The main thing I pulled away from Alphaville was the importance of the use of the 35 mm camera. While in Alphaville, Lemmy Caution snaps photos of almost everything/everyone he encounters. This connects to the film’s recurring topic of past present and future. The narrator says: no one exited before us. The inhabitants of Alphaville do not know there past or future and therefore can only recognize their present. This is also true for the characters of the film. They do not exist in reality before we sat down to watch the film, and they will not exist once the film is over. Lemmy’s use of his camera represents a way of capturing these people or characters for later. Once photographed, the characters can exist beyond their present. The 35 mm camera as a way of preserving is true in our reality too. The fear of death creates the need to preserve and extend one’s self beyond our existence. Alphaville is in a way paying homage to an older art form of preservation. I also found the poetry scene with Natacha and Lemmy in the hotel room very interesting. The poetry that Natacha speaks creates a strangely beautiful scene (different from the rest of the film’s gray feel and look). Along with the change to a soft musical score, the lighting begins to pulse in and out and her poetic words of love are now accompanied by lighting that mimics the pulsing of a heart.
Alphaville uses and exposes light and sound to present new truths and associations. Through frequent and interjecting cinematic application of these elements (ie. intrusive beeping, flashing lights, flashing darkness, and the ever-present mechanical voice of Alpha 60) enables the film to create an experience of the Alpha 60 machine for the audience. The machine is created for viewers to experience through these elements. When the machine is being destroyed, the light and sound in the film loses control. Both light and dark images are confused and cut with negative images, and sound sometimes cuts off completely. The machine of Alpha 60, like the machine of film itself, is exposed to be merely a combination of light and sound. The artificiality of the machine is also shown by the flashing neon images with the electronic wires and bulbs on which these signs rely are exposed. The images of different equations being re-arranged show the manipulation and re-organization of fundamental ideas and values. In both Alpha 60 and in cinema, values are manipulated and a new sense of logic is created.
Also interesting was the overly-dramatic film-noir style music (and at some moments, more dramatically romantic style music) played during very anti-climactic moments-like a character walking down a flight of steps. Perhaps this is used to expose the power of music and sound to manipulate what the audience considers important in a film.
One part of the film (though I cannot remember the exact quote) discusses the idea of destruction. Alpha 60 narrates about something being destroyed, “That is to say: transformed.” This view of destruction being a means for transformation seems to be a common theme throughout the film. It also relates to the ideas we discussed with Hiroshima, Mon Amor with “You destroy me. You are good for me.” When Alpha 60 is destroyed, many people die, but the opportunity is presented for the survivors to transform life into all the things Alpha 60 had previously condemned.
Alpha 60 is the computer who maintains stability in Alphaville by controlling the minds of its residents through a strict enforcement of logic. Emotions are illogical in Alphaville, and those who express them are efficiently executed. Words that express emotion suddenly disappear from the consciousness of Alphaville's citizens, and from the mysterious "bibles" owned by every citizen, containing every word and concept Alpha 60 allows. However, Lemmy is able to outsmart Alpha 60's logic by being illogical and impulsive, a human being, completing his mission and, of course, getting the girl.
Even though it belongs in the category of science fiction, Godard's film does not closely follow the conventional patterns of the genre. As a member of the French New Wave, Godard has held, since his debut, an individual and well-defined view of the cinema. One of the most important features of his work is his emphasis on the contemporary world. All of his films deal with modern man; we do not find a return to the past in his entire work. The stamp of the present can also be seen in his sole excursion into the future. Alphaville, which is less about what the world will be like tomorrow than what it is like today, describes what it is gradually becoming before our very eyes without our realizing it.
Godard seems to tackle the world issues in this film. The whole movie takes place in this opposite world where computers decide the logic of man. That meant people were forbidden to say certain words and feel certain emotions, unlike the outlands, which is meant to be the rest of the world. The issue here seems to be a metaphor for the on going political and economic struggle that plagues France. Communism is the idea that godard is trying to expose, and does so through a very cinematic way. Godard used lighting, dialogue, and camera work to make this film come alive and be understood. It is by far the strangest and peculiar film; do to its film noir feel and uncanny acting jobs by the actors. This suppressed world made me think of history and how horrible it was in some places in the world. I believe people took the message that Godard made and used it to help end this communist, illogical world that declares there is only one logic.
Either Godard was incredibly prescient in making this movie when he did, or the tensions leading up to May '68 were more obvious than I had thought. (I'm sure both of those things are true, come to think of it). Even its title resonates with a lot of Situationist rhetoric--think the May '68 graffiti "A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely bloodier than a month of permanent revolution," or the Sex Pistols lyric (from ten frakking years later!) "a cheap holiday in other people's misery."
It's interesting how Godard subverts bourgeois symbols that later "countercultural" filmmakers would use to signify "rebellion" or "freedom": after watching Week End, something like Vanishing Point seems not only naive (which, let's be honest here, it already did, albeit in an endearing way), but actually kind of insidious in its use of corporate product (i.e. cars) as a symbol of Liberation from The Man. He literalizes the way in which late capitalism dehumanizes and even brutalizes its subjects in a way that's really uncomfortable to watch at times, rubbing the audience's collective face in the part of society that everybody prefers to ignore if at all possible. Weirdly enough, it's probably the most chaotic Godard film I've yet seen, but at the same time the most ideologically clear. His way of stripping all titillation from "erotic" scenes--Camille's monologue that may or may not have been a fantasy, shot entirely in dimly-lit stasis--and rendering almost all interpersonal conflicts as visceral-yet-slapstick violence really underlines his dissatisfaction with the way in which our society turns people into Units of either consumption or labor (no more and no less).
The main thing I pulled away from Alphaville was the importance of the use of the 35 mm camera. While in Alphaville, Lemmy Caution snaps photos of almost everything/everyone he encounters. This connects to the film’s recurring topic of past present and future. The narrator says: no one exited before us. The inhabitants of Alphaville do not know there past or future and therefore can only recognize their present. This is also true for the characters of the film. They do not exist in reality before we sat down to watch the film, and they will not exist once the film is over. Lemmy’s use of his camera represents a way of capturing these people or characters for later. Once photographed, the characters can exist beyond their present. The 35 mm camera as a way of preserving is true in our reality too. The fear of death creates the need to preserve and extend one’s self beyond our existence. Alphaville is in a way paying homage to an older art form of preservation.
ReplyDeleteI also found the poetry scene with Natacha and Lemmy in the hotel room very interesting. The poetry that Natacha speaks creates a strangely beautiful scene (different from the rest of the film’s gray feel and look). Along with the change to a soft musical score, the lighting begins to pulse in and out and her poetic words of love are now accompanied by lighting that mimics the pulsing of a heart.
Alphaville uses and exposes light and sound to present new truths and associations. Through frequent and interjecting cinematic application of these elements (ie. intrusive beeping, flashing lights, flashing darkness, and the ever-present mechanical voice of Alpha 60) enables the film to create an experience of the Alpha 60 machine for the audience. The machine is created for viewers to experience through these elements. When the machine is being destroyed, the light and sound in the film loses control. Both light and dark images are confused and cut with negative images, and sound sometimes cuts off completely. The machine of Alpha 60, like the machine of film itself, is exposed to be merely a combination of light and sound. The artificiality of the machine is also shown by the flashing neon images with the electronic wires and bulbs on which these signs rely are exposed. The images of different equations being re-arranged show the manipulation and re-organization of fundamental ideas and values. In both Alpha 60 and in cinema, values are manipulated and a new sense of logic is created.
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting was the overly-dramatic film-noir style music (and at some moments, more dramatically romantic style music) played during very anti-climactic moments-like a character walking down a flight of steps. Perhaps this is used to expose the power of music and sound to manipulate what the audience considers important in a film.
One part of the film (though I cannot remember the exact quote) discusses the idea of destruction. Alpha 60 narrates about something being destroyed, “That is to say: transformed.” This view of destruction being a means for transformation seems to be a common theme throughout the film. It also relates to the ideas we discussed with Hiroshima, Mon Amor with “You destroy me. You are good for me.” When Alpha 60 is destroyed, many people die, but the opportunity is presented for the survivors to transform life into all the things Alpha 60 had previously condemned.
Alpha 60 is the computer who maintains stability in Alphaville by controlling the minds of its residents through a strict enforcement of logic. Emotions are illogical in Alphaville, and those who express them are efficiently executed. Words that express emotion suddenly disappear from the consciousness of Alphaville's citizens, and from the mysterious "bibles" owned by every citizen, containing every word and concept Alpha 60 allows. However, Lemmy is able to outsmart Alpha 60's logic by being illogical and impulsive, a human being, completing his mission and, of course, getting the girl.
ReplyDeleteEven though it belongs in the category of science fiction, Godard's film does not closely follow the conventional patterns of the genre. As a member of the French New Wave, Godard has held, since his debut, an individual and well-defined view of the cinema. One of the most important features of his work is his emphasis on the contemporary world. All of his films deal with modern man; we do not find a return to the past in his entire work. The stamp of the present can also be seen in his sole excursion into the future. Alphaville, which is less about what the world will be like tomorrow than what it is like today, describes what it is gradually becoming before our very eyes without our realizing it.
Godard seems to tackle the world issues in this film. The whole movie takes place in this opposite world where computers decide the logic of man. That meant people were forbidden to say certain words and feel certain emotions, unlike the outlands, which is meant to be the rest of the world. The issue here seems to be a metaphor for the on going political and economic struggle that plagues France. Communism is the idea that godard is trying to expose, and does so through a very cinematic way. Godard used lighting, dialogue, and camera work to make this film come alive and be understood. It is by far the strangest and peculiar film; do to its film noir feel and uncanny acting jobs by the actors. This suppressed world made me think of history and how horrible it was in some places in the world. I believe people took the message that Godard made and used it to help end this communist, illogical world that declares there is only one logic.
ReplyDeleteON WEEK END:
ReplyDeleteEither Godard was incredibly prescient in making this movie when he did, or the tensions leading up to May '68 were more obvious than I had thought. (I'm sure both of those things are true, come to think of it). Even its title resonates with a lot of Situationist rhetoric--think the May '68 graffiti "A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely bloodier than a month of permanent revolution," or the Sex Pistols lyric (from ten frakking years later!) "a cheap holiday in other people's misery."
It's interesting how Godard subverts bourgeois symbols that later "countercultural" filmmakers would use to signify "rebellion" or "freedom": after watching Week End, something like Vanishing Point seems not only naive (which, let's be honest here, it already did, albeit in an endearing way), but actually kind of insidious in its use of corporate product (i.e. cars) as a symbol of Liberation from The Man. He literalizes the way in which late capitalism dehumanizes and even brutalizes its subjects in a way that's really uncomfortable to watch at times, rubbing the audience's collective face in the part of society that everybody prefers to ignore if at all possible.
Weirdly enough, it's probably the most chaotic Godard film I've yet seen, but at the same time the most ideologically clear. His way of stripping all titillation from "erotic" scenes--Camille's monologue that may or may not have been a fantasy, shot entirely in dimly-lit stasis--and rendering almost all interpersonal conflicts as visceral-yet-slapstick violence really underlines his dissatisfaction with the way in which our society turns people into Units of either consumption or labor (no more and no less).