In what concerns my relationship with Jean – Luc Godard, it happened pretty late, long after I’ve watched movies from authors like Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, or Bergman. I was already studying film and Godard showed up one rainy afternoon, with his sequences of playing pool from Vivre sa vie, the absurd conversation between Anna Karina and Jean Paul Belmondo from Pierrot le fou, the dance of the two guys and this girl from Bande a part and the pan shots and monologues from his self – portrait JLG – Autoportrait d’hiver. The movie represents a search for truth, whenever a movie can be considered honest, it lacks the linearity, but it certainly doesn’t lack a concept concerning this idea: realism is the essence of cinema, but movies have to start with a start, and have a middle and an end, but not necessarily in this order.
Even though Patrick, the liar seductive high school kid from Tous les garcons s’appellent Patrick, was conceived by Eric Rohmer, and Michael Poiccard – by Francois Truffaut, these characters obviously appear as characters belonging to Godard. Patrick, tha character interpreted by Jean – Claude Briary is an endless garrulous, who picks up girls in the garden of Luxembourg. He’s a film fan ( he mentions Mizouchi and Kurosawa) and taks about cars. The young blonde girl he picks up is wearing a striped t-shirt (a reference to the feminine character from A bout de souffle) and she listens to popular songs on her portable radio an her walls are covered in posters of James Dean and pictures of Marilyn Monroe. With these typologies for male characters, Godard changes completely the idea of movie character, turning them into people who carry words or speak them out.
In ‘ A bout de souffle’, Godard goes through the entire history of cinema, integrating in his movie the B series heritage, more precisely the one of the thriller movies produced by Monogram Pictures, in a very heterogeneous structure. Godard’s movie is a long monologue through which the hero tries desperately to communicate with Patricia, the young American girl who has a hard time trying to follow the slangy meanders and the literary quotes. It’s the bullet from the last shot that turns him silent : ‘ What a gross world!’ says Poiccard, and the rude inspector Vital tells Patricia: ‘ he said you were gross!’, and then does Michel’s gesture, touching his lips with the tip of his finger.
Even though Godard repudiated it, ‘ A bout de souffle’ had, after more than 50 years, the same impact as in the beginning, which, looking back, turns it into the movie – manifesto of the New Wave. The feature films Godard directed later were as inventive as this one, but in very different directions.
Godard’s style stays on the same line with the shape generated by the creation concept of the movies that belong to the New Wave: long shots, which show several subscenes, so that the visual information is sent all at once, not having excessive cutting. He didn’t want the rending of the sensation of reality a cut transmitted. This type of shot can be recognized in most of Godard’s movies, but on the other hand, he uses the same amount of jump cuts.
Jean – Luc Godard sau both the art and the society declining: he first theorized the idea, and then made movies that included it. Using the contradiction technique, but also bringing new forms of art, he underlined society’s decline and the impossible labyrinth of art. Godard was probably the first personalities in art to suggest the idea of minimalism in film, always saying that all you need to make a movie is a woman and a gun. Another present aspect in his movies is politics – even in his shorts he situates the situations in the foreground in a political context, which will play the role of a background, connecting with the actors’ interpretations and the dialogue. Very conscious, but also active politically, Godard doesn’t miss any occasions to connect the foreground to the background. In the beginning of ‘Pierrot le fou’, in the car sequence, Marianne (Karina) hears a piece of news on the radio about the war in Vietnam, and later in the movie she says “Damn Americans!’, subtly suggesting the director’s opinion concerning the contemporary society.
Of Godard’s trademarks, I love the most the fact that he uses Anna Karina in a lot of the female roles, also having an actor in the foreground and the portrait or the image of another actor or personality in the background. The references to the American B series cinema (noir movies) or the frequent quotes from French literature give his movies a familiar air, almost touchy. JLG’s movies are special because of the alert editing style, which looks like jumps, which doesn’t care much about the 180˚ rule or about continuity, space becomes limited, but in a lot of his movies he manages to send out the feeling of not belonging to a place, the same way Antonioni uses it.
He really trusts the atmosphere created by the long shots (sequence – shots) and the sincerity these send out, so much that he claims every cut is a lie, hiding a time unit.
He’s still fascinated by the shapes and structures the cinema allows him to use, so much that his movies have been a turning point in the worldwide cinematography, because of the way Godard used these structural elements – he helped the cinema’s stylistics evolve. He wants everything to be obvious, to almost hurt the spectators’ eyes, especially concerning the camerawork and the cinematography itself, but also when he edits, and these elements give rhythm and continuity , ‘rounding up’ the movie. The concept behind the editing has a rhythmic sense.
His characters are superficial, the lack substance, but explode from so much charm.
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