Dir: Jean-Luc Godard

DoP: Raoul Coutard

Year: 1964

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Things To Consider

• The film is all about image and advertising and how it effects us. How does Godard use the aesthetics of advertising to comment on it? The film is brighter and sharper than much of Godard’s work of the period, I see this a clear adoption of the look of advertising.
• The opening sequence is really striking. Body parts are intimate, but also disembodied, de-humanised. The framing here is really interesting (and the technique reoccurs throughout the film) it manages to feel both intimate and completely impersonal. These characters are reduced to parts, objects. Is this how the characters see each other or themselves?
• Godard’s close ups during conversation also has a similar effect. By framing the characters centrally and only covering dialogue in single shots there is little sense of connection. No sense of characters occupying a common physical or mental space. They speak, but not to each other.

Further Research

• Godard, From the Life of the Marionettes & Happiness
• Godard’s Women Feminism vs Marxism

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