Une Femme est une Femme (1961)
VIVRE SA VIE (via arwati)
Jean Paul Belmondo on the set of Pierrot Le Fou
(Source: breakfastineurope)
Liberties
“Far from time and space, man has gone astray: slender as a hair, vast as the dawn, his ears foaming, his two eyes rolling, and his hands outstretched to find his way which is nonexistent.”
La Liberté éclairant le monde.
La Planète des singes (Franklin Schaffner, 1968)
frenchcinema:
Made in U.S.A (Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
(via fuckyeahjean-lucgodard)
Vivre sa Vie is one of Jean-Luc Godard’s best films and stands out from his 60s period as a more focused and consistent work. Taking his inspiration from Brecht, Sartre and Bresson, Godard was able to examine an existential struggle with a simultaneous distance and intimacy.
Separated into twelve “tableaux” with Brecthian intertitles, Godard uses the story of Nana to investigate an essential human problem: In a society where we exchange flesh and money, do we maintain our humanity and freedom? Early in the film, we observe Nana working at a record shop. Later, she will become a prostitute. It is important to note that that her conduct is the same at both of these jobs. At both the record store and the hotel used by the prostitutes, Nana performs her duties with reluctant submission. Even her relationship with her co-workers is similar. In the record shop we see her navigate around asking her female co-workers for help in the same, casual, matter-of-fact manner she will eventually navigate the hotel seeking help from her fellow prostitutes. While Godard purposefully chose prostitution as the premise for his film, it is clear he is not interested in the ins and outs of the lifestyle but in the human struggle it can represent. After all, working in a record shop is also a form of lending oneself in order to make money and indeed all participants in the capitalist system are, in a sense, whores. At the end of the day, is one’s individuality, one’s soul, retained? As the Montaigne quote at the beginning of the film says “Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.” Vivre sa Vie is a film sets out to find if this is possible…
In one scene, Nana vocalizes her beliefs in conversation with a friend at a café. She remarks how she realizes she is responsible for all of her actions, no matter how small. She is even responsible for her own happiness, which is perfectly demonstrated in the sequence where she dances at the pool hall in spite of a rather somber mood in the room. The dialogue of this scene is key as we realize Nana takes responsibility for her actions. and by default for her decision to turn to prostitution. Yet, we must also consider that it may not be Nana’s fault that she finds herself in a difficult financial situation that has rendered her unable to pay the rent. Perhaps it is simply where she was placed in society, by chance, which determined such surrounding factors.
The question ultimately becomes of Nana’s freedom. Is she a prisoner of society, or does she determine her own destiny? The answer may rest in something Godard said about his relationship with cinema. When someone suggested to Godard that he was able to do whatever he had wanted when making his films, Godard replied “No, I always did what I wanted within the limits of what I could do.” Perhaps, in her given situation, she did act with freedom when she could. Then, of course, out of her control, she is shot and killed. So we whore, dance, and then die. Do we even exist? Nana did, for a little while, if only in the dark of the cinema.
A sense of solitude overwhelmed me. Maybe freedom starts with regret.
Sixteen months without comfort, money, love or leisure, subjected to absolute authority 24 hours a day. Just like modern society, in other words. Sixteen months which confirm that for a young Frenchman even relative freedom is difficult to achieve in the face of established authority when he’s had the wrong education.
Jean Seberg in Breathless (1960, dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
I don’t know if I’m unhappy because I’m not free, or I’m not free because I’m unhappy.
