Masculino femenino

That alternate title for Masculin Feminin, The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola, is provided in the middle of the film. It is probably the most famous thing from it. It's actually a good title. Politics and pop culture mix in odd ways in the film, and the characters are uncertain about both of those aspects of their lives.

Truth be told, Masculin Feminin is a lesser work by Jean-Luc Godard. It was made during a difficult period in his life: his relationship with Anna Karina, his wife and favorite actress, star of many of his early films such as Le petit soldat, Une femme est une femme, and especially Vivre sa vie, was falling apart. Therefore, this particular film is very bitter and hopeless. Godard is also unsure of where he's going. The film stars Jean-Pierre Leaud, who is most famous for playing Antoine Doinel in such Truffaut films as The 400 Blows. His girlfriend is played by Chantal Goya, who was a pop star at the time (and she plays an up-and-coming pop singer in the film). The film loses track of its supporting players. They are omnipresent, but when they have scenes without Leaud or Goya, the film gets tedious. Godard doesn't know what he's doing with them. This is especially true of a long scene where Leaud's best friend tries to court Goya's best friend in a kitchen. He asks her many questions, but they are all very trite ones about her sex life. I swear, he asks the same three questions a dozen times each. It gets old fast, and the scene lasts forever. There are several good sequences, but nothing that really equals the best of Jean-Luc Godard. Perhaps its real value is in its editing. Godard's editing is always interesting, and Masculin Feminin shows us his skill with long takes. Also, there are a couple of great tracking shots. 7/10.

Possible Spoliers: Though not Godard's best, Masculin, feminin is in many ways the prototypical Godard film, exhibiting as it does both his characteristic virtues and characteristic vices. The plot is simple and barley manages to hold the film together; a young man (Paul) conducts a shapeless relationship with a singer (Madeline), works on a cigarette trick, engages in politically oriented graffiti, wrestles with only moderate energy with his own political views, watches two strangers get killed and takes scant notice, etc. Friends and acquaintances of the pair drift in and out of the film, to no great effect.

The film, like most Godard films, should be dreadful, and to many it will appear to be just that. But it manages to develop a rhythm, largely thanks to interesting editing choices, and keeps the viewer interested, if not exactly riveted. One hangs on with a Godard film in an attempt to discern the pattern at work-there seems to be no organizing principle as such, nothing particular the filmmaker wishes to communicate, but one senses a method, or a semblance of one, to Godard's madness.

Nearly 40 years on, Masculin, feminin appears very much a product of its time, though not without some claim to universality. References to the Vietnam War and to De Gaulle along with detailed, and dreary, political texts read aloud by the actors, do date the film somewhat, and yet a good deal of ground is covered; love and sex, birth control, women's rights, democracy and liberty, France vs. America, Bob Dylan, the Final Solution, German war guilt, union agitation, random violence, vanity, pornography. Trouble is, neither the characters nor the film reaches any particular conclusions about any of these things; many of them are mentioned in passing-themes stillborn. But perhaps that's part of the point. Godard seems to be acting almost like a

documentarian-at this point in time these kinds of things were discussed, but desultorily, as a part of the process of living, but not as its whole. Will this interest you, the putative viewer? Who knows. In my opinion, this is hardly a great film. Scenes drag on and lead nowhere; dramatic events happen but have no bearing on the rest of the film and thus we are not inclined to care; the sound of gunfire and titles break the film into chapters for no justifiable reason; Godard appears as confused as his protagonists as to the value of art, politics, and action. Still, the film has a wholly original texture, and that cannot be faked.

This film was a chore to watch. I've never had to pause a movie so many times, taking me three days and a significant amount of perseverance to get through it. The primary issue lies in the fact that the film offers little more than dialogues between boys and girls, which, for the most part, came across as uninteresting and irrelevant.

In dialogue-driven films, it is crucial to have an engaging story in the background to maintain the audience's interest. This film, however, fails in that regard. The background story is not only incoherent but also ambiguous, making it hard to follow and even harder to care about. The discussions among characters fail to strike a chord, often feeling out of touch and unrelatable.

The dialogues in this film lack the ability to transcend their era, feeling stuck in the sixties without offering any timeless insights or universal themes. As a result, the conversations feel dated and fail to engage a contemporary audience. This detachment from current relevance makes it difficult for viewers to connect with the film on a deeper level.

A successful dialogue-driven film needs more than just conversations; it requires a compelling narrative that gives context to those dialogues, characters that are well-developed and relatable, and themes that resonate across different times and cultures. Unfortunately, this film falls short on all these fronts. The dialogues are flat and fail to develop the characters or advance the plot in a meaningful way. The characters remain one-dimensional, and their interactions do little to reveal any depth or complexity.

In essence, this film exemplifies how a dialogue-driven movie can go wrong. Without engaging dialogue, a coherent background story, well-developed characters, and relevant themes, it becomes a tedious experience. The film's failure to connect with the audience on any significant level results in a viewing experience that is more frustrating than enjoyable.

To summarize, this film is an example of missed opportunities and poor execution. Its dialogues are neither engaging nor relevant, the story is muddled and unclear, and the characters lack depth. The themes do not resonate with modern viewers, and the pacing makes the film feel interminable. Watching it felt more like a test of endurance than a form of entertainment. For a dialogue-driven film to succeed, it must excel in areas where this film has unfortunately fallen flat.

ACTION: In many respects, Masculin / Féminin (1966) is a precursor to Godard's subsequent film, the radical and highly satirical La Chinoise (1967), with the spirit of political unrest, reaction and revolution suggested through a series of random and disconnected acts of violence that are contrasted throughout by a series of dialogues and discussions on the nature of everything from music and movies, to the battle of the sexes. It came from a period in Godard's career when he was moving further away from the ironic referentialism and playful subversion of American genre conventions that had featured so heavily in his earlier and more iconic works - from establishing films such as À bout de soufflé (1960) and Une Femme est une femme (1961) - and more towards the deconstructive, essay-based cinema of reaction that would follow on from the creative year-zero of the difficult masterpiece, Week End (1967). As ever, it is a film about ideas and a satirical look into the notion of "youth" within the context of mid 1960's Paris - with the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the characters cast against a backdrop of Dylan and The Beatles and the war in Vietnam - presented in such as a way as to question the integrity of this generation, without ever drawing any obvious conclusions.

REVOLUTION: In the hands of any other filmmaker, Masculin / Féminin could have easily descended into your average, run of the mill, teenage love story; focusing on two characters from the opposite ends of the social spectrum, thrown together in a courtship that is continually threatened by a number of external concerns, from political differences, career ambitions, jealousies and social divergence, and all devised within the environment of swinging 60's Paris, again, post-Beatles/post-Dylan. Nevertheless, the ever iconoclastic Godard does deliver these elements, but in his typically subversive approach, in which every element becomes a comment on the ideas and interpretations behind it. ...THE CHILDREN OF MARX AND COCA COLA: Even the subtitle of the film - which doesn't appear until right towards the very end - is a perfect summation of Godard's approach here; with his comment on the contemporary youth of 60's France being both celebratory, but also critical; in the way that he renders these characters as buffoons that spout and pontificate - as characters in Godard's films often do - to illustrate that behind the ideas and the ambitions there's an emptiness that is simply cosmetic.

VÉRITÉ: As with Godard's 1967 trilogy - comprising of the aforementioned La Chinoise, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her and Week End - Masculin / Féminin invites us to spend time with these characters, to think about the things they say and do, and then to cast judgement on them. Once again, I think the problem that many people have with this film, and with many of Godard's work in particular, is that they assume the director is sympathising with his characters; presenting them as people that we should care about or identify with, when in actuality he seems to be showing them up as the fools that they clearly are. Again, recalling the presentation of Guillaume in La Chinoise, young actor Jean-Pierre Léaud portrays Paul as a likable enough young man, though one whose pretence of political action and Marxist belief is eventually revealed to be nothing more than pseudo-intellectual pontification and playful theatricality. Unlike his more motivated friend Robert, Paul is simply playing at political activism like he plays at being a lover; throwing out carefully rehearsed slogans and ruminating on segregation and Vietnam, while his true thoughts and feelings are wrapped up in idealised notions of marriage and romantic fulfilment, represented as sex.

POLITICAL FILM: You could perhaps argue that it isn't one of Godard's clearest of socio-political statements; with the film often going around in circles, suggesting questions that are never answered - or giving answers to questions that were never asked - as the director continually conspires to satirise and critique his subjects in a manner that goes against the usual preconceived conventions of narrative based cinema. DEFIANCE: If you're familiar with Godard then you'll expect such presentation, though even then, the end of the film, which wraps things up with a cruel joke, might seem contrary to the point of flippancy by many viewers who have taken the time to view the film and invest some thought into Godard's uncompromising ruminations. However, it's completely typical of the director to end his film in such a way; mocking his characters as shallow chancers ready to shrug off any situation, no matter how horrific, while never once leading the audience in their opinions. As the film ends, we're allowed to think about the actions that these characters have taken throughout the film, and make up our own mind as to whether or not these are negative attributes, or positive ones.

CINEMA: The presentation is familiar, with Godard shooting in low-quality black and white, with the early new wave reliance on disarming jump-cuts and Godard's continual interest in ironic inter-titles still used throughout. The camera is mostly stationary, or we have Godard using the tracking shots that his colour films were famous for; while a number of scenes are presented with documentary-like elements in the way that characters address the camera or are framed in order to undercut the action ironically. The machine-gun sound effects that punctuate the inter-titles would be used again in the more entertaining Made in USA (1966), while there's that similar feeling of rehearsed spontaneity familiar from all Godard's 60's films, giving us the impression of improvisation, when we now know how carefully planned the project actually was. GOD(AR'): If you're already an admirer of Godard's cinema then Masculin / Féminin is an essential, if not entirely successful work, from his most interesting cinematic period; even although it could be argued that it lacks the finesse or ingenuity of his more iconic films, it is still worthy of experiencing.

"Kill one man and you're a murderer. Kill thousands and you're a conqueror. Kill everyone and you're a god." This is one of the many intriguing lines spoken in Jean-Luc Godard's 1966 film "Masculine, Feminine", a French film that examines what Godard calls "The children of Marx & Coca-Cola". Paul (Leaud) is a 21 year-old man who has just completed his mandatory national service in the French army, and, disillusioned with life, finds himself writing in a café. At one café in particular, he meets Madeleine (Goya), a beautiful young woman who is an aspiring pop singer and is able to get Paul a job at the magazine she occasionally works for. Soon after, she (seemingly almost reluctantly) succumbs to Paul's advances and they embark on a relationship. Along the way, they spend time with his friend Robert (Debord) and her two friends/roommates Elisabeth (Jobert) and Catherine (Duport). During their time together, Paul, who is becoming an increasingly vociferous political activist, struggles with Madeleine's apparent apathy and bursts of affection as well as her complete indifference to social and economic issues plaguing France and the world at large.

I had the pleasure of seeing this film tonight at a local theater that shows art and classic films, and the experience was wonderful. I have read about this film for years, but short of catching it in a film class or at a retrospective of Godard's work (which is not very likely in Milwaukee, WI) it was unavailable until now since it has not yet been released on DVD and isn't readily available on VHS. As cliché as it sounds, "Masculine/Feminine" ended up being so incredibly good that it was more than worth the wait. Therefore, I am pretty much breaking one of my regular traditions of letting a film kind of "settle" in my head before writing about it, since it was so thought-provoking and excellent it's like I wanted to prolong the experience.

With raw and grainy black and white cinematography by Willy Kurant, "Masculine, Feminine" at times feels like a documentary, which is perhaps Godard's intended perception. The camera lingers on the young actors, examining their faces as they wax philosophic on everything from Vietnam to birth control to Bob Dylan. While the film is extremely "talky" at certain points, there was not one moment where I was not captivated. Part of this was the unconventional style with which Godard blocked several of the scenes, particularly the scenes between two characters who are discussing various topics to an extent where they are practically interviewing one another. Normally, the camera switches back and forth between the actors, but Godard chooses instead to keep the camera trained on the person who is being asked the questions, perhaps in an effort to gain a more natural reaction. Another interesting component of the film is its various philosophical points about men and women, posted between scenes and accompanied with the sound of a gun shot. Counting down 15 philosophies about relationships and life in general, this (at least I'm assuming for the time) unconventional style of film-making was surely an inspiration for stylish filmmakers of the future, like Danny Boyle, Guy Ritchie and especially Quentin Tarantino.

Leaud, whose most famous role is probably the young Antoine Doinel in Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows" may be about 10 years older, but he looks exactly the same. His rumpled, academic look and sincerely intense and intellectual demeanor are intriguing, and his strong emotional self is prevalent and endears the audience to his character; as with "The Four Hundred Blows", I really cared about his character's fate. Goya is also good as the vapid Madeleine, a woman who takes great care in her appearance to make it appear that she doesn't take care. Other than really not having anything philosophical or intellectual to bring to the table, she also is content to steal the interests of those around her, to give her the appearance of depth. (For example, after making fun of Paul for becoming worked up over Bach, she has no problem telling a reporter she encounters toward the end of the film that he is one of her favorites.) The rest of the cast serve as great supports, particularly the semi-deep and fully charming Catherine (Duport).

I mentioned earlier that it was particularly a treat to see this film simply because it is so rare. Apparently, if all goes as planned, the incredibly wonderful Criterion Collection will be releasing this film on DVD September 2005. I personally plan to pick it up when it is released because I feel like I will gather either more information regarding the characters and/or the story or could possibly come up with a completely different perspective. When the film does become available, I would highly recommend "Masculine, Feminine" to art-cinema lovers or anyone who appreciates the French New Wave. And if you have never seen a film of this type, or by Godard himself and are looking for something to get your feet wet, this would be a good one to start with, because it is avant garde without sacrificing a coherent story and tangible characters. Mostly, I would recommend seeing this film with someone who appreciates good cinema, because I regret not having done so myself, I was so in need of discussion immediately after walking out of the theater. 8/10 --Shelly