114 - Masculin-Feminin, 1966, France. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard.

Monday, April 24, 2017

114 - Masculin-Feminin, 1966, France. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard.

Will you marry me?

We'll discuss it later.  I'm in a rush.

She shakes his hand and leaves.

Oops.

Congratulations, buddy.

How would you feel if you proposed and she was in a hurry to leave?

Madeleine is about to release her first single.  She dreams of being a successful singer.

Paul has picked an awkward moment to propose.

Somehow we are not worried for him.  He loves her.  She knows it.  She likes it.  She tells us in voice-over.

She is just working on her career at this moment.

On the other hand . . .

He is a little bit uptight.  In fact, when he first asked her out she said No.  And he asked if she were afraid that he might come on too strongly, and she said Yes.

They go dancing.  She smiles.  If he could just have a good time, then she would have a good time with him.

They get drinks.  Him and her and her girlfriend.

She orders an Orangina.

He orders a Cassis with mineral water.

Do you know what those are?

He apologizes about before.  She blows it off.  He grows more uptight.

Her girlfriend recommends they leave.

They leave him with the bill.

A blonde arrives.  Orders a Coke.  Asks if he would like to take pictures with her.

In the photo booth.

They enter.  She propositions him.  Oh, it's that.  He does not want to pay what she is asking.  He turns her down.

He goes into the next booth.  Where you can record a record.  He records a record for Madeleine.  Expressing how he feels.

Paul is a young idealist.

At the beginning of the movie, he had just finished his duty in the French army and was beginning to pursue radical politics.

He met Madeleine in a restaurant.  They talked and she helped him get a job with Marcel.

One day he asked her out, and it turned into a touching, honest conversation about what men and women want.

She spoke openly to him.  Honestly.  And smiled a cute smile with bright eyes and happy teeth.  She was adorable.

There was something disarming about her.  Unguarded.  Authentic.  And true.

And that scene is one of Godard's memorable scenes.

So honest.  So familiar.  So human.

The actors took their time.  And they told the truth.

Now Paul is in this record booth.  Recording a spoken record.  Expressing himself.  Waxing intense.  Going off.

He takes the record.  We do not know if he ever gives it to her.

He walks past the pinball machines.  A young man playing pinball pulls a knife on him.  Backs him out.  Threatens him.  Then stabs himself and falls as blood flows from his belly.  Paul catches him and we cut to another scene as though nothing ever happened.  That is a Godardian moment.  The middle of three like this in the film.  Earlier a man and woman had a custody fight in the background of a restaurant while our protagonists were eating.  He took the son outside.  She followed him outside and shot him on the sidewalk, in front of the boy.  Later, a man will douse himself with gasoline and set himself on fire, offscreen.

Paul talks to his friend.  Tells him his lovetrouble.  His friend gives advice.

And introduces him to Bob Dylan.  Paul has never heard of Dylan.  He is new to him.  This is his generation.  1966 in France.

Throughout the film Godard inserts title cards with political statements and sound effects.

Or people making statements in voiceover.

For example--

We can suppose that 20 years from now every citizen will wear a small electrical device that can arouse the body to pleasure and sexual satisfaction.

Really?

This may remind you that in 1973 Woody Allen would come out with the Orgasmatron in his sci-fi comedy film Sleeper.

It is 1966.  20 years from now was 1986.  How did that turn out?  It is now over 50 years from now.  We still do not see it.

But we can see the anxiety over technology.  They were feeling it then.  How do we feel it today?

Here is another one--

Give us a  TV set and a car, but deliver us from liberty.

An ironic statement considering Godard's political leanings.

But true of human behavior.

Paul has dinner with Elisabeth.  She explains why Madeleine is cautious with him.

She is afraid she will get pregnant.

Paul maintains that he is old enough to avoid that.  Interruptus.

Not me, she says.  I use a thingamajig.

What is that?

An invention from America.

Madeleine thinks it is indecent.

This film is a time capsule of the time.  Of invention.  Of music.  Of the sexual revolution.

Madeleine enters and announces her song "Pinball Champ" is No. 6 in Japan, behind The Beatles, France Gall, and Bob Dylan.

There is that name again.  Dylan.

And that other name.  The song title.  "Pinball Champ."  It is 1966.  The Who's "Pinball Wizard" came out in 1969.  The movie Tommy, with Elton John's version, came out in 1975.

Was there a connection?

Did Pete Townsend know this movie?

Chantal Goya, the young woman who plays Madeleine, is a pop singer in real life.  A Ye-Ye singer.  Ever hear of that?  Look it up.

And she really does have a hit in Japan while making this movie.  And she has three hits in France.  And they are on the soundtrack of this movie.  And one of them is "If You Win at Pinball."  The other two are "Be Nice" and "Leave Me Alone."

They meet at a coffee shop.  They see Brigitte Bardot talking to her director about her next movie.

They go see a movie.

Paul goes up to the projection booth to correct them as to how they are showing it.  The projectionist has the aspect ratio wrong.  Paul knows it.  He can see it.  He cannot stand it.  He wants the experience of watching a movie to be perfect.

After he corrects the projectionist, he takes the time to spray-paint graffiti on the back wall of the theater.  Then he reenters.  Then he explains the following to us.

We went to the movies often.
The screen would light up and we'd feel a thrill.
But Madeleine and I were usually disappointed.  The images were dated and jumpy.
Marilyn Monroe had aged badly.
We felt sad.  It wasn't the movie of our dreams.
It wasn't that total film we carried inside ourselves.
That film we would have liked to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, the film we wanted to live.

Paul takes it personally.

It seems personal for Godard.

This feels like the film Godard has wanted to make.

It is his film.

*                               *                               *                               *                               *

Jean-Pierre Leaud is Francois Truffaut's leading man.

Here Jean-Luc Godard borrows him for his own film.

No problem.  Jean-Paul Belmondo is Jean-Luc Godard's leading man.

Francois Truffaut will borrow him for Mississippi Mermaid.

Of course we have already seen Jean-Pierre Melville borrow him for two films, Leon Morin, Priest (1961) and Le Doulos (1963).

The film is based on Guy De Maupassant's short stories "Paul's Mistress" and "The Signal."

Pauline Kael wrote a masterful review of this film.  It is worth finding and reading.