Godard on the set of the film
TWO OR THREE THINGS
I KNOW ABOUT HER (2 ou 3 Choses que Je Sais d’Elle) C
France (87 mi)
1967 ‘Scope d: Jean-Luc Godard
By now Godard has
grown comfortable with his essay style of filmmaking, which has become the
prototype for the kinds of films he will be making for the next 50 years, where
he comes across as lecturing or pontificating, much of it actually read or
spoken aloud, including the director’s voice constantly interjecting,
whispering his thoughts aloud, with characters breaking from the screen and
speaking directly to the audience, as if this adds an element of truth. Gone are the days of narrative filmmaking, as
this represents what modern era filmmaking means to Godard. Personally, there’s little in this film that
the director didn’t say better in My
Life to Live (Vivre Sa Vie: Film en douze tableaux) (1962), as this overly
verbose film uses 10,000 words to express what that film reveals in 100, where
both films deal with the subject of prostitution, though here it’s stripped of
all sexual context and is interested only in the commercial transaction, a
metaphor for capitalism and consumer culture, with Godard suggesting the
growing dependence on consumer goods is bleeding the country dry, literally
sucking the soul right out of the nation, creating a more indifferent
population that are too busy trying to find ways to earn money simply to
survive that they have little time left to actually live. The difference here is that there is no
thought of a developing conscience, no hope for the future, no appreciation for
the world around us, as it’s all been soiled and destroyed by political
interests, namely France and America who both got bogged down in an unending
war in Vietnam, spending billions on bombs and sophisticated weaponry, blowing
the country to smithereens rather than offer anything of cultural value. Rather than an equal exchange of cultural
ideas and interests, it’s a one-sided bloodbath causing a horrible loss of
lives. Yet the citizens of both imperial
powers hardly bat an eye at the consequences inflicted by their warmongering
nations, as they’re much more interested in buying the latest products
advertised through constant bombardment on TV, basically telling people what
they should want if they want to build a happy middle class life. But once they’re surrounded by modern gadgets
in their comfortable suburban, middle class homes, they’re no happier, as
they’ve been hoodwinked into believing this is what they wanted. The film depicts Paris as a continuous
construction zone, featuring bulldozers, cement mixers, and giant cranes
dotting the landscape, where the constant noise of jackhammers can be heard
throughout the picture, with Godard turning the sound on and off, as he has
done throughout his career. In this
film, things that exist in standard narrative films, but are never emphasized,
become the focus of this film, such as brand-name consumer products, which the
director finds just as interesting, where a close-up of a cup of coffee becomes
a link to the cosmos through a self-reflective inner voice that allows the
director to ponder the meaning of his own existence.
At the center is
Marina Vlady as Juliette Janson, a Parisian housewife from the suburbs who
spends her afternoons as a prostitute in order to earn some extra cash,
basically dumping one of her kids in a play area while she entertains men behind
closed doors. In complete contrast to
Anna Karina, who provides depths of emotion in My
Life to Live (Vivre Sa Vie: Film en douze tableaux), always an appealing
subject, Vlady is lifeless and bland, remaining indifferent throughout, never
once generating a spark of interest. The
same could be said for all the other Godard performers in this film, as they
are literally indistinguishable from one another, except one, Juliet Berto, who
is absolutely stunning in her brief appearance onscreen, simply sitting in a
café engaging in a conversation with someone sitting next to her. Why is she so much more interesting than
anyone else? Because she’s not lifeless
and inert, displaying some spirit and personality, and because she brings with
her audience recognition from later Rivette films (who actually uses her as an
actress), as she is instantly recognizable from one of the lead roles in Out 1 and
Jacques Rivette R.I.P. (1971) and the ever charming Céline
and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en bateau) (1974), where she’s
absolutely adorable in both, bringing as much interest and appeal to the French
New Wave as Anna Karina, as both are startling fresh faces offering a jolt of
something new. That said, the rest of
the film is dispirited and monotonous, continually quoting from written text,
where the film is as much about reading as it is about cinema, often depicting
characters reading various passages from randomly selected books, which is a
habit of Godard himself, known for reading just the first and last pages of
books. To put that onscreen, however, is
about as undramatic as possible, as there is essentially no character
development and no story, no suspense, and no emotional engagement, as the
characters themselves become just another consumer product. Godard has chosen a flat, emotionless style
to spout various ideas, questioning his ability to communicate, challenging the
concept of cinéma vérité, or even the idea of cinema itself, where one wonders
what effect, if any, this has on viewers, who are distanced from the subject
matter throughout. Even Bresson or
Brechtian theater engage the audience, forcing them to actively participate in
the subject matter, but not so here, as ideas are presented, rapidly moving
from one to the other in a fragmented style, but never developed coherently,
often confusing thought itself with reality, creating a startlingly indifferent
style of cinema that neither shocks nor provokes, continually overemphasizing
rational discourse through the written word, which is spoken endlessly in this
film, as if the director was in love with language itself, irrespective of
whether it carries any meaning. It
doesn’t seem to matter to this director, constructing a film (with subtitles)
that is essentially read rather than viewed, like reading notes from a personal
diary or journal. Thoughts attributed to
others are lost in this process, where the original source becomes meaningless,
as all are included under the umbrella of the Godardian universe.
As the promotional
film poster designed by Godard asserts, “her” is the subject of:
HER, the cruelty of
neo-capitalism
HER, prostitution
HER, the Paris
region
HER, the bathroom
that 70% of the French don't have
HER, the terrible
law of huge building complexes
HER, the physical
side of love
HER, the life of
today
HER, the war in
Vietnam
HER, the modern
call-girl
HER, the death of
modern beauty
HER, the circulation
of ideas
HER, the gestapo of
structures
Godard was concerned
how easily the city of Paris (the “her” in the title) was being transformed on
a vast scale into something altogether different, losing its essential
character and identity, describing it as one large brothel, with inhabitants
that are obedient and docile, continually prostituting themselves, reflecting
Godard’s feelings about the prostitution of modern life. Inspired by a magazine story from Le Nouvel Observateur showing how many
women from a low-income high rise housing complex in the outer banlieue regions
resorted to casual prostitution in order to survive economically. Forced to relocate outside the city into
these dreary looking buildings that have all the modern conveniences, but at a
price, often falling into debt by having to pay relocation moving fees and an
exorbitant charge for heat and electricity.
In order to afford the luxury associated with modern living, these women
found themselves making day trips into Paris meeting clients for sex, returning
with grocery bags filled with items from an alleged shipping spree, offering a
cover for their unsuspecting husbands.
The film follows 24-hours in the life of one of these suburban
housewives (Marina Vlady as Juliette), living in what appears to be a loveless
marriage with her husband and two children, as she spends her day in
Paris. Godard’s larger view was to
provide a critical appraisal of the de Gaulle government, specifically the
appointment of Paul Delouvrier (who is mentioned by name) as the Minister of
Planning for the new Parisian region under the pretext of reorganizing and
modernizing, and was actually standardizing the natural tendencies of
capitalism by accentuating a hyper-inflated spending spree, buying and building
structures they could not afford, routinely going into debt as a result, which
he demonstrates is the new morality of living in Paris. Meanwhile, workers spend three-fourths of
their lives being paid for a job that holds little interest to them,
essentially prostituting themselves, which has become the norm, whether they be
builders, plumbers, postal clerks, bankers, or even film directors. Throughout the film Godard questions his own
motives for making the film, as does Juliette for her own daily decisions,
creating a collage of opinions and images, where there’s an overriding feeling
of dissatisfaction associated with their work.
In one of the few scenes showing her “at work,” she and a girlfriend
Marianne (Anny Duperey) are hired by an American photojournalist (producer
Raoul Lévy known for originally hiring Brigitte Bardot) wearing a T-shirt of an
American flag. It is at this point and
time that Godard turns his back on American culture (described as America über
allies), as the war in Vietnam personifies all that’s wrong in international
politics, with one side essentially forcing its views upon another through an
endless bombing campaign, producing mutilated bodies and a neverending stream
of napalmed corpses, many of which are starkly photographed in this film,
intercut between two women parading around naked wearing TWA and Pan-Am flight
bags over their head, showing how easily advertising love and war are actually
interchanged, simply using different graphics.
Becoming one of
Godard’s more acclaimed films, viewed as revelatory, with critic Jonathan
Rosenbaum describing the film “the most ambitious of all his attempts to create
a new language of truth-telling,” or noted critic and New York Film Festival
co-founder Richard Roud describing it as “the summit of Godard’s work,”
considered a modern work expressing a contemplative tone reflective of the
times, it represents the dialectical mode that has become the centerpiece of
his later works, arguably more distanced and less interesting, yet he is lauded
for elevating the level of debate, for offering a counterpoint to the seemingly
out-of-control massive development projects that were sweeping across Europe at
the time, changing the identity of its populace, who become part of the push
for modernization, as their work and consumer habits basically pay for it. Instead of revolting against this soulless
imposition people instead immediately adapt to a bourgeois lifestyle and all
that’s promised in terms of greater comforts, victims of a society dictated by
advertising, asking citizens to continually spend more and more. At the same time, Juliette’s husband is a ham
radio operator, listening to overseas broadcasts of American President Johnson
announcing, with a “heavy heart,” that he is ordering increased escalation of
the Vietnam bombing campaign, repeating aloud what he hears on the radio broadcast. Even their small child has a dream that can
be summed up as a unification of North and South Korea. What this suggests is that people are
bombarded by information, all directed at them, which they have to make sense
out of, as the daily bombardment only increases, suggesting this is the new
reality. The secret for survival is
finding order through all the chaos, maintaining one’s calm in all the
confusion, where there’s a blitzkrieg of change challenging our ability to
adapt, with Godard revealing his own self-doubts, but also personal confessions
of people seemingly chosen at random speaking directly to the camera about the
state of their lives, with Godard himself interrupting, offering his own
appraisal, all juxtaposed together into a rational cinematic discourse, an
ethical commentary on our times.
Questioning the limits of language, suggesting an inability to make
things clear, Godard suggests the limitations of language are the limitations
of the world around us, where we are constantly pushed aside in the pursuit of
greater interests, like forced relocation to make way for a giant supermarket
complex that offers the promise of lower prices and greater convenience, yet it
pushes the corner grocery stores out of business, permanently altering the
landscape around us, about which we have little say. Raoul Coutard behind the camera shows the
world through bizarre angles, creating a mosaic-like surface that has been cut
up and reassembled seemingly in random order, yet this is the template for Godard
to spew his philosophical meanderings.
Whether people will find this informative or appealing is purely
subjective, as there’s an air of dismissiveness that can leave one cold, as
Godard simply doesn’t care about his relationship with the audience anymore, as
he does what suits his interests, period, where he’s all that matters, placing
himself front and center in his pictures.
It’s a relatively aloof vantage point, stuck in an elitist ivory tower,
becoming more and more omniscient and all-knowing as time goes on, spewing what
amounts to verbiage and academia as he assumes the role of the lone professor
and/or high priest of cinema offering his voodoo analysis.
