Welcome to Godard 101, an unofficial and unaffiliated online undergraduate seminar where Ben and I take on the great man and his works, doing our best to understand how Jean-Luc got from there to here.  First up, Ben and I took a look at Breathless, the film that, along with Francois Truffault's 400 Blows, blew the roof off the joint back in 1960, kicking off the Nouvelle Vague and recreating cinema. Pretty heady shit. Then, we reviewed A Woman is a Woman, which you can find here. This was followed with an examination ofTo Live Her Life, Contempt, The Little Soldier and Band of Outsiders. Most recently, we looked at Alphaville. 

A Married Woman (France, 1964, Godard)


And, for a change of pace,  Dan begins:

A Married Woman continues the early career trend of Jean-Luc Godard to alternate between"playful" and "serious" movies. Over the course of the first five years of his directorial career, Godard's odd numbered films (numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7), which are Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, The Riflemen and Band of Outsiders are the more light-hearted, while his even numbered films, (numbers 2, 4, 6, and 8), which are The Little Soldier, To Live Her Life, Contempt and now A Married Woman are considerably more serious in tone and subject matter. This is not to say that his comedies did not have serious moments and dark undertones, or that his dramas lacked humour, for that would be to miss the subtlety and genre-blending nature of these mostly excellent films. Rather, my point is to acknowledge that this pattern provides a glimpse into Godard's preferences and inclinations. I don't know if Godard chose this alternating pattern consciously, and if he did, A Married Woman would mark the end of the trend, for Godard's ninth film is the distinctly humourless and intense Alphaville. But even if it was accidental or a subconscious inclination, it speaks to something of both the singular AND dual natures of the filmmaker, particularly in the early years of his career.

 Godard is widely acknowledged to be a cerebral filmmaker, a man most comfortable working in the intellectual realm, which means that he is, generally speaking, going to steer clear of films that are predominately engage the affective domain, such as romances and musicals (no, despite Godard's claims to the contrary, I do not consider a Woman is a Woman a musical), and instead focus his energies on those that require and encourage the use of intelligence and reason, which would include (smart) comedies (see films 1, 3, 5 and 7 above) and, for lack of a better term, art house dramas that centre on what he sees as important social and/or artistic issues (see films 2, 4, 6 and 8.)   Working its way through all his films is a fascination with the language of the cinema, and specifically an interest in the examining the way that he can use that language to shape the future of movies as agents of social change.

In A Married Woman, Godard's social and artistic concerns congeal around the life of a young middle class married French woman named Charlotta (Macha Meril) who is torn between her marriage to Pierre (Philippe Leroy), a successful but often absent husband and her affair with Robert (Bernard Noel) , a handsome and passionate actor.  However, while the presentation of these relationships does have a fascinating and unusual (for Godard) sensuality, such questions of (in) fidelity are among the least interesting themes explored in this film.

Instead, Godard uses the familiar domestic dynamic as a jumping off point for a much more intriguing exploration of the effects of modern advertising on the mind and heart of the film's central character. As we get to know Charlotta, we see a beautiful but superficial young woman who is fascinated by fashion and advertising, a woman who knows little of what has been happening in the world, but who buries her nose in fashion magazines in order to gain the latest bit of knowledge to help her to become even more beautiful, and who has no interest in learning about the past, which is dull. Indeed, she needs to be schooled on Aushwitz, while her date movie with Robert, Resnais' Holocaust documentary Night and Fog, acts as a satirical counterpoint to her romantic interests. Instead of looking backwards, Charlotte prefers to focus on the present, for here there is music, flowers and love. So, she pours over lingerie ads, buys a contraption to help her stand straighter and listens raptly to her maid's bawdy story about how a bust-enhancing cream increased her obese husband's sexual appetite. Unfortunately, Meril's limitations as an actress, particularly when placed next to the fine work that Anna Karina has done for Godard, don't let us into Charlotta's world in the way that we and Godard might have hoped, or in the way Karina would have almost certainly delivered. Despite Meril's undeniable beauty, the deck is stacked against Charlotta, who remains a rather unsympathetic lead, and the actress's limited palette of facial expressions further distances her from the audience. 

Further pushing our sympathies to the side is the audience recognition of the very petit bourgeois concerns of our central trio. None of the issues they are facing appear to be particularly devastating or even terribly affecting. Charlotta, Robert and Pierre are young, attractive and apparently successful people, with few of the encumbrances or challenges that help to make some of Godard's more interesting leads--such as Michel in Breathless or Nana in Vivre Sa Vie--so captivating and memorable. 

Still, there is much in A Married Woman worth examining. Utilizing cinematic choices to underscore his ideas, Godard films all of the lovemaking scenes in A Married Woman in a highly stylized manner. Focusing on body parts--a disembodied arm,  hand,  leg, small of the back, lips, eye--Godard recreates the images and tendency towards objectification found in so many of the fashion magazines and advertisements in Charlotta's (and our) world. By presenting only pieces and parts of the lovers, Godard commodifies his actors in the same way that the world of advertising does. So, because Charlotta is immersed in this world, she experiences life the same way, in fragments, snippets and whispered sound bites.  

And while the men are treated more kindly by Godard (as if we need more evidence that Jean-Luc has a misogynist streak), as they are able to put forth coherent arguments and seem to understand aspects of this world with a little more depth than Charlotta, there remains the unspoken truth that it is men who have created most of the advertising that feed the obsessions and neuroses, and which objectify and commodify women for our consumption.

Throughout the film, Godard studies the way that popular culture in general and advertising in particular influence the way we see, act and interact with the world. Typical of most Godard films, there are long stretches of philosophical discussion and pseudo-philosophical dialogue that point us in the direction he wants us to incline thematically, such as when writer/director/film critic Roger Leenhardt opines that it is a sign of intelligenceto understand something before affirming it, perhaps warning us not to wholly endorse this or any film's themes until sorting through them thoroughly. And as the film nears its climax, Godard's interest in the dividing line between theatre/cinema and real life is captured in Charlotta's interrogation of Robert, as she attempts to determine which of the two men in her life to choose. 

A Married Woman may be a lesser Godard, but that does not mean it is without merit. Indeed, many lesser directors would have a film of this quality exclaimed their masterpiece. 

Then Ben:

I had a technical problem that rendered the subtitles for this film in broken fragments on both the top and the bottom of the screen as well as to the left and right of the picture.  While this may sound appropriate for a film subtitled, Fragments of a Film Shot in 1964 in Black and White, it was sometimes not possible for me to catch all of the dialogue, the black and white working just fine in 2011 notwithstanding.

Nevertheless, I caught enough.  And perhaps it says something about the film that I was able to "get it" in spite of my technical problem.  The dialogue comes in, well, fragments, with other passages in the film having none or little.  Point being,  A Married Woman is a very tight study that is, compared to most other Godard, perfectly straight-forward.

I don't particularly like the film even though I reckon for it favourably in retrospect that it is a crucial link between To Live Her Life and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her.  That there is a problematic male chauvinist tendency in Godard's New Wave we have been acknowleding for some time now in GODARD 101.  I like the two films I just mentioned for many reasons but certainly among them is my ability to see in them a feminist critique of the degrading objectification of women under male dominated cultural codes and commercial relations.  In your review, you suggest that this critique is also at work in A Married Woman and I agree with you.

You also indicate that it is hard to sympathize with the hollow middle class (un)consciousness of the protagonist and I agree with this too.  But whereas you sound somewhat frustrated about this and explore factors contributing to it as a problem for you, I interpret the unsympathetic (non)substance of the woman to be indicative of the depth of her social alienation, which Godard extends to the audience in turn.  With regard to this, you provide very insightful analysis in your discussion of the truncated nature of everything in the film, from body parts to advertising sections, all of which correspond to what I like to call the mechanically de-boned chicken of the commodity form.  Simply put, we don't have to like the protagonist to get the point.  Actually, Godard may be indicating that we have to not like her to get the point.

Which brings me to the unusual (for Godard) sensuality of the film.  Many reviews ago of film (which?) Godard made after A Married Woman but which I saw before it, I basically accused him of asexuality, of being a cold fish who never wants to get into hot water.  Now, here I am confronted by the sensuality of A Married Woman and - the fish is still swimming in the Arctic Ocean!  Yes, this film shows the most skin, the most kissing, the most caressing and all the dynamics between the protagonist and her two men are plainly erotic.  But did I say the fish is still swimming in the Arctic Ocean?  Forget that.  The flounder is on ice.  There is not one wave of heat, not one scent of sweat coming off all that skin, kissing caressing.  And that's the point.  It's all alienated, truncated, mechanically de-boned chicken.

In short, no love.  I've drawn attention this this already in GODARD 101. "[I]ntimate personal relationships that purport to be loving are revealed to be dubious bonds that collapse under the weight of estrangement, deceit and betrayal.  Sometimes this is given a comedic spin but even more is a sinister undertow, a sense of dread, perpetual pessimissim.  The characters continually doubt themselves and each other," (7/29/2011).  You note that the question of (in)fidelity is among the least interesting themes explored in A Married Woman.  I reckon you are right and not just because Godard is refrains from passionate moralizing.  The mechanically de-boned characters are themselves going through the motions dictated to them by their class positions and advertising cues.

So it is that her husband can threaten to rape her just when it looks like they were going to share a genuinely human moment as a petty scrap between them takes on a playful aspect.  In the subsequent scene it is confirmed in the dialogue that he did rape her, but the fact of this is served up to the audience like, well, so much cool cod on a chilled plate.  And there is no more love with her lover.  In the end, she essentially accuses him of the male version of faking his orgasm, merely playing the part of a man in love.  It's a nice change from Godard's continual interrogation of the cinematic image.  The theatrics of the actor are questioned.  But the profundity of this reflexivity is cold comfort about a character who was supposedly a lover and turns out to be another undercover hollow man.

Even though I respect it for doing sucessfully what it sets out to do, as I said, I don't particularly like A Married Woman.  The thing is just too footnote-to-Bergman for me.  The interiors, the tight shots on human bodies in angular still-life compositions, the emotional repression running through everything; you know, if you close one ear while hearing America sing "Horse With No Name" you might think you were listening to Neil Young.  And I suppose I sorta did watch A Married Woman with only one eye, what with those screwed up subtitles.

And Dan:

I feel a tad sheepish when I read, "[b]ut whereas you sound somewhat frustrated about this and explore factors contributing to it as a problem for you, I interpret the unsympathetic (non)substance of the woman to be indicative of the depth of her social alienation, which Godard extends to the audience in turn." I mean, DUH!  Of course he wants me to see her as alienated. Of course he wants me to lack sympathy for her. Had I not just seen The Riflemen, for god(ard)'s sake, the day before watching A Married Woman?

What a maroon! Thanks for righting that ship.

Bergman-lite indeed. I really enjoyed looking AT the film, but I didn't get INTO it very much at all (of course, that was intentional). But we are still looking at a director who is only completely comfortable when he is dealing with ideas. At this point, the flesh and blood stuff doesn't seem to register for him.

A Married Woman can be viewed online. Here is part one:




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