“Yet the fact that a landscape may be a state of mind does not necessarily mean that poetry is only captured by chance, as our too clever documentarists would have us believe, but that the natural order corresponds to that of the heart and mind.” — Jean-Luc Godard
Reviewing a recent film by the legendary French film director Jean-Luc Godard, Village Voice critic J. Hoberman opened with a comical reflection made by a fellow film writer. “In the late 60s, when Jean-Luc Godard was at the acme of his influence,” Hoberman began, “Manny Farber concluded an enthusiastic if grudging appreciation with a litany of Godard faults ('I think that I shall never see scenes with more sleep-provoking powers, or hear so many big words that tell me nothing') and the confession that 'no other film-maker has so consistently made me feel like a stupid ass.'” The bluntness of Farber's opinion, educated and honest, may very well have been shared by many of his peers. Often cited for being enigmatically complex and dense, Godard's filmography has served as something more than mainstream, run-of-the-mill entertainment; hard to define and master, each work is one to itself and that of a larger whole.
Thus, perhaps no other director's work seems ripe (and necessary) for auteur studies. Viewing the director's films chronologically, one can begin to notice and appreciate familiar traits, traits which have become so unanimous with the man that any subsequent film to feature them is labeled Godardian and thrown into a seemingly neglected pile. The term Godardian though is foolish, an easy excuse to ignore that which one wishes not to engage in. If one cannot familiarize themselves with the obscure, how can one value its worth? If Godard is guilty of asking questions and not providing the viewer with answers, maybe the real crime against narrative normality is assuming that answers to these questions exist: To knowingly browse a review of a Godard film, one must first identify the critic's reading of the subject at hand.
Broadly speaking, it can be said that a film, like all forms of art, is as much about its content as it is its style. The two can influence one another and/or merge into a cohesive unit, reflecting weighty content and a luscious mise en scene. A wholeness is formed from a mixing of thematic narrative and objective and subjective camera placement. This is no less true than in Godard's 1966 intriguing look at the Paris region and her mindful surveyors, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. The film, in its emphasis on interpretation, abandons conventional narrative to achieve, on one level, an all-encompassing view of Paris' ever changing, industrialized landscape. As a concept, one could imagine endless alternatives to subtly sliding this message across.
The film could feature two young lovers seeing Paris change right before their eyes. Growing as its two leads do, the city could be filmed in the background as a metaphor for the drastic development apparent between adolescence and adulthood. One the opposite end of the spectrum of human life, the film could be told from the point-of-view of two elderly Parisians, reflecting on the Paris they once knew, the dust and rubble brought in by the architecture a poignant representation of their increasingly fragile, withering states. These dramatic set-ups, although emotionally moving in theory, seek to compact pedantic experiences, cut-and-dry and lacking multiple summations. To take on an issue of substance, that being the reconstruction of Paris and its impending sociological effects, the aforementioned narratives seek to romanticize and simplify the topic of urbanization. A human face is needed to bring sense to the matter, to reassure the viewer that, by the film's conclusion, man will prevail and not succumb to his ever changing environment.
This more safe and acceptable mode of storytelling denies the viewer of the real experience of the issue at hand. Rather than define man as inherently good and that which is man-made as inherently evil, Godard's film merges the two and sees them as equally feeding off one another. In a capitalist society, man and machine view each other as forms of commerce. The developing Paris is a sign of newness and entrapment, and the ever present ensembles (housing projects) spring up to systematically contain and account for its inhabitants. Men and women return to these new structures every night after a hard day's work, content with earning a paycheck, which in turn provides them with the ability to purchase commercialized, big name brand goods. The consumers of the world slave away for artificial comfort. Although Godard uses the fictional Janson family as his main humans of interests, these characters do not take precedence over the numerous establishing shots — although here, the establishing shots serve mainly as distinct points of characterization — that make up much of the screen time. One could assume that a direct correlation is to be made between those that use things and those that make them.
Before going further, it is necessary to note that this is merely one interpretation of the film. Godard's films rarely spell things out for its viewers, and in making that choice, his work tends to make certain moviegoers feel unfairly alienated. In 1987, author David Bordwell published Narration in the Fiction Film, an academic book which featured a late chapter on Godard's films, titled “Godard and Narration.” Meant to break down the films for the uninitiated and mildy perplexed, Bordwell attempted to create a document which made sense of Godard's movie output. By noting certain patterns and familiar characteristics, the director's work could be decoded and made accessible to the formerly non-converted. By acknowledging the technique, one could conceivably warm up to Godard and become a fan. Another possibility? Perhaps, by writing this chapter, Bordwell felt that he himself would become less intimidated by the Frenchman.
Using Bordwell's observations on the film as a guideline, 2 or 3 Things' multi-level narrative structure can be broken down and picked apart. There are some that will feel that this approach is unnecessary — to break it down is not to say that it is completely understood – but for the purpose of understanding the work as a way of canonizing Godard's films, emphasizing his directorial traits, this method is suitable for the task at hand. On the chapter's first page, Bordwell writes, “ Godard's films invite interpretations but discourage, even defy, analysis. To grasp how the films work we must start with the flagrant and peculiar obstacles they create at the most fundamental levels of storytelling and spectator activity” (311). At the risk of offending one of the most respected living American writers in the world of film academia, to analyze a Godard film is no less defeatist than it is personally rewarding. There is a belief that a film can be praised for what it is rather than for what it does. But, as Roger Ebert once famously said, “a film is not what it's about but how it goes about it.” A closer read does not attempt to master the material as much as it works to enrich it.
The heroine of 2 or 3 Things, Juliette Janson, is introduced standing on her apartment balcony, first by the actress' real name, Marina Vlady, an off-screen narration describing her physical traits (hair color), her clothes, and her ethnic origin (she is of Russian descent). The woman is then re-introduced from a different angle on the balcony, as her character name, Juliette Janson, and is given the same traits. As the soft spoken narrator, Godard himself, describes her appearance and personal history, Juliette acknowledges the camera placed in front of her. She speaks to it therapeutically, as if airing out long built-up thoughts and tickling observations.
There is evidence, however, that Juliette cannot hear this most likely non-diegetic voiceover. Whenever she addresses the camera, Godard's off-screen musings stop, and vice versa. The two work in sync, even as they at times appear to be having a conversation with one another. Not merely a Godard surrogate (within the film's introductory scene on the balcony, an ironic statement, “old man Brecht said that actors should quote,” seems more Jean-Luc than Juliette), Juliette's addresses to the camera seem to be part of a larger conversation, constantly interrupted either by the outside world or by contrasting internal thought. Fragmented but never random, Godard provides Juliette with many insular moments of self-reflection and ontological quips on the immersion of herself in Parisian society.
According to Bordwell, the character of Juliette fits in line with the ideals of the art cinema. Juliette is an “uncertain, psychologically ambiguous character” and her “character subjectivity is signaled by monologues and voice-overs” (314). While this is a fairly sound argument, Godard's use of voiceovers and monologues in 2 or 3 Things serve as more than just an approach to character. Yes, Juliette's mind is opened to the viewer, allowing us to perceive her observations (the “landscape to face” comparison, for example), in a way mere back-and-forth dialogue wouldn't be structured for. And while it is true that the Godard narration presents itself as an ominous subjective device, what is narration meant to be if not subjective? Does that make it art cinema? The employment of these devices, one could argue, presents the film as something other than classical narrative. When a voice-over is used in a film, the audience's guard goes up; the popular use of an “unreliable narrator” has served the art of the drama quite efficiently.
Luckily, Godard's narration is not just a tool for Juliette's characterization, choosing to reflect on issues of philosophy, sociology, and ethnographic studies. Laying his voice over the soundtrack, the choice to use himself as this interested, unidentified presence is a stylistically bold choice for the director. He is expanding on his cinematic version of the interview format, most effectively previously used in Masculine Feminine. That film took on a question-and-answer repartee that was just as contemplative, if perhaps less existential, as the one at the forefront of 2 or 3 Things. Masculine Feminine's's most famous on-screen interview is one which bears a casual resemblance to the entirety of the Marina Vlady starrer, if not for its content, than for its interrogative style. As a character interviews a former beauty model about the use and popularity of birth control, the interviewer remains off-screen, attempting to obtain more and more information out of his subject. She seems somewhat restrained, but willing to be honest with her answers. This extended sequence, featuring not much more than this young attractive girl and the ever-present sunlight pouring into the room, is informative in its content (the topic was a pressing one for its time) and daring in its choices (we hear the questions being asked but never see the interviewer's reactions — the camera's point-of-view gives the viewer his perspective). The scene unfolds in real time at a leisurely pace.
Bordwell writes, “we have already seen that one convention of the art cinema is an appeal to the realism of concrete behavior and locales. Godard employs this as well, often by drawing on documentary techniques. A conversation will be shot in direct-cinema style, as in A bout de souffle or Band apart. This is most explicit in Masculine Feminine, in which ordinary dialogue exchanges take on an interview quality. We are also asked to apply criteria of documentary realism in order to appreciate the shooting in real locations (e.g. a cafe, an apartment) and to make allowance for ambient noise and limited camera positions” (314). What Bordwell seems to be implying is that given Godard's artistic camera choices, the director's style must be trying to cause attention to itself. As negative as it may sound on a first read, his claim is observant and, at the very least, fair. Of course Godard's use of camera placement and narrative technique is trying to garner the attention of the viewer, while at the same time opening itself up to criticism. This documentary, “direct-cinema” approach to a fictional narrative can be jarring for anyone — it can even provide a confusing experience for less adventurous viewers. Although there is no direct interview scenario easily apparent in 2 or 3 Things (Masculine Feminine's focus on a census taker normalizes the Godard technique), there are questions and answers, demands and requests being interpreted throughout.
Numerous times in 2 or 3 Things, Juliette appears to be addressing an inaudible someone off-camera. The first time a viewer experiences the film, he may get the impression that something is “off”, that Juliette's brief responses and supposedly non-sequiturs coming out of the blue are meant to imply a mental unbalance, an intelligent yet schizophrenic lead character. Who is she speaking with and what is she responding to? Although detected in key places, the most notable moment of silenced interrogation takes places as Juliette gets her hair and nails done at a local beauty shop. Carrying a conversation with the female employees while simultaneously vocalizing observations that the women seem to be unable to hear, Juliette appears to be present in two concurrent scenarios. Without missing a beat, Juliette calmly responds to both the actressess in the frame and something behind it.
On a second viewing, with the viewer's attention heightened and the film's soundtrack amped to a considerable level, one can almost detect a voice speaking off-screen to Juliette. Is it actually present or is it merely the easily persuadable audience's need to believe? Nonetheless, beyond being able to identify a voice of some kind, nothing of clarity can be comprehended. In his monograph of Godard, Douglas Morrey writes on the mysterious correlation between interviewer and interviewee, “throughout the film, usually a propos of nothing, Juliette emits sentences describing how she knows things because she perceives them to be the case....(much of Juliette's speech in the film appears to be a dialogue with someone offscreen whom we cannot see or hear; in fact, she is responding to questions and cues provided by Godard that are, occasionally, just audible” (62,63).
Given the fact that he chooses to keep his questions hidden (and given that he never reveals himself to be the interviewer, much less the provocative narrator of the film), Godard is, as Bordwell describes, “inviting the viewer to situate the film with respect to a norm of documentary recording” (314). If Masculine Feminine was overt in its ethnographic pursuits, 2 or 3 Things is, in its use of Marina Vlady's off-the-cuff answers, using a fictional narrative to present an honest and unscripted truth.
As to what that truth is, Godard lets the viewer know that one can never be completely sure. In a sense, 2 or 3 Things is about man's understanding of the world around him, the need to try to understand that which is inconceivable. Godard's narration, frequently segmented to work as self-contained moments of thought, often provokes the viewer into pondering life's larger themes, taking us back to a time before thought, before consciousness. If man doesn't stop to take the time to be aware of his own existence, then what makes him anymore substantial to his environment? How is he to be considered more alive than the green foliage that flows in the wind on a breezy October afternoon in France? Godard's comments touch on Juliette's dilemma: the unexamined life is not worth living.
While the relatable fear of going through life as insignificant and disregarded by society is a palpable one, a person's ability to voice that concern is a strong sign of progress. In a scene midway through the film, Juliette and a girlfriend stop by her husband's place of work, a car garage, as Godard's narration persists. Taking on a God-like, bird's eye view of mankind, Godard allows us to observe the humans (the two women) in a calmly natural state of waiting. Although she appears at ease while anticipating her bright red automobile's washed emergence from the garage, the narration has us question if Juliette is extensively in tune with her surroundings. Her time is at the mercy of a mechanized process, and she grows impatient. Juliette's friend's facial expressions seem even more still but equally unsettled, her alluring eyes surveying the technological workings of the automobile shop. Godard then asks if it's possible for man to be considered more dead than machines and machines perhaps more alive than man. Just because one breathes and is aptly aware of life does not ultimately make him the ever more present. To be a fully functional being is not to take up space but to make others aware of your importance; man's reliance on technology justifies the consumed products' existence.
Godard emphasizes this theory in the scene by using his camera and a carefully prepared shot sequence. What we are given then is a perceptive montage emphasizing man's contrast with the other worldly objects he daily surrounds himself with. He becomes desensitized to the abstractions in front of him. The scene attempts to make the ordinary appear less than so, with quick cuts to a dial of numbers rolling upwards at the gas pump to a person unknowingly engulfed in business signs and company logos — with so much begging to be given a glance, man defiantly (or cluelessly) becomes immune to an onslaught of symbols. As Juliette's car comes out of the garage prepped and glistening, the viewer may very well agree with Godard's notion of man's lack of existence, of a meaningful life once worth desiring. It then makes sense that the director would choose to give this scene almost entirely over to himself and his intellectual concerns, cutting the viewer off from our identifiable human counterparts and having us take in a moment of the world's “comic book” nature. The abnormality of modern day living is represented by one's unmotivated need to question and take note of the iconographic images wrongfully deemed ethereal. Juliette often tries to break this mold, but not here.
There is an irony at work in Godard's choice to employ his narration over 2 or 3 Things, a film which, quite explicitly, makes a case for the oppressive ability of language. A key theme in many of his films, Godard uses the essence of language and its inability to completely describe thought as a mirroring of the human condition, the boundaries put in place by one binding the expressive abilities of the other. When, early in the film, Juliette's son curiously asks his waking mother to define 'language', Juliette responds quite matter-of-factly, “language is the house man lives in.” The film backs up this claim with scenes of her husband's obsession with the transcribing of political audio soundbytes, and the inclusion of two befuddled men, seemingly existing in another movie entirely, aroused by a constant barrage of knowledge through books. Godard appears to be implying that although language is a necessary and infinite tool, it lacks the ability to describe the indescribable, to give meaning and authenticity to the wordless. His films, often filled with what Bordwell deems “transtextuality”, that is, “citations, allusions, borrowings” (312), emphasize the narrative's need for an unobtainable degree of knowledge. By presenting close-ups of book covers sporting didactic titles, he engulfs the viewer in the onslaught. Man's greatest insecurity is that he may never learn quite enough.
This idea is particularly true given 2 or 3 Things' most famously linguistic scene approximately twenty-five minutes into the film. Sitting in a cafe by herself, relaxing with a glass of Coca-Cola, Juliette glances at another woman reading a hip 60s fashion periodical. Godard shows us this woman's enamored face while providing us with shots of the magazine's colorful pages, each featuring women in chic attire and cosmetic overstatements (i.e. the woman with the United Kingdom-inspired lipstick). As Juliette glances over, Godard's questioning narration kicks in, asking how it is possible to accurately describe the scene unfolding before our very eyes. Does the word 'magazine' efficiently describe what it is? How can descriptive language sum up not only mood, but essence? At the aforementioned garage scene later in the film, Godard again prompts us to remain wary of the restricted fundamentals of this man-made communication system. While we observe Juliette at the garage greeting her husband lovingly, there is something that occurs between them, between them and their placement on the Earth, that is beyond language and conceptualization. Godard's voiceover, comically enough, realizes its uselessness even as it continues forward; the director admits that he cannot do much more than relate it to Faulkner. Since the spelling out of that which is instinctively organic is reckoned useless, no one therefore bothers to attempt the task. Language supplies us with the illusion of thought, of the comfort of placing the enormity of the universe into a few common phrases. By doing so, it teaches us less about the world and rather more about man's never-quite-complete definition of it.
“Instead of claiming the ability to plunge into the mental life of the character,” Bordwell writes on Godard's voiceover, “the narration creates those portions of that mental life which can play a part in the tissue of self-conscious address to the viewer. When character subjectivity operates through vision — e.g., point-of-view shots — the objects seen are seized and labeled by the narrator. Such is the case with the magazines and books at which characters may glance” (322). Godard's narration in 2 or 3 Things can be interpreted as a voyeuristic essay on the trials and tribulations of Juliette Janson but, casting its net further, enveloping and demanding in its need to link person to place, citizen to the establishment. As Bordwell subliminally noted, Godard's personal monologues are that of an educated and deeply engaged viewer. One could easily picture him in the editing lab during post-production, watching footage of Vlady's performance and making keen mental observations on a character of her kind (a house wife/part-time prostitute). As the ideas raced to him, perhaps Godard took to a pen and pad and scribbled down questions he had of the film as well as questions it personally provoked. There is a pitfall though, to be discussed momentarily, in this line of thinking. Godard's narration has an impromptu quality to it, and the film's honest search for a thesis puts it on an equal wavelength with its viewers. Democratic in its storytelling, Godard's voice is the voice of the audience, inviting us into a world of admittable uncertainty and the impossibility of a profound truth.
Other interpretations have been made, some more disputable than others, as to Godard's need for this narration. One unique, easily disputable but no less interesting take came from recent Godard biographer and New Yorker critic, Richard Brody. Never allowing a chance to relate Godard's personal life to his artistic fall by the wayside, Brody asserts that the director's need to speak over the film stemmed from his failed attempt at a relationship with his lead actress, Ms. Vlady. Interpretations of this kind can be dangerous — although criticism is a form of analytical persistence, its taking-advantage-of for the sake of psychoanalysis can be faulty — and often results in shoddy hearsay and implied but unprovable assumptions.
Brody writes, “though Godard was no longer speaking to Marina Vlady, he certainly spoke of her, however, and did so promptly, in the film itself, in the form of a voice-over commentary....Godard spoke it in a rushed, urgent whisper, as if he were furtively divulging secrets to each viewer personally — as indeed he was. But, as the title of the film suggests, the secrets he divulged were not only his own but also the things that he 'knew about her'” (289). Reading the film through this lens, a slew of unanswerable questions come rising to the forefront: Is 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her less about Juliette Janson, the female prostitutes, and the Paris region herself, than about Marina Vlady? Are Godard's monologues on the inability to communicate through language really the humble man's admittance of his lack of compassion towards his actress? Is a complete understanding of Godard's background, love life and all, a requirement to approaching his feature films? A slippery slope through and through, Brody uses insider knowledge to rise above all others' interpretations of the film, and a hegemonic critical structure such as this resembles insecure academic flaunting. Believing this theory, Godard's narration then becomes unfocused and closed off from the viewer, an impenetrable exercise in the public airing out of one's dirty laundry. To read Brody's take on the narration present in the infamous coffee cup scene is to ignore the voiceover's participatory nature.
A first time viewing of a new film by Jean-Luc Godard can be an experience for the ages. More so than most filmmakers, his work tends to require and improve upon a second viewing; a third may make you fall in love with it. There is a trend among some independent filmgoers that if an “art film” cannot be grasped upon first viewing, then maybe it was not worth understanding at all. How long does one keep trying before eventually giving up? 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her serves as an exemplary notion of a film that is neither elitist, pompous, or dumbed down and neutered for mass consumption. If it often challenges the viewer, it does so because the director desires the need to challenge himself, and the result, in all its imperfections, is unafraid to be an ever developing work in progress. This is not to claim that the film is unfinished, but rather that it understands that its philosophical ideas and ethical concerns may never fully be answered satisfactorily (at least not for everyone). Godard's thoughtful narration serves as a extremely personal look into a director's grappling with age old concepts larger them himself, and his frustration, and at times gleeful fascination, with being at the mercy of language to describe it.
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