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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Godard's Week End

  
 
TeN
01:02 / 21.12.06
just watched it for the first time tonight, and it's kept me thinking about a number of things

firstly, the "anti-cinematic" techniques Godard uses fascinate me. over and over again he uses sound effects and music to interrupt and obscure the dialogue. his cuts are distracting and obvious. the title cards constantly interrupt the flow of the film. the plot makes little sense and jumps around aimlessly. the characters are at times aware that they're in a film. at one point the protagonists appear to be dead, only to reappear in the next scene, where one of them is instantly killed off, this time for good. the repetitive use of the same dramatic music is nothing more than a parody of the use of music in film itself. there are certain scenes that drag on forever with no real purpose to them, and it seems apparent to me that Godard's intention is to bore his audience. on one level, the film functions as a critique of cinematic technique. his methods remind me of Brecht's alienation technique, but go even further than that into the realm of parodying that which Brecht simply eliminates.

what the film says about politics is complex and interesting. much of the film is a parody of the bourgeoisie. but there are also long segments of unmoving shots with marxist, anti-imperialist, etc. texts being read over them. of these segments, the one which best makes it point is when the couple hitchhikes with a duo of garbagemen, one an Algerian and one a Congolese. after begging for bread, the couple sits idly on top of a pile of garbage as the two men recite their political stances - calling the US and France "a new form of Naziism" and calling for the use of Viet-Cong guerilla warfare by African Americans against their government. after they're done with their "speaches" the film moves on. the point, at least as I interpret it, is to question just how useful any of that rhetoric is. it bores the couple, it bores the viewer.

the absurdist humor, critique of bourgeois values, and narrative structure remind me of Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. personally, I think Discreet Charm is funnier than Week End, but Godard's film is more interesting because it makes better use of film language. when I first saw Discreet Charm, I thought it fell flat because it's satire wasn't a cohesive one. rather it was a series of jokes strung together that never made up a whole. although one could make the same critique of Week End, the very structure of the film itself makes this more difficult. also note that one of the title cards in Week End reads "the exterminating angel" - the title of an earlier Buñuel film. having not seen that film, I'm not sure how to interpret that.
 
 
GogMickGog
15:20 / 21.12.06
Marvellous stuff, I shall watch my copy again tonight and post some reflections...
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
15:23 / 21.12.06
I keep on remembering that I have this film taped off the television and it's in a box somewhere. I really need to open the box and watch it.


Or go to the video shop and rent the DVD
 
 
TeN
19:33 / 21.12.06
apparently the whole thing is on YouTube as well if you don't mind watching entire movies on your computer screen (personally, I usually can't do it)
 
 
TeN
20:24 / 03.01.07
so, either of you get around to watching it?
or anyone else?

thoughts?
 
 
rizla mission
14:39 / 04.01.07
(First-off, it's interesting that this thread's summary describes Weekend as an "absurdist comedy"... I don't really see much comedic intent within it, and should think that the only laffs to be found are likely to be on a basic "what the hell?!?" shock/surprise kind of level.)

Personally, I think the best way to understand the film, and particularly the more, um, unorthodox elements of its construction, is to see it as being an APOCALYPTIC film on every level.

Fairly obviously the events of the film chronicle the collapse of capitalist / “civilised” society – a notion very much in tune with the Paris revolts and the political climate at the time of the film’s production.

Parallel to this, the film’s technique executes a pretty uncompromising demolition job on conventional (Hollywood-inherited) cinematic technique and associated habits of audience expectation. This functions to disturb / piss off the viewer on a level that’s both narrative (audience expects scenes to drive events and have some kind of a point, or at least for characters who are killed to stay dead etc.) and aesthetic (audience expects sound and vision to fit/complement each other, audience expects a shot to change/cut frequently rather than repeating one thing until it gets really fucking boring, audience expects conversations not to be filmed in fixed camera long-shot etc.).

The obvious critical reading is that Godard’s early films (circa Breathless, A Bande Apart) utilised a deep understanding of/respect for classic Hollywood technique, and had the freedom to retool and expand on what he saw as the GOOD bits of it to create films which were MORE fast-moving, cool, exciting and beautiful than the studio system would allow. But as his views and his films become more convoluted and politically radical through the ‘60s, he starts to twist and fuck with this perceived mastery of technique, and Weekend is the ultimate conclusion of this aspect of his work: a complete and deliberate destruction of the aesthetically pleasing /well-constructed shot-by-shot logical film-making which he now sees as a form belonging to the ‘old society’ which the film depicts as descending into chaos, wreckage and cannibalism : THE END OF CINEMA, as I seem to remember the caption at the end of the film actually declares.

(As an aside, the challenge to construct a new cinematic language in the aftermath of this demolition is one which disappointingly few subsequent film-makers have really taken up IMHO.)

The third level of Weekend’s apocalypse, and to me the most disturbing, is an apocalypse of human contact; for all that the film is jammed with dialogue and words of all kinds, and people interacting with other people in all possible ways, there is a total lack of warmth, understanding or communication between anyone at any point; this mirrors the film’s fragmented construction and the deliberate alienation of the man-in-the-street audience member from it.

It is the film’s portrayal of the alienation and insane artifice of modern society, and the confusion and emotional void of people trapped within it, that makes Weekend so disturbing, far more so than the boredom or the crazy shit going on.

The situations portrayed in the film may be consciously surreal, but on an essential level they all serve to demonstrate similar circumstances in the modern world that Godard sees as perverse, tragic and wrong. (This is hardly a new idea of course, you can trace it’s predecessors through aforementioned absurdism, Sartre, Beckett etc, but for my money Godard brings the point home with a lot more force than any of them.)

So, yeah, in many ways the film is a straightforward attack on society by Godard, and the “FUCK YOU!” factor in it’s intent can’t be underestimated, but at the same time I feel a comparison to ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ is a little off the mark;

For one thing, Weekend ISN’T a comedy, and for another, given the political/artistic context he was working in, for Godard to launch of full-on attack on bourgeois values would be exactly what was expected of him, something which he would have considered any right-thinking artist to do almost without thinking about it. So whilst quite a lot of disgust w/ the middle classes does make it into the film, Godard isn’t really concentrating so much on them; he is seeing them more as a symptom of (or as unconscious victims/propagators of) the larger political/social institutions which he REALLY seeks to attack.

('Discreet Charm..' is still a great movie, but conceptually a lot more lightweight I think.)

The inclusion in Weekend of long-winded recitations of political writing is a technique that I think Godard has utilised somewhere in just about all of his films, and I see it as working on a couple of levels.

Firstly, Godard was is an obsessive reader of political theory who takes his politics VERY seriously and is apparently oft liable to bore people senseless with it; Hence on a literal level the recitations in his films serve as a very direct way for him to propagate ideas which he considers important and thought-provoking.

And on a cinematic level, it can be used to create some real hammerblow audio/visual juxtapositions in the Eisenstein mould (Eisenstein being a strong precedent for Godard's political cinema, especially given JLG's fondness for publically declaring his work to be Marxist or Maoist or god knows what as the mood took him.)

More importantly though, particularly in Weekend with the scene with the two garbage collectors, I feel like he is deliberately addressing the way in which these political ideas, which are perhaps vital to eventually creating a more fair and sustainable world, quickly become almost unbearably boring when he tries to crow-bar them into his films. I think this scene reflects his anger that his audience, despite their supposed avant-garde credentials, still demand a modicum of ‘entertainment’ from their art whilst the world is in flame around them, and what better way for him to continue his attack on cinematic convention than by literally having his actors yell this stuff in their faces for as long as possible?

I think Godard also realises that, given the difficulties of direct communication in modern media such as cinema, the political point his diatribes are making will be forgotten or ignored, or even resented, by viewers, and there is a deliberate poignancy to his examination of this chasm between art and politics that rings truer than ever today every time the depressing old cyclical arguments re; “why aren’t more songs/books/films political?” “because political stuff is self-righteous and boring” etc. roll around.

So that’s a rough summation of my thoughts on the film.

And so, in conclusion, Godard fucking rocks.

Responses welcome.
 
 
GogMickGog
09:58 / 05.01.07
Rizla's exremely erudite post sets the bar rather high, so I shall attempt to go off in another direction.

What I think is most interesting about the film is the manner in which Godard employs classic Brechtian shock tactics - the placards and music, the violence and profanity - with moments which are drawn out and deliberately un-cinematic: shock and awe run against inertia and inactivity.

Look at that protracted dialogue near the start, in which the female protagonist discusses a perverse sexual encounter. It would seem that, by choosing not to show the scene but instead to have it narrated as flatly as possible, Godard is frustrating the audience's urge towards titillation.

Indeed, the entire setup works against this: the camera moves slowly in and out and the same jarring piece of music is introduced at the most haphazard and inappropriate moments. The willing frustration of cinematic language is very much part of Godard's tool: he wants to create a frustration and anger on the behalf of the viewer which would spill over into action and perhaps revolutionary thinking.

In a similar manner, the 'action' sequences are typified by a kind of crude, un-choreographed struggle. Stripped of any grace and dignity, the characters tussle in a way which is both funny and distressing.

Look at the scene in which the two protagonists steal the car from the man in the phone booth. What we see are a series of coups and small victories which are as deliberately drawn out and absurd as the famous traffic-jam tracking shot. Godard seems to be cramming the film with all the mainstays of commercial cinema and deliberately fudging them, so that the audience's expectations are repeatedly unmet.

My only disagreement with you, Rizla, is that the film is often very funny, but only in the blackest of senses. While I would agree that the most horrifying aspect of the film is alienation, I think the horror is only emphasised best by humour - look at the protagonists asking for directions from corpses, or indeed, that final cannibalistic image. When we laugh at such things, it means that the horrific response is buried beneath: it is the subconscious reaction and therefore the more potent.

For me, the most telling moment of the film comes at the end of the traffic jam shot. The cause of the jam is shown, in passing, as a handful of corpses lain by the roadside. Without comment, having reached the end of their delay, the characters move off and the camera is instantly with them. These are the first of many dead we see throughout the film. A number of re-actions are registered at such scenes, but it is in this one moment of cold indifference that I think Godard's sharpest criticism is made.
 
 
TeN
19:54 / 05.01.07
well I'm glad this thread is finally getting some response - and excellent, thought provoking responses as well.

to comment on some of the things that have been said...

I certainly agree with you, Rizla, that Week End could easily be classified as "apocalyptic." It depicts a society gone mad, and eventually, an actual revolution, and the subsequent descent into cannibalism (the message of course, is that the actual cannibalism at the end of the film is no worse than the casual disregard for human life that's been occuring throughout).

Still, however, I think the "absurdist comedy" label still applies. When I use that term, I mean it in the tradition of Dada. Surely Godard is attempting nothing less than an "end of cinema," but the way he goes about subverting cinematic form (and audience expectation) is filled with humor. The way he toys with his audience is not merely through Brechtian boredom and alienation, but with more humorous forms of it. The scene with the man playing Mozart, for instance, works on a number of levels. Firstly it is a parody of upper class values and "art." Second, it is an attempt to bore the audience. And third, it is a parody of the audience's boredome - mirrored in the boredom of the protagonists (certainly comparing your audience to murderers is not a compliment). This is all in addition to the more convential instances of parody/satire (many of which, I feel, bear a strong resemblance to "Discreet Charm...").

Mick, it's interesting that you bring up the scene in which Corrine describes her "perverse sexual encounter." Although I agree that Godard's intention was as you described it, I feel as though he was unsuccessful. Ironically, that scene has been declared one of the best sex scenes in all film (I wish I could find where I read this - it was some magazine - but despite relentless searching, I cannot), despite Godard's intention to strip it of all eroticism. When I first saw the scene, I thought of it mostly as an attempt to shock the audience. I was aware of the odd use of music and camera movement, and realized these were a parody of cinematic language, but in my mind this was secondary to the shock value. I suppose part of this is because I was watching the film with English subtitles, so I didn't realize that the music was covering up the most titilating parts of the description. Funny enough, I later learned that the scene was also intended as a parody of a similar scene in Bergman's Persona (which I haven't seen).

One thing that hasn't been discussed, but that I've been thinking a lot about, is the inability of the audience to relate to any of the characters. The protagonists certainly not the most amiable people in the world, but the people they encounter aren't much better. There are the Pianist and the Garbagemen, who bore the audience to tears. There are the anarchists, who are murders, cannibals, and rapists, and who parody the naive young radicals of the late 60s with their "hip" outfits and love of poetry and music. There is Emily Bronte - completely out of place in the modern world - who's being burned alive, although "shocking," isn't really met with sympathy by the audience (Bronte having bored them almost as much as the Pianist).

Most interesting, though, is Joseph Balsamo, the "magician" hitchhiker who is picked up by the couple when he holds them at gunpoint. I feel as if Balsamo is the character who best represents Godard. As the "exterminating angel," he signals the death of the ruling class. "I am here to inform these modern times of the grammatical era's end and the beginning of flamboyance especially in cinema," he says, aligning himself with Godard's own cinematic sensibilities. As with the garbagemen, however, he also serves as self-parody.
 
  
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