[Editor’s Note: A restored version of Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie has just been released by Criterion on DVD and Blu-ray, and is now available at the LFM Store below at the end of this post.]
A CLASSIC CINEMA OBSESSION in 4 TABLEAUX
1
JENNI COMES IN LATE — THE FACE OF MARIA FALCONETTI –CONVERTED — PEOPLE WALK OUT EARLY
I was late to the screening. It was French New Wave Week in World Cinema 340 and we were watching Godard’s MY LIFE TO LIVE (a.k.a. VIVRE SA VIE). It was my first Godard. I was a lazy undergrad. I came in about 15 minutes late, an intruder bringing a squeaky door and too much light into the darkened, cavernous auditorium. I felt hot and embarrassed at my intrusion. I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the back, hiding from all my fellow students. The first thing I saw was a face. It made me cry. It always makes me cry.
THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC is one of my favorite films. Seeing it for the first time, I had a (re)conversion to Catholicism/cinema. Seeing it every time since, I am continually reconverted. And always crying at the face of Maria Falconetti.
I am Nana. She sees the face of Maria-as-Jeanne D’Arc and she cries too.
We are all crying, we three faces. I have a feeling no one else in the auditorium is crying. Before the screening is over, half the students have walked out. Perhaps they were disappointed at the lack of sex and the one bit of sterile nudity in a picture about prostitution. Perhaps they couldn’t feel anything when they looked at Anna Karina’s face. Perhaps they didn’t like lengthy philosophical discussions about the meaning of language and speech. Perhaps they thought the French New Wave weird and pretentious and Godard’s film most of all.
But not me. I was converted that night while watching VIVRE SA VIE. I was converted to Godard. He was my first New Wave love (Truffaut would come later, but Godard was always stronger).
It’s been almost eight years since I watched VIVRE SA VIE in college, but I have never forgotten the images or the effect the film had on me. I have never forgotten it. I recently watched the new Criterion Collection remastered DVD of VIVRE SA VIE — now my second time seeing the film. I still can’t explain my thoughts on it. It is a religious experience in that way. It is a spiritual/emotional thing, not an intellectual one. I have thoughts and feelings, but I cannot put them into words. If words were enough, I wouldn’t need the pictures.
“She sells her body but keeps her soul.” Continue reading Classic Cinema Obsession: Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie
