Razzlewolf

"Final paper 502 exerpt" OR "Go, Go, Godard!"

***WARNING Bande à part spoilers!!***

Godard performs the actual duty of the narrator in Bande à part. While he is omniscient and unannounced by the diegetic world, he is also able to participate in the formal aspects of the film, which announces the work as a fiction. This places him at a unique position both inside and outside the film’s diegetic world. For the duration of the film, Godard oscillates between the two positions, effectively empowering both himself as a young auteur and his characters as complex Parisian youths.

Godard announces that, “My story begins here,” well after two of the main characters have spoken and establishing shots of Paris are shown. In this way he creates his own timeline that is separate from the film, leaving us with the implication that the characters have existed in some form before his introduction.

He reinforces this by later adding that for latecomers to the story, which is the entire audience at this early point in the film, he has a few choice words. Godard then proceeds to list a few of the variables that constitute the plan of the main characters, Arthur and Franz, to rob the wealthy benefactor of Odile, who they met in an English language class. Godard leaves it up to the viewer to combine the words with the conversation the would-be robbers have had up to this point. He is willing to sacrifice legibility in order to direct the viewer to more actively participate in understanding the narrative. Godard’s power as a narrator comes from his ability to force this participation from the viewer.

Perhaps the most famous scene in Bande à part, the Madison dance sequence, best illustrates Godard’s empowerment of the French youth and of himself. The scene follows two other events of note, in which Godard makes his presence felt as a director of the movie—when the characters decide to observe a moment of silence, the movie’s soundtrack cuts off completely, engulfing the viewer in a total silence which permeates beyond what the characters would experience diegetically. The subjective realism of the awkwardness that can accompany a prolonged silence is felt by the viewer.

Eventually, Franz cannot take the silence and leaves early to put a record on, leaving Odile to question why Arthur keeps him around. Arthur responds that, “It’s like in the movies. He’d make a good shield.” This is one of several self reflexive comments that the characters make, comparing their own lives to film.

This initial intrusion into the aural space of the film sets him up for the famous Madison dance sequence. The sequence begins as the jukebox starts playing an original rock and roll track by Michel Delahaye. The trio begins to dance in sync for a few seconds.

While the trio is performing the same dance, each character has his or her own nuances and sometimes makes mistakes. These imperfections, which are laid bare by the fact that the entire scene takes place over one long take, provide a metaphor for New Wave cinema at large. It is a cinema that is willing to take chances and define itself in opposition to certain cinematic conventions with the simple goal of becoming more interesting. Perfection through visual symmetry is not a New Wave goal.

Suddenly, the music stops and we are left hearing the shuffles and stamps of the three characters as they dance in a film world where sound can be manipulated at the narrator’s will. It is here that the Godard gains another power, as the sound engineer, breaking the movie’s diegetic world by turning the music, which is initially presumed to be heard as a result of a jukebox, into a non-diegetic sound.

Godard first speaks as a director, breaking the silence and informing the viewer that “Now is the time for a digression.” However, he then reverts to a literary style and informs us of what each character is thinking.

From here he explains that Arthur is experiencing an intense simultaneity of thought as he is dancing, self-conscious of his dancing, and thinking about Odile romantically at the same time. He then moves on to explain that Odile is wondering if the Arthur and Franz notice her breasts moving under her sweater, letting the viewer know that she is interested in the representation of her own sexuality. Finally, the narrator expresses that Franz is pondering the very nature of reality.

The diegetic plausibility of each description is sharply contrasted with the transitional moments in which neither the music nor the narrator can be heard. Godard’s power as a director becomes most apparent at these times as the viewer is forced to watch the trio dance, in sync, to some unheard rhythm. The result is alien leaves the viewer aware of the artifice of film.

Without this voiceover narration, the viewer would see only a group of youths performing what would seem to be a repetitive and thoughtless task. Godard’s careful combination of the café, the popular music, and the dancing emphasizes that this moment and accompanying thoughts belong only to the French youth.

Arthur is gunned down by his uncle after he finds that a bulk of the heist money is hidden in a doghouse. Here we see that Arthur’s own death has become a reenactment of his own performed death from the beginning of the movie. Godard’s voiceover begins after Arthur returns fire, killing his uncle instantly, and begins to stagger from his wounds:

"Arthur’s dying thought was of Odile’s face. As a dark fog descended on him he saw that fabled bird of Indian legend, which is born without feet, and thus can never alight. It sleeps in the high winds, and is only visible when it dies. When its transparent wings, longer than an eagle’s, fold in, it fits in the palm of your hand."

The careful wording seems to imply that while Arthur consciously thought of Odile’s face as death was closing in, he also experienced a sublime moment beyond his own reservoir of knowledge. Thus, this moment is also occupied by Godard, who appears to be inserting the knowledge into Arthur’s consciousness at the same time it reaches the viewer. The juxtaposition of Arthur’s fading existence and that of the bird ties the two beings together.

By explaining that the bird “fits in the palm of your hand” Godard hands the dying bird, now imbued with Arthur’s own dying life over to the viewer. Thus, when the voiceover ends, both lives seem to evaporate with the narration.

The film ends with Godard stepping back into the role of a director for the closing voiceover:

"My story ends here, like in a pulp novel, at that superb moment when nothing weakens, nothing wears away, nothing wanes. An upcoming film will reveal, in CinemaScope and Technicolor, the tropical adventures of Odile and Franz."

While the first sentence appears to reflexively refer to pulp novels as his inspiration for the timing of the film’s ending as well as his genuine wish for the film’s impact, the second is a scathing commentary on the film industry.

The narrator simultaneously criticizes film sequels, color film, and widescreen aspect ratios with this trite interjection. This seems to sum up Godard’s own attitude towards profitability and technological changes as it takes place without any diegetic motivation. He announces this like an advertisement, against a backdrop of a spinning globe, which seems to parody the Universal Pictures and RKO Pictures production logos. By doing this, he further establishes his directorial prowess by telling the viewer exactly what types of film Bande à part was created in opposition to.