After leaving the screening for Weekend I immediately thought this was another attack at capitalism and consumer culture with Marxist sentiments, but on further review, there are moments of almost nihilism rather than film with a set ideological agenda. The one scene when the farmer and the woman fight, there is the obvious representation of a unionist worker and a bourgeois upper crust lady. Yet, they unite going against the couple driving off. One spouts off Marxist sentiments while the other shouts anti-semitic remarks. Then the fact these two can embrace makes no sense and is contradictory.
Throughout the film there are a barrage of hits against the effects of capitalism, and it seems that it dehumanizes and desensitizes man. Then there are moments when the film makes the revolutionaries seems just as bad. The people that go against the consumer culture and live in the woods seem just as much of group of drones as the rest of the country. There is also something comical and mocking Jean-Pierre Léaud resembling a French revolutionary screaming out in a field as the couple nonchalantly walks by. Then throughout the film there are scenes of mangled bodies and car accidents. These scenes made me think of the time in August when France shuts down almost and takes a vacation, and the people travel throughout the country. In the film when this occurs, this leisure brings death and chaos.
It’s a very explosive film with a myriad of ideas, and one statement can’t simply be made. One mild claim that can be made is that the film seems to attack the state of France at the time: the consumerism, the class, the imperialism, the revolutionary spirit, and leisure of the people.
I had the same reaction as David did. I am not sure Godard had an ideological agenda with this film. When the farmer and the woman wreck, they are seriously getting at it, but they end up uniting against the other couple who witness it but don't want to get involved. And that scream that the main woman yells after the wreck and her handbag is trapped inside the car, I was not expecting such a blood-curdling scream.
Why were these two able to bypass the entire traffic jam while others had been there forever? Why had no one else thought of getting in the other lane and forcing their way forward? Maybe Godard had something to say about how the upper class are so rushed to get to their dinners, that they will avoid anything just to get there. They will even steal a car from a guy on the phone.
This is definitely a film that needs to be watched more than once, but people don't know if they can stomach another viewing.
I suppose I feel as if the film did not really have an agenda as well. This was mostly because there was always so much going on at one time that sometimes, it was hard to focus on one subject, not that there was just one subject in or of the film. This film was interesting in that it kept you thinking constantly, and sometimes in a state of confusion as I was during the traffic scene. There were so many different things happening, some that were humorous and then some not so humorous as the fatal car accident-which was actually shown in a somewhat humorous light. I've seen this film at least twice and I always feel as if I've missed something that could give me a little more insight into a single message or messages the filmmaker is trying to portray.
I believe that much of The Weekend is a critique of society, although some scenes, including the one with the bourgeois female and the working-class farmer,do seem a little contradictory. Something I found quite interesting is that this scene bares a great resemblance to one from another Godard film; in particular, the Deadly Bathing Beauties scene from Alphaville, which was made only two years earlier. In both films, the appearance of SS is used by Godard to make a statement about the fascist aspects of a capitalistic society. Both scenes begin with the appearance of the letters SS. In the scene from Alphaville, the letters appear on an elevator button that leads them to the execution room, critiquing the ways in which our society punishes those who act illogically and do not conform. In the scene from Weekend, the blue letters SS are made to form the tile of the scene: La Lutte des Classes (which can be translated as class war). Godard cuts to a shot of a rich young man, crushed by the tractor of a local farmer. Next, he cuts to a shot of a young woman juxtaposed with a shot of other farmers from the area, visually and narratively putting one against the other. In so doing, Godard is critiquing our society by providing a cinematic representation of the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the poor so inherent in a capitalistic society such as France.
I found the film for most part confusing but I could see the critique of capitalism and society in the film. Capitalism and greed leads to the main character become dehumanized. They aren’t brother by the dead people from the car accident and they are fine with killing the mother so they can have the father’s money. The film also is humorous is some scenes. An example would be when the main couple is leaving the parking lot and they hit another car. The argument between the couple and the car owner is humorous. The owner also plays as critique of capitalism and society because he is materialistic and care about the damage to his car so much that he tries to shoot the main couple.
At first I found the film to be a bit all over the place but after a second glance I found it a lot easier to digest. I also had no problems with what appeared to be Godard's attack on capitalism. I felt he did a good job of laying out cause and effect as well as showing both sides of the coin. In the scene with the farmer and the high society chick both sides layed out their stereo-typical views quite well and left it up to the viewer to choose sides. I also found the scene which was marred with cross-cutting and inserts (C.H.C.) quite ironic.
Is there any logic, should be the real question. I can agree with what most of the bloggers are saying. Week End was a bit everywhere. As if it were made just for our viewing pleasure. Godard could have had an agenda of not sticking to an agenda for his viewers to come up with their own ideas that were displayed in the film. During the entire film we watched two couples drive in an hectic society filled with satire. Maybe Godard attempted to let us view how crazy life can be or how unstructured a film can be a meaning still can come across. I honestly don't think there is distinct logic with this film. Depending on the person who views it can see it in any kind of way. Which I believe are Godard's intentions. Seeing that he makes his films for an active spectator.
I found this film to be very disappointing. Godard served up a mixture of pointless violence, sexual perversion, and brutality. It started off kind of interesting but by the time it neared the end, it lost focus. There were a lot of pretty shots in the film, but they really didn't have any meaning.There were a lot of parts that were very hard to sit through. The traffic jam scene was very annoying. This was a movie that you either liked a lot or you hated it. There was really no "in-between".
In Weekend, Godard confronts us with his vision of the self-indulgent, materialistic, and dehumanized people we have supposedly become. However, one can argue that his vision is somewhat optimistic. Godard attempts to show that capitalism is unsustainable and those who follow its path will perish, thus humanism will prevail. Godard was essentially trying to call to attention the prevailing view of the time that society was functioning on two levels and at two different speeds. Weekend is a characteristic Godard view of the way that technological progress corrupts and ultimately destroys civilized bourgeois society. The final result is a dark vision of hell that culminates in one possible brave new world. While some may consider this to be a revolutionary film, it requires some time for audiences to understand its meanings.
To touch upon the scene with the wealthy woman and the farmer, after Corinne and Roland drive off and the scene cuts to everyone standing in front of the billboard. The essay reacts to this insertion being murky as to what is going on, but it can be read that the argument that took place was entirely gone about the wrong way and that it satirizes all classes for acting the same way in criticizing social class when that has nothing to do with how the wreck occurred. Godard achieves this by putting all the characters, from all different classes, united under capitalism’s favourite feat, the billboard. I feel this is one of the main ways this film works, no matter how much we criticize other's social classes we are all feeling the consequences of capitalism and even forcing them on each other. This idea brings the conclusion of capitalism being cannibalism. As Godard understands and presents capitalism, it functions on greed of humans and in turn other humans feel the affects through competition, thus being likened to cannibalism.
I thought this film was extremely hard to follow. At first I couldn't see any real pattern to what was going on. Eventually it seemed that the point was to display greed and selfishness (which Godard is presenting as capitalism), and leave that open to interpretation. In the part where the two main characters are suck in traffic driving by all of the other cars (some of which had been in accidents) I thought that scene's purpose was to show selfishness in society. Another good example is after they have gotten in a wreck and all the woman can yell is, "My Hermes bag!"
The film is entirely logical to the characters in the film's world, just not to us because we don't live in it and we aren't familiar with it. Almost every character in Weekend isn't perturbed in the least at the events that occur. You can compare their familiarity with their messed up world to what it would be like to actually watch Weekend fifty times. After watching the film fifty times, a viewer will readily predict most scenes and events, and will most likely be bored with it. That's how Roland and Corinne look to me: bored with their world. Everywhere they go they encounter the same destruction and more roadblocks in front of where they want to be. The camera movement in the film emphasizes this monotony. The camera moves a lot, and when it does it's always on a track, I don't remember any moving, handheld shots. The camera is sort of confined to this track like Roland and Corinne are confined to the limitations their world sets upon them. When the camera tracks it's very slowly, like in the car pileup scene where the camera tracks for minutes keeping watch on Roland and Corinne in their car. The slow, steady movement reveals the pileup to look worse and worse to the viewer but Roland and Corinne are as impassive as ever. Why? Because it's the same ol' crap they always experience, and they've come to the conclusion that it's logical so just let it be. Death and destruction are everywhere in their world. Oh wait, that sounds a lot like our real world now: death and destruction. Godard just seems to have placed that D&D in a shorter time and smaller place for cinema's sake, but definitely representing our world's chaos and the monotony of it and how such chaos still occurs even in the present day (with no help from Capitalists, of course). The camera even tries to escape the film's messed up world when it moves away from Roland and Corinne when they are sitting on the side of the road. But it can't escape and goes right back to what it's been watching before.
After leaving the screening for Weekend I immediately thought this was another attack at capitalism and consumer culture with Marxist sentiments, but on further review, there are moments of almost nihilism rather than film with a set ideological agenda. The one scene when the farmer and the woman fight, there is the obvious representation of a unionist worker and a bourgeois upper crust lady. Yet, they unite going against the couple driving off. One spouts off Marxist sentiments while the other shouts anti-semitic remarks. Then the fact these two can embrace makes no sense and is contradictory.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the film there are a barrage of hits against the effects of capitalism, and it seems that it dehumanizes and desensitizes man. Then there are moments when the film makes the revolutionaries seems just as bad. The people that go against the consumer culture and live in the woods seem just as much of group of drones as the rest of the country. There is also something comical and mocking Jean-Pierre Léaud resembling a French revolutionary screaming out in a field as the couple nonchalantly walks by. Then throughout the film there are scenes of mangled bodies and car accidents. These scenes made me think of the time in August when France shuts down almost and takes a vacation, and the people travel throughout the country. In the film when this occurs, this leisure brings death and chaos.
It’s a very explosive film with a myriad of ideas, and one statement can’t simply be made. One mild claim that can be made is that the film seems to attack the state of France at the time: the consumerism, the class, the imperialism, the revolutionary spirit, and leisure of the people.
I had the same reaction as David did. I am not sure Godard had an ideological agenda with this film. When the farmer and the woman wreck, they are seriously getting at it, but they end up uniting against the other couple who witness it but don't want to get involved. And that scream that the main woman yells after the wreck and her handbag is trapped inside the car, I was not expecting such a blood-curdling scream.
ReplyDeleteWhy were these two able to bypass the entire traffic jam while others had been there forever? Why had no one else thought of getting in the other lane and forcing their way forward? Maybe Godard had something to say about how the upper class are so rushed to get to their dinners, that they will avoid anything just to get there. They will even steal a car from a guy on the phone.
This is definitely a film that needs to be watched more than once, but people don't know if they can stomach another viewing.
I suppose I feel as if the film did not really have an agenda as well. This was mostly because there was always so much going on at one time that sometimes, it was hard to focus on one subject, not that there was just one subject in or of the film.
ReplyDeleteThis film was interesting in that it kept you thinking constantly, and sometimes in a state of confusion as I was during the traffic scene. There were so many different things happening, some that were humorous and then some not so humorous as the fatal car accident-which was actually shown in a somewhat humorous light. I've seen this film at least twice and I always feel as if I've missed something that could give me a little more insight into a single message or messages the filmmaker is trying to portray.
I believe that much of The Weekend is a critique of society, although some scenes, including the one with the bourgeois female and the working-class farmer,do seem a little contradictory. Something I found quite interesting is that this scene bares a great resemblance to one from another Godard film; in particular, the Deadly Bathing Beauties scene from Alphaville, which was made only two years earlier.
ReplyDeleteIn both films, the appearance of SS is used by Godard to make a statement about the fascist aspects of a capitalistic society. Both scenes begin with the appearance of the letters SS. In the scene from Alphaville, the letters appear on an elevator button that leads them to the execution room, critiquing the ways in which our society punishes those who act illogically and do not conform. In the scene from Weekend, the blue letters SS are made to form the tile of the scene: La Lutte des Classes (which can be translated as class war). Godard cuts to a shot of a rich young man, crushed by the tractor of a local farmer. Next, he cuts to a shot of a young woman juxtaposed with a shot of other farmers from the area, visually and narratively putting one against the other. In so doing, Godard is critiquing our society by providing a cinematic representation of the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the poor so inherent in a capitalistic society such as France.
I found the film for most part confusing but I could see the critique of capitalism and society in the film. Capitalism and greed leads to the main character become dehumanized. They aren’t brother by the dead people from the car accident and they are fine with killing the mother so they can have the father’s money.
ReplyDeleteThe film also is humorous is some scenes. An example would be when the main couple is leaving the parking lot and they hit another car. The argument between the couple and the car owner is humorous. The owner also plays as critique of capitalism and society because he is materialistic and care about the damage to his car so much that he tries to shoot the main couple.
At first I found the film to be a bit all over the place but after a second glance I found it a lot easier to digest. I also had no problems with what appeared to be Godard's attack on capitalism. I felt he did a good job of laying out cause and effect as well as showing both sides of the coin. In the scene with the farmer and the high society chick both sides layed out their stereo-typical views quite well and left it up to the viewer to choose sides. I also found the scene which was marred with cross-cutting and inserts (C.H.C.) quite ironic.
ReplyDeleteIs there any logic, should be the real question. I can agree with what most of the bloggers are saying. Week End was a bit everywhere. As if it were made just for our viewing pleasure. Godard could have had an agenda of not sticking to an agenda for his viewers to come up with their own ideas that were displayed in the film.
ReplyDeleteDuring the entire film we watched two couples drive in an hectic society filled with satire. Maybe Godard attempted to let us view how crazy life can be or how unstructured a film can be a meaning still can come across. I honestly don't think there is distinct logic with this film. Depending on the person who views it can see it in any kind of way. Which I believe are Godard's intentions. Seeing that he makes his films for an active spectator.
I found this film to be very disappointing. Godard served up a mixture of pointless violence, sexual perversion, and brutality. It started off kind of interesting but by the time it neared the end, it lost focus. There were a lot of pretty shots in the film, but they really didn't have any meaning.There were a lot of parts that were very hard to sit through. The traffic jam scene was very annoying. This was a movie that you either liked a lot or you hated it. There was really no "in-between".
ReplyDeleteIn Weekend, Godard confronts us with his vision of the self-indulgent, materialistic, and dehumanized people we have supposedly become. However, one can argue that his vision is somewhat optimistic. Godard attempts to show that capitalism is unsustainable and those who follow its path will perish, thus humanism will prevail. Godard was essentially trying to call to attention the prevailing view of the time that society was functioning on two levels and at two different speeds. Weekend is a characteristic Godard view of the way that technological progress corrupts and ultimately destroys civilized bourgeois society. The final result is a dark vision of hell that culminates in one possible brave new world. While some may consider this to be a revolutionary film, it requires some time for audiences to understand its meanings.
ReplyDeleteTo touch upon the scene with the wealthy woman and the farmer, after Corinne and Roland drive off and the scene cuts to everyone standing in front of the billboard. The essay reacts to this insertion being murky as to what is going on, but it can be read that the argument that took place was entirely gone about the wrong way and that it satirizes all classes for acting the same way in criticizing social class when that has nothing to do with how the wreck occurred. Godard achieves this by putting all the characters, from all different classes, united under capitalism’s favourite feat, the billboard. I feel this is one of the main ways this film works, no matter how much we criticize other's social classes we are all feeling the consequences of capitalism and even forcing them on each other. This idea brings the conclusion of capitalism being cannibalism. As Godard understands and presents capitalism, it functions on greed of humans and in turn other humans feel the affects through competition, thus being likened to cannibalism.
ReplyDeleteI thought this film was extremely hard to follow. At first I couldn't see any real pattern to what was going on. Eventually it seemed that the point was to display greed and selfishness (which Godard is presenting as capitalism), and leave that open to interpretation. In the part where the two main characters are suck in traffic driving by all of the other cars (some of which had been in accidents) I thought that scene's purpose was to show selfishness in society. Another good example is after they have gotten in a wreck and all the woman can yell is, "My Hermes bag!"
ReplyDeleteThe film is entirely logical to the characters in the film's world, just not to us because we don't live in it and we aren't familiar with it. Almost every character in Weekend isn't perturbed in the least at the events that occur. You can compare their familiarity with their messed up world to what it would be like to actually watch Weekend fifty times. After watching the film fifty times, a viewer will readily predict most scenes and events, and will most likely be bored with it. That's how Roland and Corinne look to me: bored with their world. Everywhere they go they encounter the same destruction and more roadblocks in front of where they want to be. The camera movement in the film emphasizes this monotony. The camera moves a lot, and when it does it's always on a track, I don't remember any moving, handheld shots. The camera is sort of confined to this track like Roland and Corinne are confined to the limitations their world sets upon them. When the camera tracks it's very slowly, like in the car pileup scene where the camera tracks for minutes keeping watch on Roland and Corinne in their car. The slow, steady movement reveals the pileup to look worse and worse to the viewer but Roland and Corinne are as impassive as ever. Why? Because it's the same ol' crap they always experience, and they've come to the conclusion that it's logical so just let it be. Death and destruction are everywhere in their world. Oh wait, that sounds a lot like our real world now: death and destruction. Godard just seems to have placed that D&D in a shorter time and smaller place for cinema's sake, but definitely representing our world's chaos and the monotony of it and how such chaos still occurs even in the present day (with no help from Capitalists, of course). The camera even tries to escape the film's messed up world when it moves away from Roland and Corinne when they are sitting on the side of the road. But it can't escape and goes right back to what it's been watching before.
ReplyDelete