Word: godard
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Though in Every Man For Himself, Godard has returned to a more digestable narrative framework-after his excursion into Maoist polemicism-he shows few signs of mellowing. It is only a nominal return to an old form. For the first time in years (since Deux ou Trois Choses perhaps), he has done some new and startling things. Few directors of late can make the same claim...
...Godard signature remains: scynicism continues to overrun pathos, and absurdity overpowers both. But if events in Every Man require a suspension of disbelief, Godard forces one to see things his way; with surgical grace the camera constantly reminds us of his insistence. Similarly, by rehearsing actors and dictating every breath to the point of mechanization, he compounds the crime by which an oppressively technocratic society of bankers brackets his characters. The dictatorial directorial net extends outward: "Do you really want to see a movie?" Isabelle Huppert asks, entering the director's landscape for the first time, looking directly into...
Thankfully (at times regretfully) Godard's cast does not seem to bridle at his yoke as much as we do. Huppert plays Isabelle, a relaxed if busy prostitute, capable enough to teach the trade to her sister-for money. She picks out Paul Godard (the mocking association is reinforced by his mogulstatus at a television station) and coaxes him away from a cinema line...
...know, but I cannot face the work," she replies. Intellectuals breaking up-there is nothing worse than the burden of an imaginably greater potential. Or perhaps Paul just does not like la compagne enough. His ex-wife, too, finds him self-possessed, and his jaded daughter-a little Godard-can only ask of their monthly meetings, "And where's my gift...
...trouble with these characters is that we cannot imagine any one of them at age 60. Even Godard's brand of efficient feminism makes for self-absorbed, lonely old women. Denise's bicycle, if it escapes the automobile, will outlast her men; Isabelle's detachment will outlive her looks. Finally we cannot accept the title, and look instead for evidence of the altruism gene. Who can say he has never received a moment of real tenderness? Godard gives us a few among strangers, none among friends...