Une femme mariée

I just watched the film and I wanted to express a few thoughts and discussion points.

This appears to be one of Godard’s most thematically exclusive, soberly focused, emotionally-concerned films. It is stunning to consider how little digression there is in this film, especially viewing it right after Band of Outsiders(which is also where it falls chronologically). And in that same regard, it is intriguing to see Godard here use his various familiar filmic tropes of juxtaposition, intertitle, narration, etc. to a deeper, personal, even existential purpose. That is, it seems quite apt for the central character of Charlotte to express and endorse the experience of “the present”, as Godard uses her impressionistically fragmented narration over his montage to searingly evoke the quiet, scurrying, jostled inner life of his protagonist in the fleeting present tones of her existence.

Also intriguing is the way in which the sociopolitical content has such immediate emotional resonance for the protagonist—as Charlotte contends with the various societal notions of what her role and concerns as a woman are to be, via Godard’s most explicit exploration of consumerism up to this point(late 1964). This all also has quite interestingly feminist implications.

That’s about all I can say concretely at this point before studying the film.

What are your thoughts on the film?

What is Godard saying about a woman’s role in society, beyond the obvious presentation of commodity fetishism and misogynistic gender roles and standards purveyed by advertising and society in general? What are his wider sentiments, if any?

Can be substantially viewed as a transitional work between his early and mid-sixties work?

Doesn’t Charlotte’s husband vaguely seem like a Truffaut lookalike?

How do you interpret the recurrent device of the sequences of Charlotte’s body? Do you relate this to the theme of objectification?

Um…have you seen the film?

I saw the film on videotape years ago and don’t even really remember it. I’d love to see it again. Back then I wasn’t so deep into my Godard phase so a lot of things rushed past me without registering. I do recall it sort of sticking out in the context of his early “warm” 60s period. It felt very cold and analytical. Maybe it can stand as a key transitional piece pointing towards his late 60s work.

It’s the first film Godard made after his divorce form Anna Karina, and the casting of Macha meril was a very deliberate (and successful ) effort in utilizing an actress he wasn’t emotionally involved with. The image Godard creates her of women in consumer society is carried on in “Two or Three Things I Know Aout Her” shot a few years later.

I saw the film a year ago and liked it quite a bit. I was reading Richard Brody’s book on Godard at the time and that added to the appreciation. The most I can recall from the film was the opening with the hands against the white sheets. I remember liking it a lot more than Le Gai Savoir, Made in U.S.A, and La Chinoise.

@Bobby
It’s interesting that you recall the film as being cold and analytical. It certainly does not have the same sort of warmth or charm or cuteness of the previous films, but it seems to be intent on following its protagonist’s plight through more than those films. Godard seems to care about the character more here than before. And to be precise, he cares about her on a sober, serious level.

But obviously you can only consider what I’m saying to a certain extent if you can’t recall the film too well.

In that sense the film sounds like “My Life to Live”. In any event, “A Married Woman” is one of the few “golden age Godards” I need to see again and study closely, along with “The Little Soldier” and “Made in USA”. After tonight I’m doing pretty good with the Groupe Dziga Vertov period as well. I only need to see “A Film Like the Others”. Does anyone know if the “Cine-tracts” actually exist?

Well yest they exist. I saw them quite a number of years ago. They’re ver short — almost like commericals for “The Revolution.”

They’re very short — almost like commericals for “The Revolution.”

That’s so Godard, I love it. Even though I don’t care for his Dziga Vertov period, other than his Jerry Lewis homage in Tout Va Bien, that is such a brilliant idea.

I’d love to see them. They’re something of a Holy Grail for me. Not that I’ve been obsessing over them for years but I’ve always wondered if anyone has actually laid eyes on them.

That Dziga Vertov period is tough sledding for sure. But I was pleasantly surprised by “British Sounds”. It’s got the grating polemical speeches but holds interest because of the avant-garde approach to visuals and editing. The film has some life and energy to it. I can’t say that about the more rigorous Dziga Vertov films. It also feels more experimental and daring than the others. Beyond that the best ones are probably “Tout va bien” and “Letter to Jane”. I’d also like to see “One A.M.” but I’m not really counting it because he didn’t finish it.

@Bobby
Yeah, it is partially comparable to Vivre Sa Vie. Just, here Godard takes that sort of basis for how he thinks of his protagonist and realizes it by way of the experimental methods and theories that he had developed in the interim. So, the end result is far less straightforward in terms of the sense of humanity we get from the main character, but it is there. I think this film examines the state of the character from a much more oblique angle, or at least one that is superfically oblique as a result of the cinematic methods Godard employs to do so, but ultimately it is a more intimate, textured view than that film, I think.

Le Petit Soldat is also an interesting underdiscussed number, primarily because it(along with Les Carbiners) established how politically-minded Godard’s films were from very early on. I mean, Le Petit Soldat is his second film, and it is, of course, very explicit in its politics. It is not, perhaps, a full-on polemic, of course, but the subject matter is all there.

I only point this out because there seems to be tendency to feel that radical politics didn’t really enter his films until the mid-sixties. Or at least, this is the notion I had when I first started going through his filmography, and thus made it a rather striking experience to watch Soldat and Carbiners after seeing the big classics we all know.

@ Dada Weatherman — Indeed it’s political It features a waterbaording scene.

@Tannhowser — The actress in that still from Les Carabiniers is the mother of Emmnuelle Beart.

@David – Interesting, thanks for the info. Love Beart’s musical number in 8 Women.

This one ain’t bad either