gun and image of the child is, quite obviously, contrasted with the loud ring of gun fire.  At the very least, there is room to read that both the young boy and toy weapon are representative of the relatively youthful soldiers experiencing the dread of war in Vietnam.  With the loud clack of machine gun fire, one is reminded that often, pulling a trigger has real and more severe consequences. 

 

Although there is room to read into the numerous stylistic conventions and thematic concerns that are present throughout Godard’s extended oeuvre, the emphasis he gives to language seems most crucial.  With Two or Three Things Godard voices an interest in how the written word functions in relation to images.  Whereas in earlier films, namely Les Carabiniers, Godard simply juxtaposes the written word with the moving image, Godard’s later texts become more explicitly concerned with certain theoretical components.  This is to say that he becomes more interested in the theory of the word.  In this film, such an interest finds meaning in both the monologue and dialogue that various characters deliver.  From the very onset, the audience’s attention is drawn to this thematic concern by the main character’s suggestion that we, “inhabit language.”  Then, furthermore, in reference to the omnipresent narrator, she argues that although one can describe what she does or how she does it, one might not be able to get at why she does it.  For Godard, even within the initial moments of the film, it is important to reconcile the word and image, two forms of representation that are often set in opposition to one another. 

 

With reference for today’s film, it seems that two related concerns arise in relation to the word or language.  The first issue that Godard seems to be concerned with is whether or not language has anything to contribute to the image.  In much of the dialogue that the main character delivers, she suggests that language is ultimately unable to account for much of what she does, thinks, or feels.  In one scene she states, quite blatantly, that words, “never say what I’m feeling.”  In other parts of the film, Godard makes allusions to what film might be able to represent that the word cannot.  In fact, there is really no shortage of statements regarding what the image can do with and without the accompaniment of text.  Though it is not really entirely clear what Godard’s specific conclusions are with regard for language, one can read (“read” being the operative word), that Godard is at least interested in creating texts that work at the seams of language and image.  Godard not only writes a lot of dialogue concerning the more theoretical components of such a discussion, but he also uses intertitles quite frequently, and even features a piece of writing for which words are consistently being crossed off.  For Godard, on quite a simplistic level, one can read that he is interested in how language might actually contribute to the process.

 

On another level, one can see that Godard is also concerned with the ways in which language confines characters.  This is to say that not only is Godard interested in what language can’t express, but that he is also interested in what it means to be confined or made miserable by language.  Here, again, one must turn back to the dialogue.  Early on, the protagonist drops her child off at a daycare (where, strangely enough, women are actually prostituting themselves for rent money), and decides to go shopping at a few clothing stores.  When the protagonist walks into one of the stores, she immediately explains that if she had to define herself, she would use one word, indifference.  Already, one can see that although Godard toys with the idea of words failing to adequately represent, he is also interested in what it means for a word or description to consume; Godard is interested, in a sense, in what it means for one word to encapsulate a person. 

 

On a greater scale though, it is interesting to read that Godard is commenting on language more generally.  In a strange sense, it seems that he views capitalism as necessarily being a condition of language.  His argument, which appears only momentarily, is that if the current system of language is somewhat detrimental, perhaps we need a new language.  Although it may be a little difficult to make this comparison, I’m interested in reading Godard’s film in conjunction with Paolo Virno’s work on the multitude.  More specifically, I’m interested in reading Godard’s suppositions concerning language in conjunction with Virno’s theories concerning grammar in Grammar of the Multitude and Multitude: between Innovation and Negation.  In these texts, Paolo Virno argues that what lies at the heart of any theory of politics and political institutions is a continuing discourse on human singularity.  This is to say that Virno is particularly interested in reading theories of political institutions as ultimately being related to various theoretical suppositions concerning that which differentiates man from non-human animals.  For Virno’s part, he argues that it is man’s capacity for language which initially encourages the development of political institutions, and thus, it must also be man’s capacity for language that allows man to break with the system.  Though Virno’s analysis is much more complex than this, encompassing nearly two books worth of material, one can read that Godard shares some similar concerns for language. 

 

The most important parallel between Godard and Virno is that both argue for a new system of language.  Virno, for his part, discusses the capacity that jokes, as a specific linguistic action, have for being highly innovative.  He argues that of the two types of jokes, the second has its equivalent in the Exodus; specifically the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt.  Here, Virno suggests that the best method of recourse in an oppressive system of grammar is not to rebel or obey, but rather, to leave the system as a whole.  Interestingly, one can read that Godard is alluding to something very similar in the clothing store scenes at the beginning of this film.  Though the terms are a little different, I’m interested in what this might mean for an interpretation of Godard’s film.  Is it possible that Godard is trying to constitute a new form of grammar or language in order to leave the oppressive binds of a particular system (political or otherwise)?  Might it be that Godard’s interest in language is prompted by the increasingly political nature of his texts? 

Rereading Conflict: Godard and Barthes’ Drift

As we have already observed, Godard’s interest in filmic experimentation increases almost exponentially with each new film that he produces from 1960 onward.  For evidence just consider the inherent difference(s) between Vivre sa Vie (1962) and Pierrot le Fou (1965).  Whereas one film provides a more straightforward, though in no way conventional, rendering of the daily activities of a French prostitute, ending abruptly with the rather unfortunate death of the protagonist, the other voices Godard’s increasing emphasis on juxtaposition, notably marked by dramatic shifts in setting and mise-en-scene.  As his career progresses, Godard seems increasingly interested in playing with the more recognizable conventions of mainstream cinema.  In a strong sense, his films represent an obvious criticism of the more bankrupt tenants of dominant Hollywood film (i.e. a continuing discourse on linearity, dialogue, and stylistic convention).  Though it is, in part, necessary that Godard’s films be considered as being in opposition to those of mainstream directors, this line of reasoning, when pursued too forcefully, seems to forget that he is moving towards certain tendencies of his own.  This is to say that although there is room to read, as many theorists have, that Godard’s films provide critical meta-commentaries on cinematic tendencies at large, this analysis should not ignore the tendencies that Godard himself is working towards.  This, of course, is not an attempt to discredit the work of those interested in Godard’s methods of criticism.  Instead, this response works to understand the very methods that become so controversial.  Namely, it seems necessary to expound upon Barthes’ conception of the drift.

As was suggested previously, it is really the highly segmented nature of Godard’s later works (Masculin/Feminin, Pierrot le Fou) that encourages me to return to Barthes’ theories concerning textual production.  Though Roland Barthes’ seminal work regarding film, Camera Lucida, remains particularly viable, I am more interested in Barthes’ work on the written text.  Specifically, Barthes’ discussion of the drift seems particular relevant to this discussion.  With regard for three of Barthes’ more influential texts (A Lover’s Discourse, the Pleasure of the Text, and Empire of Signs), one can read the he is in the process of formulating and enacting certain methodological approaches.  Amongst the most important of these processes or methodologies is Barthes’ theories regarding textual progression.  Essentially, Barthes is interested in creating texts that encourage the reader to move between segmented sections at will.  This is to say that, in direct opposition to the dominant and linear narrative, Barthes creates texts that allow the reader to drift between various segmented sections.  In The Pleasure of the Text, Barthes argues that one should disrespect the whole and allow oneself to be driven around by seductions and illusions (The Pleasure of the Text 18). Each of the three aforementioned books are ultimately constructed in accordance with this interest.  And, although Barthes is specifically addressing the written/printed text, one can see certain parallels emerging in cinematic form.  In fact, as I have commented before, I’m particularly interested in the 2004 release The Cruise.  Essentially, the film is a rather lengthy documentary of New York native and city afficionado, Timothy “Speed” Levitch.  Interestingly, it seems that Levitch’s method for moving through the city is similar to that which Barthes’ advocates with regard for the written text:

In a rather simplistic sense, one can see that Godard constructs his texts with the same regard for movement or progression.  Ultimately, he seems incredibly interested in what it means for the viewer to move from one segment to another, to drift through a simulacrum of divergent images.  Instead of attempting to read a narrative in this, it seems crucial to allow the film to be what it already is.  This is to say that it seems counter-productive to force or overlay a narrative framework.  Instead of looking for narrative threads, connections, etc., one would have to discuss the underlying logic, the systematic structure that guides this text.  When fellow students exclaim that they don’t understand certain narrative progressions they seem to forget that this is Godard’s point from the start.  To read that Godard’s film is opposed to certain modalities of dominant cinema, but to forget that his methods reflect this opposition seems counterintuitive.

Dominant Cinema and the Stereotypical Image

“The stereotype is the word repeated without any magic, any enthusiasm, as though it were natural, as though by some miracle this recurring word were adequate on each occasion for different reasons, as though to imitate could no longer be sensed as an imitation: an unconstrained word that claims consistency and is unaware of its own insistence.  Nietzsche has observed that ‘truth’ is only the solidification of old metaphors.  So in this regard the stereotype is the present path of “truth,” the palpable feature which shifts the invented ornament to the canonical, constraining form of the signified” (Roland Barthes – The Pleasure of the Text)

Ultimately, I’m drawn back to Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night because, in my estimation, the film is utterly more complicated than we give credit.  Taking a cue from Roland Barthes, one might imagine that Truffaut is interested in gesturing towards the “stereotype”; the stereotypical and canonical image; the dominant Hollywood image – and, even, the forces that affect its production (i.e., the “contemptible, pampered, [and] unreasonable class of people” to which DeGregoris alludes in his response).  Arguably, although the film is largely about this group of “people,” it is also, as I assume DeGregoris would agree, necessarily concerned with the type of production processes and decisions that occur with regard for the conventional Hollywood film; the sets of practices and understandings (perhaps even ideologies) that inevitably shape dominant cinematic forms.  In reference to DeGregoris’ post, it seems apropriate that he precludes his scathing criticism with an allusion to Marlon Brando, perhaps one of the most recognizably mainstream actors of all time.  This is not to say that the production problems that Truffaut documents are necessarily limited to the mainstays of Hollywood cinema (i.e., studio sets).  Although I’m sure French New Wave directors spared themselves some discomfort, at least initially, by casting less “pampered” actors and actresses, one can be assurred that certain problems arose (I’m thinking specifically of Godard’s difficulties with Anna Karina). 

As a brief aside, following on this lead, there might be room to read the black and white dream sequences, to which DeGregoris alludes, as being indicative of something other than Truffaut’s childhood affinity for cinema.  Perhaps, considering that Day for Night is largely in color, Truffaut is alluding to the greater ease with which he was able to produce films before big budgets and producer oversight; when the French New Wave was really just in its very infancy.  If one wants to read the film as being representative of the complications that are beginning to arise for New Wave directors, a move that Seewood dramatizes in his post, the dream sequences remain just that; representative of earlier and less problematic times.  Or, in Seewood’s terms, these sequences seem reminiscent of something before the “pathetic” sell-out. 

“But back to the lecture at hand…”

Ultimately, whatever the severity of the gesture might be, I refuse to read this film as anything other than a criticism of dominant Hollywood cinema.  Unlike Seewood, I’m not particularly fond of reading Day for Night as Truffaut’s admission of guilt.  When Seewood argues, “that Truffaut had become what he so despised in his article, “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema,” he takes the self-reflexive gesture in the wrong direction.  Though Truffaut is, without a doubt, incredibly self-aware, the film is perhaps only concerned with the potentiality of selling out.  As I argued previously, Truffaut is enabled the opportunity to make a film that he never would have only because he is able to maintain his distance.  Truffaut places the film in quotations allowing an interesting and critical void to emerge.  Day for Night is less of a “what have I done?” realization than a “I hope this isn’t where all cinema is headed” observation on Truffaut’s behalf.  With regard to the aforementioned response, it almost seems as if Seewood forgets exactly how aware Truffaut is.  It isn’t as though Truffaut began making the film only to realize that he had sold out.  The mise-en-scene is so purposefully theatrical that one must ultimately applaud Trufaut’s rendering of Hollywood cinema. 

Returning to Barthes’ theory with regard for the stereotypical, one can see that Truffaut repeats the image purposefully.  Perhaps, in a rather simplistic sense, Truffaut realizes that he can employ the stereotypical for critical purposes.

Hopefully, I’ll have more on this a little later.

the film/The Film

In class the other day I was initially frustrated with a fellow student’s suggestion that Truffaut’s Day for Night provides an accurate portrayal of the process of production.  It goes without saying that I’m generally not particularly fond of this type of argument because it seems a little too accessible and ignores some of the other, more significant, implications (i.e. a new perspective on temporality, vision, the politics of finance, etc.).  But, I must admit, despite initial pretenses, I’m buying into certain parts of this reading.  Though I have little experience “on the set,” I’d like to think that Truffaut has really done the set justice.  Furthermore, I like to think that Truffaut is doing a particular type of film justice (in a very backhanded way).  Here, of course, as Professor Shaviro argued in class, Day for Night can be read as a film about a film or, more accurately, a film about the Hollywood film; a kind of behind the scenes exploration of cinematic production and product.  When I think of the type of set that the student was on I think of it as being prototypically Hollywood.  I don’t really think of this as an insult (but perhaps it is), I am just trying to get at Truffaut’s awareness of difference: Truffaut realizes the French New Wave film style and shooting practice is ultimately very different from that of the Hollywood film.  This is exactly what Truffaut is commenting on.  Although I think that my fellow student (sorry I don’t know your name) was alluding to the effectiveness with which Truffaut replicates the set, he misses both the effectiveness with which Truffaut renders the Hollywood film, and Truffaut’s awareness of certain aforementioned differences. 

Partially, Day for Night is a film about the type of film one assumes Truffaut would never have made, even if, in a strange sense, he is doing this throughout the film.  And, I would argue that Truffaut is trying to do something a little more significant than to simply convey to the viewer how complicated it is to make a movie; how many demands must be satisfied in the course of production; how much trouble a death can bring to the set, or whatever.  I think that by emulating the style of Hollywood production, while still distancing this production (considering that it is a film within another film) and maintaining a safe distance, Truffaut is able to give a more critical perspective on the Hollywood film and the Hollywood production style.  Thus, in a way, this is not only the making of the film but the making of The Film – the generic formula film one experiences with dominant Hollywood cinema. 

More on this a little later…

Viewing in Adele H.

With Truffaut’s The Story of Adele H. we seem to be encountering something dramatically different than that which we have encountered previously.  The fact that this film is a dramatic period piece already exists as a point of differentiation from anything that we have seen this semester.  Moreover, we also see Truffaut departing from the backdrop of France and the European continent more generally.  Although we get visions of Germany with Truffaut (think of Jules et Jim) and a few different European countries with Godard (Les Carabiniers), almost the entirety of this film transpires within the geographical confines of Halifax.  But despite these differences, as important as they may be to a discussion of film history and the French New Wave specifically, I’m more interested in the various themes that continue to play out in Truffaut’s later work.

In the course of ten to fifteen years we see the continual recurrence of certain important thematic concerns.  Most specifically, I’m interested in Trufaut’s seemingly obsessive emphasis on spectatorship.  Although one might make the argument that every film is at least partially concerned with this issue, I think that there is a little more at stake with regard for Truffaut’s work.  Day for Night, for example, is intimately concerned with what the camera captures or sees.  In a sense, Truffaut seems to emphasize the multiple levels of attraction that arise with the cinematic apparatus.  Although it is evident that one might make similar observations with regard for many of the other texts in his ouvere, I’m particularly intrigued by the parallels that emerge between The 400 Blows and Adele H.  Here, of course, two crucial scenes come to mind.

In The 400 Blows I’m particularly interested in the scene where the Antoine Doinel finds his mother with another man on the streets.  One day Antoine decides to skip school with his friend.  They roam the streets most of the day enjoying the freedom that a day off of school seems to provide them.  Interestingly though, Antoine is surprised to find his mom with another man.  His mother having seen Antoine, hurredly rushes away with her lover.  Both Antoine and his mother work to keep the secret in order that neither of them gets in trouble for their actions.  Although this scene is pretty short, it is particularly memorable, especially when considering Truffaut’s work in Adele H.  With Truffaut’s later text, one can still see that he is interested in the act of viewing.  For Truffaut the act of viewing ultimately induces a strange trauma.

With regard for Adele H, the scene in which she learns of her lover’s (unrequited) infidelity is crucial to this discussion.  One night Adele decides to follow Albert (Lt. Pinson) to his mistress’ house.  Adele hides in the thick brush that has grown up around the building and watches Albert and his mistress move around the house.  As Albert moves through the house, the camera tracks his appearance and dissapearance.  Adele watches from outside the building as Albert and his mistress eventually find their way up a flight of stairs and to her bedroom.  In a strange parallel to Day for Night, I’m reminded of a scene where Truffaut, playing a director, tells a stagehand not to worry about the inside of a structure that is currently being built.  Quite simply, in order to save money and time, Truffaut tells the stagehand that they will just shoot the scene from outside of the building.  In a sense, one questions whether or not Truffaut made the same decision with regard for this film, or if something a little more significant is occurring here.  Though one could make the argument for both, I’m particularly interested in the second reading.

I think that Truffaut is working, very purposefully, to emphasize the distance of the spectator.  Adele is not just outside of the room…she is outside of the building itself, climbing through a shadowy wooden structure.  She keeps track of every detail from this distance.  In fact, Truffaut further emphasizes this distance by positioning Adele behind a series of what appear to be wooden window frames.  But then, what exactly does this spectatorial distance indicate?

In a strange way, I like that Truffaut’s outsider is always the character that is the most aware.  In The 400 Blows, Antoine is the outsider that sees everything most lucidly.  Whereas his parents seem utterly unaware of how ridiculous their relationship is, Antoine, listening through the door at night, seems to realize its end before anyone else.  Antoine knows of his mother’s infidelities because he sees her as the outsider; the child that skips a day of school to go out on the town.  And, the same is true for Adele H.  Adele is perhaps a more intense version of Antoine’s character.  Adele is a foreigner in Halifax, her family is comprised of expatriots, and she is almost always viewing Albert’s romance from the outside.  Albert  is even surprised by the amount of information that Adele has gathered.  And, for her part, Adele doesn’t really seem interested or capable of leaving that position.  When she realizes that Albert has an interest in other women, she suggests that even if they married she would allow him to have these trysts.  In a strange way, Adele condemns herself to always viewing from the outside.

Les Carabiniers (Again!)

I find it more than a little disconcerting that the students of this class, as a whole, fail to comment on or allude to the blog posts of other students.   Here, of course, I mean to implicate myself as much as my fellow classmates.  Instead of utilizing the innovative and highly interactive nature of new media technology, we allow various interesting digital opportunities to surpass us.  Every time that we create a post without a single link or fail to reference another blog thread or conversation we, quite simply, fail.  We fail each other as fellow students working towards a collective goal (film education), and as students of a particular technological context: the digital.  This is to say that part of this course’s inherent objective is to learn of and from the very complex technologies that we use on a daily basis.  Professor Shaviro wanted us to develop a web presence, not to perpetuate the dominant ideology/tenants of print media but to learn of the interesting opportunities that the highly social method of blogging presents the user. 

 

Following this observation it ultimately seems appropriate to address a reading of Godard’s Les Carabiniers that I find a little problematic.  Though I agree with many of Andre Seewood’s previous posts, I find that his response to Les Carabiniers, though initially interesting and fairly accurate, really loses ground in the final paragraphs.  Here, Andre argues that Godard’s film misses the mark by nearly twenty years because it fails to reconcile a certain loss of material substance.  In Andre’s terms, although wars of the past were concerned with various appropriations (i.e. coming into possession of a people or a specific locale), more contemporary conflicts are predominantly ideological:

 

“In fact, the dropping of atomic weapons upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 changed war from its ancient starting point of appropriation and transformed war into ideological conflicts as demonstrated by the Cold War, the Korean War, the Franco-Indochina War, the Algerian War, the Vietnam War and our current war against terrorism. Although land and materials certainly are a part of the reasoning for wars in general, after 1945 ideology plays a greater role in the reasoning for war. Thus, LES CARABINIERS is an absurdist anti-war film that was already 20 years too late when in it was released in 1963.”

 

Essentially, Andre argues that a more general transformation occurred with regard for the very causality of conflict.  This is to say that although certain material interests or motivations still exist in current contexts, contemporary military expenditures are more ideological.  Though I am interested in this observation, I am not really sure that such an assessment is really warranted.  Quite simply, hasn’t there always been both an invested ideological and material interest in any form of conflict?  Furthermore, why is it that one must read one cause (ideological) as the succinct denial of the other (material)?  Ideology never really excludes the material or materialism.  In fact, one might argue that ideology is intimately connected to the material, even to the extent that ideology actually manifests in and from material(ism).

 

Even on the grounds of Andre’s reasoning with regard to Les Carabiniers, I find his follow through to be a little dissatisfactory.  Here, Andre insists that the film remains ignorant of the general transformation that occurred in 1945.  In his reading, the film operates solely on the ideal of material appropriation.  In essence, the film fails because it ties the purpose for conflict strictly to the material.  For Andre, the goods that are promised to Michel – Ange and Ulysses evidence Godard’s interest in the material as opposed to the ideological.  Though there is room to read that Godard is interested in material pursuits, I don’t know that this actually denies the ideological.  What Andre forgets, even in the midst of his discourse on the issue, is that an image of the possession is quite different than the possession itself.  For further evidence of this one need look no further than Derrida’s Specters of Marx and Echographies of Television and Beller’s The Cinematic Mode of Production.  In Derrida’s terms, the image is a ghost that proves a certain existence.  Here, of course, one would have to read a certain connection between ideology and image.  Of course, in order for Andre’s post to be successful, Andre should have already questioned the relationship between ideology and the physical (trace or not).  In Beller’s terms, everything is a ghost even before the image.  In very Marxist fashion, everything has a price and thus, is already spectral.

 

As may have already become evident, I am criticizing Andre’s analysis on a number of grounds:

 

1). I am not particularly fond of his distinction between wars of material appropriation and wars of ideological conflict.  I’m not even sure that one could argue that such a transformation occurred in 1945 with the dropping of the atomic bomb.  Although I often hear the argument that the bomb “sent a message,” I’m not persuaded that this is the earliest of such moments.    

 

2). the second issue relates to Andre’s attempt to divorce the ideological from the material.  As I stated previously, the ideological is always related to (perhaps even dependent on) the material.  If one wants to read the dropping of the atomic bomb as transformative (esp. ideologically) one would still have to grapple with the very physical processes that occurred during certain developmental stages (i.e. the building and testing of the bomb), at the time of its usage, and the devastating effects that were wrought on the city of Hiroshima for years afterword.  Ideology can only ever manifest from the material.  Of course, the way that Andre phrases his argument encourages me to reconsider Brian Rotman’s formulations concerning mind and body, especially his argument that we misinterpret mind as being divorced from body. 

 

3). Andre read s the postcards as being representative of material appropriation, while disregarding the difference between an object and an image of an object.  Although I think Godard is using the postcard as kind of a gesture towards ridiculousness, I’m still interested in his attentiveness to the image of an object as opposed to the object itself.  Here, I am more interested in reading into the spectral and mediation than Andre’s critique that Godard’s film absences the ideological.  Returning to Baudrillard’s discussion of the Gulf War, one would have to seriously consider what an image of war means as a form of mediation. 

 

More later…

Contempt (part I)

As I stated in class, I’m particularly fascinated with Godard’s Contempt (1963).  Though each of Godard’s films varies greatly in terms of thematic preoccupation and stylistic convention(s), Contempt is the most divergent film that I have encountered thus far.  As Shaviro noted in class, this is largely the result of an increasing level of producer oversight.  In effect, this is the first film for which Godard receives significant financial backing.  Although this might benefit the film on a certain level, in that Godard is ultimately able to shoot in color and widescreen, there are certain ramifications for the production.  One of the most notable implications is that more money generally indicates an increasing number of people that can exert influence on the text.  For example, as Professor Shaviro noted, the beginning scene featuring Brigitte Bardot was eventually added in order to appease the producer. 

 

In a number of ways, one can see that the film’s financial benefactor has a significant impact on the way in which the film diverges from Godard’s other texts.  First, there is room to read that Godard voices a concern for this type of oversight in the film itself, even going as far as casting an American actor to play the filmic counterpart to his real life producer.  Here, one assumes the utterly arrogant, misogynistic, and often idiotic character to be representative of the American producer that Godard is forced to deal with on a regular basis.  Moreover, though the whole film is concerned with this issue, specific scenes are especially self-reflexive.  At the beginning, as the credits are narrated, Godard provides an interesting shot of a filming location.  The first camera frames two men moving another camera down a guiding track, a stage-person holding a boom, and an actress walking across the set.  As the other camera approaches the audience, it suddenly turns to capture the first.  Though there is definitely room to read that Godard is concerned with being caught by various apparatuses of control, this scene is really suggestive of the amount of influence that producers are exerting on the film.

 

Even though one expects that Godard will use the same type of shooting style and experimental conventions as in his other films – a more freely moving hand-held camera – the initial scene is shot from an incredibly static position.  Essentially, the camera rests on top of the very guiding tracks alluded to previously.  Interestingly, as the other camera begins moving, one notices that the shot is being jostled by the guiding tracks.  The steady shot is eventually distorted by the other camera’s movement.  Here, it is interesting to consider whether Godard chose this camera position with this type of movement in mind.  Again, it seems that Godard is referencing the type of control that is exerted on the film.

As I suggested earlier, there is room to read that certain production restraints inhibited Godard from making a film too similar to those that preceded Contempt.  The film, in its entirety, is utterly different from any of those that precede it. As opposed to the open and wide ranging urban experience that we encounter in Breathless, Vivre la Vie, and other texts, we are only ever given privy to the confining interior spaces of the couple’s apartment, the screening room, and dense nature spaces.  In addition, there is very little of the accelerated comedic dialogue and gestures that one encounters in other films.  Instead, conversations are often incredibly serious and drawn out for extended periods of time.  Third, the intertextual references are quite different than those in Godard’s earlier works.  Whereas Godard initially shows interest in the French New Wave by making early references to the work of Truffaut and others, here Godard’s interest seems limited to the character and personality of Fritz Lang.  Though other films are mentioned briefly, the intertextual gesture is not quite as intense.

 

Despite these differences, Godard’s style often comes blaring back into the picture.  This is not to say that Godard’s presence is ever really absent from the filmic space, but rather, that there are slight disjunctions and variations in terms of stylistic patterning. For instance, the scene that transpires at the theatre really stands out in the course of this film.  Here, Contempt becomes particularly reminiscent of Godard’s other texts as he ultimately seems interested in what it means to interrupt discourse, dialogue, and action.  As Paul and Camille move towards the front of the theatre (and the camera correspondingly), they chose to sit down on opposite sides of the aisle.  Camille (played by Brigitte Bardot) immediately sits next to Fritz Lang on the left, thus forcing Paul to sit with the American producer (Jeremy Prokosch) on the right. Although the theatrical performance still continues on stage, the sound and visuals are often interrupted.  Interestingly, as certain rifts begin to occur, the camera starts moving to the right of the room thus capturing the awkward discussion occurring between Jeremy and Paul.  Then, a moment later, the camera strafes left and renders Lang and Camille as they gesture humorously at Jeremy and Paul.  During the entirety of this relatively brief sequence, the camera continues to oscillate from one side of the aisle to the other.

 

Here, as in other portions of the film, it seems that Godard is accentuating the dispute that Paul and Camille are having.  In the scene previous to this, Godard uses a very similar convention, featuring the two at a table in their apartment. As the camera moves from side to side, it seems that the formal conventions accentuate their dispute.  As in other places, Godard seems interested in the nature of conflict.  Instead of constantly assimilating audience and character perspective by using the conventional reverse shot, Godard moves more spatially.  What this means for this text is a thread of discussion that I’ll have to reinitiate a little later.