Mr. Sleeman Is Coming

     Radical Cinema 1967, Part One

     In a three part series, I seek to explore the trio of Jean-Luc Godard's feature films released in 1967: 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, La Chinoise, and Weekend.  I relate them first by the simple fact that they were released the same year, a time prior to the revolutionary events of 1968, when Godard, in May of that year during France's general strike, stepped onto a new path in his films, one stripped down, overtly political to the extreme, burying his identity in a collective filmmaking entity, the Dziga Vertov Group.

     Second, the three films of 1967 share the trait of not conforming to accepted norms of cinema from that period, when in America, for example, John Wayne's well-meaning but obtuse The Green Berets passed as a serious film concerned with the Vietnam War.  Godard's vision of Vietnam, at the same time, represents a realistic presentation through a few still magazine photos of Vietnamese affected by the war and commentary on American imperialism, as relevant then as it is now.  

     These Vietnam-themed moments happen in 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, an essay-like movie that avoids plot as it follows the daily life of its protagonist, Juliette Janson (Marina Vlady).  A typical Godardian device is to make no illusions about when the film you're watching was being shot. One moment in the film has Juliette mention that it's August 17, 1966.  I have the sense that this particular close-up of the actress was taken on that date.  Does this date the film?  Yes, but peculiarly, it doesn't make it dated, for Godard's work is never old-fashioned.  

     We see suburbs of Paris under construction, large apartment blocks going up, Juliette herself living in one of them, surrounded by other nearly identical buildings.  She has a husband who likes to keep abreast on his radio about world events, the Southeast Asia War in particular.  Juliette, mother of a little girl toddler and an older boy, sits near her husband in one scene, news of Vietnam blaring, reading a fashion magazine.  The film deals largely with surfaces, objects, objectification--of women, their bodies (Juliette's, as well as her mind, which remains mostly opaque, hence the film's title).  

     We don't know much about Juliette, anymore than we know about the smiling people advertising products in magazines and on television.  The civilization depicted builds up for the sake of pushing commodification upon those who will live within it.  The concrete, the construction equipment shown in numerous interconnecting scenes are the face of capitalist thought.

     I admit I'm not entirely sure about the accuracy of what I'm writing here in attempting to interpret this film.  I've now seen it three times.  The first time I was mainly baffled, the second time it started to make a lot of sense, while this third time it appears quite clear to me that it's purpose is to show a specific time and place, follow around a character who is less a fictional character and more of a presence drawing modern life to herself so that it can be illuminated.  

     Marina Vlady is directed in a purposely flat way, her expression almost never varying, a blank beautiful face dealing with reality as it comes.  She talks to herself, to the camera, to something or someone unseen offscreen.  Godard in those years would sometimes have an actor wear an earpiece.  He would then ask questions or feed lines that way.  In this film, Marina Vlady often responds to unheard questions.  Only once does she smile, a moment that looks spontaneous, an outtake left in the film.  

     The presentation of capitalism, of progress, in this film is so startling since it's backgrounded by the destruction of capitalism's twin, war.  Godard makes no distinction between these two practices of civilization.  Juliette's income derives from prostitution, the commodification of women.  In the film, everything is just a product--a box of laundry soap, Coca Cola, weapons of war, people.

     It's a shallow society that doesn't look much past the surface of the face and body, so that one only knows two or three things about her, about anyone dealt with for the purposes of entertainment or novelty.  This also makes people disposable.

     The film's depressing subject matter and flat tone are contrasted sharply by the brilliance of its execution, the stunning images of Paris under construction, the startling moments of philosophical insight (the coffee stirred in the cup scene takes the viewer's mind far indeed), Godard's narration, himself whispering about what we're seeing or not seeing.  A scene with Juliet Berto in her first film shines as she engages in an awkward conversation with Juliette's husband.  Berto went on to star in La Chinoise and had a small role in Weekend, as well as one of the main roles in Godard's 1968 film, Le Gai Savoir.  Marina Vlady, by contrast, made only the one Godard movie, but her performance stands out even if her character is a surface, which isn't to say her character is shallow.

                                                                             Vic Neptune