Well there's been a lot of changes in life in the past little while, the biggest being that I am back in Vancouver after 14 months in Montreal. It was fun to experience a different city and come back maybe a bit wiser and travelled.
One of the things I'll miss most about Montreal is the french speaking culture. By the end of my stay I was pretty close to fluent, teaching guitar lessons in the east end of the city en francais. One of the ways I practiced was by watching great French movies.
To celebrate my return, I'm going to try to post about my favourite French New Wave films. I've only been interested in them for a couple years so I'm no expert, but I do enjoy them. The first movie is Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Mepris":
Le Mepris (usually translated as "Contempt") is one of Jean-Luc Godard’s best known films. The plot of the movie revolves around a screenwriter Paul and his wife Camille, who get caught in a cycle of contempt and suspicion while the audience is never aware of the degree of infidelities (if there are any at all) going on.
Always intent to let his audience know they are watching a movie, Godard uses a voiceover to recite the credits while a cameraman is seen shooting a woman walking. To emphasize the point, the narrator recites a quote attributed to film theorist Andre Bazin (a big influence on the French New Wave) while the camera points directly at the audience, letting them know they are entering its world.
One thing I love about Godard’s movies is his use of process. The opening scene uses a progression of red filtered lens to open lens to blue filter while the music starts and stops throughout the scene, corresponding to the sudden changes. Godard uses this technique in many of his films, sometimes cutting out the soundtrack completely (see the famous “silent scene” in Bande a Part).
Indeed, the music starts and stops often throughout the film, rarely corresponding to the beginning or end of a scene. Even more striking is the fact that the same music recurs throughout the entire film, oblivious to the emotion being portrayed by the dialogue. This act of stasis is strangely fitting and though the music itself may be derivative, the score remains one of my favourites.
Famously, this film corresponds very closely to Godard’s own life at the time. He was going through marital troubles with actress Anna Karina and collaborated with an Italian film producer (rendered into Jeremy in the movie) who insisted he cast Bridget Bardot as the lead to draw in an audience, Bardot being the infamous “sex kitten” from And God Created Women. As a result the opening scene features female lead Bridget Bardot sprawled out naked on a bed, asking Paul whether he loves specific parts of her body. According to Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard by Richard Brody, Godard shot this opening scene last, after he considered the film complete. In any case, it is hard not to read it as a thumb of the nose to his producer, who Godard surely had no patience for. It’s almost as if he is saying to audience “Ok, we’ve seen the naked girl. Now can we get on with what’s really important?” (A similar moment occurs at the beginning of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.)
And get on to what’s important he does, with a brilliant improvised fantasy on love, lust and the integrity of the artist. Just try to get tired of it; it remains fresh every time.
