More Depressing than Pierrot Le Fou?
that is the weirdest reaction to A Woman is a Woman I’ve ever heard.
It’s depressing in the sense that it is perhaps 1/3 as interesting as Pierrot.
I didn’t find either depressing. Pierrot is full of life, sun and fun, colour, joie de vivre, never mind the ending or relationship, what a gorgeous ride along the way. I keep repeating that for me Godard’s films lost something of that joie de vivre when he and Karina split. I don’t remember Une Femme est une Femme so well but i found it more uplifting than a downer, again for the playfulness of the film-making, love of the medium. Both films seemed fresh, whereas later there’s a sense of (maybe tired, old hat?) repetition of certain Godard trademarks
exactly what Kenji said.
Godard’s films of that period are some of the lightest ever made.
as for Miasma, well, I don’t know where he’s coming from.
Une Femme est Une Femme always puts a massive smile on my face, as does Pierrot Le Feu, even the ending, as RUS said, weirdest reaction ever.
Really? I thought Pierrot Le Fou was pretty depressing the whole way through. Specifically, the first song, when Anna Karina sings to Jean Paul Belmondo in her apartment. The long shot of Belmondo’s face looks like he’s about to start crying. They seem to be these people stuck as characters and are required (by themselves? by society? by the movie itself?) to act out all these genre conventions. I find that terribly depressing. Especially Belmondo’s face.
Does nobody find Pierrot Le Fou depressing?? One of my favorite things about it was that it’s so depressing, but has such bright colors, etc. I thought it was pretty much a consensus that it was depressing!
Pierrot Le Fou is such a joyful film. Did you have some expectation that these films were depressing?
Pierrot le fou is very pesimistic, specially at the end. In Colin McCabe’s comment about the film he tells us that just after she had seen the film, Godard’s sister went to visit him to make sure he wasn’t about to kill himself. In my opinion, the saddest film he made in this period (1959-1969) was, along with pierrot le fou, Le petit soldat.
*However, A woman is a woman isn’t depressing, sad or pesimistic at all.
I always thought it was really funny, all of Godard’s early films have such a dry wit to them. I mean look at the end of A Bout de Souffle, that’s not depressing, it’s hilarious!
RUS: Not at all… Before seeing Pierrot Le Fou I had only seen Breathless & Band of Outsiders, although I guess I did consider both of those kind of depressing… Breathless I guess exclusively for the end, and Band of Outsiders for the scene when Anna Karina and whoever the guy is are driving away after killing the other guy… Karina says something really depressing there, although I can’t remember what it was. You guys do consider 2 or 3 Things depressing, right?
just try to remember that Godard is always putting you on.
that’s why the films are so fun.
Allan: I guess the thing I find especially depressing about the end of Breathless is the fact that his dying words go misunderstood… That would be pretty annoying.
Une Femme est Une Femme is one of the least depressing movies ever made.
As Pierrot le Fou ends with a murder-suicide it might well qualify as depressing, yet I’ve never found it to be so.
i don’t find this depressing, or the locations, or the fox, or…
/\/\You don’t find that at all depressing??? Those two are not at all equipped to be doing that song and dance, nor is the technology Godard was using! And she’s ill-fated!
I was about to say even with ill-fated, and not being Fred and Ginger, not at all depressing, but marvellous! Carefree, sense of freedom, does she look miserable?
“Those two are not at all equipped to be doing that song and dance, nor is the technology Godard was using! And she’s ill-fated!”
you drink too much.
Ok, now watch his face at 1:43. Totally depressing. And his comment at the end of the song (not in video)… “well, in 60 years, when we’re both dead, we’ll know whether we stayed in love or not.”
I find the Godard’s female characters depressing in that they always enigmas, objects or ditzes – usually Anna Karina’s splendor can overcome his characterizations but she didn’t quite do it in UFeUF. Is that what you meant?
The only depressing thing about Godard’s female characters is how misogynistically created they are, ditsy, care free, anti-intellectual and silly the lot of them, which always makes me feel a hypocrite for loving Karina in his films so much haha
“The only depressing thing about Godard’s female characters is how misogynistically created they are, ditsy, care free, anti-intellectual and silly the lot of them, which always makes me feel a hypocrite for loving Karina in his films so much haha”
baffling comments this evening.
Pick any of his films in the 60’s. They trashed the rules and absolutely nobody has achieved that mix of comedy, tragedy and just wacky exuberance. Shame nobody picked up the mantle.
Is he depressing? There’s a destiny that hovers in the early films but we muddle through. If I had to pick between life affirming and depressing for Pierrot, well, Godard usually picks life and I would to.
I find Pierrot Le Fou to be a joyful film as well, but with a tinge of sadness right underneath the surface. I think this is displayed perfectly in the two songs. They’re both, on the surface of things, very delightful and elegant displays but Karina’s words definitely seem ill fated. They underline someone who in the moment is having a great time, but who also masks a pessimistic view of their future together. Her heart and her mind are very much at odds and she finds herself constantly questioning the feelings she has in the moment. The reason much of the movie is so joyful is because you’re sharing their love in the moment.
In the end she decides to go against her heart. She’s let her optimistic and joyful side(which shines through triumphantly through Karina) get overshadowed by her second guessing and her rational mind. In the end, Belmondo takes on both his and her irrationality and finds that the only way to escape it is through suicide. He’s a romantic at heart, no matter how much he tries to cover it up and his rational mind becomes destroyed by it. She abandons her romanticism with rationality in the most cold way possible. I think it’s a movie about being able to balance the two, between two people in a relationship.
I know it’s not the most clear analysis and that I may have repeated myself, but I didn’t want to come off as overly analytical.
-Why do you look so sad?
-Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.
Pierrot le fou is a film about the tragedy of fictional characters, loved by an audience, but unable to reciprocate that love as a result of the one-way limitations of cinema. These characters will never embrace an audience with the same passion that an audience embraces them.
So, they are essentially loveless (as in, without love).
The final scene of the film has always brought tears to my eyes, precisely because I recognise that particular urge to self-destruct; to be driven to the ends of the earth in the pursuit of that one perfect love, incapable of reciprocation, with the realisation that life (without her) isn’t worth living.
-Do you know the saying by Saint Augustine: The measure of love is to love without measure?
The thread of unrequited love runs throughout Godard’s work, but it is at its strongest and most heart-breaking here, and in Prenom Carmen.
Pierrot le fou, like Varda’s Le bonheur, is a film where intense colour, movement and moments of romantic abandon are used to disguise the violent, existential, emotional brutality within.
Karina’s the only female lead who can transcend his horrible female characterizations. Anna Wiazemsky makes me cringe. Vivre Sa Vie had moments of such sublime joy that rest so much on her performance and Godard’s ability to view her through an absolutely loving gaze. It must have been at the height of their love affair.
Oh come on, how often does a woman in a Godard film do or say anything intellectual, remembering that in almost all his films men are reading poetry and literature aloud all the god-damn time.
I’ve always found Godard’s males just as stupid as the females, even when (maybe because) they’re reading poetry and literature aloud all the god-damn time. How stupid is it when Belmondo chides Karina for buying a 45, saying “music after literature! One album for every fifty books!” What a ridiculous and arbitrary rule.
Sarah Adler and Nade Dieu in Notre musique
Laurence Masliah in Helas pour moi
Myriem Roussel in Hail Mary
Maruschka Detmers in Prenom Carmen
Nathalie Baye and Isabelle Huppert in Sauve qui peut (la vie)
All strong, intelligent, independent female characterisations in Godard’s work; often stronger and more intelligent than the male characters; certainly more sympathetic and less interior.
Drunken Father Figure of Old
(A response to Jazzaloha’s claim from about an hour ago… I don’t normally start posts even when I want a film discussed because usually, as now, my thoughts are pretty vague at best)
I just watched Pierrot le Fou two nights ago and A Woman is A Woman last night with my brother (his introduction to Godard). I’ve always considered Pierrot le Fou to be a much more depressing film, and I said that to my brother, but he thought the opposite. I think my opinion may may be solely because of the ending. Pierrot le Fou has the most depressing ending you can get, while Woman has a happy ending that doesn’t make any sense. And even Angela and Emile’s relationship doesn’t really make sense – I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but when Godard talks about their “mutual and undying love,” I always think “wait… we don’t really have any evidence of that.” They seem to be two people living together who fall into a complaisant sort of love with each other. Likewise, the film presents them in bright colors with ridiculous music cues when there seems to be no real happiness in their relationship or lives. So what’s more depressing, a depressed couple who kid themselves into being happy or a depressed man who leaves his comfortable life to find something better and, (SPOILER) failing, leaves life altogether (END SPOILER)?
Let’s talk about specific scenes too… One of the most depressing to me is Angela in the kitchen when suddenly the radio broadcast of the Madrid-Barcelona match comes on (Puskas a Del Sol! Del Sol a Puskas!). I’m not sure why that affects me, but it does… probably Anna Karina’s face. As good is the part when it’s a bunch of shots of Karina’s face. I melt.