112 - Band of Outsiders, 1964, France. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard.
Franz and Arthur like to tell stories.
The one about Billy the Kid shot in the back by Pat Garrett, the sheriff of Tombstone.
The one by the American author (Poe) and the letter ("The Purloined Letter").
The one by Jack London and life in the Alaskan wild.
The one about the lying Indian.
They quote writers.
They quote movies.
They make up their own stories.
They are, after all, named after Franz Kafka and Arthur Rimbaud.
Pow!
Arthur shoots Franz. Frantz falls to the asphalt in the middle of the street. He growls in pain. Arthur gets in the car and starts the engine. Franz grabs the rear fender of the car. Arthur looks prepared to drive. He is going to drive with Franz, shot, fallen, still hanging on to the car.
Franz gets up.
Let me drive.
They are horsing around.
Three weeks earlier. A pile of money. An English class. A house by the river. A romantic girl.
Franz tells Arthur a story.
This girl in How-to-Speak-English class told me there's this dough, see. A buncha loot. Stashed in this house. By this man. He cheats the government anyway. It is not rightfully his money anyway.
Let's take it!
They fight over the girl.
Odile. She wears sweaters and pigtails.
They pass notes in class.
Wanna learn a new language?
Here is the exam.
The teacher will read aloud from Shakespeare. From Romeo and Juliet. A long passage. A long passage of Shakespearean English translated into Shakespearean French.
You have not memorized the passage in English. You have not even been assigned to read the passage in English.
You have not been told ahead of time what the teacher will read aloud during the exam.
You are hearing it in French and writing it down in English in real time.
No problem.
One student sneaks a drink from his hidden flask.
Two students look on each other's paper for help.
Arthur passes notes to Odile. Wooing her. Describing her body. And what he wants to do with it. Telling her her hair is old-fashioned.
She takes the time to take out her mirror and primp and make eyes at him as the teacher reads on.
And as the teacher reads the immortal words of two people falling in love, Arthur writes his own words of crude love in parallel.
Somehow the results of this exam just do not seem to matter.
These people have other plans.
Then Godard inserts a Godardian moment. After class a student asks the teacher how to translate "a big one million dollar movie." She tells him. He writes it down.
Arthur flirts with Odile. He talks her into letting him take her home. He takes her home.
The three friends form a gang. They are going to take the money. And run.
Odile protests. They tell her she told them about it. She says that is not what she meant. They talk her into it. She is scared.
Arthur's uncle secretly gets involved. The other two do not know about him.
The gang take the time to stop and have some fun.
Odile puts Franz's hat on her own head.
As Patricia did with Michel the other day in Breathless (1960).
They go to a café. They play music. They dance. A line dance. The Madison Dance.
Snapping their fingers. Shrugging their shoulders.
Odile's skirt swishing left and right.
They run through the Louvre.
They laugh.
They are young. Alive. Free.
And doing things for no other reason than because.
But then there is this robbery thing.
Everything will go perfectly as long as nothing goes wrong.
Everything will go wrong.
They cannot find the money.
Odile's aunt walks in on them and sees them. And knows Odile has betrayed her.
They tie her up, stuff her mouth, and put her in an armoire. They seem to have suffocated her. She seems to have died.
They do not take the money. They do run.
Franz and Odile end up in his car. They drive away from the house. They see Arthur's uncle driving toward the house.
Wait a second!
That dirty double-crosser.
They turn around.
We smell a showdown coming.
The showdown comes.
This film has had a large influence on filmmakers who came later.
Quentin Tarantino named his production company after it.
The French title of Band of Outsiders is Bande a part.
Tarantino's company is A Band Apart.
He adapted the Madison Dance into his dance sequence in Pulp Fiction.
Pauline Kael wrote an insightful review of the film for The New Republic in 1966.
She understood Godard and his place in his generation and in his time.
"Godard’s style, with its nonchalance about the fates of the characters—a style drawn from American movies and refined to an intellectual edge in post-war French philosophy and attitudes—is an American teenager’s ideal. To be hard and cool as a movie gangster yet not stupid or gross like a gangster—that’s the cool grace of the privileged, smart young."
She compares Godard in the post-WW2 age to Fitzgerald in the post-WW1 age. Fitzgerald's jazz age was about the rebellion of youth using the arts as their vocabulary. Godard's cinema age was about the rebellion of youth using the movies as their vocabulary. It was the first generation who were proud of the movies and who used the movies exclusively as their reference points.
She also articulates for us why people are frustrated by Godard even while admiring him. We know he has the potential for masterpieces but he just will not make them. She suggests that "maybe he has artistry of a different kind."
For sure.
This girl in How-to-Speak-English class told me there's this dough, see. A buncha loot. Stashed in this house. By this man. He cheats the government anyway. It is not rightfully his money anyway.
Let's take it!
They fight over the girl.
Odile. She wears sweaters and pigtails.
They pass notes in class.
Wanna learn a new language?
Here is the exam.
The teacher will read aloud from Shakespeare. From Romeo and Juliet. A long passage. A long passage of Shakespearean English translated into Shakespearean French.
You have not memorized the passage in English. You have not even been assigned to read the passage in English.
You have not been told ahead of time what the teacher will read aloud during the exam.
You are hearing it in French and writing it down in English in real time.
No problem.
One student sneaks a drink from his hidden flask.
Two students look on each other's paper for help.
Arthur passes notes to Odile. Wooing her. Describing her body. And what he wants to do with it. Telling her her hair is old-fashioned.
She takes the time to take out her mirror and primp and make eyes at him as the teacher reads on.
And as the teacher reads the immortal words of two people falling in love, Arthur writes his own words of crude love in parallel.
Somehow the results of this exam just do not seem to matter.
These people have other plans.
Then Godard inserts a Godardian moment. After class a student asks the teacher how to translate "a big one million dollar movie." She tells him. He writes it down.
Arthur flirts with Odile. He talks her into letting him take her home. He takes her home.
The three friends form a gang. They are going to take the money. And run.
Odile protests. They tell her she told them about it. She says that is not what she meant. They talk her into it. She is scared.
Arthur's uncle secretly gets involved. The other two do not know about him.
The gang take the time to stop and have some fun.
Odile puts Franz's hat on her own head.
As Patricia did with Michel the other day in Breathless (1960).
They go to a café. They play music. They dance. A line dance. The Madison Dance.
Snapping their fingers. Shrugging their shoulders.
Odile's skirt swishing left and right.
They run through the Louvre.
They laugh.
They are young. Alive. Free.
And doing things for no other reason than because.
But then there is this robbery thing.
Everything will go perfectly as long as nothing goes wrong.
Everything will go wrong.
They cannot find the money.
Odile's aunt walks in on them and sees them. And knows Odile has betrayed her.
They tie her up, stuff her mouth, and put her in an armoire. They seem to have suffocated her. She seems to have died.
They do not take the money. They do run.
Franz and Odile end up in his car. They drive away from the house. They see Arthur's uncle driving toward the house.
Wait a second!
That dirty double-crosser.
They turn around.
We smell a showdown coming.
The showdown comes.
This film has had a large influence on filmmakers who came later.
Quentin Tarantino named his production company after it.
The French title of Band of Outsiders is Bande a part.
Tarantino's company is A Band Apart.
He adapted the Madison Dance into his dance sequence in Pulp Fiction.
Pauline Kael wrote an insightful review of the film for The New Republic in 1966.
She understood Godard and his place in his generation and in his time.
"Godard’s style, with its nonchalance about the fates of the characters—a style drawn from American movies and refined to an intellectual edge in post-war French philosophy and attitudes—is an American teenager’s ideal. To be hard and cool as a movie gangster yet not stupid or gross like a gangster—that’s the cool grace of the privileged, smart young."
She compares Godard in the post-WW2 age to Fitzgerald in the post-WW1 age. Fitzgerald's jazz age was about the rebellion of youth using the arts as their vocabulary. Godard's cinema age was about the rebellion of youth using the movies as their vocabulary. It was the first generation who were proud of the movies and who used the movies exclusively as their reference points.
She also articulates for us why people are frustrated by Godard even while admiring him. We know he has the potential for masterpieces but he just will not make them. She suggests that "maybe he has artistry of a different kind."
For sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment