Godard x 2 = 1 Remarkable Tuesday

Two previously difficult-to-obtain films by Jean-Luc Godard arrive on dvd today, courtesy of The Criterion Collection: 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her and Made In U.S.A.. If you don’t think this is cause for celebration, you haven’t seen the films. Shot simultaneously (one in the morning, one in the afternoon!) in 1966, they collectively represent one of the more thrilling moments in Godard’s constantly evolving canon. 2 or 3 Things, however, is the masterpiece of the pair, a glossy and discursive riffing on prostitution, accelerated consumer culture, Parisian housing projects, and the limits of language. (It’s also famous for locating the universe in a coffee cup.)

The “Her” of the title refers both to Paris itself, and to actress Marina Vlady, here filling in for Godard’s ex-wife and long-standing muse Anna Karina. Vlady plays housewife Juliette Janson, who, among the usual domestic obligations, also turns tricks in order to indulge her yen for high fashion. Godard follows her through the various stations of a typical day, but frequently interrupts, thwarts, or temporarily abandons her activities with various intellectual and visual longueurs. This is the moment when Godard was moving away from conventional cinematic narratives—having deemed them bourgeois—and toward a more self-consciously essayistic form. He’ll pause to contemplate the leaves, muse (in his own whispered, spectral voice) on the absurdity of Paris’ modernization initiative, or have Vlady address the camera while mouthing some stray philosophical insights. This movie-cum-Marxist-social-critique still retains the power to provoke and engage, and is very near the apogee of 60’s cinema art.