Nouvelle Vague
Romanticizing Godard in a nice way
As much as I’ve had and still have a problem with Jean-Luc Godard and his utterly pretentious attitudes to film-making, I cannot but agree in the praise of Richard Linklater’s ”Nouvelle Vague” epic (basically chronicling the production of Godard’s ”Breathless” from 1960). What a sweet and pleasing film, in so many ways.
I could of course obviously argue that it’s not a Godard film in itself but one about Godard. Which is true, but it also seems honest enough to relay the immature and über-intellectualized shenanigans that were already in place in Godard’s mind at this time. Lucky for him to have had great friends in far superior filmmakers such as Truffaut, Chabrol, Bresson, Melville et al. According to ”Nouvelle Vague” (a highly romanticizing film) they all helped out with good advice, contacts, etc.
No-one denies the fresh energy of ”Breathless” – it is a great film-noir pastiche set in a Paris so vibrant and cool that it could have hosted any kind of film, and surely did. The problems with/in Godard – that in the Linklater film come across as charming and quirky – are essentially French in essence: the weight & complexity of the language, the overindulgence in the appreciation of culture but not necessarily in its creation (vide: their religious infatuation with and embrace of American culture at this time), and an obsessive mind-frame that actively removes any risk of just ”liking” something without demounting/deconstructing the very essence that makes it potentially likable. However, it is not merely a cultural issue but an individual one. Truffaut, for instance, was a master director who could convey feelings and stories without any problems or hurdles; Godard, not so much.
This conundrum was visible in other arenas as well at the time: Jacques Lacan’s talking psychoanalysis to death and thereby making a functional method of therapy completely impotent. Another example is the entire spectacle of ”May 68” in which toxic and childlike ideas of betterment emanated like a plague from French universities (!) and took on defending the so-called proletariat, which was never asked what they felt about anything. Et cetera. The French are indeed a very special people, and Godard was 100% French in this regard: obsessive, childlike, unable to communicate, and therefore jumbling the means of communications on his own terms and for his own sake. In better minds and more capable hands this could actually work to amplify whatever degree of genius that might actually be there.
What turned me off forever was Godard’s horrible ”One Plus One: Sympathy for the Devil” (1968), in which he was allowed to be present at the recording of the Rolling Stones album ”Beggars Banquet” but manages to fuck it up by involving political ”ideas” and zeitgeistish romanticizing of chaos, pure & simple.
I have tried time and time again to give Godard a chance but he has never delivered anything to me except for unjustified grandiloquence and formal inanities. ”Breathless” would be the one exception but that is the work of a daring yet unformatted filmmaker. ”Nouvelle Vague” captures this in a loving and respectful way, and is, again, very worthy of the praise it’s received.
I know, I know… I don’t have to watch any Godard movies. And believe me, I usually don’t. But ”Nouvelle Vague” at least made me respect Godard more than I have. He did what he did and in the way he did. More power to him! That said, I’ll be happy to revisit some Truffaut gems instead, while realizing that the era itself must have been fun, creative, and in many ways liberating, despite the French headiness – not thanks to it.
Check out Jean-Luc Godard here.
