Jean-Luc Godard considers the cinema as a game to play, and there are no rules. He is surely one who put words into action, and shown us aesthetic, politics, discussion, feelings in his poetic creations. Each on hanging up in the air, a reflection of life itself.
Text: Carmen Lee | Translation: dilettante | Photo Courtesy: Film Programmes Office
THE CRITIC
Godard is born in the 1930s in a well-off family in Paris. Major in anthology in University of Paris, Sorbonne, Godard found himself lingering at film presentations more than often. Befriended with Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut (who later became key figures in the French New Wave movement), Godard started to contribute reviews for Rohmer’s ‘Gazette Du Cinéma’. He also became one of the first writers for ‘Cahiers Du Cinéma’, founded by André Bazin. Appeared as Godard or ‘Hans Lucas’, he stated ‘artistic creation does not mean painting one’s soul in things, but painting the soul of things’, that a film is ‘the expression of lofty sentiments’ (‘Les Amis Du Cinéma’). These, in fact, became the essence of his own work later on.
À BOUT DE SOUFFLE
Godard returned to Switzerland (the place he grew up) in 1954, his debut ‘Opération Béton’ was inspired by his real life experience. The director went on to create ‘Tous Les Garçons S’appellent Patrick’, ‘Une Histoire D’eau’, ‘Charlotte Et Son Jules’ and ‘Une Femme Coquette’. Deeply influenced by Orson Welles’s ‘Touch of Evil’, Godard completed his first featured film with jump cut, American culture, location, Jean Seberg’s breezy short hair and striped boatneck sweater look as elements of this composition. ‘À Bout De Souffle’ went on to become a mile stone in the French New Wave. Truffaut claimed that there is film history ‘before and after Godard’.
ANNA「NANA」
The ‘Anna Karina’ phase counts ‘Vivre Sa Vie: Film En Douze Tableaux’, ‘Une Femme Est Une Femme’, ‘Alphaville, Une Étrange Aventure De Lemmy Caution’, ‘Bande À Part’, ‘Le Petit Soldat’ and ‘Pierrot Le Fou’ as a chapter. The Danish beauty dazzles in Godard’s film, with the experimental elements ─ voiceover, On / Off sound effect, story in chapters, installation set, primary colours composition touching on pop culture and pop art. These films revolutionized detective, dance and sci-fi films, portraying a unique vision. A romantic in his youth, Godard once said Jean-Paul Belmondo was not meant to be in ‘Pierrot Le Fou’ with Karina (who is Godard’s lover at the time), but the pair ‘romantically’ altered the film. As a result, the Lolita-inspired story took a different turn.
DZIGA VERTOV GROUP
Following the female-focus ‘Une Femme Mariée, Suite De Fragments D’un Film Tourné En 1964’ and self-portray ‘Le Mépris’, there was vital shifts in the 1960s French society. The three films made in 1967 ─ ‘2 Ou 3 Choses Que Je Sais D’elle’, ‘La Chinoise’ and ‘Week-End’ are much more political than ‘Masculin Féminin: 15 Faits Précis’ and ‘Made In U.S.A’ completed the year before. Godard stated ‘to describe modern life is to observe mutations’. In his case, that would be the rebuilt of Paris, Vietnam War, rise of capitalism. Formality is the content, the human kind was hit by major depression and moral crisis. Stories became empty, close-up of a coffee represented a void of the universe, Mao book was the new belief. Godard embarked on a philosophical journey in cinema, the Rolling Stone documentary ‘Sympathy for the Devil (One Plus One)’ made provoking with clips on fascism and Hitler. After May 1968, he formed ‘Dziga Vertov Group’ with radical leftist ─ philosopher Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan’s student Jean-Pierre Gorin. The group made a series of anti-capitalism films such as ‘British Sounds’, ‘Tout Va Bien’ and ‘Letter To Jane’, with ‘Lci Et Ailleurs’ as the finale.
NOUVELLE VAGUE
With 1980s as a new era in many sense, Godard never stopped exploring the new world. ‘Je Vous Salue, Marie’ was seen as offensive, as well as the stylized ‘Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)’. Ever so revolutionary, Godard questioned Woody Allen’s work being influenced by TV culture in 1986, his appearance in Wim Wenders documenray ‘Room 666’ insisted the purpose of film being revealing what is unseen otherwise. ‘JLG/JLG – Autoportrait De Décembre’ and ‘Prénom Carmen’ are considered auto-biographical ─ although it is hardly unusual for an artist to do such thing. As Godard’s favourite story by Jorge Luis Borges goes, ‘There was once a man who wanted to create a world: so he began by creating houses, provinces, valleys, rivers, tools, fish, lovers,etc., and at the end of his life, he noticed that this patiently elaborated labyrinth was nothing other than his own portrait.’
The 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF FRENCH NEW WAVE CINEMA
JEAN-LUC GODARD
4 Sept – 29 Nov 2009
FILM PROGRAMMES OFFICE
www.lcsd.gov.hk/fp
INTERVIEW WITH THE CURATOR
LAW WAI-MING
What are your criteria on curating for this film festival? How did you make the connection with the French New Wave 50th anniversary?
The French New Wave began prior to Godard’s films. ‘Les Quatre Cents Coups’, directed by his friend Truffaut won the award in the Cannes Film Festival in May 1959. Godard started shooting his feature film debut ‘À Bout De Souffle’ in September. Therefore 2009 is the 50th anniversary.
We organised a Godard film festival in 2002, but this time we are showing more films (31 in total). Ideally we would like to show a complete set of work, however there are many copies from TV series which are without English subtitles.
We have already worked on subtitles for a few films, but of course there is budget concern. We realised a lot of foreign film archives collect world cinema material. For example, the copy of ‘Je Vous Salue, Marie’ we are showing is borrowed from Taiwan. They even translated their own version of Chinese subtitles.
Which are your favourite Godard films?
‘Une Femme Est Une Femme’, ‘Vivre Sa Vie: Film En Douze Tableaux’, ‘Alphaville, Une Étrange Aventure De Lemmy Caution’, ‘Week-End’, ‘Prénom Carmen’ and ‘Je Vous Salue, Marie’. Also ‘Éloge De L’amour’, which we sadly cannot show this time.
‘Sympathy for the Devil (One Plus One)’, ‘Numéro deux’ and ‘Lci Et Ailleurs’are unusual choices. What is the reason behind them?
There was an interview of Yasser Arafat in ‘Lci Et Ailleurs’. At the time (in 1970s) it was called ‘Jusqu’a La Victoire’ and went into post-production years after its completion. There were clips of a French bourgeoisie family having a barbecue, which is a radical contrast to what the Pakistan people were going through at the time. ‘Numéro deux’ is a domestic story, it was said that Godard made a conscious attempt to get himself back to the mainstream ‘cinema circus’. The producer told him to make the sequel of ‘À Bout De Souffle’ and Godard agreed. But of course it did not turn out that way. ‘Sympathy for the Devil (One Plus One)’ was meant for The Beatles, but they declined on the basis that they had already made two films. To be honest I consider Godard’s films, regardless of periods, are worthy of re-watching; the rare, hard-to-find ones even more so. ‘Lci Et Ailleurs’ reveals how the Western liberal people viewed the Pakistan conflict.
What qualities in Godard’s work do you admire most? Is there anything in his work you disagree with?
More than often we focus on Godard’s innovation. This is a director who can tell a story without shooting around, and by focusing a photograph of a film or a newspaper. Take ‘Letter to Jane’ as an example, Jane Fonda went to visit North Vietnam during the war and was considered unfaithful to her own country. Godard made a film based on these photographs published in the newspaper. His innovation is nothing like others. He did not focus on composition, the placement of the camera or the editing. It was about the format of discussion, and a critical way to express his views on a subject. Even when he tried to remake something, he would fundamentally question the reason behind remaking something, what he would want to achieve, rather than just reshooting the same story.
Godard switched to a discussion-like approach in his later days, especially the ‘Epic Theatre’ technique of Bertolt Brecht when someone would come out and say something random. This makes it interesting. I am not sure about some of the more theatrical approach in his work. Sometimes he adopts a somewhat relaxed approach to composition and cinematography.
There are a lot of quotes and symbols in Godard’s films. How would you advise the audience to understand his work?
Very few directors make a point to be critical, therefore many see Godard as a philosopher, theoretician or analyst. As a director, however, one can never express an in-depth meaning as well as a philosopher does. It was said that Godard had a discussion with a few contemporary philosophers and shown them his films. The philosophers said to him ‘you really are quite an aesthetic expert!’ and he took it very hard. Even geniuses are affected by the surrounding and certain trends of their time. Godard was keen to express his feelings on new theories, for example. The French philosophy tends to treat everything as a symbol, so Godard was dealing with these symbols in his films. In a way, those words, compositions and visuals are symbols which he put together to form a message. His most abstract attempt is to ask the actors to be themselves. For example, Jean Pierre Melville and Fritz Lang are also directors in ‘Le Mépris’; Jane Fonda is also an activist in ‘Tout Va Bien’ ─ Godard introduced her in a way that a police would shoot a criminal, with a front and a profile shot. These ‘symbols’, however, can be confusing.
There are books on Godard which we can refer to. The director himself admitted that ‘À Bout De Souffle’ was inspired by American director Otto Preminger, the little habits of the main character (Jean-Paul Belmondo) meant to resemble Humphrey Bogart. In order to understand the films he made on religious, one has to have certain understanding of the Bible.
Godard once said that ‘the cinema is truth twenty-four times per second’ and at the same time ‘the most beautiful fraud in the world’. What is your understanding on these statements?
Godard is affected by many people, such as director Jean Rouch. The ‘truth’ he refers to, I believe, is not necessarily the theme, but the expression captured in each frame. I think he wanted to say that each artistic gesture needs to be well considered, and one must be true to oneself to make a powerful work. At the time philosophy was focusing on how pop culture is numbing the public. Therefore film, to Godard, is also the most beautiful fraud ─ because it is a world he created for the audience.
Godard expresses a lot of ‘truth’ ─ for example, that tracking shot is related to morality! Of course young people would be attracted to the new, and Godard was the first generation to be influenced by American culture. He never kept these secrets, openly stating his inspirations, like Jean-Paul Belmondo resembling Humphrey Bogart for example. It seems to me that he is also a willing devotee to these ‘most beautiful frauds’! Even more symbolic may be, is that he was attracted to Anna Karina when he saw her in the Lux advertisement. Godard went to America on numerous occasions, interviewed Woody Allen, lectured, went to Cuba, helped Anna Karina on castings with Gene Kelly on a dance film (which did not get anywhere in the end).
Gilles Deleuze is quoted to say ‘Godard had exceeded and deeply influenced all people, not through success but by continuing his unique way, a forcibly invisible line, constantly broken, bent, and underground.’ In what way do you think Godard has influenced the world?
Firstly it is vital that Godard revolutionsed the way one could tell a story. Bernardo Bertolucci made a ‘Godard’ kind of film, and it is the same with the British New Wave directors who worked as film critics before. The French New Wave affected not just the aesthetic, but the mentality of the youth. The fact that Truffaut (who was a scamp) and Godard (who used to skip classes to watch films) went on to become great auteurs is an encouraging message to send to young people.
What would you say to Godard if you can meet him in person?
I once spoke to him on the phone in 1986, to invite him to the film festival. (Sadly he was too busy to attend in the end). Now he is eighty years old, but apparently he went to collect an award in Japan. If I got to meet him in person, I would like to greet him properly. Perhaps invite him to give us a lecture. The University of Montreal, Canada organised a lecture by Godard, which was also published as books. He shown a collection of American films and his own, and talked ─ not necessarily on the films. He has a dialectic way of thinking, meaning he would give a positive example, a negative one, and then extend a new thought based on both.
LAW WAI-MING
Law worked as the program coordinator of Hong Kong International Film Festival, TV Film Director of Radio Station Hong Kong, Film Curator For Leisure and Cultural Services Department of Hong Kong as well as Chief Editor at Film Biweekly (City Entertainment). He started working as Chief Research Officer at Hong Kong Film Archive in 2002, and curated programmes on Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, F.W. Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Shuji Terayama and Andrei Tarkovsky since then.
