Wednesday 15 January 2014

Une Femme Mariee (1964)




Une Femme Mariee (1964)


Directed and written by Jean-Luc Godard 


Stars  Macha Meril, Bernard Noel and Philippe Leroy

France : 95min.





Macha Meril is Charlotte, the married woman of the title. In addition to her husband Pierre (Leroy) she also has a lover Robert (Noel). During the course of the film she spends time with both men while attempting to decide whether she should leave her husband and adopted son for a new life with her actor lover.

In the meantime she fills her days with idle daydreaming about underwear advertised in fashion magazines and newspapers and attempts to add excitement to what seems (to her) to be a mundane routine.


On it's original release the film became an almost instant cause de scandal due to the near nudity of Macha Meril in some scenes and the lingering extreme close-ups of her naked body. Godard probably felt that if Charles de Gaulle calls for your film to be banned then you're probably doing something right!

As with most of his films Godard is less concerned with the A to C via B narrative structure which had been the norm for the greater part of cinema's  history than with presenting fragments from a life and requiring the viewer to join them together to make 'sense' of what they are watching.

In Une Femme Mariee we observe the lead actor as she meets with her lover in the new apartment that he taken, see her reunited with her husband and his young son as he returns from a business trip, spend an evening with her as she and her husband entertain a business colleague. We then join her as she chats with the family cleaner/cook, visits the doctor to collect some life-changing test results and finally as she grabs a stolen opportunity in the hotel attached to Orly airport.

Through each of these scenes Charlotte continually asks questions : some relate to her relationship with the person to whom she's talking, others are more general. She's seeking information (we assume) in order to help her to make her decision as to which of the two men in her life she would prefer to be with on a permanent basis.

In between these scenes Charlotte spends her time soaking up information from other sources and flitting around Paris in a succession of taxis, dodging from one to the other in the manner of a spy attempting to lose a tail (which, we gather from her voiceover, is how Charlotte sees herself/wishes that she was during these moments.)

The importance of media advertisements for fashion garments to her and an overheard conversation between two young women who are discussing the mechanics of a possible upcoming loss of virginity allow Godard to address the issues around the way in which sixties mass-media sold an image of femininity to women - the underwear ads. all seem to stress that wearing their product will bring happiness to the woman's partner or make it easier for her to find a boyfriend/husband - there's no text emphasising comfort for the wearer or even suggesting that the product is fashionable or stylish - all of the weight is on pleasing the male.


The scenes of intimacy between Charlotte and her two men are beautifully composed and shot : extreme close-ups of intertwined hands or gentle caresses; these, in turn, are undermined by the senseless and ceaseless babble of voices - both the facile dialogue of those involved and Charlotte's seemingly unending inner monologue. Moments of tenderness do nothing to halt her continual questioning and search for meaning.

It's a quite remarkable film and comes from a place some way outside the mid-sixties mainstream. Godard loads the film up with popular culture references (there's an enormous amount of  in-jokes and passing comments regarding cinema, as you would expect). There's a very "real" feel to the film aided by the location shooting on the streets of Paris which contrasts brutally with the distancing effects of near-documentary soliloquies by the main characters and conversations held in the manner of a press interview.

While Une Femme Mariee is one of Godard's less celebrated films it's a quite dazzling 'slice of life' piece of work and a very brave attempt to deal with the various issues and problems with which the emerging feminist movement (in particular) and young people (in general) would spend the rest of the sixties grappling. 


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