The best tribute we can pay to a filmmaker who is no longer with us is to watch his films. Discuss them with our movie-loving friends. Write about them. Jean-Luc Godard‘s death created the opportunity to watch or re-watch some of his famous films. I saw on this occasion – for the first time! – ‘Masculin féminin‘ made in 1966. WOW! I confess that annoyed me many times over the past few decades. I didn’t understand or resonate with some of his later films. I disagreed with some of his political views. I had already forgotten, perhaps, what a great filmmaker he was. ‘Masculin féminin‘ impressed me deeply and on several levels. By style, and by execution, and because of its leading ideas. It is the film of the 1965 generation, and watching it after more than half a century is a meeting with the generation of young people of those times. The honesty and direct style of the New Wave makes the film a document. But it is much more than that.
The action of ‘Masculin féminin’ is a love story seen through the eyes of a man. Paul is described in the cast as ‘an unstable young man’ but his instability is more related to the way he interacts with the world around him. In reality he knows quite well what he wants (beautiful girls and then The Beautiful Girl) and he is also politically involved with well-formed convictions, perhaps a result of the two-year military service that he had just completed. Paul meets and falls in love with Madeleine, described as ‘a little singer’. This characterization must also be received with reservations, because Madeleine manages to release a first record which enjoys local and international success and, maybe, she is on her way to becoming a ‘great singer’. Paul (also advised by his friend Robert – ‘a trade unionist’) uses tricks from the arsenal of Parisian boys to win Madeleine’s heart. The dialogues between the two boys and the three girls (Madeleine and the friends she lives with) revolve around this ‘masculine-feminine’ balance described in the title, at the age of emerging from adolescence, but they also address the political issues and cultural phenomena of the day in which heroes live. Everything is of a freshness and a contagious sincerity.
The story would probably be a small routine melodrama if not filmed by Godard. The script draws the guidelines of the action and the actors – who belong to the generation and environment of the heroes – do the rest. Part of the story takes place outside the filming angle of the camera, because what matters is not necessarily the events but the reactions of the heroes to these events. The editing always gives the feeling of collage, excessive chiseling is avoided and the sound captured directly from the streets and Parisian cafes is used. The division into ‘chapters’, which would later be used by many directors (Woody Allen among them) plays here the role of commentary, adding a dimension to the visual part. It’s a ‘classical culture’ tool used in a very non-classical manner. Jean-Pierre Léaud and Chantal Goya are excellent in the lead roles which are among the best of their careers. One of the heroine’s friends is played by Marlène Jobert, an actress I really like, for whom this film was the beginning of the consecration. The film’s heroes live their loves and breakups, small pleasures and big disappointments in a charged political atmosphere and during the major pop cultural revolution. However, these are presented without ostentation and this only enhances the effect. There is no shortage of satirical arrows towards the establishment cultural monuments of the era, from De Gaulle to Ingmar Bergman. If I had to choose only one film to represent France in the mid-60s and the young generation of those times, the generation that would take to the streets and barricades in 1968, it would be ‘Masculin féminin‘.