Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard (125 page)

22
. Fontana’s wife, Carmen, is the woman who calls to Godard from the window in
Une Femme coquette
.

23
. Schiffman, videotaped interview by Bernard Cohn, September 27, 1999.

24
. Ibid.

25
.
La Tribune de Genève
, May 7–8, 1960.

26
. Laubscher, interview by author, February 21, 2003.

27
. Michel Subor, interview by author, November 26, 2001.

28
. CS
Petit Soldat
clipping.

29
. Michel Subor, interview by author, November 26, 2001.

30
.
L’Express
, June 16, 1960.

31
. Jean-Luc Godard, interview by author, June 9, 2000.

32
. Godard,
Introduction à une Véritable Histoire du cinéma
, p. 60.

33
. The French phrase is “le cinéma c’est 24 fois la vérité par seconde” (the cinema is 24 times truth per second).

34
.
Libération
, October 2, 2001.

35
. Ibid.

36
.
Film
(London), May 1973.

37
. Paul Gégauff, in
Godard
, Jean-Luc Douin (Paris: Rivages, 1989), p. 21; Bérangère Allaux, interview with author, April 15, 2001.

38
.
Les Lettres françaises
, January 31, 1963.

39
.
Le Monde
, September 13, 1960.

40
.
L’Express
, June 16, 1960.

41
. Ibid.

42
. As in ballet.

43
. Subor, interview by author, November 26, 2001.

44
. Godard,
Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma
, p. 53.

45
. Godard, interview by author, June 9, 2000.

46
. As in
Breathless
, one brief scene was filmed in direct sound with the Nagra tape recorder that Tolmatchoff had procured for Godard: aboard a train, Tolmatchoff himself tells Laubscher a convoluted joke.

47
. Guillemot,
Cahiers du cinéma, Nouvelle Vague
, special issue, 1999, pp. 45–46.

48
.
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 221;
Cahiers du cinéma
, December 1962.

49
. “The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I’ll concentrate on that. Maybe I’ll live so long that I’ll forget her. Maybe I’ll die tryin’.”

50
.
L’Express
, June 16, 1960.

51
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, vol. 1, p. 582.

52
.
Arts
, March 23, 1960.

53
.
Le Monde
, September 13, 1960.

54
. Actually the sentences are not identical: in the scene of torture, Laszlo of the FLN says, “Quelquefois il faut avoir la force de frayer son chemin avec un poignard,” whereas at the end, Jacques of the Red Hand says, “Il faut avoir la force quelquefois de frayer son chemin avec un poignard.”

55
.
Libération
, April 4, 1960.

56
.
L’Express
, June 16, 1960.

57
.
Paris-Presse
, September 14, 1960.

58
. Quoted in Beauregard,
Beauregard
, p. 118.

59
. Criterion DVD
of Breathless
, 2007.

60
. CS
Petit Soldat
clipping (Sylvain Zegel).

61
.
Les Lettres françaises
, January 31, 1963.

62
. The system is still in effect. To this day, some officials of the CNC are sensitive about the use of the word
censorship
and prefer to talk about the “control” of films.

63
. Instead of removing the shot, Resnais painted over the officer’s cap.

64
.
Le Monde
, March 11, 1960.

65
. CS
Petit Soldat
clipping.

66
.
Cinéma 61
, no 52 (January 1961), p. 19.

67
.
L’Express
, June 16, 1960.

68
.
Le Monde
, September 14, 1960.

69
. Ibid., September 16, 1960.

70
.
Paris-Presse
, September 14, 1960.

71
. CS
Petit Soldat
clipping.

72
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, May 10, 1989;
G par G
, vol. 2, p. 176.

73
. Signoret had just won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in
Room at the Top
.

74
. Truffaut, despite his association with the right wing in the 1950s, had mollified his political views, in large measure under the influence of his father-in-law, Ignace Morgenstern, and considered himself a “Mendésiste,” a supporter of the moderate leftist Gaullism of Pierre Mendès-France.

75
.
L’Express
, October 6, 1960.

76
. Madeleine Morgenstern, interview by author, February 16, 2003.

77
.
Les Lettres françaises
, May 14, 1964.

78
.
G par G
, vol. 2, p. 413.

79
. Beauregard,
Beauregard
, p. 119.

80
. http://www.ornitho.org/ornitho/imprim.php3?id_article=24; Pierre Vidal-Naquet, April 20, 2001.

81
. Beauregard, who supported French control of Algeria, hid the film director Jacques Dupont, a member of the OAS, from the French authorities.

Chapter Five:
A Woman Is a Woman

1
. According to CNC documents from the Commission de Contrôle. In 1960, the French currency was revalued by a factor of 100 (the former 100 francs would now be 1 new franc).

2
. The aspect ratio was 2.35:1; it was achieved by the use of anamorphic lenses in shooting and projection.

3
. For some of the street scenes, Coutard would indeed use a handheld Cameflex with Cinemascope lenses, and for those sequences, Godard would dub the sound.

4
. It was recorded onto a separate reel of 35 mm film, not the one that passed through the camera.

5
. Godard later told Vlady that he needed to have Beauregard’s rejection of well-known actresses whose fees were too high in order to have the producer’s authorization to make the film with Karina. Marina Vlady,
24 Images/Seconde
(
Paris: Fayard, 2005
)
, pp. 159–60.

6
. In Beauregard,
Beauregard
, p. 119, Karina retrospectively scoffed at Godard’s interest in Collins, saying, “There’s no one more artificial than Joan Collins… Jean-Luc always says that he doesn’t want make-up, that he likes the natural”; she did not consider that, prior to her first performance with Godard in
Le Petit Soldat
, there had been no one more artificial than Anna Karina either, who had been a made-up, coiffed model and cover girl. It was only Godard’s antitheatrical minimalism and repudiation of the artifices of makeup, coiffure, and theater-bound technique that allowed her own character and irrepressible nature to shine through the thin scrim of her performance.

7
. Rousseau, like Godard, was Swiss, and originally from Geneva—and the Ile Rousseau was featured prominently in
Le Petit Soldat
as well as in the short film
Une Femme coquette
.

8
.
L’Express
, January 12, 1961.

9
.
Cahiers du cinéma, Spécial Godard
(1991).

10
. Raoul Coutard, in
Jean-Luc Godard
(Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1979), p. 63.

11
.
Cahiers du cinéma, Spécial Godard, Trente ans depuis
(1991).

12
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, September 22, 1965.

13
.
Films and Filming
, September 1961.

14
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, December 1962;
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 222.

15
.
Télérama
, May 22, 1961.

16
.
L’Express
, July 27, 1961.

17
. Jean-Claude Brialy,
Le Ruisseau des singes
, p. 162. Anna Karina, however, considers the actor’s remarks one-sided and sensationalizing. She told me, “Brialy said, ‘They fought.’ Why didn’t he say, ‘They came to my chateau; Jean-Luc ate bread and jam’?” (Anna Karina, interview by author, June 18, 2001.)

18
.
Tribune de Lausanne
, February 4–5, 1961.

19
.
L’Express
, January 12, 1961.

20
.
Cinema 65: dossier du mois
, Ciné-Club d’Annecy, November 1964.

21
. Ibid.

22
. Peter W. Jansen and Wolfram Schütte, eds.,
Jean-Luc Godard
(Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1979), p. 71.

23
.
Herald Tribune
, February 5, 1961.

24
.
Paris-Match
, March 25, 1961.

25
. Agnès Varda, interview by author, March 16, 2001.

26
. Beauregard,
Beauregard
, p. 112.

27
. Ibid., p.120.

28
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, December 1962;
G par G
, vol. 1, pp. 225–26.

29
. Coutard, interview by author, April 27, 2001.

30
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, December 1962.

31
.
L’Express
, April 13, 1961.

32
.
L’Express
, July 27, 1961.

33
.
The Golden Coach
.

34
. The record was never made available, but a transcript of its text was published in 1968 in
Jean-Luc Godard par Jean-Luc Godard
. It is now available as an extra on the Criterion DVD of
A Woman Is a Woman
.

35
. Agnès Varda,
Varda par Agnès
(Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 1994), p. 56.

36
. Morvan Lebesque,
L’Express
, September 14, 1961.

37
. Michel Aubriant,
Paris Presse-L’Intransigeant
, in Beauregard,
Beauregard
, pp. 124–25.

38
. Jean de Baroncelli,
Le Monde
, September 14, 1961.

39
. Jacques Siclier,
Télérama
, September 1961.

40
. Claude Mauriac,
Le Figaro littéraire
, September 6, 1961.

41
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, December 1962.

42
.
Positif
, July 1959.

43
. Paule Sengissen,
Radio-Cinéma-Télévision
, in
Cahiers du cinéma
, February 2001, p. 69.

44
. René Cortade,
Arts
, March 23, 1960.

45
. François Truffaut,
Correspondence
, 1945–1984 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990), p. 165.

46
.
France-Observateur
, October 19, 1961.

47
. Ibid.

48
. C
ahiers du cinéma
, December 1962;
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 216.

49
. Ibid., p. 232.

50
.
France-Observateur
, October 19, 1961.

51
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, December 1962, p. 50.

52
.
Sight and Sound
32, no. 1 (Winter 1962–63), p. 10.

53
. A right-wing French writer who had looked favorably upon the German occupation.

54
.
L’Express
, July 27, 1961.

55
. Barthes’s remark is in
Les Lettres Nouvelles
, March 11, 1959; Godard recalled it in a roundtable discussion on
Hiroshima mon amour
, in
Cahiers du cinéma
, July 1959. The actual quote from Barthes: “Recalling the first images of
Le Beau Serge
, I say to myself once more that, here in France, the talent is on the right and the truth is on the left; that it is this fatal disjunction between form
and meaning that suffocates us; that we are unable to escape from aesthetics because our aesthetic is always the alibi for a conservatism.” Quoted in
Oeuvres complètes
, vol. 1, 1993, p. 787.

56
. Truffaut,
Correspondence
, p. 165.

57
.
France Soir
, November 24, 1961.

58
. Beauregard,
Beauregard
, p. 141.

59
.
France-Soir
, November 23 and 24, 1961.

60
.
Paris-Presse–L’Intransigeant
, November 24, 1961.

61
. Ibid., January 9, 1962.

Chapter Six:
Vivre sa vie, Le Nouveau Monde, Les Carabiniers

1
. Rozier wanted his largely improvised dialogue to be recorded with direct sound. Beauregard said that the budget didn’t allow it. To aid with dubbing, Rozier recorded the dialogue on portable, non-sync-sound equipment, which malfunctioned. Rozier couldn’t understand the dialogue and called in a lip-reader to transcribe it.

2
. Marin Karmitz, interview by author, April 27, 2001.

3
.
Combat
, September 11, 1962.

4
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, December 1962;
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 227.

5
.
Combat
, September 11, 1962.