Criterion Classics: 'Vivre sa Vie' (1962)
As the streaming wars wage on, The Criterion Channel, HboMax, Prime Video and even the occasional Netflix pre-1980 bone, have made it easier than ever for the filmmakers of tomorrow to find the gems of yesterday. This is: ‘Vivre sa Vie.’
SPOILERS AHEAD
In the second entry of this series, I explore the French New Wave via Jean-Luc Godard’s 1962 classic, ‘Vivre sa Vie’ or as English speakers might know it, ‘My Life To Live.’ Based on the nonfiction work, ‘Où en est la prostitution’ by Marcel Sacotte, with a screenplay by Godard. Prostitution was legal in the France until 2016, with a few conditions. It is, after all, the world’s oldest profession.
The French New Wave was a movement in the 1950s and 60s wherein a group of critics and filmmakers sought to shake up the silver screen by subverting conventional movie making techniques. They saw traditional studio acting as stiff and the editing as boring so they brought a sense of verisimilitude to the performances and eschewed shot-reverse-shot coverage for more experimental style of storytelling. Godard is perhaps the most well known of this group but others like Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut are also widely regarded as some of the greatest directors of all time. Similarly, there was another group in France a few years earlier than Godard called Left Bank that shared some cinematic ideologies with Godard’s group of critics-turned-craftsmen. This consisted of artists like Agnès Varda and Alan Resnais. Through this series, I hope to explore some of these figures of film history and gain some insight into their processes.
Upon light research, it seems that this is considered by many to be one of Godard’s best films so I don’t know why this isn’t as referenced as often as the others. Only his third feature length flick, Godard demonstrates his mastery over the style (or lack thereof) he and his peers truly invented. To briefly summarize, Nana, played by Godard’s longtime collaborator and then-wife, Anna Karina, is an aspiring actor who turns towards prostitution to pay her bills.
The movie is told through chapters, beginning with a ‘1’ Title Card then cuts to Nana breaking up with her boyfriend, Paul (André S. Labarthe) at a diner. From this first scene, Godard and his cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, showcase the unique visual style they’ll use throughout the film. This is shot entirely from their backs never showing the couple’s faces and forcing us to listen, or in my case, read what was being said. Godard does this several times throughout the film in effort to challenge the audience by connecting to the characters not through the easier ways of empathizing like an actor’s countenance but rather listen to their stories and the nuances in the way they talk. The camera is always a character in a Godard film.
The third chapter is where the state of mind and eventual ending to our protagonist’s story is literally projected onscreen. Nana goes to see the 1928 classic silent film, The Passion of Joan Of Arc, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. In one of the most iconic close ups in cinematic history, the eponymous Joan, played by Renée Jeanne Falconetti, faces punishment by death and laments through tears that while martyrdom will be her victory, her deliverance will be death. We see Karina’s equally beautiful close up as large teardrops form on her own face. This scene is a crucial point in the film, visually associating the heroin of our screen with the heroin of hers. We sense that Nana, like Joan of Arc is a lone, powerful woman that will die by the hands of the very patriarchy that benefited from her blood, sweat and tears.
Chapter five is Nana’s “First Man” as the title card states. It’s not shown if she just randomly decided to do this because we cut to her walking down a street then suddenly meeting a man but Godard clearly depicts this as an uncomfortable first time experience for the 22 year old woman. She’s shy and doesn’t know what to charge but she gets 5000 Francs from the guy who just wants to get down to business. The most unsettling part of the scene comes when he aggressively tries to kiss her on the mouth but she fervently refuses.
If it wasn’t obvious by now this film is a tragedy and ironically, the structure of the screenplay mirrors a hero’s journey. Status quo/unhappy life in Act 1 then call to action. However in Act 2, instead of seeing highs that someone like Luke Skywalker might see, Nana sinks lower into the cracks. Portrayed in chapter six, this is where Nana meets up with her friend Yvette (Guylaine Schlumberger) and Godard pulls even more filmmaking tricks out of his bag. Firstly, when we’re introduced to Yvette, the camera doesn’t show her face and same when her soon to be pimp, Raoul (Sady Rebbot) shows up. Later, they are at a cafe when somebody shoots a machine gun outside and as Nana flees, the camera’s panning shot is chopped up into jumpcuts that match the gunshots. These little visual flairs are as exciting to me as a modern CGI set piece. I giggle and say, “holy shit, what did I just see?”
The final act of the film dives deeper into Nana’s plunge of pity. Seemingly tired of the world, she meets a kind old man who has a thoroughly philosophic discussion on life, love and truth. A beautifully written scene that not only conveys the sentiment Godard and other disillusioned youths were probably feeling at the time but is a profound albeit explicit treatise on the power of words. Lies and truth are part of the subtleties of life because they are expressions of thought and without thought there is no life. Nana asks, “shouldn’t love be the only truth?” The old man replies, “But for that, love would have to always be true.”
Our tragic story comes to an end as Raoul intends to sell Nana to some new pimps because she has been refusing clients. During the handoff, Raoul says there’s “100,000 missing” but the new pimps shoot at Raoul who’s using Nana as a shield. She gets shot. Raoul grabs a pistol, apparently not wanting leave her alive to tell the police, shoots her again and drives off. Nana dies in the street. Fin.
This is undoubtedly one of the best written stories of Godard’s. Karina’s portrayal of Nana is a breezy, modern woman burnt out by a post-World War II societal mundanity and although her agency feels a little undercooked as she drifts from moment to moment, I think that’s just those New Wave vibes. One of the reasons the old man is such a great character at the end of the film aside from their intellectual conversation, he’s the only male who didn’t want something from Nana. As most of the characters in the film interact with Nana in order to get something, usually sex, it’s bittersweet to see the one man with whom she connects be the only one to condemn love.
Jean-Luc Godard’s third film, with its technical innovation, darker themes and exquisite dialogue are all the rationale one needs to see why he was one of the greats. There are so many layers of cinematic storytelling that aspiring filmmakers can gleam from this one piece and this is just the tip of The French New Wave iceberg. This might have been too many words for a review that ends with yeah, this movie’s pretty amazing but like the old man said, “I don’t think one can distinguish a thought from the words that express it.”