Speaking about Godard

Kaja Silverman, Harun Farocki

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 1998
• ISBN:
  9780814739709
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Medienwissenschaften

Probably the most prominent living filmmaker, and one of the foremost directors of the postwar era, Jean Luc-Godard has received astonishingly little critical attention in the United States. With Speaking about Godard, leading film theorist Kaja Silverman and filmmaker Harun Farocki have made one of the most significant contributions to film studies in recent memory: a lively set of conversations about Godard and his major films, from Contempt to Passion.

Combining the insights of a feminist film theorist with those of an avant-garde filmmaker, these eight dialogues–each representing a different period of Godard's film production, and together spanning his entire career–get at the very heart of his formal and theoretical innovations, teasing out, with probity and grace, the ways in which image and text inform one another throughout Godard's oeuvre. Indeed, the dialogic format here serves as the perfect means of capturing the rhythm of Godard's ongoing conversation with his own medium, in addition to shedding light on how a critic and a director of films respectively interpret his work.

As it takes us through Godard's films in real time, Speaking about Godard conveys the sense that we are at the movies with Silverman and Farocki, and that we, as both student and participant, are the ultimate beneficiaries of the performance of this critique. Accessible, informative, witty, and, most of all, entertaining, the conversations assembled here form a testament to the continuing power of Godard's work to spark intense debate, and reinvigorate the study of one of the great artists of our time.

one

Nana Is an Animal

My Life to Live/Vivre sa vie (1962)

HF: My Life to Live (1962) consists of twelve episodes telling the story of Nana (Anna Karina), a young woman whose beauty—as Patricia High-smith would say—is dangerous, but only to herself. Pimps, Johns, and artists find in her face and body the incarnation of their dreams. As a consequence, Nana’s life is not hers to live.

KS: At the beginning of the film, Nana works as a shopgirl in a record store, but earns so little that she can’t pay her rent. She dreams vaguely of becoming a success in the movies or theater, but before long slides into prostitution. As is customary in the movies, Raoul, her pimp (Sadt Rebbot), does not treat her well. Not surprisingly, then, Nana falls in love with someone else, and decides to break off her relationship with Raoul. But before she can do so, Raoul sells her to some other pimps. A quarrel ensues, and Raoul and one of the other pimps casually eliminate Nana. The film ends with a two-minute-long close-up of her corpse, which has been brutally reduced to a few seconds in the American version.

HF: Unexplained omissions occur between and within the twelve episodes. These are not omissions of the usual sort, which delete unimportant moments, or create significant gaps, but more the kind one encounters in a documentary film. With them, the film says something like: “We did not see our heroine during the next two weeks. When we met her again, she was ...” They confer upon what we are shown the status of found fragments, rather than produced elements. As a result, no scene is subordinated to any other. Instead, every sound and image is equal. Our analysis should respect this democracy of being.

Credit Sequence

KS: The three shots over which the credits are displayed show us Nana’s head first in left profile, then from the front, and finally in right profile. In each of these shots, Nana’s neck and the edges of her profile are illuminated, but her face is heavily shadowed. By shooting from three different sides, the camera attempts to penetrate the mystery suggested by this darkness.

HF: The lighting is studied in this sequence, as in art photography. It makes an image out of Nana’s face. However, the sequence has one strikingly documentary feature, which is the unprofessional flare of light with which it ends. Such a flare would normally be edited out of a fiction film, but is often included in a documentary film as a way of establishing the verisimilitude of its images. By virtue of this feature, as well as of the camera’s attempt to be exhaustive in the views it provides of Nana’s face, these shots represent something like police photographs, or a physiognomic study. They offer a documentary of a face.

KS: Insofar as the three credit shots represent a documentary of a face, they tilt the film in the direction of Karina rather than of Nana. It is the mystery of the actress rather than the mystery of the character which is being plumbed. But these images are not purely documentary; they are also elements within a fiction film. Consequently, it would be more appropriate to say that it is the mystery of Nana as the mystery of Anna Karina which is at issue here. In this respect, these three shots are emblematic of the film as a whole. More than any other work, My Life to Live proves the truth of Godard’s claim that, since “an actor exists independently of me ... I try to make use of that existence and to shape things around it so that he can continue to exist” within the character he plays.¹ But Godard does not base the “truth” of Nana on the “truth” of Anna Karina because, like Brecht, he abhors method acting. Rather, he typically asks of his actors that they let their “reality support his [fiction].”² Godard construes the category “reality” differently from film to film, but here it would seem to designate something like “soul.”

HF: As in the passport photo, the “truth” of Karina is assumed to reside in her face—or, more precisely, her eyes. Godard seems to believe the old adage that the eyes are the window to the soul. On several occasions in the film, the camera studies Karina’s face in this way, and sometimes she looks back. In so doing, she defends herself, but she is simultaneously exposed.

KS: Over the last of the three credit images, Godard writes Montaigne’s maxim: “II faut se prêter aux autres et se dormer à soi-même.”

HF: To me, this means: “You’d better take care of yourself on earth, for there is no higher force who will do it for you, and no heaven in which your tragedies will be redeemed.”

KS: The translation in the English subtitled version of My Life to Live renders the maxim: “Lend yourself to others and give yourself to yourself,” which privileges the self over others. Literally translated, Montaigne’s words would be better rendered: “One must lend oneself to others and give oneself to oneself,” which weakens somewhat the hierarchy of self over others implicit in the English translation. However, in an interview about the film, Godard offered a gloss on Montaigne’s aphorism which completely transforms its meaning. He said, “My Life to Live will prove Montaigne’s saying that you have to give yourself to others and not only to yourself.” This gloss not only eliminates the distinction between “lend” and “give,” but—if anything—privileges the other over the self. This productive misreading of Montaigne will be crucial to our understanding of the film.

1
A cafe. Nana wants to leave Paul. The pinball table

KS: In the first shot of the film proper, Nana/Karina sits with her back to us at a restaurant counter. We thus now see her head from the only side not depicted in the credit sequence, and so complete our tour of that part of her body. We also pass almost imperceptibly from actress to character, from documentary to fiction.

HF: Most of the rest of this tableau consists of alternating shots of Nana and her estranged husband, Paul (Andre S. Labarthe). Both are sitting at the restaurant counter, and both have their backs to the camera. Sometimes we can see Nana’s reflection in the mirror in front of her, and once Paul’s as well, but in neither case distinctly. Because their faces are withheld, there is also an interesting divorce of sound and image in this scene. The dialogue doesn’t seem to come from the characters; Paul’s and Nana’s words hover over them, without a bodily grounding. The exchange at the counter represents a conversation of perhaps twenty minutes, but it summarizes the events of three or four years. We learn that they have a child, who has remained with Paul; that Paul is chronically poor; that Nana has begun working in a record shop, but has show-business ambitions; and that Nana started learning English, but gave up after a time—unlike Paul, who has continued with his music. Years of quarrels are also reprised in the acrimonious words they exchange, particularly in Nana’s “It’s always the same thing,” and “I’d just betray you again.”

KS: We also discover something very crucial about Nana: we learn that she wants to be regarded as special. Paul is disappointing in this respect; he thinks that “everyone is the same.”

HF: Twice this scene makes a creative use of the “pickup.” A pickup is when the same line is spoken at the end of one shot and the beginning of the next, and it is used by filmmakers when shooting to give themselves more flexibility during the editing process. Just before complaining that Paul doesn’t regard her as special, Nana twice says: “You’re mean, Paul”—once as we look at his back, and once as we look at hers. Shortly afterward, when Paul remarks that his parents like her, Nana responds: “I bet.” We see her looking out of frame in his direction, as she asks: “What’s that look for?” A moment later, she repeats the same question, as Paul looks out of frame in her direction. These repetitions are a bit like reverse jump-cuts, underscoring the fictiveness of the narration. Also, by uttering the same words twice, Paul and Nana emphasize them; it is as if they are so important that they warrant a violation of the rules of filmmaking. A device which is usually purely technical becomes semantic.

KS: These repetitions indicate a desire to communicate which is generally missing from this exchange. Although the conversation provides a crucial exposition, it is for the most part a striking example of what might be called “empty” or “narcissistic” speech.³ Except for these two pickups, the characters do not really address each other. On both sides, the conversation is characterized by a bitter egoism, each character insisting on his or her rights and grievances, and scoring points at the other’s expense. This is formally signaled in several ways. First, although in other conversational situations in My Life to Live the camera insistently pans and dollies from one participant to another, here it shows Nana and Paul in separate shots, as if to stress their isolation from one another. Also, one character’s body fills up the frame in each shot, as if to suggest that there is no room for the other. In each one, then, Paul or Nana says “me, not you” to the other. Finally, the insistence with which the camera shoots them from the back encourages us to see that Paul and Nana have also turned their metaphoric backs to each other. Nana at one point says: “The more we speak, the less the words mean.” Significantly, in light of the Montaigne epigraph, Nana does not offer anything to Paul in this scene, but rather requests a loan of two thousand francs from him. He, of course, refuses.

HF: Godard’s decision to leave these characters’ faces out of most of this scene also represents a striking example of that art of omission to which My Life to Live is dedicated. The film is like a drawing which consists only of a few lines, yet in those lines we can see an entire body, or a complete landscape. This is a kind of via negativa—a portraiture through negation, through what isn’t there, rather than through what is.

KS: At the end of Episode 1, their quarrel ended, Nana and Paul move to the front of the restaurant, where they play a game of pinball. This event is shown with a single shot, which—in keeping with their temporary reconciliation—includes both of them.

HF: Nowadays, our ears have grown accustomed to hearing a dense sound background when we go to the movies, but—apart from the voices of Paul and Nana—in this shot we hear only the pinball machine, or perhaps the steps of a waiter in the background. The silence is astonishing —it’s as if Paul and Nana are under water, or in another world from our own.

KS: As Nana takes her turn at the pinball machine, Paul recounts perhaps the most crucial of all the film’s stories, although we won’t understand that until later. The story was written by one of his father’s pupils, and consists of the words: “A chicken is an animal with an inside and an outside. Remove the outside, there’s the inside. Remove the inside, and you see the soul.”⁴

HF: Paul introduces his anecdote with the words: “I don’t know why, but suddenly I remember a story father told.” Godard also does not know why, and does not want to know why, this story finds its way into My Life to Live. Inspiration, not premeditation, is his artistic credo. And “inspiration” means allowing things to come together from the most surprising sources.

KS: Before Paul recounts this story, the camera pans to the left until Nana is in center frame, and Paul excluded from the image. And after Paul finishes speaking, it holds on Nana for approximately ten seconds, before fading to black. During these ten seconds, the silence deepens. In both of these ways, the film insists upon the relevance of this story to the figure of Nana.

HF: I agree, but the special way in which the face of Nana and the story about the chicken are put together should not be forgotten. My Life to Live gathers together different elements—a clip from a film, lines from a Poe story or a pulp novel—and quotes from them in a way which maintains their difference. One could compare the film in this respect to a Picasso image, in which a feather representing a bird lies side by side with a piece of wallpaper designating hair. Such objets trouvés can be put to analogical purposes, but—because they still insist upon their specificity—the result is always a bit startling or “weird.” Although undeniably connecting Nana with the chicken, My Life to Live shows us how miraculous it is that one thing in the world should be able to explain another.

KS: We will see later that the film accommodates relationships between the most divergent of terms, since it does not predicate those relationships on the basis of identity.

2
The record shop. Two thousand francs. Nana lives her life

KS: Episode 2 consists entirely of one extended sequence shot. Some days have perhaps elapsed since the previous episode, but we are not told anything about them. We are shown only a few consecutive minutes in one of Nana’s working days at the record shop, during which nothing of particular importance happens. Yet from this single shot we learn that Nana is broke, that she takes no interest in her work, and that she yearns for a different life.

HF: At the same time, the camera does not really “characterize” Nana; it is more interested in how she moves. It says: “If we can find out how she moves, that will be enough.” And it does something like an experimental dance with her.

KS: The camera seems more narratively motivated than that to me. In an early interview, Godard maintained that the camera in My Life to Live does not spy, trap, or surprise Nana, but “simply [follows] her.”⁵ However, it often does much more than that. It pans to the left in Episode 1 in order to be in place before Paul tells his story. It is as if the camera knows even before he begins that the story will be significant for Nana. And in Episode 2, the camera starts tracking to the right even before Nana has taken a step in that direction, in confident anticipation of her doing so a moment later. At another point in this episode, it pans to the right by the record stacks, more quickly than Nana can go there, again certain that she will follow. Even in life, predictions can quickly turn into determinations. Within cinema, there can of course be no question of “free will” on the part of a character; the enunciation always dictates every step a character takes, and every word she utters. But the enunciation can be “for” or “against” the narrative which it induces, and, in the case of My Life to Live, we would have to say that something lies ahead for which it can’t wait, literally, and perhaps metaphorically.

HF: Bazin privileged the long take because he believed it to involve less discursive intervention than montage—to be less freighted with signification, and therefore more “real.”⁶ The sequence shot in Episode 2 is the very opposite of this; it not only anticipates Nana’s movements rather than simply following them, but it also generates a surplus of meaning. Nana has only to walk back and forth a few times behind the record counter to indicate everything that her job entails, and how little interest she takes in music and her customers. But at the end of Episode 2, as the other shopgirl reads aloud from the pulp novel, the camera pans rapidly first to one window, where it remains for about ten seconds, and then to another, where it stays even longer. Now it exercises no control over what comes within its field of vision. Most of My Life to Live seems almost timeless, but the two window pans offer the unstaged reality of a particular day in 1962.

KS: Earlier in the film, the documentary—Karina’s face—led to the fiction—Nana’s soul. Here the formula is reversed: the fiction leads back to the documentary.

HF: In these two pans, the camera has a skillful neoprimitivism akin to the earliest days of cinematography. It stares wide-eyed through the window, like a prehistoric animal. Now it really does hope to capture things in their “virginal purity.”⁷ And that is something which can only be seen with eyes from which the scales of culture and experience have fallen—eyes which have been, as it were, washed clean.

KS: Just before the camera effects its journey to the window, Nana says of the book her colleague is reading: “That looks fabulous!” Her colleague responds: “The story is silly, but it’s awfully well written.” The words she reads suggest that this is a world of purple prose, a world in which the characters achieve that quality of “specialness” or heightened reality Nana craves.

HF: Here we have another dramatization of the objet trouvé principle. One just has to open a book—even an unknown one—and the words will speak to you, like the faces of strangers, or the details of a street. My Life to Live is full of such wonderful and terrible moments, in which uncanny connections occur.

KS: The novel from which Nana’s colleague reads is also about speech. The presumably female first-person narrator triump...