By the time
of Nouvelle Vague’s
release in 1990, Godard’s style became more refined and his films less
pointed
and jaded than his aggressive and confrontational, yet brilliant, 1970s
period. He continued, as always, to make a significant number of
films
throughout the 1980s from the tender, personal Je Vous Salue, Marie
to
the comically ironic tribute to Jerry Lewis, Soigne ta Droite.
While the work of this decade (from the mere five films I’ve seen)
still
retains the mark of a genius, it seems to be building up to his more
complex,
ambitious, and fluid films of the 1990s and 2000s. Nouvelle
Vague
may be Godard’s most complex and layered film, but attempting to unlock
its
secrets makes it one of his most rewarding.
At this point in
Godard’s career,
it becomes necessary to account for his age. In 1990, at the age
of 60,
he continued to reflect back on cinema’s past, but with enough distance
from
the French New Wave and the Dziga Vertov Group period, his films took
on an
added dimension. In the aptly titled Nouvelle Vague, he
explores
his own past in Switzerland
and in cinema and also creates a poetic statement on memory and how it
affects
our reality in the present. The overlapping dialogue, sound, and
image
makes for a challenging, often overwhelming experience that is
ultimately
liberating since it is not only free of the limitations of narrative
but also
of the associative nature of sound and image. Its depth comes
from
Godard’s choice to involve the audience in defining what these images
mean as
every viewer can and will take something different away from it.
The semblance of a
plot is
succinctly summed up by Dixon – “The film is set on the Swiss estate of
a
fabulously wealthy woman, who, out for a spin one day, accidentally
runs into a
drifter, and, tending to his minor injuries, takes him back to her
enormous
mansion as a semi-permanent house guest, something like Jean Renoir as
Octave
in Renoir’s Regle du jeu.” Wealth and consumerism is an
important
theme in Nouvelle Vague, but it rarely dominates the film to
the degree
where it’s unable to explore other philosophic concerns or the unique
love/revenge liaison between Richard and Elena. We are shown a
world
overrun with possessions, wealth, corporate takeovers, and businessmen
familiar
only with business magazines, and the dialogue, consisting of numerous
quotes
(from Balzac to Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not), takes us
on a more
somber and introspective path. Coupled with the soundtrack which
mixes
classical music, soft natural sounds, harsh car noises, and the
occasional
barbaric yelp cut together with abrupt, seemingly random stops, more
happens on
and off the screen than is possible to take in. The overwhelming
effect
this has is reminiscent, in spirit if not in content, of Chris Marker’s
Sans
Soleil. Both films, however, concentrate on how memory
affects our
perception of future events and can lead to fulfilling nostalgia and a
greater
understanding of personal and world history or to repetition of past
mistakes
that lead to potential tragedy.
The very first
lines, “But I wanted
this to be a narrative. I still do. Nothing from outside to
distract memory.” hint at part of what Godard is aiming for with this
film. The irony of the statement can only be appreciated by
watching
everything that follows. He aims to show us that it is impossible
for outside
factors not to distract our memory and for our memories not to affect
our
current and future experiences. In the film’s first scene, we
hear a horn
beeping as the camera tracks a speeding car until it stops. Then
the same
sound is replayed as the camera moves along a tree limb. The
sound is
then played for a third time as the camera pans along an empty road and
then
returns to the shot of the tree as a short burst of classical music
overtakes
the soundtrack. With this deceptively simple and relatively short
sequence,
Godard is challenging us to consider how we contextualize these
images.
We first see the sound and image paired as one would expect, but the
series
that follows illustrates the principle that with every image there is,
in our
minds, a pre-determined, associated sound and with each sound a
pre-determined,
associated image. Though we are shown a tree or an empty road,
and we are
hearing the sound of a car screeching, our natural tendency is to
picture our
pre-conceived image that is associated with the sound. The idea
that our
memory restricts and defines our experiences in life and with cinema is
a key
theme of Nouvelle Vague and further evidence that Godard’s
perspective
is broadening as he is connecting his ideas to everyday experiences.
In the
final third of the film,
Godard says “The positive is given to us. It remains for us to
make the
negative.” What follows is the most remarkable tracking shot of
the film
and one of the most remarkable sequences in any of his films. The
camera
pans along the outside of the house showing several well-lit rooms and
the contents
within them. At the end, it stops and pans in reverse as a maid
turns off
the lights in each room, creating the effect of a fading memory.
It is
the defining shot of the film and a poignant reminder of how our
history (be it
personal or political) is an integral part of our present and that the
denial
of this fact will always lead to tragedy.
The great tragedies in
Nouvelle
Vague occur in two scenes, one in the middle and one at the end,
both
involving Richard and Elena. In the first, Elena is swimming in
the water
and urges him to join her. As he tries to tell her that he can’t
swim,
she quickly forgets (or possibly fails to acknowledge this) and becomes
increasingly embittered by his refusal. She soon asks for help
out of the
water, but he refuses and instead forces her to struggle onto the boat
herself. On her way up, she pulls him into the water and with a
frighteningly indifferent gaze watches him drown. The tragedy
repeats
itself near the end of the film, only this time it is Richard on the
boat
allowing her to drown. At the last second however, there is a
shot
(mirroring a shot from earlier in the film) of his hand grasping
hers. It
is a purely transcendent moment, since his initial actions were clearly
defined
by past experience, yet he is somehow able to overcome his bitterness
in an act
of forgiveness and pure compassion. In a film that is often
melancholy
and pensive, it is refreshing that in the end Godard sees at least a
small ray
of hope for humankind. The film’s final passage adds a beautiful
touch:
“Their
words seemed frozen in the traces of other words from
other times. They paid no heed to what
they did, but to the difference which set today’s acts in the present
and
parallel acts in the past. They felt
tall, motionless, above them past and present, identical waves in the
same
ocean.”
Cinematic
Reflections
