Hello all. Today, I'd just like to mention another film book project I've contributed to that will be arriving in bookstores shortly*: the Directory of World Cinema: France, edited by Tim Palmer and Charlie Michael. This is the latest in Intellect Books' Directory of World Cinema series, which consists of volumes of essays and reviews that cover cinema from countries as diverse as Italy, Spain, Finland, Germany, Iran, China, and the USA (I have previously contributed to the Japan and Japan 2 volumes, and will have an essay on Hirokazu Kore-eda in the upcoming Japan 3 - all of which edited by John Berra).
This volume provides a pretty far-ranging look at the rich body of work that makes up French cinema. With chapters that cover such areas as horror, comedy, the avant-garde, and documentaries and reviews tackling films as diverse as Last Year at Marienbad, Port of Shadows, Rififi, Amélie, The 400 Blows, The Beaches of Agnès, Zero for Conduct, and Un Chien Andalou, lots of ground is covered while room is still left for future volumes to explore.
As for my contributions, I wrote the framing essay on the chapter that tackles one of French cinema's most well-known phenomena, the French New Wave, as well as the effects that it had on the French film industry. I also wrote three of the book's film reviews - the ones covering Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement, François Truffaut's The Last Metro, and Jacques Tati's Play Time, all films that are very close to my heart.
All in all, I'm very happy with how the book turned out, and I'm extremely thankful and flattered that Tim and Charlie included me in the project. Thanks guys, and for any film folk who choose to pick up the book, thank you as well and happy reading.
*Amazon.ca lists the release date as April 15th, and Amazon.co.uk pegs the release a little earlier on April 3rd.
Quite fittingly, Jean-Luc Godard’s already-notorious Film Socialism was the last film I saw at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Having read reports of its difficult qualities (on top of being fully aware of his work’s striking transformations over the course of his career), I knew I was in for a rough ride when I walked into the theatre, and even had in mind the famous credits that accompany his 1967 film Weekend: “End of Film,” “End of Cinema.” Those words quite definitively marked the end of a remarkable run of films that at once reflected and defined the decade in which they were made. But anyone willing to follow Godard beyond then would have to turn away from Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina and all other traces of romanticism from that phase of his work as he delved deeper into political theory, philosophy, video technology and an increasingly experimental style that tossed conventional narrative techniques out the window.
Depending on what you read, Film Socialism is reported as being either Godard’s final film or one of several final films. Constructed as “a symphony in three movements,” it begins on a cruise ship traveling on the Mediterranean Sea, which the filmmaker poetically portrayed in Contempt and Pierrot le fou. Here, it is captured in high definition video as a cruel place of crashing waves; a raging, terrifying void stretching as far as the eye can see. Using a variety of cameras that range from crisp and clear to crude and blurry, Godard and his film crew show the ship’s passengers as they engage in numerous activities: eating in decadent restaurant settings, playing in an on-board casino, visiting a crowded swimming pool. Godard’s disgust for the relaxed, unsuspecting people who pass before his lenses is detectable, as is his barbed critique of the realm of wealth and ignorance that they inhabit. Twice, he cuts away to a dance club comically rendered via pixel-strewn video as a chaotic, hellish realm of flashing lights and deafening noise – clearly a poke at what the young people of today’s age do for entertainment. At certain points, people clearly enlisted as actors (though it can’t be said that they are portraying actual characters) appear: a man who frequently snaps pictures, a woman who mournfully talks about Europe and points to something in the distance, a girl who contemplates an amusing Youtube video of talking cats. There are vague allusions to the Nazis, Spanish gold and the invention of Hollywood by the Jews.
At this point, I should mention one of the more daunting (and talked about) features of Film Socialism. At Godard’s request, the English subtitles of the film have been considerably modified to the point that each sentence only ever consists of a handful of words (mostly nouns). Apparently a form of Navajo English, this fragmented language is bound to be the final straw for many an already frustrated viewer – and it already has been at several previous screenings in film festivals around the world. Yet it also undeniably adds a game-like quality to the film as it asks – nay, forces you to decipher the images and selected words that appear before you while also inviting a deeper consideration of language and articulation – subjects Godard has been tackling throughout his entire career. Regardless of how you choose to react to them, the partial subtitles become much more problematic by the second movement, which shifts from the ship to a lonely country gas station run by a family currently being shaken by a number of politically charged occurrences. The mother is a candidate in the upcoming elections while her young son and teenage daughter demand a serious consideration of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and stop using the verb “to be.” The girl keeps company with the family llama (they also own a mule) by the gas pumps and determinedly reads Balzac instead of helping customers. Meanwhile, the blond-haired boy is centered amidst moments of humor and contemplation as he conducts an imaginary orchestra, paints a Renoir from memory and thoughtfully listens to a piece of classical music, a jazz piece and a political monologue whilst blowing bubbles in his milk. A white journalist and black camera operator (both women) document the family’s activities, questioning and recording them. This passage is the closest Film Socialism ever comes to being an actual narrative, and while some viewers have complained of it being monotonous, I found that an engaging quality emerged from watching these people (I again hesitate to say “characters,” and Godard himself has said that “the scenes stop before the people become characters”) as they interacted with each other – even if I couldn’t entirely understand everything that was said.
The final movement is a collage of images that has been drawing many comparisons to Godard’s lengthy film essay series Histoire(s) du cinéma. The main subjects are “six sites of true or false myths,” including Egypt, Palestine, Odessa (along with, yes, the stone steps where Eisenstein shot the famous massacre sequence for Battleship Potemkin), Hellas (Greece), Naples and Barcelona, all of which explored through scraps of both original and found footage. Two words not unlike those at the end of Weekend bring Film Socialism to a close: “No Comment.”
Understandably, I’m still finding it hard to sort my exact feelings about Film Socialism. At the very least, I can say that I somewhat disagree with all the critics out there who are flat-out rejecting it or simplistically summarizing it as merely a middle finger defiantly pointed at the audience. Yes, there is an undeniable quality of unfriendliness about the film, but that’s something Godard has developed and incorporated in his works for ages. Part of what defines Godard’s work is its intentional difficulty; its unwillingness to be easily defined or understood according to rules of conventional film spectatorship. You don’t have to like or agree with this mentality by any means, but if you’re walking into a late Godard film, you have to understand that this is what you’ll be subjected to for its duration. Additionally, while he is making these daunting choices about how Film Socialism will be viewed (especially for English-speaking audiences), the film is by no means entirely incomprehensible or without form or coherence – case in point being the three-part structure that takes you from floating pleasure palace to domestic setting to wind-swept shores of history. While difficult if not impossible to peg down the maker’s precise intentions, there is nonetheless a lot to think about and even appreciate. In the second category, one can easily include the film’s undeniably beautiful images of the blue and yellow ship, the vast expanses of sea and sky stretching beyond it and the different rooms and spaces of the family’s household. There is even something resembling a nice character moment when Godard lingers in extreme slow motion on the smiling face of the teenage girl.
In conclusion, if you’re considering giving Film Socialism a watch, it’s worth keeping in mind that there are challenging films, there are challenging films, and then there’s Godard. There are some films out there like Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Christopher Nolan’s Inception that require their audiences to think a little differently, but nonetheless can be extremely rewarding to those who approach them with an open, eager mind. Such films are closer to puzzles than stories, and in turn are more ideal for being played with than simply watched. Film Socialism should be approached with the same mentality, but with the crucial caveats that a) Godard’s considerations for his audience are pricklier than most other cinematic tricksters’, b) his particular rulebook for the film has intentionally had some of its pages ripped out, and c) his intended messages are perhaps inevitably going to be murky, unfocused and scattershot. Whether people have the patience or tolerance for such characteristics is entirely up to them. Personally, I am willing to accept (though not entirely embrace) the challenges of Film Socialism and approach it as an intriguing puzzle, but there are indeed far more pleasant ways to be engaged by a film. Take, for example, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Thai filmmaker who has thus far taken the film world by storm with an assortment of odd, unconventional “mysterious objects” that are also filled with a warmth that is extremely alluring and pleasing. Watching one of his films is like sipping a pleasantly intoxicating liqueur. Film Socialism, for all of its infinitely more hard-won rewards, is more like gargling vinegar. Take from that what you will, I guess. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
First of all, sorry to all for not posting a little more often than I probably should. I've actually been quite occupied recently, particularly in exploring the ether of Japanese cinema on a number of fronts (including my other blogging commitment, the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow). In any case, I'll try to make up for it and up the dosage of reviews over the next little while.
Now we get to one of my favorite films by one of my favorite directors: François Truffaut's Day For Night. Wonderfully showcasing Truffaut's trademark humanism, it follows a film crew as they face the day-to-day challenges of making a movie. Over the course of their shooting schedule, their various crises include a veteran actress who can't remember her lines (Valentina Cortese, who worked with Federico Fellini in Juliet of the Spirits, a fact that her character alludes to), various love affairs among the cast and crew, secretive actors and one reluctant kitten. Filling out the impressive cast are the stunning Jacqueline Bisset, Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Truffaut stalwart Jean-Pierre Léaud and, most interestingly, Truffaut himself as none other than Ferrand, the director.
As is usually the case with Truffaut, Day For Night is filled with a variety of great little elements and sketches, patching together an entertaining and truth-infused imitation of life. Even as he reveals the tricks of the moviemaking trade, he keeps the people who live by it at the forefront of the film, bringing them to life as colorfully drawn individuals. In reference to a quote from Truffaut's longtime comrade and friend Jean-Luc Godard, just as the cinema isn't the station, but the train, the main concern of this movie isn't whether the film will be made, but instead how the film crew will make it - their journey as opposed to their destination. And what a journey it is, riddled with its share of crises and even grim moments, but nonetheless a joyful and satisfying one.
I revisited this film after finally giving Synecdoche, New York its much-deserved second viewing, and it's interesting how the two both compare and contrast. While both are about the process of making art (specifically, autobiographical art), Charlie Kaufman's wonderfully unique and mind-boggling film dwells in the agony and, it seems, futility of capturing an accurate representation of life in art, while in Truffaut's film, everyone just gets on with it, living their lives as they throw themselves into their work, all in a film that, as is usually the case, is chock-a-block full of details from Truffaut's own life and previous films. Like the camera which at one point turns to regard the audience (no doubt a nod to a similar moment in Godard's Contempt), Truffaut in turn flips his camera around onto himself to examine the craft that he has devoted his life to, making a funny and light-hearted salute to the cinema and the people who literally populate it (all while avoiding becoming bogged down in figuring out the various aspects and relationships of his life, unlike Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in Synecdoche). In a way, it stands as a key to better appreciating his own work. While it has never been as radical or daring or even as interesting (at least on a formal level) as that of Godard or Agnès Varda, that was never really the point. Instead, the point is the work itself; the film that weaves together an artificial world in front of your eyes. Most films are like magic tricks that are judged by their impressiveness or spectacular qualities; Truffaut's magic simply lies in the illusion itself that he and many others have, against all odds, managed to pull off time and time again - all for your viewing pleasure.
To cap off this review, I have two relevant add-ons. One is another picture I took of a film shoot I encountered in Paris during my trip to Europe last year which seems to embody the cinema of Truffaut - particularly in its depiction of three reoccurring elements in his work: cinema, children and the Eiffel Tower, which he often prominently featured. Note great little details like the various crew members captured in mid-action and the passing bus, both of which bringing to mind Day For Night's classic opening street sequence.
The other is this marvelous American Express commercial which was made by and stars Wes Anderson (featuring his buddies and regular actors Jason Schwartzman and Waris Ahluwalia). This is a neat homage to Day For Night, complete with the music that was actually used in the film ("Grande Chorale" by Georges Delerue) and the names François and Jean-Pierre - a great treat for Anderson and Truffaut fans alike!
This year's Toronto International Film Festival was particularly special for me, as I got the chance to see one of my favorite filmmakers and a legend of the French New Wave (a period in film history which I'm particularly crazy about): Agnès Varda. At 80 years old, she is still very active in filmmaking, having just presented her newest film, Les Plages d'Agnes, at the festival. For the event I attended, she presented her debut feature, La Pointe courte, which has been credited as one of the first films to ignite the filmmaking trend that would result in the French New Wave, and stuck around afterwards for an on-stage conversation with Canadian scholar and filmmaker Brenda Longfellow (Our Marilyn). The event took place at the AGO's Jackman Hall.
First the film itself, which Varda gave a short introduction for before sitting down to watch it with us. La Pointe courte, which takes place in the fishing community of the film's title, tells not one story, but two. The first involves an unnamed man and woman whose marriage is falling apart. As they stay in and explore the village, where the man grew up, they discuss their feelings for one another and what they should do regarding their relationship. The second narrative strand, which I found to be far more interesting, focuses on the various inhabitants of the village (who were virtually playing themselves). These segments have a very documentary-like feel to them, serving mainly to capture the essence of everyday life in the village. Among the assortment of "characters" who regularly appear throughout the film include a large family with several children, a daughter and her overprotective father and the man who is jailed for three days by the health inspectors who visit the village and examine its fishermen. The integration of these documentary segments with the staged storyline of the couple was particularly reminiscent of Jean Renoir's The River (1951), which similarly intercuts scenes from the Indian community on the banks of the Bengal River in which his film is set amid the coming-of-age story of three young women.
In this film (one of many cases that Varda would make for style over substance throughout her career), story is undeniably trumped by atmosphere and visual beauty. Varda's prior experience as a photographer is particularly strong throughout La pointe courte, and many of the film's shots have a still-life quality invested in them. For the village, Varda allows her camera to capture its character not only through the real-life fishermen and their families, but through the everyday objects and tools that are littered throughout the coastal town: laundry flapping on clotheslines, abandoned boats scattered along the shore, heaps of nets and rope, the many cats that silently prowl through the streets and buildings. Varda also allows herself some visually impressive shots within the couple's storyline, including, most memorably, some shots of the actors' faces in profile that seem to anticipate Ingmar Bergman's Persona:
After the film, Varda and Brenda Longfellow were seated on stage and mainly discussed the film and Varda's experiences making it. Here are some of the points that were discussed:
-As she has often done in interviews surrounding her involvement in the New Wave, Varda insisted that she was virtually a newcomer to cinema when she made La Pointe courte. While she described the Cahiers crowd (including François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard) as young men who wore out the seats of their pants watching films at the Cinematheque, she had instead visited museums and read books throughout her youth and had not seen more than 20 films when she started making the film.
-Because of her inexperience in filmmaking, she came up with her own terminology when shooting La Pointe courte, coming up with names for shots such as "face shots" (instead of close-ups) and "Egyptian shots" (for wider shots that included more of the actors' bodies).
-Varda's editor for the film was none other than Alan Resnais, who would go on to make his own mark as a director with such films as Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Muriel and Last Year at Marienbad and taught Varda a great deal in their collaboration. For example, Varda had mainly shot what she envisioned the final film to look like - that is, each shot was taken from one particular angle that she had decided on. Resnais, upon viewing the footage in the editing room, advised her to allow herself a wider variety of shots to choose from for her films in the future.
-Though La Pointe courte strongly resembes Italian neorealist films such as De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and Visconti's The Earth Trembles, Varda claimed to have never heard of the Italian neorealists when Resnais pointed out her film's similarities to them, and when he recommended that she see some of their films at the Cinematheque, she had to ask him for directions there, as she also had no idea where it was located in Paris at that time.
-When someone asked her whether she preferred black-and-white or color, Varda basically replied that it would depend on the project. She described her use of color in such films as Le Bonheur as Impressionistic, and said that she would have only shot La Pointe courte in black-and-white (a logical statement to make, as many of the film's gorgeous images seem ideally suited for it).
It was both an honor and a special treat to be able to attend this event and see one of my filmmaking heroes up close. It was nice to see that she had lots of spirit and a great sense of humor during the dialogue, and I hope she continues to enjoy many more years making films and expressing herself creatively. Vive Varda!
This is a particularly special entry for this still-young blog. Not only is it the first featured film from France (a country with a ridiculously rich cinematic heritage) and the first film from the French New Wave, but it is also a much-loved favorite of mine which, like Fellini's 8 1/2, helped introduce me to the wonders and delights of the European art cinema of the 1960s. Cléo was actually chosen as a prime example of the European art film for my 2nd year Film History class in an essay question which asked me to analyze the film and write about its historical significance. I had been meaning to see it before that assignment, but the resulting essay was a wonderful way of discovering this sparkling gem of French cinema, and I've been a strong fan of it and Varda ever since.
While Cléo From 5 to 7 quite ably stands on its own as a great film, something should be said about the unique situation of its author. Agnès Varda is widely known as the "godmother" or "grandmother" of the French New Wave and was one of the few women (and certainly the best-known one) who successfully infiltrated the boy's club of the French New Wave group, which of course included the Cahiers du Cinema comrades François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Chaude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette. However, she stands somewhat apart from them in a few ways. She is more specifically associated with the Left Bank group of filmmakers who arrived onto the French film scene during the New Wave. They weren't as cinema-crazy as the Cahiers group, instead drawing from other art forms such as painting and photography (Varda herself was a photographer before making her first film, La Pointe courte). Along with Varda, the other main Left Bank figures are Alain Resnais (Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Muriel, Last Year at Marienbad) and Chris Marker (La Jetee).
Just from looking at their films, it's clear that these filmmakers have a quality about them that sets them apart from the other New Wave brats: a tendency to think outside of the box and use cinema for truly original, even experimental exercises. Resnais' Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Marienbad have been highly praised as landmarks in cinematic grammar, as has Marker's La Jetee, which famously uses still photography to tell its story to great effect. Cléo From 5 to 7 also uses film form in a unique way: by closely following its protagonist, the eponymous pop singer Cléo (Corinne Marchand) in real time for an hour and a half as she journeys to different parts of Paris and meets various people. This is a creative way for the audience to become familiar with its at-first self-centered protagonist (who is awaiting the results of a medical test for cancer) and to see the city of Paris from its streets, taxis, buses, cafes, parks and a plethora of other perspectives, making the film just as much a delightful ode to flanerie as it is a fascinatingly made character study.
While Varda certainly has her differences from the Truffaut-Godard group, Cléo is most definitely a New Wave film. Like Breathless and The 400 Blows, it showcases both the city of Paris and its actors in striking black-and-white compositions (though the opening credit sequence, which focuses on a tarot card reading, is partially shot in color, contributing yet another stylistic oddity of the film). There is also the same strong sense of camraderie in it as in other New Wave films: Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine all show up for cameos at one point, and the famed French composer Michel Legrand (who provided memorable scores for A Woman is a Woman, Band of Outsiders and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as well as Cléo) is given a fairly substantial role as one of Cléo's collaborators. Indeed, this film is a most worthy entry in the new Wave canon, and easily fits alongside other cinematic masterworks from the period such as Vivre Sa Vie, Jules and Jim or any of the other films previously mentioned.
This year, Varda will be visiting the Toronto International Film Festival to present her new documentary, Les Plages d'Agnès, and speak about La Pointe courte, her first film (made in 1954), which many consider a key starting point for the French New Wave. I'll be going to the screening of the latter film, and I simply can't wait to see both it and the remarkable artist behind it in person.
Also, I'll be taking a trip to France in a little less than a month (my first time there, and I can't wait), and among the many cinematic pilgrimages that I plan to make (most of the classic French film locations I want to visit come from Amelie and Breathless), I hope to follow in Cléo's footsteps and retrace her route through the city as seen in this film. That, along with seeing Varda at TIFF, is a dream come true for any fan of the French New Wave or Varda.
In closing, this is a wonderful film that comes highly recommended from a longtime fan who fell in love with it at first sight; here's hoping the same happens for you.
Subtitle Literate offers film reviews, notes, original photography, interesting links and miscellaneous bits of news from Marc Saint-Cyr, writer, cinema enthusiast, and creative spirit.
Marc Saint-Cyr studied cinema and history at the University of Toronto. His writing has appeared in publications as varied as the Directory of World Cinema: France, volumes 1-3 of the Directory of World Cinema: Japan, CineAction, Midnight Eye, Row Three, Senses of Cinema, Toronto Film Scene, the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow, and the VCinema Podcast and Blog. He lives in Toronto with his girlfriend Adrie Marie and their cat Poobaby.
Film Books Where You Will Find Some Of My Writing:
I contributed an essay on the French New Wave and a few film reviews to this book on French cinema. Edited by Charlie Michael and Tim Palmer, it will be out in March 2013.
The second book of essays and reviews on Japanese film, edited by John Berra, is in stores now.
This book, edited by J-Film Pow-Wow founder Chris MaGee, looks at Tokyo's legacy on film and includes essays and pieces on specific areas of the city that have appeared onscreen.
A volume of film reviews and essays on Japanese cinema, edited by John Berra.
This year, Varda will be visiting the Toronto International Film Festival to present her new documentary, 
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