French New Wave Mini-List Discussion + Suggestions

[knives]

I was wondering about that since many of the summaries I've seen on the Internet make reference to a twenty minute doc. It would be a killer extra to a more full edition if anyone were interested. It also fits well with the (very relevant) theme of the film which is perhaps the most strongly expressed. That of the allure of the city causing friction with the rural. In that way the film seems well complimented by Rohmer's later Mediatheque film.

Also I still would love to see Godard's version of the film, but I don't think I'll ever be that insane.

[Michael Kerpan]

I assume B&B isn't available for streaming.

[domino harvey]

I don't believe so. Blaq Out put it out via subtitled NTSC region free disc that Facets released stateside (they had nothing to do with it other than that, though, thank God)

EDIT: It's on YouTube without subs...

[Michael Kerpan]

The BlaqOut set (R2, I assume), when bought directly from BlaqOut, is much cheaper than the Facets one....

[domino harvey]

It's R0 NTSC, actually-- the exact same discs/packaging. Good box set, definitely worth it (I'm sure I paid well over $100 for it when it first came out)

[tenia]

Except that it came out 10 years too early.

The movie was however considered as some kind of a blueprint for NV movies, so much that when Melville ended up being dubbed the godfather of NV, he publicly refused it, stating he refused to be given so many "children".

[alacal2]

Any reason why ''Le Samourai" isn't on the Resource List? It's 1967.

[domino harvey]

An error, it should be. I'll add it in when I get a chance

[Rayon Vert]

À bout de souffle (Breathless) (Godard 60). Qu’est-ce que c’est ‘dégueulasse’? I gather it’s hard, unless you’re coming at it with an understanding of its place in cinematic history (not a worry for this forum, of course), to appreciate how revolutionary this film was: jump cuts, documentary-like shooting of exteriors, radical tonal changes, an orgy of cinephilic references & in-your-face self-reflexivity, breaking of the fourth wall. Then there are those equally groundbreaking, extremely long “domestic” scenes of characters in at once offbeat and banal conversation. But despite all that, I only get so much mileage out of this film. Godard has often seemed to make movies out of not much of a narrative idea to begin with, but for me there’s not really enough here to compensate for that relative poverty of content – unless you want to really make a lot out of the undertones of existentialism and the start of that Godardian constant of characters philosophizing about thought, language, identity, etc. etc.

It definitely possesses a vibrancy, the score is really memorable and I like the start and finish, but on the whole it feels like a pleasurable but fairly empty experience. (Please don’t hate me domino.) The fact that Michel is such a cartoonish character probably also has something to do with this.


Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier) (Godard 60/63). A fine little film I enjoy in part for its deliberately monotonous grey atmosphere, photography and serious-yet-philosophically-playful tone. Godard tackles the then-taboo subject of the Algerian War and the ongoing terrorism and torture on both sides, as it takes place between agents in Switzerland. Bruno Forestier happens to be on the right while his new girlfriend, Véronica Dreyer (Anna Karina), is on the left, but that’s beside the point – he’s really an existential hero. And perhaps a postmodern one, as central preoccupations of what’s inside vs. outside, what lies behind the human face, how to capture thought and identity, reoccur in much the same way as in À bout de souffle.

The two films are strikingly different in tone and style but there are many parallels. This film’s radical aspect is more its content but its style is still far from conventional, from the lighting to the swish pans to the frequent removal of all sound save for what’s essential to the continued philosophical discussions between the characters. Once again we have a French-speaking female lead with an accent, as the film notes, and the scenes in the apartment between her and Forestier, including visits to the bathroom and looking in the mirror, remind one of the previous film. There are also constant references to literary works, art, often in the form of citations, and more subtle but reoccurring self-reflexive moments, like the strange mentioning of the cinematographer Raoul Coutard. Not a major work, but beautiful and absorbing nevertheless.

Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) (Truffaut 59). This definitely is not yet the New Wave of Godard or Truffaut’s next feature – there are no abrupt changes of tone and digressions, jump cuts, etc. It’s more like Truffaut importing neo-realism into France, which at that point was revolutionary and cleared the cobwebs of France’s stuffy and stilted film industry customs: truthful, socially realistic storytelling, untrained and natural acting, the tons of exterior shooting in Paris, the cinematic references, the unresolved ending. In this semi-autobiographical film, Truffaut doesn’t judge, he just lovingly follows what happens to 12-year-old Antoine Doinel as he gets into trouble at school and tries to manage life with his only occasionally seeming to care working-class mother and stepfather. The first half of the film, starting with the opening shots of Paris and then Antoine’s life at home and at school, has a lot of charm and some scenes are quite delightful. The second half, as things get tougher for Antoine and his parents (at times incomprehensibly) get quite hard with him, drags at some points,

SpoilerShow

although the escape from the delinquency school ending is very memorable.

Over time, however, I’ve grown to like this one a little less each time out. A little too sentimental maybe, or cute at times – even if that sequence of kids reacting to the puppet show is effective. I find myself not caring all that much for Antoine, except in the last sequence where I’m really rooting for his “escape from society”. Perhaps I would like it better if it would have been a bit tougher, i.e. truer to the facts of Truffaut’s own upbringing.

Just a note on the English title: “faire les quatre cents coups” is an expression where “coups” means “tricks” (as in doing them), not “blows” (as in receiving them), so that overall it means something like “raising hell”. So that “the 400 Blows” makes it sound like the film implies Antoine is at the mercy of society's “400 blows”, which surely is an unbalanced characterization of the film’s spirit.


La Mariée était en noir (The Bride Wore Black) (Truffaut 68). A gender-reversed Hitchcock homage with, fittingly, Bernard Hermann on board. A cold and clinical piece in a phase in Truffaut’s career where he was experimenting a lot, but that is nevertheless often visually arresting, with a few well-designed sequences that are fun to watch. The pleasures are mostly limited to aesthetics though: once we figure out what the protagonist is doing, even though we don’t know yet why, the rest of the narrative is a bit mechanical, and not really suspenseful. The sequences are also uneven in interest, with the best realized being the middle one involving Michel Lonsdale and the boy. (With points to the last sequence for the virginal Diana The Huntress symbolism, and its use of paintings). It seems like the central conceit of the film is somewhat thin to hang the whole film on – something I sometimes feel with some of the Bunuel films. If there’s a real (minor) interest, it’s really how this film plays up the recurrent, personal theme of obsessional love in Truffaut’s work – not only what drives the Moreau character, but the attitudes depicted in the men, either idealizing or fetishistically-collecting and comparing women (with a foreshadowing of The Man Who Loved Women in the Charles Denner sequence).

[knives]

I might actually vote for The Little Soldier which I totally recognize makes me a crazy person. It feels like Godard striking Breathless (well I guess really Moi, un noir) again merely changing the genre and seeing where that takes him. It's almost like Hong Sang Soo in how little changes affects the whole. Some of it is a change in technique, but largely it seems like Godard curious about how war can make audiences angry at art. That's more than a little childish on his part, but with the exception of Contempt and maybe Alphaville Godard in this period seems solely curious in audience reaction.

[domino harvey]

Rayon Vert, I think in À bout de souffle the shallowness (which is to say the "unimportant") is made important and thus is a vital component of the film's success. I won't argue against saying that there's no "there" there narratively, but I believe that to be the point and instead of limiting the scope and impact of the film, it expands it greatly

[Never Cursed]

While I won't quite be able to make a list of ten to contribute here, I've resolved to watch as many of the related titles as I can. This led to much confusion in my house earlier today, when my visiting and visually impaired father remarked that he didn't understand my interest in the renowned boulangerie classic About The Soufflé.

[domino harvey]

When viewed as a Babette's Feast prequel, the film makes... well, not more sense

[Rayon Vert]

Rayon Vert, I think in À bout de souffle the shallowness (which is to say the "unimportant") is made important and thus is a vital component of the film's success. I won't argue against saying that there's no "there" there narratively, but I believe that to be the point and instead of limiting the scope and impact of the film, it expands it greatly

Thanks for the comment. I guess I'd have to hear a longer argument establishing this case (e.g. how is the shallowness made important?), but I doubt reading such an analysis (though I could be wrong here) would significantly alter my experience of the film itself. I do like the film, it's just that there are many other JLGs I admire and enjoy more (and many I admire and especially enjoy less!).

[domino harvey]

I will definitely try to write something more substantial along those lines! I will say that my first paper ever on the New Wave was analyzing mirror shots, and it's one of those things you can't help but notice once you start looking for it in these films: the self-absorbed shallowness of looking at oneself in the mirror occurs in virtually every New Wave film. It's easy to recall in À bout de souffle, but it's a reoccurring motif in nearly all of these movies, and one that highlights the youthful self-indulgence of their subjects (even in films where the subject doesn't meet that qualifier, they still arguably reflect the filmmaker)

[Satori]

This talk of mirror shots has inspired me to rewatch my personal fav, Cléo from 5 to 7, which effectively incorporates mirrors into the narrative structure.

The mirrors start immediately after the tarot reading: there is one in the psychic’s office and multiple mirrors at the bottom of the stairs. The latter is particularly interesting because the mirrors on both sides of the hallway produce a mise-en-abyme effect in which images of Cléo proliferate. As Cléo stares into the mirror, she tells herself that she looks beautiful, signaling Varda’s interest in interrogating both Cléo’s exterior presentation and her internal subjectivity. While the mirror signals her exterior presentation, the voice-over allows for her own thoughts and desires. The next mirror shot happens almost immediately, when Cléo meets Angèle at the café. Cléo stands up to look at herself again, but a line in the glass bisects her face, figuring her concern with bodily decay.

When she goes to buy a hat, the department store is a veritable hall of mirrors, reflecting both Cléo as well as the street scenes outside. This is one of my favorite sequences in the film. First, the film really starts working through the relationship between Cléo’s obsession with her own image and Varda’s interest in interrogating filmic representations of women in general. She is buying a hat—part of the film’s wardrobe—and is framed in glamorous close-ups. Yet this is not only a simple critique of the male gaze or beauty standards. Like the scenes with her and Angèle in the apartment later, the film also emphasizes Cléo’s own pleasure in her appearance, something that we shouldn’t just reduce to mere shallowness. Once again Varda is thinking through Cléo both as a constructed image—even a filmic image—and as a subjective identity.

This “doubled” focus on both the interior and exterior then becomes literalized in the mise-en-scene of the hat shop scene. The camera slowly tracks from right to left outside of the store, capturing both the inside of the store and the reflections of the pedestrians walking by outside. This incredible image reminds me of mid-century photography from the “New York School” movement. In particular, Lisette Model’s series “Reflections,” which juxtaposes the inside of department stores with the outside as reflected by the shop windows. Just like in Cléo, Model’s series suggests self-reflexivity: several photos in the series feature shop mannequins overlaid with the reflections of real people on the outside. The boundaries between the real and the artificial become blurred, putting the focus instead on the act of representation. I think something similar is going on in much of Varda’s work, which often mixes the artificial with the documentary. Her intriguing first film La Pointe Courte sets up this dichotomy, alternating between the fictional narrative and the quasi-documentary footage of the villagers.

While the first half of the film repeatedly gestures toward Cléo’s interiority, the main focus is indeed on her exterior image, often figured in the frame through mirrors. After the long sequence in her apartment that culminates in her ripping off her wig and storming outside alone, the film’s focus flips. After briefly checking her appearance in a shop window below, the mirrors suddenly vanish from the mise-en-scene. Instead, Varda introduces narrative devices to capture Cléo’s subjectivity. When she walks into a café, we cut a point of view tracking shot as she observes the patrons. Later, the film uses flashbacks to suggest Cléo’s internal thoughts, cutting in images of the café patrons, the street performer eating the frog, and the psychic with Cléo’s observations of the street.

This shift makes its way into the mise-en-scene when Cléo sees a pair of broken mirrors: the pocket mirror that breaks when she drops her handbag and the smashed shop window. After she meets Antoine, I don’t think there is a single mirror for the rest of the film.

Cléo’s journey in the film is in part a journey toward a greater interiority. Or, perhaps more precisely, Varda’s film is a journey from an interrogation of how women are represented in film to strategies that would give expression to women’s interior desires and subjectivity.

[domino harvey]

While I don't hold Varda in anywhere near the esteem she garners from many others, Cleo 5 to 7 is a good film and a great choice to explore the mirror motif of the New Wave (though it was also one of the films I focused on too, so of course I'd say that). Nice thoughts!

[bottled spider]

Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) (Truffaut 59).
...Over time, however, I’ve grown to like this one a little less each time out. A little too sentimental maybe, or cute at times – even if that sequence of kids reacting to the puppet show is effective. I find myself not caring all that much for Antoine, except in the last sequence where I’m really rooting for his “escape from society”. Perhaps I would like it better if it would have been a bit tougher, i.e. truer to the facts of Truffaut’s own upbringing.

I could imagine Truffaut remonstrating that the idiosyncratic mix of grit and whimsy, and a less than sympathetic protagonist, are what make it a modern film, and a Truffaut film, and that he wasn't making Oliver Twist. But I have the same reaction to the film as you do. I was wowed by it the first couple times I saw it, and then rather dissatisfied on third or fourth viewing, when I wished for a shorter, bleaker film, subtracted of cuteness. Yet it remains a masterpiece for its iconic moments, whether I enjoy its totality or not.

[Rayon Vert]

Alphaville (Godard 65). Clever and stylish, with Godard continuing his investigation of personally resonant themes in the guise of this B-genre mashup (sci-fi & noir spy thriller). The use of montage, choice locations and lighting to evoke this futuristic world is successful, but the film itself I find a bit unexciting and too restrained – and I feel it it could have been more than it is. Although it gets progressively better as it goes along.



Une femme mariée (Godard 64). I really like this one. There were such elements in previous Godard films (I’m thinking of Vivre sa vie, notably), but this is really the first one that’s kind of an anthropological study/essay, in addition to being a narrative film about a romantic triangle and another opportunity for Godard to further his exploration of the cinematic medium. Both in those general terms, and more specifically in terms of the specific thematic dissection of how intimacy, sex and the human body become commodified through the media, it foreshadows Masculin féminin 3 films and 18 months later (and other later films like 2 or 3 Things). That detached, quasi-scientific perspective (perhaps inspired by structuralism, then quite in vogue?) comes across, in addition to all those shots of fashion magazines and ads, in that constant visual découpage of the human body into separate units, in how we hear a recurring stream of Charlotte’s thoughts – all out of context, and therefore stripped of their meaning – and for example in that scene where Charlotte puts on a long-playing record of a woman laughing, where again a human activity is detached from its lived subjective context and observed in a distanced way. And also there are those scenes of characters talking as if interviewed (along with a couple of philosophizing intellectuals – the filmmaker and the doctor/scientist) that also prefigure MF.

At the same time, there’s something really modernist and beautiful in all those sculpture-like visual scenes of the (more often than not female) human body – I have a hard time thinking of another film that features the human body as much. There’s a kind of classical feeling (to some degree) in how some of those scenes are framed – frequently fairly still and denuded. There are lots of appealing scenes – that long tracking shot of a conversation between Charlotte and her pilot husband coming home, the swimmers in inverted black-and-white, Charlotte and her husband running around two rooms –, even though, because of those different narrative and meta perspectives, the film feels somewhat fragmented (“succession of fragments of a film shot in 1964” is the subtitle).

In the critique of the consumerist age, there is also another theme that will stay with Godard, and come up strongly in his later decades (and that Brody for one has expounded upon a lot in his bio), which is the forgetting of the past and of history which is created by these social developments, with specific troubling references to the forgetting of Auschwitz and the Nazi concentration camps.


Le Signe du lion (Rohmer 59/62). Another film I like quite a bit. I agree with most of what domino said. It is quite different from Rohmer’s subsequent films (starting with that 1.66 frame – that feels also unnatural when viewing Rohmer retrospectively!), it’s a remarkable film when it comes to the location shooting, and domino does make a good point about the distance that’s maintained with the lead character. That didn’t stop me from thinking about Bicycle Thieves when we watch that long bit in the film where Wasserlin suffers humiliation upon humiliation, and contrary to domino I really don't mind the length here – and the distance isn’t so great that we don’t have empathy for the character. But when the clownish tramp shows up, the film really takes a strange change of tone, as abrupt as the initial change when we go from that somewhat typical, light New Wave beginning to a quasi-De Sica universe. In this second shift, though, with the burlesque humour, it’s like suddenly we’re in a 50s Fellini film (with shades of Renoir’s Boudu throughout as well, including all those Seine shots) (Murnau’s The Last Laugh comes to mind too - the loss of status, humiliations, the money inheritance).

I never understood if there was a deep significance to the Leo theme. That last cosmic shot is surely intended to be one of the Leo constellation, and much is made of Wasserlin’s leonine pride and conquering spirit when he wins the inheritance, and we then witness how that stubborn spirit gets beaten down – there are repeated shots of him banging rock & cement walls, expressing contempt at Paris, and where he seems to be in some kind of metaphysical showdown with the city itself.



Jules et Jim (Truffaut 62). I have a complicated relationship with this film. Seeing it again, I truly feel I see why it’s so beloved by so many, and held in such high esteem for its cinematic qualities. The reasons why it isn’t among very favourite Truffauts (even though I’m still ranking it fairly high) are idiosyncratic, hard-to-define reactions. The very light comedic tone in the beginning is probably one of the reasons – a tone and manic rhythm which definitely changes as the film progresses. And then there are moments in the tortuous Catherine and Jim relationship towards the end that I find a bit long. But this viewing really made those more « objective » qualities, as oppose to my more subjective reactions, stand out more. This really is an incredible work from the standpoint of style, invention, photography, camera framings and movements, and editing. And Moreau’s performance is outstanding. There are truly many moments that feel completely enchanted and magical, including that brilliant and memorable « Le Tourbillon » song sequence.

[knives]

La chamade
Catherine Deneuve is married to Michel Piccoli and other men are around. Predictable actions ensue. This is pretty dull with its most notable element being that Piccoli is playing the film like he's in a Chabrol film which would be a little more interesting than Deveuve's sex life.

Vice and Virtue
I think de Sade's title is supposed to be a sex reference based on the gender of the articles, but I also don't think Vadim was smart enough to catch that possibility. This is easily the best thing I've seen from him which is to say it has a merit. The film probably works a lot better in still frames as the base mis-en-scene is very pleasing, but the overall aesthetic is as leaden as ever with some sense of Vadim's incompetence still afoot. Though I should emphasize again this is the least incompetent thing I've seen from Vadim. He's also really bad at melodrama though that is seemingly the only mode of storytelling he knew. For whatever reason he seems to equate seriousness with leadness taking away all expressivity from the actors which actually makes the film hilarious. The torture scene for example is shown in a style like a sleepwalker, but the music is this loud, emotional piece that makes a humorous clash of tones. I could go on since I haven't even acknowledged Deneuve's horrible section, but basically all there is to say is to watch Salo instead.

Cette nuit la...
Another New Wave film, another party scene that takes up too much time though without Deneuve. The film is pretty conservative and generic on the whole making it a surprise as one of Kubrick's favorites, but it features at least a few really intriguing elements. Perhaps the most compelling to me is how it works in tandem with Elevator to the Gallows. Given the production histories of both I doubt this was intentional (though both star the same actor in basically the same role), but Maurice Cazeneuve's idea of a work place noir allowing for domestic drama to unfold seems equally in critique of Malle and an expansion of his ideas. This primarily works from the long prologue (about half the film) which goes out its way to very explicitly explain why such a character is stupid which actually made the later sympathy for him somewhat surprising.

There's also some fun Lost Highway type games being played. Hubert Noel's villain is an absolute sleeze in that effete sort of way Hitchcock villains were which lifts the scenes with him to a genuine masterpiece. That also overall helps deliver an effectively American feel to the whole enterprise. This doesn't make the movie a great one (though I could see some loving it), but it's still better than most of the plotless and artless slogs I've seen in the recent weeks.

Apparently Cazeneuve went into television soon after this with an adaptation of Nana seeming to be his most popular film there.

[movielocke]

The Directed by Godard theme on filmstruck inspired me to do a weary marathon, filling in gaps at the moment, in the future circling back after the unseen are seen to revisit the canonical films I watched a decade or more ago. Given that I didn't like (loathed might be a more accurate description) Godard as a teen nor in my early twenties, overall, it is unsurprising I don't particularly like him now either. On the other hand the mellowness of middle age makes me less reflexively dismissive of something I don't like and more appreciative of all the things done well in these films. For the most part, Godard reminds me of Lena Dunham, excellent filmmaking technique and dialogue but nothing but horrible, miserable, asshole, awful people on screen. To be fair, I have laughed once at a "joke" in a godard film: the line from Weekend, "are you in a film or in reality.. &c".

Charlotte and Her Boyfriend has a great punchline, but an awful lot of misogyny leading up to it with the nonstop monologuing, it's almost humorous if it weren't so vile.

A History of Water is an interesting commercial exploitation of natural disaster, starting off seemingly in a bunuelian absurdist bent and eventually turning into a 'love' story at some point.

All the Boys are Called Patrick is probably the best of the short films as Godard romanticizes sexual harrassment and predatory behavior of a creepy pickup artist (and just to make it more misogynist has the women rationalize and condone the behavior when talking amongst themselves). At least the film ends with revelation rather than something more repugnant.

A Woman is a Woman While I didn't love it straight-away, it's playful and that quality makes it relatively enjoyable from beginning to end. Like most Godard films the film is onanistic in reassuring himself about his own privileged auteur status (and such a rebel! (such a genius!)) which is fine I suppose.

Alphaville is surprising, probably my favorite Godard film thus far, staying straight within the B detective mileau (but blending/blowing it up into sci-fi dystopia) somehow makes everything work better. Perhaps because godard's perspective is so wildly apart from reality (looking up your own bum will certainly skew perspectives), when he's in a contemporaneous mileau it always rings false (for me).

Masculin Feminine meh, even Jeanne Pierre Leaud can't save this crap, but it is wonderfully shot, the camerawork is consistently impressive.

WeekEnd Absurdism ala Bunuel, the film continually tops itself with new extremist jumps and asides. I start liking Godard more as he devolves into a more political/philosophical extremism. But hey, did you know you're watching a film? I bet nobody in the theatre knew they were actually watching a film! Let's remind them! Damn that's so radical! Get woke, yo!

the above is full of what I think of as good-natured snark, but overall, I like Godard more than when I started this last week. very few of his films will make my list, but I'm actually looking forward to revisiting the films I disdained a decade or more ago.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

L’Oeil du Malin Chabrol 1962

It is perhaps its lack of exposure in non-francophone countries that has resulted in Chabrol’s first intense intrusion into the bourgeois home slipping through the net of critical acclaim.
It is in fact a worthy candidate for entry into the ‘Helene cycle’ which would become the cornerstone of his late 60’s - ‘early 70’s dissection of the rapacity, cruelty and dissolution of bourgeois life. Not least in that Stephane Audran plays Helene, the object of desire and femme infidele of successful and esteemed German author Andreas
The film is dominated by the narration and totally subjective in the shape of a young mediocre writer / reporter who is similarly named André which couples him to the author whose position he wishes to usurp.
Initially it appears that we maybe being played as the victim of an unreliable source since his credentials are bogus. He has lied about his ability to speak German which has landed him the assignment of reporting on everyday life in a small Southern German town. Furthermore he goes under the pseudonym/pen-name of Albin.

Chabrol has spoken about being drawn to intrigue within the bourgeois family not only because of his familiarity with the milieu but of his intention of preferring to look at a small world under a bell-jar with a microscope rather than at the world through a telescope. Using Albin /André as his instrument he insinuates himself into the life of Helene and Andreas which appears idyllic, their relationship seemingly loving and mutually respectful .

Floundering in his alien environment Albin is rescued by french speaking Helene whilst shopping. Obviously attracted to her he is equally as infatuated with her household within a large stone walled mansion. He talks repeatedly of ‘penetrating ‘ the fortress in all of its connotations, the building, the marriage and naturally Helene herself.
Chabrol painstakingly films his progress stage by stage from peering through the grilles and cavities of the boundaries through to full-blown social acceptance into the bosom of the family.
Jealousy prevails urging Albin to dethrone the King and claim the Queen which erupts into full blown mania when he is humiliated by not admitting to his inability to swim during a boat party.
The quest for some form of incriminating evidence against Helene to unsettle Andreas leads to him stalking her with long lensed camera on her solo excursions into the nearby city. The immediacy of this footage is far more in line with NV norms of hand held camera amongst bustling streets and beer-fests and although probably determined by the low budget constraints works well in its stark contrast to the measured tones and compositions of the interiors.
The outcome of all these shenanigans is up there with top-notch Chabrol and not wishing to betray the plot any further I’ll leave it up to anyone else wishing to investigate to contrast and compare with his later work. However it is worth noting perhaps that one very bold move that he doesn’t to my knowledge re-create is the intensity of the narration and importantly how although totally framed within the contemporaneous action is related in the past tense, so that finally it seems that his mythic destiny compels him to forever tell the same story over and over again.

[Rayon Vert]

Les Carabiniers (Godard 63). In an imaginary space and time, two idiots are brought into the service of the king’s army by the promise that they can acquire basically everything in the world they conquer. War here is completely nihilistic, consisting mostly of executions and pillage. Godard’s 5th feature is a radical, deliberately amateurish anti-war satire with non actors that in the incredibly heavy Brechtian distancing foreshadows how he uses characters in much later films like Weekend – both blacker-than-black comedies that have a lot in common.

Brilliant or complete crap? I’m saying a bit of both, with the balance tilting towards the latter. An entertaining intellectual folly at times, but it’s basically a gag that gets stretched out thin and in the end a bit dull. There’s a scene where said idiots are back home with their female partners, and showing their loot, which consists of pictures of everything they’ve come across and are supposed to “get” after the war is over (antique monuments, department stores, animals, etc. etc.), and the scene just goes on and on and on. The film also looks like it was made on a budget of $500. I’d be interested to see it on a blu-ray, though, to see how much of the poor visual quality reflects the Wellspring DVD transfer rather than the original print.


Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut 66). Truffaut en anglais et en couleur! Truffaut’s Hitchcock book came out around this time and this film captures a lot of the famous director’s flavor. The strongly visual and “cinematic” nature of the movie, the color scheme (strong and striking forms and saturated colors, recalling the red-and-yellow scheme of Marnie mostly), the visual motifs (Montag’s Vertigo-like dream sequence, complete with a zoom-in track-out shot, though that had previously been used on the statue in Jules et Jim), even a score by Bernard Herrmann himself (although this certainly isn’t the best Herrmann score, though it’s strongly reminiscent of his Hitch work – there were scenes, like following the fire truck down the road, where I wondered if a more low-key, abstract and ominous score would have been more effective in rendering a sense of bleak, state-controlled society). It’s a compelling movie visually, including the well-chosen location shots and how they are used and decorated (this futuristic England is a bit of a precursor in some ways to Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange five years later).

It’s also a book lovers’ movie and quite fitting for Truffaut, whose love of books is apparent through most of his films. The scenes involving books and the loving way in which they are shot are quite engaging. The choices of books are also often telling, for example the identity-less Montag choosing to first read David Copperfield (“I was born”) at the moment he is about to differentiate himself in this society that forces conformity, and the scene where the woman who decides to get burned among her books rather than be separated by them follows a shot of a Joan of Arc book just a few moments previously. As Annette Insdorf notes in her celebrated study of Truffaut, there is also an ambiguity that adds another layer to the film’s overt message. Many of the points that the fireman captain brings up do have some, however partial, merit, and one can’t help wonder if Truffaut the book & cinema recluse didn’t choose to make this film because he delighted in the irony or saw it as a bit of self-criticism in the way the book lovers “choose” books over people the way Montag refuses to choose his wife over his books and get criticized for it.

My fondness for this film was greater in initial viewings, but since then its faults balance out its qualities. It’s really a cinephile’s film for the reasons I've enumerated, because on the level of narrative (as it’s directed) it’s somewhat lifeless and we never become strongly emotionally engaged with the content – even in potentially and relatively more moving sequences like the ending with the wonderful conceit of the Book People.

[knives]

Be Seeing You & Class of Struggle
Just as a heads up only the first of these is eligible for the list, but it seems impossible to discuss one without the other. The great enjoyment I got from this, I feel, is more a sign of my growth as a viewer than anything else. I'd probably take this today more than Marker's more stylish Sans Soleil type films which wasn't the case all those years ago when I watched The Sixth Side of the Pentagon and failed to appreciate what it was due to a lack of flash (I actually rewatched as a result and it will definitely be making my shorts list). That's a rather egotistical take on the film though and since this is such a great expression of Marker's humanistic tendencies it would be hypocritical to praise the film in just that way.

On the surface the film doesn't do much out of the ordinary especially for its time and place. There is a lot here comparable to Rouch and post '68 Godard. It is in the small differences that Marker makes his humanity clear. There's a real clear voice to the workers with a lot of their interests coming to the fore. For example there is nothing anywhere in the rest of Marker that makes me think he cares in the least about any part of theology, but the opening ten or so minutes discuss with a heavy emphasis the importance on being able to go on strike and also attend mass. These are the issues that are informing the workers in this specific place and time whether Marker would like something else. Religion pops up time and again in a way Marker can't erase, such as the protest signs, and he seems okay having this be their film to whatever extent such a thing could be a reality. There's nothing here like Godard's worst film, made around the same time, A Film Like the Others. Even with this in mind, and what I am about to say technically goes outside the frame of the film, Marker got the common criticisms about his failure to represent reality and the hypocrisy of making a socialist film in such a non-communal way. Quite understandably Marker could have ignored or shrugged off such critique, as Rouch seems to have, but it is a question that seems to have really touched him leading to the sequel film on the same disc.

The follow up is a film that is far louder and significantly different from this first, but which at least aims to take in the criticism that lead to its creation. This again isn't completely unique a film. Dziga Vertov group was based on the same idea and Joshua Oppenheimer's gawking geek show of a film The Globalization Tapes works from the same basic premise as does a few of Rouch's films, but whereas Oppenheimer just comes across as an ironic sneer and Rouch seems to be experimenting for himself Class of Struggle plays out sincerely towards its goal of a communal cinema. This isn't to say the film entirely succeeds as such, but the sincerity of the effort seems more relevant in light of Marker as an artist still evolving this late into his career.

Come Dance With Me!
"It may seem silly to you, but I have never cheated on my wife." I knew I was in trouble as soon as Gerard Oury's name flashed on screen, but I didn't bother to heed the warning that this would be a lukewarm almost comedy. Finally in general I'm a fan of Bardot and think she could act with the best of them, but whatever she is doing in this Scooby Doo mess is not a good performance.

The Naughty Girl
Wash, rinse and repeat what I just said though replacing Oury with Vadim and all the assumptions that go with each. This is basically just a redeux of And God Created Woman with slightly more narrative sense.

[Lowry_Sam]

If we're considering literary adaptations like Sundays and Cybele, I'd like to petition for the inclusion of Jean Delannoy's Les amitiés particulières [That Special Friendship]. While the bulk of his career may have prefigured the new wave, Les amitiés particulières fits in quite well with films like The 400 blows. Despite his dismissals of Delannoy's early work, Truffaut would have a difficult time arguing why The 400 blows (or Sundays and Cybele) are qualitatively better/newer than Les amitiés particulières and some have argued for its inclusion. It would certainly figure toward the top of my list. Given how few gay-themed films there are before the 70s, it was certainly quite radical for its time (and the age gap makes it probably even more so today).