The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola

Last Friday, I saw a Godard film called Masculine, Feminine. I really loved this movie, and when I walked out of the Theatre, I didn’t know why, but I had an idea. The Cinematography was amazing, mostly because of the framing. Every frame looked like a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph. My friend told me that this is common in Godard films and that it never hurt that these frames usually had drop dead gorgeous French women in them.

I think that I also loved this film because of its intellectual undertones. There wasn’t a lot of play on words or even any grand symbolism, but there was just this aura of intellectualism about the film. I think I probably missed a lot of stuff, and if I saw it again, I would pick it up. There was definitely an intellectual nature to the flirtations in the movie. There was also this soft aura of existentialism. Of course this makes sense when we are talking about a kid who is a want to be revolutionary out to score some tail. But Godard put in a few scenes of people just getting killed for no reason that just seemed to work. I guess he put them there to remind us how ridiculous life can be.

It shames me to say that I think that I identify with the main character Paul a lot. I was kind of like him a few years back. He is this intellectual who hasn’t really found his voice or a clear point of view. He is very opinionated about current events and politics, in his case, the War in Vietnam, but he can’t form a coherent argument about his beliefs. All he can do is spray-paint crap like “End The War Now” on cars. He has this kind of smug sense of intellectual superiority, and it is all nonsense. He got smacked down by an airhead model. He is out to date extremely hot girls, who aren’t exactly evil, but let’s just say that they aren’t cutesy nice girls that he thinks that they are.

After this movie, I am hooked on the French New Wave. I just received another Godard film called Breathless, and once I’m done with that, I think I will start seeing films by Truffaut. See, the feeling that you get when looking at old European masters such as Godard, Fellini, and Bergman is kind of like the feeling that you get when listening to all the old tunes that all the Hip-Hop stars stole from. I used to think, wow, that M.C. Hammer beat is great. Nope, as they say, “Rick James Bitch.” It seems like a lot of the voiceover stuff that was done in Amelie came directly from Godard's Masculine, Feminine. All those figures of the Grim Reaper, with the black gown and the white clown face comes directly from Bergman's A Seventh Seal. I could have sworn that the Choreography from the famous dance scene in Pulp Fiction came directly from Fellini’s 8 ½.

I think that at the end of the day, going old school is great, but I think that, as the old saying goes, it is just great to see Shakespeare how is was supposed to be performed.