456. Masculin, Feminin/Masculine-Feminine (1966)

Running Time: 105 minutes
Directed By: Jean-Luc Godard
Written By: Jean-Luc Godard, from the stories La Femme de Paul and Le Signe by Guy de Maupassant
Main Cast: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Chantal Goya, Marlene Jobert, Michel Debord, Catherine-Isabelle Duport
Click here to view the trailer

GODARD WEEK: PART SIX

Amongst the collected scenes of "Masculine-Feminine" are title cards, reading different sayings throughout the film. One of them reads, "This film could have been called The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola. Understand what you will". I took that as a message from Godard, telling me to make of this film what I wanted and take away from it anything that I could salvage.

Paul (Leaud) is a 21-year-old wannabe activist who's opinions are many. In fact, the film opens with him reading from a text and soon follows with him and friend Robert (Debord) discussing politics. Paul meets Madeleine (Goya), a soon-to-be pop star and the two kind of hit it off. I say "kind of hit it off" because Madeleine doesn't have a real interest in Paul and basically strings him along because of his insatiable interest in her. Later, after the two have become close, she writes in her diary that she "might let him screw her". Some time passes and Madeleine takes on a couple of roommates, Elisabeth (Jobert) and Catherine (Duport) and the relationship troubles start to multiply. It seems as though Catherine has a bit of a crush on Paul and am I crazy or did I see traces of a homosexual attraction between Madeleine and Elisabeth? The four (as well as Robert) spend the majority of the film, saturating their days in what amounts to be meaningless conversation and interview-like scenes, including rants about politics, sex, war, commercialism, socialism, the aspect ratio of films, Bob Dylan, mashed potatoes, music, rank and race.

"When Lumiere first invented cinema, the last thing he had in mind was a spectacle."
-Godard

I like that quote. Maybe I like it, because when I read it and realize that it came straight from the horses mouth, it leads me to believe that maybe I took some of the right things away from "Masculine-Feminine". When Godard made this movie he intended it to be for the youth of the 1960s, but I think he was smart enough to realize that once the film was made, that it would be seen for years and I think he made a really smart film that can still be appreciated today, by a different generation. Hey, I don't follow politics, let alone the French aspect of politics, so none of that stuff appealed to me and they might as well have been discussing quantum mechanics or 15th Century Greek poetry, because it all went over my head. However, the entirety of the film isn't eaten up by political views, but rather is actually a really solid exercise in good dialogue. The dialogue was great, if you ask me and there were certain scenes and moments of back and forth banter that really hooked me. A particular scene, in a cafe, where Paul, Madeleine and Elisabeth listen in on the conversations around them. They overhear a prostitute propositioning a German and reminding him that "his people" were the ones who had the concentration camps, as if he needed reminding. At another table, Brigitte Bardot makes a cameo, reading lines with her supposed director. It's scenes like that, that really made this film stand out.

Another particular scene has Paul questioning "Miss 19", a chosen award-winner of a popular, French, fashion magazine. In the scene, Godard doesn't hesitate to paint young, twenty-something women as bubbly, stupid and ignorant to the world around them. He makes them look oblivious, only giving them knowledge of superficial importance and popular culture. Of course, the men aren't safe from his wrath either. Paul is made out to be a smug and pretentious, spewing out banter about "important subjects" in hopes that he'll impress a girl, but never doing so. If only Godard has toned down his own voice a little bit and let the dialogue flow a little more naturally. This picture came off as a bitter, cynical man, putting his words into his actors mouths and it was far too obvious. There's more subtle ways of getting your points across and anything more would have seen Godard himself screaming his ideas and opinions directly into the camera.

RATING: 6.5/10 Again, I'll quit while I'm ahead. It's good, but not '7' good. I wouldn't mind seeing it again sometime in the future, but as of press time, I can give it a mild recommendation. Next up: "2 or 3 Things I Know About Her".

MOVIES WATCHED: 390
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 611

January 8, 2012 1:58am