Week-end

(thing) by Gone Jackal (2.3 d) (print) ? (I like it!) Tue Sep 19 2000 at 5:44:38

All right, this node used to be a bunch of bullshit about interpretation and what-not. Now its not.

Simply, a 1967 Film by Jean-Luc Godard, about the evil of consumerism and material society. The story revolves around two characters, a husband and wife named Corinne and Roland, on a weekend trip.

I will still say my favourite part is when they set Emily Bronte on fire, followed at a close second by the part where the communists butcher and eat Roland.

(thing) by krenseby (18.7 hr) (print) ? (I like it!) Thu Apr 29 2004 at 4:18:46

Godard's Week-End: A film in which humor from absurd situations compensates for its lack of action.

On first impression, this film by French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard might seem to be an amazing atrocity. Watching the car horns blast while our protagonists Roland and Corrine get stuck in a traffic jam for what seems like an eternity is probably even more annoying than actually experiencing this in real life. So why doesn't the story go anywhere and get stuck in traffic? Whenever watching a movie where nothing seems to happen, a viewer tends to wonder.... Why's there no action?
Godard's camera purposefully ignores real-time action but merely observes a scene's setting to point out its absurdity and to elicit laughter from the viewer. While a man plays Mozart on a piano set in the middle of a farm lawn and talks about his life, the camera doesn't show him but instead pans around the farm workers who are listening to him in a milieu of delapidated buildings and tractors.

A viewer who is looking for plot and action might be disappointed by these scenes. He might ask himself "What interest is there in observing farmers working while a man plays piano and talks about Mozart?" B - O - R - I - N - G!!

But this scene does indeed serve a purpose. The juxtaposition between poverty of the farmers and their surroundings and the sophistication of an educated pianist who waxes lyrical about the biography of Mozart would affect a humorous response in a thoughtful viewer who can perceive the absurdity of the situation.

The presentation of an inconceivable classical music audience with plain clothes and working hands would jar this viewer's expectations. According to social conventions, the lawns of a village with tractors, toolsheds, and farmhouses are considered to be no place for the classical pianists from the big city to showcase their repertoire. Instead, as we all know, a big concert hall where audiences are well-coiffed and decked out in suits, ties, or fancy dresses is considered to be the proper place for the performance of classical music.

Note: This writeup is not intended to serve as a plot summary. Rather, it is an analysis of a scene intended to show why the aesthetic of this film is very different from what a viewer might otherwise expect.

(definition) by Webster 1913 (print) Fri Dec 23 2005 at 5:12:22

Week"-end", n.

The end of the week; specif., though loosely, the period observed commonly as a holiday, from Saturday noon or Friday night to Monday; as, to visit one for a week-end; also, a house party during a week-end.

printable version
chaos

Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by Her Own Chastity	weekend	How to calculate the day of the week for a given date	Eric Rohmer
Theatre of the Absurd	Pierrot Le Fou	Jean-Luc Godard	Susan Sontag on Godard's film Vivre Sa Vie
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community	Ritwik Ghatak	class consciousness	Bertolt Brecht
Alphaville	node	Claude Chabrol	Jacques Rivette
Fran�ois Truffaut	Cahiers du Cinema	New Wave	Theater of the Absurd
Marxism	Monday	September 22, 2001	Copa

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