Friday, April 28, 2017
118 - Tout Va Bien, 1972, France. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard.
Everything Goes Well.
I want to make a film.
You need money for that.
He signs checks. Checks to the different departments. One check after another. After another.
We need stars. International stars. Yves Montand from France. Jane Fonda from America.
We need a love story. They walk in the woods. I love you. They describe what they love about one another.
We need a city. We need houses. One for Him and one for Her.
We need people. Lots of people. Workers. Middle class. Laborers. Farmers.
We need commercials. We need to sell things.
STRIKE!
Lock up the bosses.
They lock up the boss. Put him in his room. His office. Barricade the door. He has been in there for hours.
The American journalist gets in.
Her name is Suzanne. The translators type it as Susan in the subtitles. As if English does not have Suzanne.
She asks the manager what is going on. He tells her. From his point of view.
The manager takes his turn. Explains his position.
A worker takes his turn. Explains his position.
A foreman takes his turn. Explains his position.
We see the building in cross section. All the rooms on two floors with one wall removed and the camera looking in.
Like Rear Window. Like Noises Off. Kind of.
They will not let the manager take a bathroom break. Then they give him so many seconds. He cannot find the bathroom. He is about to go in his pants. They demand he return to his office. Without giving him time to go. See how that feels?
The journalist interviews the people.
More people take a turn.
One supports the Union. Talks about how the Union will help them.
Another attacks the Union. Says the Union is just as bad as management.
We are at a sausage factory. We see the assembly line. The assembly line moving the pigs. Butchering. Grinding. Making sausage.
We go to a movie set.
The American journalist's French husband is a director. A director of commercials. He is making a commercial.
His name is Jacques. Of course it is. He is French.
What is the f-stop? 3.5. Roll the sound. They play music. Two women begin dancing. Check the framing. Bring the 1000 forward. Mark where the girls' feet are. Move the two-kilo. Shine it on the door. Change the lens. Remove the 50. Put on the 75.
He wants to correct us. He says he is not a director of commercials. He is a filmmaker. Who sometimes makes commercials. The distinction is important to him.
He believes the advertising business is stupid and corrupt. But he does it anyway. For money. You have to make a living.
And this makes him morally superior how?
He says he was a screenwriter during the New Wave. He says he got sick of it. He mentions May, 1968. This was a time of radical upheaval in France. It affected him.
He got tired of making art films. He got offered to direct an American film. Based on a David Goodis novel. He rejected the offer. He thought it was stupid. He decided to make commercials instead.
(Jean-Luc Godard's counterpart Francois Truffaut did direct a film based on a David Goodis novel, 1960's Shoot the Piano Player. What is Godard saying about his colleague Truffaut?)
Jacques hems and haws. Hesitates. He seems lost. He does not know what to do with himself. With his life.
He returns to his commercial production. Godard has our camera look through the commercial camera's viewfinder for a very long time as we watch the women dance and listen to the music.
Godard wants so badly for us to see how stupid commercials are. And how stupid advertising is. And how stupid this kind of work is.
If he is trying to make the case that he has turned into a bitter old man, he is doing a good job.
Suzanne is frustrated at work. She tries to record an article. She cannot do it. She tells her producer that her work is stupid.
Back at the house. Jacques and Suzanne have an argument. She complains. They too are on an assembly line. Reduced to a formula. Work, movie, sex. Work, movie, sex. Day after day. No joy. No meaning. And it is his fault.
Jacques tells us about the revolution. We see people protesting. Committing violence. Hurting other people. Dying. He wants to make them martyrs.
We dolly down a grocery store. Watching people check out. The workers dressed in yellow. The shoppers dressed in earth tones. Down to the right. Back to the left. Down to the right. Back to the left. Down to the right.
The radicals fill the grocery carts. Try to steal the food. Try to encourage all the others to steal grocery carts full of food. "It's free! Take it!" The police come in an stop them.
Back to the beginning.
We needed to make a movie. Now we have made a movie. With Him and Her. How did it turn out? He and She are lost.
Jacques is lost.
Suzanne is lost.
Godard is lost.
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