Jean Luc Godard’s 1967 film “Weekend” is a fascinating take on French and world politics during the Cold War and rising Western Capitalism. The film’s repeated references to French Imperialism and political dominance is reminiscent of the 1966 Algerian film, Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo, which deals with Algerian independence from the French occupation. Both films tackled the subject matter in completely different ways; Battle of Algiers was filmed as a fictionalized documentary with sparse production value, non professional actors, and realism that still resonates today. In contrast, Godard’s Weekend uses a non-linear story punctuated with absurd surrealism, elaborate metaphors, and professional actors. Battle of Algiers presents its material a way such that the subject matter speaks to the Algerian experience of the ever-present terror of war and violence inflicted on their own land. Weekend, however, needs to project a heightened sense of absurdity because it needs to dissolve the apathy and aloofness of the Western world and France from its safe, Consumerist reality, while being entirely controversial and angry throughout its entire run-time.
The first thing the audience sees in Weekend is the dominating colour palette of red, white, and blue, that is present throughout the mise en scene; it is in practically every frame of the movie
. At first it represents the colours of the French flag, on a smaller note it represents the red of Communism and the red, white, and blue of the America flag. This political clash through colour is represented in one of the first scenes of the movie; a white and blue car causes an accident with a red car. The Capitalist western society clashing with the Communist nations which foreshadows the conflict that is evident throughout the entire film. The clash is also one of the left wing and the youth against their nations own imperialist and increasingly violent goals. This idea is explored in David Sterrit’s book The Films of Jean-Luc Godard. Sterrit notes the “…skepticism towards governments that wrapped these hues around themselves as they pursued imperialistic policies, jingoistic wars and other ill founded projects.”[1]
Furthermore, the use of cars is a fascinating visual metaphor for the capitalist system; the car becomes the Consumerist goal that the individual strives for. This is also noted by Jeremy Mark Robinson in his book Jean Luc Godard the Passion of Cinema; “the modern Western world’s love with the motor car; the car as the sacred object of late commodity capitalism, the ultimate prize, capitalism in action.”[2] This use of the car is further extended to depict the vehicles in various states of unrest and destruction throughout the entire film. They are over turned, smashed into unrecognizable shapes, piled up and burned to ashes. The car then peels away from just being a metaphor for capitalism but the ultimate destruction and fiery death of this political system and unlike the Phoenix no new life emerges but death and destruction.
This then leads to the famous seven minute tracking shot of traffic which spurns a lot of ire from the people trapped in this untimely road delay. It is then slowly revealed to the audience this traffic was caused by a large pileup involving multiple fatalities. The metaphor for this again relates back to the Marxist themes found in this film and later Godard films like Le Chinoise. The idea ties back to Marxist notion of when production and capitalism continues its rise of dominance, individuals will be severed from each other and our connections will only be served through commodity and product, ultimately we lose our humanity. This phenomenon of alienation is demonstrated directly in this scene and throughout the film; we see individuals masked and guarded by cars that incessantly honk at one another through large capitalist machinery. The inhabitants of the small world created by this traffic are unaware and uninterested that the cause of all this delay is the tragic death of humans. In relation to this the tracking shot is an extension of this philosophical point; it remains far without getting too intimate with the extras involved, it is never invasive or brings attention to itself. The shot becomes as cold and distant towards humanity as we have to ourselves because of Capitalism. This is touched upon in “Towards a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style” by Brian Henderson: “Godard avoids depth: he arranges his characters in a single plane only-none is closer to the camera then the other.”[3]
As much as the film can be read as the death of capitalist society in general it could also be a statement on the death of Artistic cinema which Godard firmly believes. The couple in this film represents a bastardized and exploited version of couples found in American films in such pieces of cinema as Bringing up Baby and Sullivan Travels. Both movies which install the American capitalist model on the Proletariat and further perpetuate a moral and cinematic standard for movies to follow which ultimately corrupts and suppresses the artist’s voice. Corinne and Roland, the couple in this film who also represent this American model, seemingly stumble into various artistic and literary scenes that are a metaphor for independent and artistic films depicted by famous literary and musical figures. Rather than co-exist or try to understand these people, Corinne and Roland become too focused in the selfish pursuit of their own capitalist dreams, much like the American studio and its feverish pursuit of money. In the end they take to the task of burning Emily Bronte, who is dressed up as Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and leave her to die.
The Capitalist American system has stretched its money making vines throughout the film-making world and choked out all other artistic expression for its own selfish pursuit. Weekend even directly references films which makes fun of the Bourgeoisie by calling one of the vignettes “The Exterminating Angel” a 1960s Louis Bunuel film which has a scathing view on the rich and also a casual name drop to “Modern Times” in the same scene.
The use of movies is depicted in another scene where Cannibal hippies use the codenames “Battleship Potemkin” and “The Searchers” while communicating on the radio. Battleship Potemkin on one hand is a very famous 1920s USSR propaganda film and The Searchers is a 1950s Western that attacked the idea of the classical western by referencing its own racism, unpleasant subject matter and the idea of an unhappy ending for the cowboy protagonist, ultimately going against the American idea of the pursuit of happiness. The genre of the Western is also shown in an earlier scene in a film where a young child dressed as an Indian witnesses Corrine and Roland crash into a neighbor’s car, they try to pay off the child to no avail and he calls to the people whose car has been damaged. They come out confront and finally attack our two protagonists before they drive away. Godard essentially created his own western while keeping it in the topical back drop of the Cold War. The child is the third world that the Western Bourgeoisie tries to silence and pay off thus making him a puppet state. He does not comply and ultimately repels drawing the attention of the other couple the USSR. The child/third world that watches the two become involved in a spat over consumerist items which draws the child and by extension the 3rd world into the dangerous and deadly world of cold war politics.However the references to third world and developing countries in this film are not only represented through coy visual metaphors but literally are transplanted throughout the film. One scene has a man from the Congo and one from Algeria literally breaking bread as a voice narrates their soon to be liberation from the forces of Capitalism and how they can aide this. While we have talked about the Algerian War Of Independence, Congo just a had a C.I.A backed Coup in 1965 that replaced the government with a West Leaning puppet leader. Although the visual metaphors do not end here, during the infamous traffic scene a Shell tanker drives past the screen and further along in the film in a sequence where the proletariats and bourgeoisie are arguing over death and materialistic items while people are watching.Behind these people watching is the Word BANANIA spelled out in the back. At closer research Banania refers to a French cocoa product. However there is controversy around it being racist and colonialist. So it does tie into things! *BAM*
The Shell advertisement is topical to this day, referring to wars fought over Oil.
In the end Godard’s Weekend is a major changing point in Godard’s life when his political and personal viewpoints where changing drastically. This change becomes one of anger and radicalism which oozes throughout the entire film. It in turn becomes a time capsule that future generations can study and understand the mentality and viewpoint of the world at that time. The resentment and hatred of American and French military dominance in Vietnam and Algeria spurred youth movements which shaped both countries and their foreign policies. Also it shows the end of National Imperialism over another nation and replaces it with the idea of Capitalist Imperialism which we can still see to this day. However Godard foreshadows that even this can come to a cannibalistic, morally empty and fiery death with plenty of film references.
