Godard and the Foregrounding of Cinematic Construction

This is the second time I’ve had to watch “Weekend” in an MCM class. The first time, I was really blown away (and disturbed) by how different the film was from conventional cinema. This time, knowing what kind to expect, I was able to focus more on the formalistic characteristics of the film and accept it for what it is.

It’s amazing to me how “Weekend” manages to undermine all of what Wollen calls the “seven deadly sins of cinema”. Through his defiance of traditional cinematic practices, Gordard exposes the tools that cinema uses to construct meaning. This results in a profoundly un-pleasurable experience for the spectator since spectatorial pleasure is only possible through the disavowal of the cinematic apparatus. Godard disrupts identification with the characters in many ways. First of all, the main characters, Corrine and Roland are totally unlikeable –they are extremely shallow caricatures who are materialistic and casually murderous. Their despicable portrayal, lacking any semblance of depth, makes it very difficult for the audience to care about them. Furthermore, they constantly acknowledge themselves as fictional characters in a film. After killing Emily Bronte, Roland says that it was ok since she was an imaginary character. In another instance Roland says “What a terrible film, we only meet crazy people”. This foregrounding of the fiction constantly reminds the spectator that he/she is watching a fabricated reality. Perhaps most interestingly, Godard also separates the look of the camera from the look of the characters. In traditional cinema, the look of the characters is emphasized while the look of the camera and the look of the spectator are disavowed. Camera movements are intimately connected to characters and narrative flow, excluding extraneous information. However, in “Weekend”, the camera becomes foregrounded and takes on a life of its own. We are rarely given POV shots, eyelines often do not match, and tracking shots often entirely separate from the characters. In the traffic jam, the camera moves horizontally at a fairly constant velocity even as the central protagonists weave in and out of the frame. The movement of their car is not matched by the movement of the camera. Similarly, during the Mozart scene, the camera does a 360 turn totally independent of the characters and then self-consciously begins to turn in the opposite direction. This draws intention to the independence of the camera and is very disorienting. Also, immediately after a traveler rapes Corrine, there is a horizontal pan off to the side and we expect to see something new, but the pan reveals nothing. Instead, the camera moves back in the opposite direction. This seemingly pointless camera movement also foregrounds the look of the camera. It is also interesting that Roland, a central character, is casually killed off screen.