Godard Mon Amour
Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius
Written by: Michel Hazanavicius - Based on the novel "Un an après" by Anne Wiazemsky
Starring: Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin, Bérénice Bejo, Grégory Gadebois, Félix Kysyl, Arthur Orcier, Guido Caprino, Emmanuele Aita
Biography/Comedy/Drama - 107 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 17 Apr 2018
Written by: Michel Hazanavicius - Based on the novel "Un an après" by Anne Wiazemsky
Starring: Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin, Bérénice Bejo, Grégory Gadebois, Félix Kysyl, Arthur Orcier, Guido Caprino, Emmanuele Aita
Biography/Comedy/Drama - 107 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 17 Apr 2018
French director Michel Hazanavicus won Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for The Artist, a black and white homage to Hollywood’s silent era. The Artist also starred his wife, Bèrènice Bejo, who picked up her own Oscar nomination that year. Hazanavicius is back with another homage; this time, toward the French legend and myth, Jean-Luc Godard – and Bèrènice Bejo also shows up again. Godard famously despised his fans who begged him to keep making the same type of movies which catapulted him to the leading edge of the French New Wave; they wanted Breathless 2. Instead, Godard threw away scripts and the top-down hierarchy of direction, and embarked upon what he said was the new revolutionary filmmaking to coincide with France’s 1968 upheaval. Michel Hazanavicius has no such revulsion to repeating his previous films. Godard Mon Amour is not in black and white, nor is it silent, but it is a celebration and study of a particular era of cinematic transformation, although one far more integral to cineastes and the French.
Hazanavicius uses the memoirs of Godard’s then new and young wife, Anne Wiazemsky (Stacy Martin, High-Rise), to poke fun at the classical rules of storytelling. Where Godard was confrontational about breaking the rules, Hazanavicius winks at us instead; he’s parroting Godard. An opening voiceover clues us into Godard’s psyche, “Artists should die at 35 before becoming old farts. In a few months, I will turn 37.” Godard feels out of place marching in the streets, lobbing stones at the police, practicing revolution, and even enjoying the pleasures of a plucky wife 17 years his junior. To show the age difference, the camera repeatedly caresses Anne’s naked body, usually juxtaposed with what sounds like forced vulgarity from Godard who rants about communism or fascism while ignoring the dish in front of him.
Hazanavicius uses the memoirs of Godard’s then new and young wife, Anne Wiazemsky (Stacy Martin, High-Rise), to poke fun at the classical rules of storytelling. Where Godard was confrontational about breaking the rules, Hazanavicius winks at us instead; he’s parroting Godard. An opening voiceover clues us into Godard’s psyche, “Artists should die at 35 before becoming old farts. In a few months, I will turn 37.” Godard feels out of place marching in the streets, lobbing stones at the police, practicing revolution, and even enjoying the pleasures of a plucky wife 17 years his junior. To show the age difference, the camera repeatedly caresses Anne’s naked body, usually juxtaposed with what sounds like forced vulgarity from Godard who rants about communism or fascism while ignoring the dish in front of him.
Perhaps Godard enjoys such mythical status in France not because his long filmography is ripe for academic study, but because he is one of the world’s famous hermits. Even when he was in the public eye, Godard was considered aloof and too intellectual, especially in such a turbulent and serious period as 1968. Balancing between reverence and irreverence, between tragedy and comedy, Hazanavicius finds multiple pathways to joke about how Godard sees himself and how society sees him. Godard (Louis Garrel) comes off as a Woody Allen archetype, even without the company of a woman too young for him. He is his own worst critic while everyone nearby assures him he is capable and visionary. He agrees with graffiti about him and is sure he is a has-been hack compared to these virulent twenty somethings.
Hazanavicius uses Godard’s motifs and revisits his cinematography to tell the story. It’s not so much that he is copying the auteur, but he’s close. There is a specific scene in a movie theater where the couple argues, Anne starts crying, and there is The Passion of Joan of Arc on the screen where Joan is crying. This is one of Godard’s most famous scenes. Hazanavicius also pokes at his cast playing these famous people. Garrel, in an early rant, yells, “I am actor playing Godard, and not even a good actor!” While denigrating artists as a whole as charlatans, Garrel spouts, “You could even get an actor to say actors are dumb!”
Godard declares the old Godard is dead. From now on, he will only make austere, realist cinema. The old films mean nothing. Naturally, critics and fans despise his new films. Even the Chinese hate his pro-Mao Zedong movie. In another Woody Allen connection, moments of Godard Mon Amour recall 1980’s Stardust Memories where the aliens tell Allen they really like his earlier movies and want him to make more of those. Another director tied into the material, but this time as a character, is Bernardo Bertolucci who finally calls out Godard on all his pretentious shit. Garrel has a Bertolucci connection himself from 2003’s The Dreamers, a truly fantastic film about Paris 1968.
Usually, homage films do not come off as comic, but Godard Mon Amour, known as La Redoubtable in France, is more comic than anything else. It can skew serious, especially when Godard goes off the deep end of a rant and even goes anti-Semitic showing a moment where Godard actually said Jews are today’s Nazis. Hazanavicius is Jewish but alludes this episode is only a case study to prove Godard sometimes tried too hard to be provocative. These descriptions make Godard sound like a smothering blanket, a man who makes all around him suffer including his wife and friends, and this is all true; however, he is watchable. Godard is a filmmaker cinephiles eventually find their way to and will forever be a challenging enigma with ardent defenders and baffled attackers. Whatever your opinions are regarding Godard’s films, groundbreaking or garbage, Hazanavicius’s exploration of the man in a specific time and place rounds out the edges.
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