Every Man for Himself
Following Tout Va Bien's stateside release in 1973, Jean-Luc Godard had spent seven years experimenting with ideas and form in a series of shorts and documentaries -- a process the filmmaker likened to the research and experimentation used to come to conclusions in the scientific field. Dubbed his "second first feature" by the director, Every Man for Himself could then be called something of a thesis film; an end which all these volatile cinematic contraptions were leading to, though not completely devoid of their own, singular importance. And yet, Every Man for Himself, which opens this week in an excellent new print at Film Forum, is one of Godard's most provocatively low-key works -- naturalistic, earthy, and openly humanistic. It was the rare acoustic jam that broke up a mix-tape of fuzzed-out guitar noise and electro-pop freak-outs
As the title suggests, Every Man for Himself has a pungent melancholy to it as well, partly due to its lush visions of the French countryside filled with bristling greens and browns. But it generally reflects the outview of its central trio: a filmmaker on hiatus named Paul Godard (Jacques Dutronc), a writer in the middle of a career change (Nathalie Baye) and, this being a Godard film, a prostitute named Isabelle, played by a young Isabelle Huppert. Huppert is the film's anchor but she doesn't come in until halfway through the film. The first half unfolds as an abstract two-hander, in which Paul and the writer, Denise, decide to call off their long-running but low-key love affair. Denise talks and flirts with her new boss, who seems to run a small paper and a cattle farm, while Paul runs around town, visiting his daughter and ex-wife. They speak to each other three or four times but Godard's resolutely superb form suggests a slow, painful severing of ties.
When it was released in the UK, Every Man for Himself was retitled Slow Motion, which pointed to Godard's use of the effect in several scenes, specifically ones involving Denise. The filmmaker employs it as a rhythmic tool, using it at times that at first seem haphazard but reveal themselves to be essential to the film's emotional core. Huppert's cool, detached prostitute, who sleeps with Paul after accompanying him to a Chaplin film, offers a darker undercurrent to the struggle between Denise and Paul. In two show-stopping sequences, the prostitute goes through the perverse processes of rich clients in a characteristically absurd yet caustic critique of capitalism and its relationship to passionless sex. "Only the banks are independent," yells an enforcer who disapproves of Isabelle's thinking, right before he and an associate pull her pants down and spank her.
Perversion and wealth haven't made such fascinating bedfellows since Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and like that great film, Every Man for Himself is a unique, riveting work in the career of its helmer, as well as a sign of things to come. The pop-culture mania of the director's 1960s output (La Chinoise, Made in U.S.A.) is here subdued to little more than the fantastic image of a Marlboro-sponsored race car; the abstract, bright-colored interiors and cityscapes now gave way to natural settings using natural light in country homes and hotel rooms. The aesthetic itself acts as a harbinger of the more dour, though no less compelling and brilliant turns Godard would take in the 1980s, notably in Detective and Passion, which re-teamed him with Huppert.
Narrative takes a slightly more prominent role in Every Man for Himself, but for Godard, it was always the visual rhythm that took precedence. On a chalkboard in a classroom that Paul visits, cinema and video are compared to Cain and Abel, a possibly prophetic view but also a summation of Godard's love for conflicting imagery. Released four years after the advent of VHS, it's a statement that suited Godard's aesthetic transition as much as the one that ushered in the promise of video over the cinematic experience; the imagined community disbanded in favor of isolationism. Concrete meaning, however, never suited Godard all that much. When the camera focuses on a close-up of Isabelle's expressionless face during an orgy, you can sense Godard looking out on the future of cinema with a similar quiet, contemplative blankness.
As the title suggests, Every Man for Himself has a pungent melancholy to it as well, partly due to its lush visions of the French countryside filled with bristling greens and browns. But it generally reflects the outview of its central trio: a filmmaker on hiatus named Paul Godard (Jacques Dutronc), a writer in the middle of a career change (Nathalie Baye) and, this being a Godard film, a prostitute named Isabelle, played by a young Isabelle Huppert. Huppert is the film's anchor but she doesn't come in until halfway through the film. The first half unfolds as an abstract two-hander, in which Paul and the writer, Denise, decide to call off their long-running but low-key love affair. Denise talks and flirts with her new boss, who seems to run a small paper and a cattle farm, while Paul runs around town, visiting his daughter and ex-wife. They speak to each other three or four times but Godard's resolutely superb form suggests a slow, painful severing of ties.
When it was released in the UK, Every Man for Himself was retitled Slow Motion, which pointed to Godard's use of the effect in several scenes, specifically ones involving Denise. The filmmaker employs it as a rhythmic tool, using it at times that at first seem haphazard but reveal themselves to be essential to the film's emotional core. Huppert's cool, detached prostitute, who sleeps with Paul after accompanying him to a Chaplin film, offers a darker undercurrent to the struggle between Denise and Paul. In two show-stopping sequences, the prostitute goes through the perverse processes of rich clients in a characteristically absurd yet caustic critique of capitalism and its relationship to passionless sex. "Only the banks are independent," yells an enforcer who disapproves of Isabelle's thinking, right before he and an associate pull her pants down and spank her.
Perversion and wealth haven't made such fascinating bedfellows since Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and like that great film, Every Man for Himself is a unique, riveting work in the career of its helmer, as well as a sign of things to come. The pop-culture mania of the director's 1960s output (La Chinoise, Made in U.S.A.) is here subdued to little more than the fantastic image of a Marlboro-sponsored race car; the abstract, bright-colored interiors and cityscapes now gave way to natural settings using natural light in country homes and hotel rooms. The aesthetic itself acts as a harbinger of the more dour, though no less compelling and brilliant turns Godard would take in the 1980s, notably in Detective and Passion, which re-teamed him with Huppert.
Narrative takes a slightly more prominent role in Every Man for Himself, but for Godard, it was always the visual rhythm that took precedence. On a chalkboard in a classroom that Paul visits, cinema and video are compared to Cain and Abel, a possibly prophetic view but also a summation of Godard's love for conflicting imagery. Released four years after the advent of VHS, it's a statement that suited Godard's aesthetic transition as much as the one that ushered in the promise of video over the cinematic experience; the imagined community disbanded in favor of isolationism. Concrete meaning, however, never suited Godard all that much. When the camera focuses on a close-up of Isabelle's expressionless face during an orgy, you can sense Godard looking out on the future of cinema with a similar quiet, contemplative blankness.
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