Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard (124 page)

34
. Tolmatchoff, interview by author, March 20, 2002.

35
. Ibid.

36
.
Realités
, January 1964.

37
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, January 6, 1984.

38
. Hoveyda, interview by author, October 30, 2001.

39
. http://www.suntimes.com/includes/ebert/chabrol.html;
Chicago Sun-Times
, “Flashback: Chabrol and Ebert talk in 1971,” January 24, 1971.

40
.
New York Post
, August 30, 1984.

41
.
Cahiers du cinéma
, November 1957.

42
. The literal translation is “a whorishness” [
une saloperie
]; in different versions of the story, Godard is said to have called the film “shit,” or
dégueulasse
, disgusting.

43
.
Arts
, April 22, 1959, in
G par G
, vol. 1, pp. 193–95.

44
.
L’Express
, October 3, 1957.

45
. Vadim’s
Et Dieu
…
créa la femme
(
And God Created Woman
), a sex drama that made Brigitte Bardot an instant international sensation, was highly praised by the
Cahiers
critics and by Godard. But Godard’s praise proved a short-lived enthusiasm, as Vadim soon showed himself to be a clever purveyor of titillation rather than a chronicler of mores.

46
.
Arts
, April 22, 1959, in
G par G
, vol. 1, pp. 193–95.

47
. Jean Douchet,
French New Wave
(New York: D.A.P., 1998).

48
. To be precise,
A Bout de souffle
should be translated as “Out of Breath”: “Breathless” has a positive quality of joyful astonishment or satiety with pleasure that is absent from “à bout de souffle,” which refers to a state of exhaustion.

Chapter Three:
Breathless

1
. Jean-Paul Belmondo,
Trente Ans et vingt-cinq films
(Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1963), p. 59.

2
.
Arts
, March 12, 1958.

3
. Truffaut archives, BiFi.

4
. David Richards,
Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story
(New York: Random House, 1981), pp. 84–85.

5
.
Les Nouvelles Littéraires
, July 7, 1982.

6
. November 26, 1958;
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 150.

7
. Philippe Durant,
Belmondo
(Paris: Robert Laffont 1993), p. 149.

8
. Capitalized to make a pun on the title of
Les Temps de Paris
, a short-lived daily newspaper intended to rival
Le Monde
, on which Truffaut was able to get Godard work writing gossip; the paper was published from April 17 to July 3, 1956. (www.quid.fr/2000/INFORMAT/Q037010.HTM)

9
. A double reference: on the one hand, Sagan was the author of
Bonjour Tristesse
, and the hiring of Jean Seberg brought the association inevitably to mind; but Sagan was also staying in St.-Tropez not far from Truffaut.

10
. Belmondo,
Trente Ans et vingt-cinq films
, p. 60.

11
. Minister of State in Charge of Cultural Affairs.

12
.
Echéances
—the due date for a payment. Chantal de Beauregard,
Georges de Beauregard
(Nîmes: Lacour, 1991), p. 89.

13
. Ibid.

14
. The version that Truffaut gave Godard, in
La Lettre du cinéma
, no. 3; Godard’s version, in
L’Avant-Scène Cinéma
, March 1968.

15
. An ingenious way of staying faithful to the original newspaper accounts of the real incident (which ended with the man’s arrest and trial) while avoiding the conventional cinematic resolution of a courtroom drama.

16
. This story, an experience also shared by Paul Gégauff, would become the basis for Eric Rohmer’s first feature,
The Sign of Leo
, which he too filmed in the summer of 1959, immediately before Godard’s shoot of
Breathless
. Godard has a cameo role in Rohmer’s film, as a party guest who puts on the record player a record of a Beethoven quartet (op. 132) and repeatedly places the needle at the same passage. It was a gesture taken from something that Godard’s friends had seen him do.

17
.
L’Avant-Scene Cinéma
, no. 79, March 1968.

18
. Letter from Godard to Truffaut (undated, July 1958), courtesy of Madeleine Morgenstern.

19
. Ibid.

20
. Raoul Coutard, interview by author, April 27, 2001.

21
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, September 22, 1965.

22
. In a 35mm film camera, shooting 24 frames per second, one foot produced sixteen frames, or two-thirds of a second.

23
. Pierre Braunberger,
Pierre Braunberger, producteur: cinéma mémoire
(Paris: C.N.C., 1987).

24
.
Filmkritik
, July 1983.

25
. Braunberger,
Pierre Braunberger
.

26
. The difference is sometimes noticeable.

27
. The main character of that film, a gangster named Bob Montagné, is mentioned in
Breathless
as a friend of Poiccard.

28
.
Film Culture
, no. 35, 1964–1965.

29
. Richards,
Played Out
, p. 85.

30
. Seberg complained about Godard’s lack of hygiene; he wore his only suit, and she claimed that it smelled (Jean Clay,
Réalités
). Godard may have been relatively poor compared to professional filmmakers, but he is said to have had certainly enough money to buy decent clothing; he was simply neglectful of his appearance and had the habit of owning only one suit, wearing it out, and then replacing it. Seberg also complained that Godard had written a line indicating that her character had stolen money from her concierge; Godard removed the line.

31
. Jean-Paul Belmondo,
Trente Ans et vingt-cinq films
, texte recueilli par Gilles Durieux (Paris: Union Générale d’Editeurs, 1963), p. 61.

32
. Jean-Luc Godard,
Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma
(Paris: Albatros, 1980), p. 86.

33
.
Filmkritik
(Munich), July 1983.

34
.
France-Observateur
was the precursor to the contemporary
Le Nouvel Observateur
.

35
.
France-Observateur
, October 29, 1959.

36
. An expression that means something like “wild oats,” the not-atypical troubles of a spirited youth.

37
.
L’Express
, December 23, 1959.

38
. In French,
propédeutique
.

39
. Rui Nogueira, ed.,
Melville on Melville
(New York: Viking, 1972), p. 76.

40
. What he decided at random, however, was the cutting of a scene where Belmondo drives and Seberg is the passenger. Godard had filmed both, separately, from the perspective of the back seat of the car, and had originally intended to cut back and forth between the characters in a traditional shot-reverse shot schema. But he decided that instead of trimming the shots of both characters, he would reduce the scene radically by flipping a coin to see which of the characters would be completely edited out.

41
. There was the added psychological effect of suggesting that Michel was on the verge of doing himself in, symbolically, as well.

42
. Concordia University, Montreal, March 12, 1977.

43
.
The Enforcer
is credited to Bretaigne Windust but was directed in significant part by Raoul Walsh.

44
. From a privately recorded audio cassette.

45
. Jean Collet,
Jean-Luc Godard
(Paris: Seghers, 1963).

46
.
Réalités
, January 1964.

47
. Ibid.

48
.
Breathless
failed to win the Louis Delluc Prize from French film critics for best film of the year because “only four or five jurors, out of about fifteen, had seen Godard’s first feature film.” The others did not even take the trouble to attend a private screening. “Thus it could not get a majority.” G.S. (Georges Sadoul),
Les Lettres françaises
, January 20, 1966, p. 31. (The prize went instead to
On n’enterre pas le dimanche
[We Don’t Bury on Sunday], directed by Michel Drach.)

49
. This was understood by some to be an elegant deflection.

50
.
Positif
, April 1960.

51
. Gérald Devries,
Démocratie 60
, March 25, 1960.

52
. Gilbert Salachas,
Radio-Cinéma-Télévision
, April 3, 1960.

53
. Jacques Siclier, “
A Bout de Souffle
, Le manifeste de la ‘Nouvelle Vague.’”

54
. This is the newspaper that goes by that name today.

55
. Simone Dubreuilh,
Libération
, March 23, 1960.

56
. Pierre Marcabru,
Combat
, September 3, 1960.

57
. D and F,
Nouveaux Jours
, March 25, 1960.

58
. Siclier, “
A Bout de Souffle
, Le manifeste de la ‘Nouvelle Vague.’”

59
. Dorsday, interview by author, May 21, 2001.

60
.
Le Monde
, March 18, 1960.

61
. André Bessèges,
France Catholique
, March 25, 1960.

62
. This was known as the “Jaccoud affair.”

63
.
Tribune de Genève
, February 3, 1960.

64
.
Philippe de Broca
, ed. Alain Garel (Paris: Veyrier, 1990).

65
. Chantal de Beauregard,
Georges de Beauregard: “… Premier sourire de Belmondo… dernier de Bardot…”
(Nîmes: Lacour/Colporteur, 1991), pp. 99–102. (The title is taken from Godard’s eulogy for Beauregard.)

66
. Ibid.

67
. Quoted in Michel Vianey,
En attendant Godard
(Paris: Grasset, 1967), p. 196.

68
. Ibid., p, 197.

Chapter Four:
Le Petit Soldat

1
.
El-Moudjahid
(Algiers), February 7, 1967.

2
. René Cortade,
Arts
, March 23, 1960.

3
. Raymond Borde, Freddy Buache, and Jean Curtelin,
Nouvelle Vague
(Paris: SERDOC, 1962), p. 21.

4
. Louis Seguin,
Positif
, April 1960.

5
. Borde, Buache, and Curtelin,
Nouvelle Vague
, p. 64.

6
. Ronald Aronson,
Camus and Sartre
(Chicago: University of Chicago, 2004), pp. 213–14.

7
. Capdenac, CS
Petit Soldat
clipping.

8
. Ibid., February 1960.

9
. The subject of brainwashing had received great attention in January and February of 1958, when
L’Express
published as a cover story a three-part series of the first-person account of Lajos Ruff, a young Hungarian who, in the dark days of Stalinist oppression in the early 1950s, had committed the crime of plotting to emigrate, and who, while incarcerated for his offense, was subjected to psychological torture. A loud headline announcing the series as “the first first-person account of brainwashing” was angled onto the upper edge of the cover photo, a close-up of the actor Maurice Ronet in his starring role in Louis Malle’s
Elevator to the Gallows;
at first glance, the cover seems to suggest that the photo of Ronet illustrated the brainwashing story—that Ronet was starring in a film that would be the first first-person account of brainwashing. It is not hard to imagine Godard, and indeed many other readers, envisaging such a film—a film that only Godard, of course, sought to make.

10
.
Jean-Luc Godard
, vol. 1, pp. 219–20;
Cahiers du Cinéma
, December 1962.

11
.
Libération
, April 26, 1960.

12
.
L’Express
, June 16, 1960.

13
.
L’Humanité
, March 21, 1960.

14
.
France-Observateur
, April 14, 1960.

15
. CS
Petit Soldat
clipping.

16
. Godard’s original notion was that the action would last “fifteen days;” a radio broadcast heard in the last scenes of action specify the next day to be Thursday, May 22 (1958), yet only four days of
action are explicitly shown on-screen. The scenes of torture, in which days and nights are not seen elapsing, are of unspecified duration.

17
.
CS Petit Soldat
clipping.

18
. Ibid.

19
.
France-Observateur
, March 17, 1960.

20
. Agnès Guillemot,
Cahiers du Cinéma
special issue,
Nouvelle Vague
, 1999, p. 45. Nadine Marquand was the first replacement for Decugis, but soon left the production (to join the actor Jean-Louis Trintignant, whom she would marry, on a shoot).

21
. A complex reference: “Veronica” was the main character of the Russian film
The Cranes Are Flying
, which, in a roundabout way, had resulted in
Breathless
(and which was shown at Cannes in May 1958, where Godard and Truffaut were at the time of the May 13 putsch); “Véronique” also is the name of Godard’s younger sister, who is approximately the same age as Anna Karina, and who at the time was a student in Paris; and “Dreyer” is, of course, a wink to Carl Theodor Dreyer, the Danish director.