New Psychology New Cinema

For this post I was rethinking the discussion last week about Godard, Delueze and the issue of cinema in relation to Eisenstein. This got me thinking about going back to Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s chapter “The Film and the New Psychology.” Merleau-Ponty discusses the issue with modern psychology in regards to film. He calls for a new methodology for thinking about man’s place in the world. Merleau-Ponty writes, “The new psychology has…revealed man to us not as an understanding which constructs the world but as a being thrown into the world and attached to it by a natural bond” (53). Although his emphasizes on a new way of thinking about man, the world and his place in it, Merleau-Ponty is really concerned with an essence that predicates intelligence. Now, intelligence for Merleau-Ponty is linked closely with perception. His claim for something that predates or something that is more deeply rooted than perception seems to be that of presence—that which creates a biological bond between man and the world. This is quite a heavy topic in and of itself; however, what Merleau-Ponty is getting at is the notion of a new way of viewing the world that is interdisciplinary, combining psychology, philosophy and a technological advancement, cinema. He writes that psychology, philosophy and filmmaking share an essential link to the world. This link seems to lie in the realm of consciousness, but also the inseparable connection between the body and the mind. Merleau-Ponty’s last line writes,

“if philosophy is in harmony with cinema, if thought and technical effort are heading in the same direction, it is because the philosopher and the moviemaker share a certain way of being, a certain view of the world which belongs to a generation. It offers us yet another chance to confirm that modes of thought correspond to technical methods and that, to use Goethe’s phrase, ‘What is inside is also outside’” (59).    

The correspondence Merleau-Ponty writes about between philosophy and cinema becomes an interesting predicate to thinking about Godard and Delueze. He creates this connection between the possibilities of cinema to create a different way of, as he states, “…presenting consciousness thrown into the world…” (58).  The chapter begins with critiquing the methods of psychology and image, but ends up optimistic about the parallels between philosophy and cinema. However, he also recognizes the adolescence of this pairing, tying these disciplines to a unique generation of individuals who will develop with this ability to capture through the cinema what philosophers have been doing through written language. For Merleau-Ponty, the technology of cinema has enabled this new manner in thinking—a new manner to portray the unity of consciousness of body and mind. 

jml

  

A Woman is a Woman

"LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!"
 
This was the first film of Godard's that I've seen. I was about twelve years old and remembered it solely as being this "cute" comedy with a pretty girl in it...

Directed in 1961, (after Le Petit Soldat, Karina's first movie with Godard - which wasn't released until 1963) Godard intended to make a musical, a "comic spectacle" but when he began his relationship with Karina, he added deeper issues and conflicts to the relationship between the two main characters Angela and Emile, making this film somewhat about his life with Karina: she is a heavy-accented Danish entertainer (in the movie she talks about having to call her parents in Copenhagen), they live together but are not yet married.
Originally, Godard wanted to make a musical and too often, it is advertised as being one, but it is rather a film with music, a film with an entertainer who wishes she was in a musical. As Angela says, "Je voudrais être dans une comédie musicale!" ("I would like to be in a musical !").

Since its creation, cinema has been codified whether it be in the script-writing or narration or the relationship of the actor to the camera: looking at the camera, jump cuts or the 180 degree rule were not to be used, so that the action on screen is coherent and understandable, the camera being at the service of the action. Nouvelle Vague filmmakers, in particular Godard, put a stop to this narrative logic. A Woman is a Woman fits into this new wave of thought and film-making: the beginning of the film -which like all of Godard's films is very stylized- is made up of titles in the colors of the French flag, saying  "ONCE UPON A TIME"; "GODARD"; "MUSICAL"; "LUBITSCH" etc. 

The credits end when we hear "LIGHTS" with a photo of Brialy, "CAMERA" with a photo of Karina and "ACTION!" with a photo of Belmondo. 

Godard makes the viewer aware that it is a film that is being watched, whether the actor is actually commenting on the film (like in Weekend Roland: "What a rotten film.") or making a film in several chapters, or tableaux, like in Vivre Sa Vie. In A Woman is a Woman, Karina winks at the camera, Belmondo comments into it about Karina when she leaves "et elle s'en va" ("and she leaves.") and Karina even tells her lover that he has to greet the spectators, so they both bow into the camera, it is almost like a spectacle we are watching.

As for the production of the film, this was Godard's first Cinemascope and color film, which not only affected the size of the crew and the shoot schedule but also the amount of artificial light to be used, which was not to Godard's taste, since him and Coutard mostly used available light in other films. Godard also mapped out the film based on an apartment he was going to rent from a couple, but not too long before the shoot was to begin, the couple withdrew, which made Godard's crew happy since filming in a studio would be a lot easier: the camera would be able to move anywhere since the walls could be shifted, there would be no ceiling, so the lights could be placed anywhere. However, they were quickly disappointed, as Godard decided to construct an exact replica of the apartment, with its walls and ceilings and disadvantages.
As for the dialogue, Godard is known for giving their lines to the actors the same day (which for some actors such as Jean Seberg was a problem, as they couldn't study the character). In A Woman is a Woman, Brialy, Karina and Belmondo would have to learn their lines immediately before shooting, as Godard could not call the lines out to them during shooting because of direct sound, which made Karina -an untrained actress still- run off the set on many occasions.

As Brialy said, "[Godard and Karina] tore each other apart, argued [...] hated each other, screamed at each other." but they loved each other, like Angela and Emile. 

It is a wonderful film, which will never get old. And yes, a woman is a woman. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

-J.

Last Thoughts/Chris Marker Excerpt

As the semester draws to a close, I am suddenly realizing just how much I have learned and experienced in this course. The late films I initially resisted are beginning to reveal themselves to my formerly stubborn tastes. If I can draw one lesson from Godard's cinema it would be: don't give in, believe in (without forgetting to occasionally query) the cinema and pursue your thoughts, ruminations, politics, theories, obsessions. Although Godard's films are packed to bursting point with theory and thought, what astounds me the most about them (in the best cases) is that despite th intellectual overload, they still produce an affect. I don't mean "affect" as in the classical Hollywood schema: losing one's self in the story and psychological motives of the protagonist. Rather I mean that these films have (for me at least) affected my notions of reality, truth, and beauty. Affect in the broad sense of the word. If Godard makes films that function as thoughts, they also function as feelings.

How else can I explain my emotions after seeing 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her? There is no shortage of  theoretical/intellectual discourse, yet I am seeing and experiencing in a way that owes little to the written/spoken word by itself. Something else is produced: a burning need to look at the world, to question its presuppositions, to look at the world with a kino-eye; produced that a camera was shooting this object, yet forever removed from the reality/referent to which it owes its existence.

Godard's cinema makes me want make my own cinema on my own terms. I have learned that cinema begins and ends with looking and perhaps as Ranciere suggests, thought and gaze are not so removed from one and other as some might like to think.

I'd like to share this excerpt of a piece by Chris Marker I found on the website chrismarker.org (an excellent resource on the filmmaker/multimedia artist/host of other auxiliary identities.)





Although only an excerpt, the piece reminds me of Godard in Marker's rich reappropriation of a classic text (in this case Plato's "Allegory of The Cave.) to a new context. Though criminally short, this excerpt hints at something unbelievable interesting and originally was television series(!). If only Marker and Godard were given free reign to produce television.. but I suppose this explains Marker's attraction to the internet, with its potentially hyper-democratic access and endless memory ("I wonder how people remember things who don't film, don't photograph, don't tape". . .). A full description of the piece can be read here. Somehow even this brief excerpt seems a fitting send-off for us.

Anyway, it was an absolute pleasure sharing my Monday nights with all of you and I want to wish everyone a safe and relaxing break with their loved ones. Also for those of us who are currently furiously finishing up visual projects for the class, it would be great if we all posted these projects on here so we could watch each other's final work. I was thrilled at the breadth, scope and variety of subjects and style-the diversity and heterogeneity of which seem absolutely appropriate in the context of Godard.


Vivez votre vie!