The Emphasis of Titles, the Structures of Language, the Difficulties of Translation and the Authenticity of Choice

I find the English translation of Vivra sa vie to be misguided.  It emphasizes the misleading nature of language.  My Life to Live asserts a first-person, Nana.  The original French title is an observation of Nana in the third-person translated as To live her life/She lives her life.  The English title predetermines a sense of complete agency in her situation as opposed to an observational allowance of an individual as she enacts her limited potential choices “in a world defined by men, money, sex without love, and violence.”[1]  How could these two possessive pronouns, “my” and “her”, be interpreted through the filmmaking itself?  “My” could be more point-of-view shots and “Her” could be more observational as this film predominantly demonstrates.  As Morrey writes: “Vivre sa vie is probably the most austere of Godard’s films: there is a simplicity, a rigour, even a minimalism to the way many of its scenes are shot that resembles Bresson.”[2]  The translated title may seem a mute point, although, when we, as English speakers/translators, first approach this film it is through the title, which is presented as a lens of a first-person agency of assertion as opposed to a third-person external witnessing.  This film predominantly witnesses from the outside.  A title with a first-person possessive pronoun subverts the innate essence of the existentialist approach that Godard approached with his filmic vision and execution. Therefore, I believe the English translation to be categorically wrong in consideration of the essence of this film.

(Same as the French title)

This is my life

The history/story/narrative of Nana S.

On agency and authenticity, what is so particularly authentic about choosing a life of prostitution?  If Nana forged her path as a lone prostitute then maybe this choice would be more individuated, however, she submits into a line of work that is governed by larger social forces, including a pimp and government regulation through registration and required physical check-ups.  And further, this film is populated with other women who have made this choice- whether situated on the street, in the hotels or referenced through Nana’s cursive letters as she writes to a madam in the café scene.  Assuming the life of a prostitute may run counter to popular beliefs but it is a far cry from a revolutionary act. Indeed it is an age-old profession with a well-known, intimate social function.  If, on the other hand, she assumed the role of a dominatrix, I would definitely consider this choice as an authentic step at that time, and probably even now.  However, becoming a dominatrix would suggest a state of power within her social environment, in as such, her choice of prostitution is directly reflective of her limitations within her social setting and the limited potential choices of her sex, of her femaleness.  Although she is living her life and accruing her “essence” it is not a remarkably unique path, albeit authentic. 

Lastly, once Nana’s body is dominated by someone else (whether through her clients in sex or most importantly through her pimp), her choices are inherently out of her control.  She is physically out of control of her body and of her physical realm.  In contrast, one could argue that by becoming prostitute, she has taken total responsibility of herself and her body.  However, I find this argument weak given that there is a pre-existent, male dominated, system of power under which she falls as a prostitute worker.  And further, her lack of control is announced in advance in the tableaux that predict the actions before they happen.  Morrey writes of the Bressonian nature of the predictive 12 tableaux: “One might attribute a different motivation to Godard’s adoption of this technique, for example showing how Nana is caught up in a causal chain of events that is beyond her control…”.[3]  Because of her inherent reducibility to her body (because she is a woman) and because this body is out of her control, does she truly have choices?  Do these tableaux predictions further efface the very argument of her freedom of choice? As I wrote in a post from last Fall, Godard focuses on prostitution as a choice/non-choice within a capitalist system.[4]  And as Morrey quotes from Steve Cannon: “prostitution represents the basic condition of labour under capitalism.”[5]  I don’t view Nana as making unique choices, but choices nonetheless.  This we all do; she does; he does; they do.  And in doing so, are responsibility and acquiescence of one’s life situation dissimilar actions or blurred borders of convergence? 

I find the nuances in these posters fascinating in response to the particular translation.

---

[1] “Vivre Sa Vie”, Siew Hwa Beh, 185.

[2] Jean-Luc Godard, Douglas Morrey, 40.

[3] Ibid, 41.

[4] See  my blog post: “Femini masculine”, Monday, November 29, 2010.

[5] Ibid, 42.

Reply to C.T.

Here are two replies to C.T.'s excellent post on "Word and Image in Vivre Sa Vie." These comments also allow me to nuance some of the arguments I made in class last night.

(1) Having reviewed the position of the philosopher Brice Parain (whom Nana meets in a café in Vivre sa vie), I don't think I made it clear how his views can be squared with existentialism. His arguments can be understood as existential because he both acknowledges the constraint or limitation of language as well as the necessity of making sense, of communicating, of forging relations, through or within language. We cannot simply or passively accept the norms that serve as the basis of language, but neither can we believe it possible to wholly overcome them either; rather, we have to discover a usage of language that allows us to express our limited but necessary freedom. Moreover, Parain's insistence on silence – as a respite from language – can be understood as akin to Godard's examination of the image/word conflict in his film. In this way, Godard's film can be seen as an attempt to put into practice not only these moments of solitude or silence (and the withdrawal of meaning or sense) but also a modified – personalized – use of language or grammar.

(2) Despite the placement of La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc on the side of image and on the side of silence (it being a silent film), Carl Dreyer's great 1928 work is itself a complex examination of the relation between words and images. Here, I refer specifically to the way the filmmaker places words (logos) on the side of patriarchy or Law, becoming the means whereby the tribunal comes to condemn Joan of Arc and consign her body to the pyre. Dreyer uses historical documents to accurately replicate the actual words used at Joan's trial and he juxtaposes these words, used as intertitles, with a series of revelatory close-ups (but revelatory of what, exactly?). This reminds us that Godard too doesn't simply forego words or language and in the name of a silent image. Rather, he will increasingly foreground their relation, showing us – among other things – how words, in cinema, can become images (and, in the process, lose their fixed sense). 

   

S I-G

The Idea of Language: In Terms of the Language of an Idea (as Seen through a Picture, not a Story ---)

1965 and Forwards On:

In other words, when critics describe Godard’s work as more and more radical towards the end of the 1960’s and onwards, and when they describe his aversion to mainstream filmmaking towards the end of the 1960’s ad infinitum, what they really mean to say is that his films are no longer moving images to be watched and critiqued, so much as ideas; to be read, studied, explicated in the context of society and therefore given new meaning and purpose at any given time throughout which the person doing said “explicating”  deems necessary.  

Ok. So, when I saw Masculine/Feminine for the first time, my initial reaction was: great film. Upon thinking about Masculine/Feminine, the only thing I wanted to do was go back and read the film again – give it its proper meaning and thought process. Is that not what Godard had intended? We as the audience are as just as much part of his “idea” of filmmaking, as anyone else involved in the making of his films.  

As mentioned in class,  Masculine/Feminine was one of his first films considered unconventional as well as the precursor to the genre of film that Godard would create and/or master throughout the rest of his career. After all Masculine/Feminine was a film about the "idea of youth."      

  

I think that means: it was (Godard's first film) about the idea of everything that was going on in Paris in the 1960's – in terms of the future of a country/city/political base/economic policy, etc. – and thus – yes, it was a film about the idea of everything. 

So then language, made up of words,  designed to express ideas – is something Godard can and would create in his films (?). 

"Words enter into discourse of another order, either to fix an ambiguous meaning, like a label or a title, or to contribute to the meaning that cannot otherwise be communicated, like the words in the bubbles of a strip cartoon. Words either anchor meaning, or convey it." (Wollen 118). 

I think for Godard, every word used is an anchor to the meaning of something, some idea, some ideology having not been expressed properly enough through an image,  therefore becoming its own image, its own idea of a word.

After Masculine/Feminine came Made In USA. It's interesting to watch these chronologically:

vs.

Masculine/Feminine almost seemed to be the prolougue to what was to become of his next films, in terms of a picture. While the ideas of a mass culture of consumerism, violence, confusion, and general disallusioment where all the same, the picture became that much more pronounced, in terms of a word......

So then for Godard –  the concept of an image takes on the concept of an idea, in order to define a word.

-erika