Like in "United Red Army", self critique plays a big role in these films, or at least moreso in "The Wind from the East", which acts more as a revolutionary pamphlet than a typical, plot-driven film. Was Jean Luc-Godard successful in his self-criticism, oft having the narrator say "you" (sometimes referring to Godard, and sometimes referring to us, the audience)? Well, if we take the stance of the graffiti transcribed in Richard Wolin's essay on "The Wind from the East" ("the biggest ass among the Swiss pro-Chinese) about whether Godard was successful in winning over the "Maoist student militants", the answer would be "no". But one can not simply give in that easily. In "The Chinese" and "The Wind from the East", Godard's self awareness through the use of breaking the fourth wall (specifically the clapperboard in both films, and the blurring of fiction and reality in "The Wind from the East" making it more of the Cinéma vérité variety) illustrates Godard in total control and able to reflect on his decisions through his muse and wife at the time, Anne Wiazemsky's narration. When "you" is used in a line such as "you made a film", we are forced to ask ourselves if Godard was successful in answering the questions the narrator poses. When "you" is used to address us an audience, we are forced to reflect within ourselves and find an answer to a question we may not be able to or are willing to address.
Howard Hampton is extremely harsh on the revolutionary characters in “La Chinoise,” concluding that, “these devout fanatics were so intoxicated with the outer limits of Marxist theology that they successfully brainwashed themselves” (47). Though this criticism is certainly a prevalent theme of the film, I also think that it could be argued that the characters of Veronique (Anne Wiazemsky) and Henri (Michel Semeniako) are less satirically and more sincerely portrayed. Each represent two different factions of leftist revolutionaries, Henri the non-violent party member and Veronique the violent radical, but they both are given a significant amount of screen time to articulately defend their approach to invoking change in modern day France. They are naive idealists in some ways, but they are shown as actively thinking, changing, critiquing, and reacting to their experiences through their interviews with the director.
Hampton concludes, “’La Chinoise’ presents blankly counterproductive actions as necessary (if unfortunate) stages in the revolutionary process: breaking eggs against a brick wall in hopes a fully cooked Marxist-Leninist omelet will emerge from the shells” (47). Again, Hampton bluntly writes off the actions of the characters as counterproductive and assimilates their goal with the sarcastic analogy of an omelet. While Godard does take much of his character’s actions lightly, he also seems to portray their ultimate aspirations and legitimate. As Veronique states in voice-over at the end of the film, “I thought I’d made a leap forward, and I realized I’d made only the first timid step of a long march.” The conversation she holds with her philosophy professor and this final comment shows that eventually she may graduate from the young, cool, pop-influenced revolutionary to someone who is able to invoke genuine popular change.
It seem when scholars view Jean–Luc Godard’s work from the early 1960s to the late sixties, they address it as his “playful” period where he is experimenting with film form and genre, but in 1967 when he makes Weekend and La Chinoise, he suddenly enters a “serious” period as he becomes a Maoist. Perhaps these sentiments relate to his further disinterest in plot or characters, where it seems he uses his actors in theses later films in very rudimentary ways, basically to photograph a look or reaction. Hampton even calls them “chess pieces” in his article From “The Barrel of a Gun.” The ambiguity in his work forces viewers to assume Godard is attempting to communicate “something” (anything) to his audience or accept that he makes films the way he does because he finds filmmaking a joke, an empty barrel, and his pessimism reflects, in his words, the “end of cinema.” This diametric makes Godard an unlikely contender as a revolutionist, despite his association as a political filmmaker, because his intentions remain obscure. Peter Wollen called La Chinoise a “pro–Chinese film” but it is difficult to confidently state this when every scene is put to question if Godard is being serious or not. Even with serious scenes involving murder and violence, he tends to frame them in a humorous context, such as Veronique imitating a firing machine gun while behind a barricade of red books. Hampton’s article suggests that the film energized the young crowd, and although Godard is pompous no doubt, it seems he would laugh at the prospect of his film being the instigator of revolutionary movement.
In the film La Chinoise, Godard attempts to express the zeitgeist, philosophy, and energy of the radical student left of Paris in 67. Like The Third Generation, The Dreamers, and the second half of United Red Army, La Chinoise is very claustrophobic, with the majority of scenes taking place in a single apartment. With having watched these films, it seems easy to draw the conclusion that small, secluded spaces seem abundant and perhaps even necessary to the revolution. Even though the apartment is in the most bourgeois place in the world, Paris, within the apartment they are able to implement a new world order. But this confinement might also have added to the reason as to why the movement failed. By locking themselves away, they are not only separated from the bourgeoisie culture, but also from the international revolution they claim to be a part of. They are stuck with themselves, their eternal self reflection and they become obsessed with their own special brand of communism because they have no interaction with any other kind.
In one of the few scenes that takes place outside of the apartment, the radical student Véronique and the philosopher revolutionary Francis Jeanson confront each other on a train. Jeanson questions her and attempts to get her to see the bigger picture and Véronique is unable to argue efficiently. She spouts quotes, ideals, uneven comparisons, and her desire for militancy. Jeanson points out the naiveté of her idea of student revolution, expressing the fact that when he took part in a revolution, there was a whole class of people backing him. She cannot create a revolution, no one can. One can only take part when there is on. The students cannot be a revolutionary force because, as Sartre says in his interview, “students are not a class. They are defined by an age a relation to knowledge. By definition, a student is someone who must one day cease to be a student.” And to add to this, the students are even more fractionalized by confining themselves to small apartment and small groups. The students hate the system and they despise other students and even get into fights with other factions. And as Jeanson says “ They are heading down a path that is a perfect dead end.”
While La Chinoise does an excellent job of talking about some of the methods and points of interest in marxism/communism, it's entirely critical of it, or rather, of certain people who follow it. Nearly he entire film takes place in one apartment with a group of children who spend their days philosophizing about mao. I say children because Godard spends extra time making them appear so. Every part of the film that is "shot" by them, I.E. the scenes of Vietnamese innocents being attacked by toy planes, simply appears to be these kids playing with toys, trying to make a message. There are several props in the film they they use, guns concealed as regular tools, but are still toys. They use bows and arrows to attack pictures on walls, and construct forts out of their red books. That in itself is another metaphor for how the shut other viewpoints out, as evidenced in any scene where Henri tries to talk with the group, speaking out for a different view. The scene where he makes a speech is important, because the reaction from the others is incredibly childlike, hooting and hollering to put him off course. This idea is solidified in the end by Véronique with her discussion with Jeanson when she is unable to plan for anything but her own, and even that is incredibly limited. In the end, I believe that Godard meant to criticize the student movement at the time, worshipping the working class upheld by maoism but unable to join them due to personal wants.
I forgot to add this, but I remember a part in Le Vent d'est seemed to also come to this conclusion, it happened shortly after the film went into it's second part. I can't remember what exactly happened though? Does anyone else remember?
The organization “Aden, Arabie” in Godard’s La Chinoise is a Moaist cell being documented from the inside. The film develops characters in the first parts of the film by interviewing each member of the cell. A voice is prompting them, Godard, but the audience never is told anything about the person doing the interview. Other parts of the characterization is depicted in their conversations much of which is didactic, making it difficult for a viewer with little background knowledge on what is being read. The didactic conversation is Also the reading is in French, and translated onto subtitles which are hard to keep up with and bring up questions of the translation itself. The group is at first philosophical, students in their own school of thought. They are struggling to sell their publications which are assumed to be Moaist commentaries. “Neither Washington nor Moscow” they use deconstructionist theories to read the political landscape. This is most clearly shown in the scene where, Guillaume, goes over “current events” with the rest of the cell. He draws out the hypocrisy of American Imperialism, how their enemy cannot just be communism, but certain communisms. Guillaume suggests that authoritarian forms of communism are ok to the Americans. They have issues with the university system, which is best depicted in the long conversation between Veronique and philosopher Francis Jeanson. Veronique sympathizes with the working class, and agrees with Jeanson that philosophizing is easier while doing manual labor. This view leads to her to share her idea of bombing the schools in an effort to shut them down, and make the students work in the field like they did in China. Jeanson does not agree with her here however. He sees a disconnect between her and her sympathizers. Although Veronique idolizes the working class, she does not understand what being working class actually is like, as she comes from a wealthy family and is excelling in school at the moment.
"La Chinoise" had a very alienated setting that was separate from the rest of the world in the film. It was shot almost entirely in a single apartment. The only other time, a scene wasn't there, was the train scene. This isolation from the "real world" could be the parallel of the new age leftists from the actual reasons for the revolution. The way that this people are just theorizing and talking doesn't really do much until Veronique actually starts to kill people.
While Veronique messed up on the room key, and then killed the right guy. You see that the execution of the plan and they ways of thinking that this group comes up with is very hard to figure out. They are so wrapped up with themselves and what they think about the principles of the revolts. They thought that it was the cool thing to do, as in, be revolutionists.
The influence of pop culture was another reference to the reasons of the groups interest in the revolution. They thought it was the cool thing to do. In the presentation yesterday, it was discussed that it may have been that the characters were attractive and young that helped inspire more of the less knowledgeable people to join because of the aesthetics of the "cool" people from the movies. The comic book characters were a big reference of pop culture that was used in the film. The perspective of the group and the real revolution were drastically different.
As others have pointed out, the students depicted in La Chinoise appear very much cut off from the rest of the world. The film is shot almost entirely in the apartment, except, as Trent pointed out, the one scene with Veronique and Jeanson talking about her plan in the train. But even in the train, one gets the sense that they are cut off from the rest of the world both visually, and based on what Veronique is saying. Her plan was to bomb a school, killing innocent people in order to start a revolution. Her plan & her views were so cut off from the rest of the world, that she didn’t feel it was wrong to kill innocent people to fuel a revolution. Jeanson even touches on the fact that the group’s ideals are cut off from the rest of the world. As Kyle pointed out, Jeanson says to Veronique that the difference between his revolutionary action and hers, is that when he did it, he had a lot of people behind his ideals, and that only her small group shares her point of view. He goes on to say that one cannot create a revolution out of their own personal will, they can only simply take part in one when it arises. One thing I noticed in both films was that they broke the fourth wall quite often. Examples of this are in one of the interviews in La Chinoise, it cuts to the point of view of the interviewee (I don’t remember who it was at this point in the film) and you see a big camera staring back at you. In Le Vent d’Est, they show quite a few shots of people holding cameras or microphones, which makes it feel like you are there filming with them, rather than viewing a Hollywood production. They also break the fourth wall quite a bit in both films by having the actors stare directly in to the camera, and even talk at the camera, giving the audience the sense that the character is looking at us and speaking to us.
W/r/t Godard and the fourth wall, especially in 'La chinoise,' my classmates have already done the bulk of the arguing; Godard breaks the fourth wall to remind his viewers that they are watching a film and make us feel somewhat complicit in the act of fictionalisation. However, 'La chinoise' and 'Le vent d'est' are drastically different films; when they break the fourth wall, they are doing it in different ways for different reasons, and this difference deserves examination.
First, 'La chinoise.' Is it a fiction film, or a historical film about people making a fiction film? Because, in a way, it takes on qualities of both. Take the shot/rev. shot scene during Guillame's interview, for example. The fourth-wall-interaction in that scene doesn't start with the image of Godard's cinematographer behind the camera; it's there from the moment Guillame sits down. His first line is a perfectly placed double entendre: 'Yes, I'm an actor.'
This is where things get confusing. His character is an actor, but Jean-Pierre Léaud is also an actor, and either one, when asked that question, would respond the same way. Because the character is being interviewed, his interaction with cameras is also somewhat explained within the film's logic, or, at least, it's not beyond the logic of the film to explain it.
The clappers are a bit less ambiguous, as they straight-up read 'LA CHINOISE GODARD,' and, like, I'm not quite going so far as to claim that the camera is ambiguous, either, but I think that, given the fact that the characters know they're being interviewed, that they're interacting with the camera while in character, is important. The fourth wall is being played with here, but it's being played with in the context of a fiction film, and that's different from, well, whatever was going on in 'Le vent d'est.'
Which was what, exactly? I'm not an expert, though the Wolin reading and the group presentation have made me slightly more so. By best guess is that Godard, being someone who quite obviously doesn't operate in a vacuum, read the same things that Wolin was reading, the graffiti calling him out of touch, and recognised a grain of truth in it. Halfway through 'Le vent d'est,' he decided to radically apply it. He addressed what he believed to be his own greatest shortcomings through the narrator at the beginning of Part Two, the cinéma-vérité thing, the mistaken referents of the apartment buildings, the statement that, 'Your images are those that dominate you,' etc. And, in doing so, he made a film that was, this time, /definitely/ a historical film about people making a fiction film. To speak of the fourth wall in 'Le vent d'est' is almost paradoxical, because the fourth wall is no longer the camera lens; it's Godard's eye.
"The Year 1967 was Chinese." You wouldn't know that from La Chinoise though. The students of La Chinoise are so secluded that you could easily be led to think that this was a small bunch of idealists. Of course, we know that isn't the case as history indicates that "Maoism's popularity abounded." What it seems Godard is trying to communicate with this is the idea that those few students represent the many young followers of Maoism who were closing themselves away from the realities of the world. Too wrapped up in the romantic idea of rebellion they were. Shown repeatedly, is the idea of philosophical contradiction. The sunglasses, the pop song, the theatrical productions put on by the students all speak to the idea of warping the heart of Maoist ideology with that of pop consumerism. But what seems to be a harsh criticism on paper comes off more as a light ribbing. Godard's respect for the spirit of the students as well as the Maoist ideology both romanticize and constructively critique these things. And while many real life students of the movement may not have appreciated the criticism, Richard Wollen actually notes that "La Chinoise went a long way toward boosting Maoism's political-chic quotient." going so far as to convince many celebrities to jump on the Maoist bandwagon. Godard himself became even more of a Maoist in the years following the film (as can be noted with Le Vent d'est).
Another interesting idea worth examining is that which was mentioned in Le Vent d'est, specifically, Godard's criticism of Sergei Eisenstein. Under the assumption that Le Vent d'est is not masking much of Godard's ideology, it is curious why he criticizes Eisenstein so harshly. Sure, Eisenstein gave much of his career to filming propaganda, but his contributions to editing and Soviet Montage are hugely influential, to the point that Godard seems to similarly borrow heavily from the techniques. Eisenstein was most interested in the idea of the intellectual montage, where the sequencing of certain shots leads to the inception of an abstract idea. Now, Godard tends to avoid the quick cutting associated with this technique, but he seems to not be bothered when assembling his edits in a way that evokes political ideology. Not to mention that Godard's imagery is not very compromising, and of course, the nature of the narration in Le Vent d'est is also bluntly pushing ideology. I am not condemning Godard for his distaste with Eisenstein, but I am left wondering why he (and it seems some of Godard's contemporaries as well) considers the edit is more problematic than the image or the sound.
Like in "United Red Army", self critique plays a big role in these films, or at least moreso in "The Wind from the East", which acts more as a revolutionary pamphlet than a typical, plot-driven film. Was Jean Luc-Godard successful in his self-criticism, oft having the narrator say "you" (sometimes referring to Godard, and sometimes referring to us, the audience)? Well, if we take the stance of the graffiti transcribed in Richard Wolin's essay on "The Wind from the East" ("the biggest ass among the Swiss pro-Chinese) about whether Godard was successful in winning over the "Maoist student militants", the answer would be "no". But one can not simply give in that easily.
ReplyDeleteIn "The Chinese" and "The Wind from the East", Godard's self awareness through the use of breaking the fourth wall (specifically the clapperboard in both films, and the blurring of fiction and reality in "The Wind from the East" making it more of the Cinéma vérité variety) illustrates Godard in total control and able to reflect on his decisions through his muse and wife at the time, Anne Wiazemsky's narration. When "you" is used in a line such as "you made a film", we are forced to ask ourselves if Godard was successful in answering the questions the narrator poses. When "you" is used to address us an audience, we are forced to reflect within ourselves and find an answer to a question we may not be able to or are willing to address.
Howard Hampton is extremely harsh on the revolutionary characters in “La Chinoise,” concluding that, “these devout fanatics were so intoxicated with the outer limits of Marxist theology that they successfully brainwashed themselves” (47). Though this criticism is certainly a prevalent theme of the film, I also think that it could be argued that the characters of Veronique (Anne Wiazemsky) and Henri (Michel Semeniako) are less satirically and more sincerely portrayed. Each represent two different factions of leftist revolutionaries, Henri the non-violent party member and Veronique the violent radical, but they both are given a significant amount of screen time to articulately defend their approach to invoking change in modern day France. They are naive idealists in some ways, but they are shown as actively thinking, changing, critiquing, and reacting to their experiences through their interviews with the director.
ReplyDeleteHampton concludes, “’La Chinoise’ presents blankly counterproductive actions as necessary (if unfortunate) stages in the revolutionary process: breaking eggs against a brick wall in hopes a fully cooked Marxist-Leninist omelet will emerge from the shells” (47). Again, Hampton bluntly writes off the actions of the characters as counterproductive and assimilates their goal with the sarcastic analogy of an omelet. While Godard does take much of his character’s actions lightly, he also seems to portray their ultimate aspirations and legitimate. As Veronique states in voice-over at the end of the film, “I thought I’d made a leap forward, and I realized I’d made only the first timid step of a long march.” The conversation she holds with her philosophy professor and this final comment shows that eventually she may graduate from the young, cool, pop-influenced revolutionary to someone who is able to invoke genuine popular change.
It seem when scholars view Jean–Luc Godard’s work from the early 1960s to the late sixties, they address it as his “playful” period where he is experimenting with film form and genre, but in 1967 when he makes Weekend and La Chinoise, he suddenly enters a “serious” period as he becomes a Maoist. Perhaps these sentiments relate to his further disinterest in plot or characters, where it seems he uses his actors in theses later films in very rudimentary ways, basically to photograph a look or reaction. Hampton even calls them “chess pieces” in his article From “The Barrel of a Gun.” The ambiguity in his work forces viewers to assume Godard is attempting to communicate “something” (anything) to his audience or accept that he makes films the way he does because he finds filmmaking a joke, an empty barrel, and his pessimism reflects, in his words, the “end of cinema.” This diametric makes Godard an unlikely contender as a revolutionist, despite his association as a political filmmaker, because his intentions remain obscure. Peter Wollen called La Chinoise a “pro–Chinese film” but it is difficult to confidently state this when every scene is put to question if Godard is being serious or not. Even with serious scenes involving murder and violence, he tends to frame them in a humorous context, such as Veronique imitating a firing machine gun while behind a barricade of red books. Hampton’s article suggests that the film energized the young crowd, and although Godard is pompous no doubt, it seems he would laugh at the prospect of his film being the instigator of revolutionary movement.
ReplyDeleteIn the film La Chinoise, Godard attempts to express the zeitgeist, philosophy, and energy of the radical student left of Paris in 67. Like The Third Generation, The Dreamers, and the second half of United Red Army, La Chinoise is very claustrophobic, with the majority of scenes taking place in a single apartment. With having watched these films, it seems easy to draw the conclusion that small, secluded spaces seem abundant and perhaps even necessary to the revolution. Even though the apartment is in the most bourgeois place in the world, Paris, within the apartment they are able to implement a new world order. But this confinement might also have added to the reason as to why the movement failed. By locking themselves away, they are not only separated from the bourgeoisie culture, but also from the international revolution they claim to be a part of. They are stuck with themselves, their eternal self reflection and they become obsessed with their own special brand of communism because they have no interaction with any other kind.
ReplyDeleteIn one of the few scenes that takes place outside of the apartment, the radical student Véronique and the philosopher revolutionary Francis Jeanson confront each other on a train. Jeanson questions her and attempts to get her to see the bigger picture and Véronique is unable to argue efficiently. She spouts quotes, ideals, uneven comparisons, and her desire for militancy. Jeanson points out the naiveté of her idea of student revolution, expressing the fact that when he took part in a revolution, there was a whole class of people backing him. She cannot create a revolution, no one can. One can only take part when there is on. The students cannot be a revolutionary force because, as Sartre says in his interview, “students are not a class. They are defined by an age a relation to knowledge. By definition, a student is someone who must one day cease to be a student.” And to add to this, the students are even more fractionalized by confining themselves to small apartment and small groups. The students hate the system and they despise other students and even get into fights with other factions. And as Jeanson says “ They are heading down a path that is a perfect dead end.”
While La Chinoise does an excellent job of talking about some of the methods and points of interest in marxism/communism, it's entirely critical of it, or rather, of certain people who follow it. Nearly he entire film takes place in one apartment with a group of children who spend their days philosophizing about mao. I say children because Godard spends extra time making them appear so. Every part of the film that is "shot" by them, I.E. the scenes of Vietnamese innocents being attacked by toy planes, simply appears to be these kids playing with toys, trying to make a message. There are several props in the film they they use, guns concealed as regular tools, but are still toys. They use bows and arrows to attack pictures on walls, and construct forts out of their red books. That in itself is another metaphor for how the shut other viewpoints out, as evidenced in any scene where Henri tries to talk with the group, speaking out for a different view. The scene where he makes a speech is important, because the reaction from the others is incredibly childlike, hooting and hollering to put him off course. This idea is solidified in the end by Véronique with her discussion with Jeanson when she is unable to plan for anything but her own, and even that is incredibly limited. In the end, I believe that Godard meant to criticize the student movement at the time, worshipping the working class upheld by maoism but unable to join them due to personal wants.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add this, but I remember a part in Le Vent d'est seemed to also come to this conclusion, it happened shortly after the film went into it's second part. I can't remember what exactly happened though? Does anyone else remember?
DeleteThe organization “Aden, Arabie” in Godard’s La Chinoise is a Moaist cell being documented from the inside. The film develops characters in the first parts of the film by interviewing each member of the cell. A voice is prompting them, Godard, but the audience never is told anything about the person doing the interview. Other parts of the characterization is depicted in their conversations much of which is didactic, making it difficult for a viewer with little background knowledge on what is being read. The didactic conversation is Also the reading is in French, and translated onto subtitles which are hard to keep up with and bring up questions of the translation itself.
ReplyDeleteThe group is at first philosophical, students in their own school of thought. They are struggling to sell their publications which are assumed to be Moaist commentaries. “Neither Washington nor Moscow” they use deconstructionist theories to read the political landscape. This is most clearly shown in the scene where, Guillaume, goes over “current events” with the rest of the cell. He draws out the hypocrisy of American Imperialism, how their enemy cannot just be communism, but certain communisms. Guillaume suggests that authoritarian forms of communism are ok to the Americans.
They have issues with the university system, which is best depicted in the long conversation between Veronique and philosopher Francis Jeanson. Veronique sympathizes with the working class, and agrees with Jeanson that philosophizing is easier while doing manual labor. This view leads to her to share her idea of bombing the schools in an effort to shut them down, and make the students work in the field like they did in China. Jeanson does not agree with her here however. He sees a disconnect between her and her sympathizers. Although Veronique idolizes the working class, she does not understand what being working class actually is like, as she comes from a wealthy family and is excelling in school at the moment.
"La Chinoise" had a very alienated setting that was separate from the rest of the world in the film. It was shot almost entirely in a single apartment. The only other time, a scene wasn't there, was the train scene. This isolation from the "real world" could be the parallel of the new age leftists from the actual reasons for the revolution. The way that this people are just theorizing and talking doesn't really do much until Veronique actually starts to kill people.
ReplyDeleteWhile Veronique messed up on the room key, and then killed the right guy. You see that the execution of the plan and they ways of thinking that this group comes up with is very hard to figure out. They are so wrapped up with themselves and what they think about the principles of the revolts. They thought that it was the cool thing to do, as in, be revolutionists.
The influence of pop culture was another reference to the reasons of the groups interest in the revolution. They thought it was the cool thing to do. In the presentation yesterday, it was discussed that it may have been that the characters were attractive and young that helped inspire more of the less knowledgeable people to join because of the aesthetics of the "cool" people from the movies. The comic book characters were a big reference of pop culture that was used in the film. The perspective of the group and the real revolution were drastically different.
As others have pointed out, the students depicted in La Chinoise appear very much cut off from the rest of the world. The film is shot almost entirely in the apartment, except, as Trent pointed out, the one scene with Veronique and Jeanson talking about her plan in the train. But even in the train, one gets the sense that they are cut off from the rest of the world both visually, and based on what Veronique is saying. Her plan was to bomb a school, killing innocent people in order to start a revolution. Her plan & her views were so cut off from the rest of the world, that she didn’t feel it was wrong to kill innocent people to fuel a revolution. Jeanson even touches on the fact that the group’s ideals are cut off from the rest of the world. As Kyle pointed out, Jeanson says to Veronique that the difference between his revolutionary action and hers, is that when he did it, he had a lot of people behind his ideals, and that only her small group shares her point of view. He goes on to say that one cannot create a revolution out of their own personal will, they can only simply take part in one when it arises. One thing I noticed in both films was that they broke the fourth wall quite often. Examples of this are in one of the interviews in La Chinoise, it cuts to the point of view of the interviewee (I don’t remember who it was at this point in the film) and you see a big camera staring back at you. In Le Vent d’Est, they show quite a few shots of people holding cameras or microphones, which makes it feel like you are there filming with them, rather than viewing a Hollywood production. They also break the fourth wall quite a bit in both films by having the actors stare directly in to the camera, and even talk at the camera, giving the audience the sense that the character is looking at us and speaking to us.
ReplyDeleteW/r/t Godard and the fourth wall, especially in 'La chinoise,' my classmates have already done the bulk of the arguing; Godard breaks the fourth wall to remind his viewers that they are watching a film and make us feel somewhat complicit in the act of fictionalisation. However, 'La chinoise' and 'Le vent d'est' are drastically different films; when they break the fourth wall, they are doing it in different ways for different reasons, and this difference deserves examination.
ReplyDeleteFirst, 'La chinoise.' Is it a fiction film, or a historical film about people making a fiction film? Because, in a way, it takes on qualities of both. Take the shot/rev. shot scene during Guillame's interview, for example. The fourth-wall-interaction in that scene doesn't start with the image of Godard's cinematographer behind the camera; it's there from the moment Guillame sits down. His first line is a perfectly placed double entendre: 'Yes, I'm an actor.'
This is where things get confusing. His character is an actor, but Jean-Pierre Léaud is also an actor, and either one, when asked that question, would respond the same way. Because the character is being interviewed, his interaction with cameras is also somewhat explained within the film's logic, or, at least, it's not beyond the logic of the film to explain it.
The clappers are a bit less ambiguous, as they straight-up read 'LA CHINOISE GODARD,' and, like, I'm not quite going so far as to claim that the camera is ambiguous, either, but I think that, given the fact that the characters know they're being interviewed, that they're interacting with the camera while in character, is important. The fourth wall is being played with here, but it's being played with in the context of a fiction film, and that's different from, well, whatever was going on in 'Le vent d'est.'
Which was what, exactly? I'm not an expert, though the Wolin reading and the group presentation have made me slightly more so. By best guess is that Godard, being someone who quite obviously doesn't operate in a vacuum, read the same things that Wolin was reading, the graffiti calling him out of touch, and recognised a grain of truth in it. Halfway through 'Le vent d'est,' he decided to radically apply it. He addressed what he believed to be his own greatest shortcomings through the narrator at the beginning of Part Two, the cinéma-vérité thing, the mistaken referents of the apartment buildings, the statement that, 'Your images are those that dominate you,' etc. And, in doing so, he made a film that was, this time, /definitely/ a historical film about people making a fiction film. To speak of the fourth wall in 'Le vent d'est' is almost paradoxical, because the fourth wall is no longer the camera lens; it's Godard's eye.
"The Year 1967 was Chinese." You wouldn't know that from La Chinoise though. The students of La Chinoise are so secluded that you could easily be led to think that this was a small bunch of idealists. Of course, we know that isn't the case as history indicates that "Maoism's popularity abounded." What it seems Godard is trying to communicate with this is the idea that those few students represent the many young followers of Maoism who were closing themselves away from the realities of the world. Too wrapped up in the romantic idea of rebellion they were. Shown repeatedly, is the idea of philosophical contradiction. The sunglasses, the pop song, the theatrical productions put on by the students all speak to the idea of warping the heart of Maoist ideology with that of pop consumerism. But what seems to be a harsh criticism on paper comes off more as a light ribbing. Godard's respect for the spirit of the students as well as the Maoist ideology both romanticize and constructively critique these things. And while many real life students of the movement may not have appreciated the criticism, Richard Wollen actually notes that "La Chinoise went a long way toward boosting Maoism's political-chic quotient." going so far as to convince many celebrities to jump on the Maoist bandwagon. Godard himself became even more of a Maoist in the years following the film (as can be noted with Le Vent d'est).
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting idea worth examining is that which was mentioned in Le Vent d'est, specifically, Godard's criticism of Sergei Eisenstein. Under the assumption that Le Vent d'est is not masking much of Godard's ideology, it is curious why he criticizes Eisenstein so harshly. Sure, Eisenstein gave much of his career to filming propaganda, but his contributions to editing and Soviet Montage are hugely influential, to the point that Godard seems to similarly borrow heavily from the techniques. Eisenstein was most interested in the idea of the intellectual montage, where the sequencing of certain shots leads to the inception of an abstract idea. Now, Godard tends to avoid the quick cutting associated with this technique, but he seems to not be bothered when assembling his edits in a way that evokes political ideology. Not to mention that Godard's imagery is not very compromising, and of course, the nature of the narration in Le Vent d'est is also bluntly pushing ideology. I am not condemning Godard for his distaste with Eisenstein, but I am left wondering why he (and it seems some of Godard's contemporaries as well) considers the edit is more problematic than the image or the sound.