A Musical Neorealism : Jean-Luc

Godards Une femme est une femme

Felicity Chaplin

If I analyse myself today, I see that I always wanted, primarily, to make a film of research under the form of
spectacle. (Jean-Luc Godard)
I like to say that there are two kinds of cinema, there is Flaherty and there is Eisenstein. That is to say, there is
documentary realism and there is theatre, but ultimately, at the highest level, they are one and the same. What I
mean is that through documentary realism one arrives at the structure of theatre, and through theatrical imagination
and fiction one arrives at the reality of life. (Jean-Luc Godard)

Wearing a brilliant blue dress trimmed with white fur and matching bow atop her coiffed hair, a young woman
dances gaily in the streets of Paris. But this is no An American in Paris (1951). Gone are the spectacular
production-designed sets. Instead we are on location in a Parisian back alleyway, a dreary streetscape littered with
trashcans, rusted-out barred doors and piles of rubble. Strasbourg Saint-Denis in winter, as cinematographer Raoul

Coutard remarked, is not really gay and colourful (Bergala 2006: 89). Neither, despite her extravagant costume
and gestures, is this comedienne a Leslie Caron or a Cyd Charisse. In this shot of Angla (Anna Karina), the
setting jars dramatically with the figure in the foreground, capturing the contradiction upon which the whole film is
predicated: musical neorealism.

In a 1962 interview Godard remarked: I thought of the subject [of Une femme est une femme] while thinking about
a musical neo-realism. It is an absolute contradiction, but it is precisely that which interests me in the film (Bergala
1998: 224). Godards comment is significant for three reasons. First, it demonstrates his deliberate attempt not only
to bring together stylistic aspects of the musical and neorealism, but more importantly to found a genre.[1] Second,
Godards remark highlights his interest in contradiction, which forms an important part of his filmmaking; as Nicole
Brenez has remarked: At the core of [Godards] enterprise, we find a spirit of contradiction and contestatory energy
which have never dimmed (Rouge). Finally, Godards comment is significant in that un no-ralisme musical is
often translated as a neorealist musical (as opposed to a musical neorealism) and then used to situate Une
femme est une femme within the framework of a musical-comedy genre. By relegating neorealism to the adjective
neorealist, emphasis is implicitly shifted to the noun, musical, while the descriptor neo-realist is largely ignored,
except where substituted for words to the effect of not quite, as in Une femme est une femme is not quite a
musical.[2]
To locate the neo-realist elements in Une femme est une femme an understanding of Godards conceptualisation
of neorealism in 1960 is needed. Neorealism is generally understood within the familiar, compactly circumscribed
definition as the film culture of the Resistance and the Liberation (Steimatsky xii-xiii). This can be narrowly
periodised from 1945 with Roberto Rossellinis Roma citt aperta to the end of that decade when production

resumed in the Cinecitt studios (Steimatsky xii-xiii). Bordwell and Thompson relegate Italian neorealism to the
period 1942-1951 (485), and similarly, Simona Monticelli claims neorealism pertains to a cluster of films made
between the mid-1940s and the mid-1950s (455). However, in her book Italian Locations: Reinhabiting the Past in
Postwar Cinema, Noa Steimatsky proposes to expand our understanding of neorealism and offer a preliminary
opening of the principle prospects, and of some obscure corners, in view of and sometimes against established
limits (xii). This broadening of the term neorealism proves useful for an understanding of Godards relationship to,
and use of, neorealism in Une femme est une femme.
Even Roma citt aperta, a founding film of neorealism, contains elements heterogenous to the style. Sidney
Gottlieb argues that Rossellinis film does not wholly conform to some of the particulars and generalities ascribed to
neorealism by comparing the film against a set of rules governing neorealist practice set down by Millicent
Marcus. These rules include:
Location shooting, lengthy takes, unobtrusive editing, natural lighting, a predominance of medium and long shots,
respect for the continuity of time and space, use of contemporary true-to-life subjects, an uncontrived, open-ended
plot, working-class protagonists, a non-professional cast, dialogue in the vernacular, active viewer involvement, and
implied social criticism (Gottlieb 39).
For Gottlieb, Roma citt aperta is interesting not in the way it conforms to these central tenets but in the way it
works against them: it was shot partially on location but also used carefully designed sets; it uses both natural and
artificial or expressionistic lighting; close-ups punctuate the medium and long shots typical of neorealism; and long
and continuous takes are interrupted with swipes. Gottlieb argues that the neorealism of Roma citt aperta is
dynamic, a process rather than a prescription, a complex negotiation among often contradictory or centrifugal
forces and occasionally unexpected elements rather than a precise blueprint (40). This highlights the difficulty
defining neorealism and provides an overview of Rossellinis neorealism, important for an understanding of
Godards conceptualisation of the mode. Simona Monticelli claims the terms uncertain origin further complicates its
definition:
the word cannot be traced back to the consciously thought out and publicly circulated manifesto of a movement.
On the contrary, the term Neo-Realism is a descriptive category which has evolved through critical discourse
(456).
It was not until the late 1940s that the term really began to acquire wide critical currency (Monticelli 457). According
to Monticelli, Andr Bazins views on neorealism in particular were highly influential in developing a definition of
neorealism (457). As a critic working under Bazin at Cahiers du cinma we can assume that Godard was aware of
these debates around neorealism.
Monticelli also cites Cesare Zavattini, screenwriter for de Sicas Ladri di biciclette (1948) and Sciusci (1946), as
an important theorist of neorealism (458). Interestingly, Godard remarked that from the outset producer Carlo Ponti
saw Une femme est une femme as a film in the mode of Zavattini (Bergala 2006: 80). Moreover, in the early 1970s
Zavattini baptised Godard as a neorealist (Steimatsky 181).
In the 1952 manifesto-styled Some Ideas on the Cinema, Zavattini writes:

Now it has been perceived that reality is hugely rich, that to be able to look directly at it is enough; and that the
artists task is not to make people moved or indignant at metaphorical situations, but to make them reflect (and, if
you like, to be moved and indignant too) on what they and others are doing, on the real things, exactly as they are
(217).
Zavattini emphasises too the contrast between neorealism and Hollywood cinema: the American position is the
antithesis of our own: while we are interested in the reality around us and want to know it directly, reality in
American films is unnaturally filtered, purified, and comes out at one or two removes (218). We see an example
of this unnaturally filtered reality in Une femme est une femme when Godard uses colour filters to saturate Angla
in red, green, blue and purple during her song-and-dance routine at the Zodiac Club. In this scene the brilliant
colours contrast sharply with the grey tones of the available lighting of the location scenes. However, any inclination
to associate available lighting with neorealism, and colour filters with Hollywood and the musical genre, is made
problematic when we recall that even Roma citt aperta uses artificial and expressionist lighting. Moreover, Godard
is highly reflexive in his use of this colour filter technique: the saturation of colours is not seamlessly woven into the
fabric of the film, as though it had magically appeared. Rather, Godard shows us the very mechanism that creates
this effect: he films the colour filter apparatus just as he films Raoul Coutard filming Francesca Vanini (Giorgia Moll)
in the opening of Le mpris.

Anglas musical number is often cited as the scene by which the musical genre lays claim to the film; however the
scene is in fact a piece of meticulously crafted realism. It is the perfect example of the kind of dialectical reversal
that Godard frequently employs in his films; that is, what appears to be the musical number in the film, that which
gives the musical genre a claim on the film for many critics, is actually, at the level of mise en scne, the most neorealistic.
Zavattini claimed the neorealist filmmaker could find enough material contained within a single situation for an
entire film:
In most films, the adventures of two people looking for somewhere to live, for a house, would be shown externally
in a few moments of action, but for us it could provide the scenario for a whole film, and we would explore all its
echoes, all its implications (219).
The plot of Une femme est une femme, which, it was once said, can be neatly summed up in one line A young
woman wants a baby has often been criticised for being too thin and simplistic. Jonathan Rosenbaum goes as
far as calling it dopey (1). Yet Godards plot follows Zavattinis prescription la lettre: using one situation to

explore all its echoes and implications. Indeed, Godard praised the French neorealist film Une simple
histoire (Marcel Hanoun 1959) which makes no pretence of its simplicity of storyline (Bergala 1998: 190-191). In
April 1959, Godard wrote a review of Hanouns film which tells the story of the increasingly desperate attempt of a
provincial woman (Micheline Bezanon) to find work and eke out a living for herself and her young daughter in
Paris. While recognising that Hanoun is visibly influenced by Robert Bresson, Godard associates Une simple
histoire with the theories of Bazin and Zavattini. For Godard, Hanouns film resembles Storia di Caterina [Story of
Catherine], a sketch from Amore in citt[Love in the City] (Francesco Maselli 1953), based upon a scenario by
Zavattini. Godard writes:
Like the Italian film, Une simple histoire tells a true story. It is of little importance, though it causes grief to some,
that it is an actress who here plays the principal role, while in Zavattini it was the real heroine who played her own
role. Due to the sole fact that this role was re-played, put differently that her real personage became a role, the
Catherine of Zavattini automatically became, even unconsciously, an actress (Bergala 1998: 190).
We can see from the review that this kind of cinema, a French neorealism influenced by Zavattini, appealed to
Godard. Also noteworthy is Godards view on the use of actors instead of non-professionals, which is in contrast to
Zavattinis view expounded in Some Ideas on Cinema:
It is evident that, with neorealism, the actor-as a person fictitiously lending his own flesh to another-has no more
right to exist than the story. In neorealism, as I intend it, everyone must be his own actor. To want one person to
play another implies the calculated plot, the fable, and not things happening (227).
Godard predominately used professional actors in the early 1960s. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy and
Anna Karina were all established actors to varying degrees before they starred in Une femme est une femme. It
was only after Karina had achieved moderate fame in Michel Delvilles Ce soir ou jamais (1961) that Godard asked
her to star in Une femme est une femme (Bergala 2006: 85). Bergala claims Godard only offered Karina the role at
the last moment originally envisaging the more established Brigitte Bardot for the role (Bergala 2006: 84).
An emphasis on daily life was equally important for Zavattini, who believed only cinema had the innate capacity for
showing things as they happen day by day-in what we might call their dailiness, their longest and truest
duration (220). Une femme est une femme follows twenty-four hours in the life of three Parisians. We not only see
them at their place of work, we also see them at work: Emile (Brialy) in the newsstand serving customers, Alfred
(Belmondo) handing out parking fines and Angla performing at the Zodiac Club. There are also scenes in the
couples apartment displaying the whole gamut of domestic life: we see Angla and mile eat, talk, argue, play,
read (lHumanit,Marie Claire and lEquipe), listen to the radio, brush their teeth, and perform their nightly rituals
(including the minute detail of dusting off their feet before climbing into bed). We also see Angla cooking and
cleaning (albeit rather clumsily) and taking a shower (which involves a little home handiwork), actions which would
likely be absent in more plot-driven films. There is an entire scene in which Angla, having arrived home from work,
potters about her apartment (she looks in the mirror, fixes her hair, does some light housework, checks on the roast
for dinner) before taking a home fertility test, the only action in this sequence which is directly relevant to the plot.
All other action in this sequence seems superfluous, yet it allows Angla to be shown in her dailiness. Of particular
note here is Point 5 of Zavattinis manifesto:

A woman is going to buy a pair of shoes. Upon this elementary situation it is possible to build a film. All we have to
do is to discover and then show all the elements that go to create this adventure, in all their banal dailiness, and it
will become worthy of attention, it will even become spectacular. But it will become spectacular not through its
exceptional, but through its normal qualities; it will astonish us by showing so many things that happen every day
under our eyes, things we have never noticed before. The result would not be easy to achieve. It would require an
intensity of human vision both from the creator of the film and from the audience. The question is: how to give
human life its historical importance at every minute (221).
Moreover, according to Zavattini, showing ordinary people undertaking quotidian tasks allows the audience to
recognise themselves in the people on the screen (222). Zavattini is against exceptional characters:
The time has come to tell the audience that they are the true protagonists of life. The result will be a constant
appeal to the responsibility and dignity of every human being. Otherwise the frequent habit of identifying oneself
with fictional characters will become very dangerous. We must identify ourselves with what we are (222).
In an interview with Jean Collet in 1964 Godard remarked: Une femme est une femme almost had as a title On
est comme on est [you are what you are or one is what one is] (44). Angla, Emile and Alfred are by no means
exceptional personages. However Godard does engage with the idea of spectators identifying with fictional
characters. Anglas announcement that she is sad because she would like to be in a musical suggests her
identification with the heroines of Hollywood musicals has left her feeling alienated in her present situation which
hardly resembles the Technicolor settings of a Bob Fosse-choreographed musical.
Despite dismissing Une femme est une femme as lightweight, Alistair Whyte still locates elements in the film (the
documentary-style of filming the inhabitants of Strasbourg Saint-Denis, the strippers who prostitute themselves)
which take on greater sociological significance in the light of [Godards] later development (11). Showing social
conditions is significant in Godards cinema and becomes more apparent in later films: in Vivre sa vie (1962)
Godard recomposes images and reads aloud from Marcel Sacottes sociological study on prostitution; in Masculin
fminin (1966) sociologist Paul (Jean-Pierre Laud) conducts interviews and surveys throughout the film; and Une
femme marie(1964) and Deux ou trois choses que je sais delle (1967), which both follow twenty-four hours in the
life of a Parisienne, contain sociological elements. In Une femme marieGodard provides close-ups of
advertisements from Elle magazine which Charlotte (Macha Mril) is leafing through, offering a catalogue of
womens undergarments of the period.

When Godard films Charlotte dashing about Paris shopping in the new department stores he is engaging directly
with the position of women in consumer society. This engagement is already evident in Une femme est une femme:
when Angla compliments a colleague on her necklace the latter remarks she bought it at the Galeries Lafayette.
Communicating through advertising and commodities reaches its apex in the party scene in Pierrot le fou (1965)
when entire conversations are composed of endless advertising slogans. Godard also shows us lengthy
exchanges between Juliette (Marina Vlady) and shop assistants in Deux ou trois choses que je sais delle.
Speaking of this film in 1967, Godard said it allowed him to explore his theory that
to live in Parisian society today , one is forced, to whatever level it may be, to whatever echelon it may be, to
prostitute oneself in one way or another, or even to live according to the laws which recall those of prostitution
(Bergala 1998: 296).
For Godard prostitution is a crucial metaphor for explaining contemporary society, and one he already employs
in Une femme est une femme: as a stripper, Angla sells her body on the market. One could imagine her easily
slipping into prostitution should her situation suddenly change, not unlike the way her friend Suzanne (Marie
Dubois) turns to stripping after losing her job at the Simca factory. Moreover, Anglas neighbour, who works as a
prostitute from her apartment, functions as an ever-present reminder of where Angla may be headed. Just as
James Monaco suggests a narrative continuation from Veronica (Anna Karina) of Le petit soldat to Angla (116), it
is possible to read Vivre sa vie as a narrative continuation of Une femme est une femme. Vivre sa vie, made
immediately after Une femme est une femme and also starring Karina, follows the story of Nana, a Parisian shop
girl who turns to prostitution after she is unable to find work as an actress.

In Une femme est une femme, there is an exchange between Angla and Suzanne which has marked sociological
dimensions. Apart from the initial shots establishing the exchange, there are thirty-two apparently random shots of
people on the streets. The camera moves independently of the conversation (the audio track for the sequence)
composing a sociological portrait of Strasbourg Saint-Denis in 1960.

These images are reminiscent of Agns Vardas short film Lopra mouffe (1958), a portrait of the residents of the
Parisian slum area and market around Rue Mouffetard in the5e arrondissement.

In fact, Godard directly references Vardas film when he inserts two shots from Lopra mouffe into his own mise en
scne in Une femme est une femme.
Although Une femme est une femme was Godards first studio film, it was originally intended to be shot on location.
Godard insisted that the reconstructed apartment would have, unlike normal studio sets, ceilings throughout and
immovable and non-detachable doors and partitions. Thus the crew encountered all of the constraints of location
shooting compounded by the fragile materials of the studio set (Bergala 2006: 88). Angla and miles apartment is
in direct contrast to the architecturally intangible set of Don Lockwoods Hollywood villa in Singin in the
Rain (1952), the archetypical example of the musical comedy set, which Alain Masson describes as follows: It is a
theatrical set, a dance set. In a musical comedy, however, we would not expect anything else. More interestingly, it
is alterable and extensible (1).

Une femme est une femme exhibits many features which align it with neorealism. These include: location shooting
and realistically constructed sets; working-class setting; reflexive use of cinematic technique; simple plot explored
in all its implications; emphasis on daily life and attention to quotidian detail; no exceptional personages;
foregrounding of social conditions (prostitution, consumer society, work); and documentary-styled sequences.
Taken together, these features push the film away from the standard reading of it as a musical comedy and tips the
scale back to Godards intention of the film as a musical neorealism. Further, these elements form the basis of
Godards particular use of neorealism which he would develop in his own way.
***
By 1960 neorealism was evolving, resulting in the emergence of what can be described as a second wave of
neorealism. From the 1940s through to the 1960s, Zavattini used neorealism to describe a range of practices,
much wider than the urgent post-war thematic-historical scope of the neorealist core (Steimatsky xxvi). As early as
the 1940s, neorealism was already moving beyond the original conception of the mode. For one thing, neorealism
no longer rejected psychological exploration (Zavattini 227). This psychological aspect is taken up more
particularly in the second wave of neorealism. Antonioni, like Rossellini and Fellini before him, extended the
neorealist concern with the visible world to include the subjective difficulties of mental alienation, although the

exterior documentation of material conditions remained important (Shiel 98). In 1958, Antonioni pointed to a
mutation occurring within the mode of neorealism when he remarked: Am I a neorealist director? I really couldnt
say. And is neorealism over? Not exactly. It is more correct to say that neorealism is evolving (Brunette 18).
Antonionis work differed from the late 1940s films of Rossellini, Visconti, De Sica, De Santis and others not in
being not neorealist but in terms of its neorealism which Antonioni liked to describe as interior neorealism (Shiel
98). The evolution of the mode was thus characterised by a shift from exterior to more interior concerns. This
second wave of neorealism continued to be concerned with the interrogation of post-war reconstruction in Italy.
However, the emphasis shifted from more immediate material conditions to what Antonioni considered a
fundamental spiritual lack at the heart of capitalism which no abundance of material goods could ever address
(Shiel 104). For Shiel, this is evident in Antonionis films Lavventura (1960), La notte (1961) and Leclisse (1962)
which all highlight the filmmakers concerns with visual and thematic ambiguity and metaphysical alienation (103104).
Godard is as equally concerned with questions of alienation as he is with those of social conditions. Indeed, as
Jean-Andr Fieschi remarks Godard is the filmmaker par excellence on the difficulty of being (Mussman 68).
However, he employs different techniques to Antonioni, primarily because Godards is a different kind of alienation.
In La notte the mise en scne reflects the psychological state of Lidia (Jeanne Moreau), culminating in the
cinematic equivalent of an anxiety attack. Contrary to the images of Lidia, Angla dancing in the street and
declaring she would like to be in a musical depicts her environment completely uncoloured by her psychological
state. Her inner world and outer world do not coincide; rather, they are deliberately juxtaposed. Godards mise en
scne presents an alienation in which there is an absolute disjuncture between subject and object, between
character and world: no amount of wishing on Anglas part can alter the reality to which she must adapt.
Shiel also locates the evolution of neorealism in Rossellinis Viaggio in Italia (1954) which, like Antonionis cinema,
comprises an expansion of neorealism in the direction of metaphysical or spiritual concerns (104). Rossellinis
connection to the evolution of neorealism is important as his filmmaking was influential for Godard. During the
second wave of neorealism Antonioni and Rossellini prioritised female perspectives (Shiel 104). Godard too,
in Une femme est une femme, privileges a female perspective, although Angla in her theatrical style is perhaps
closer to Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) of Fellinis La strada (1954) described by Rancire as an icon of neorealist
cinema (183).
In his 1955 article La strada, Bazin argues that Fellinis film does not depart at all from Italian neorealism
(Cardullo 114) even though in Italy Marxist and Christian Democratic criticism threaten to evict Fellini from the
neorealist pantheon as each defines it, and to hurl him out into the darkness already inhabited by Rossellini
(Cardullo 117). For Bazin, Fellini expands neorealism: La strada does not contradict other neorealist films such
as Pais, Roma citt aperta or even Ladri di Bicciclette; rather Fellini has taken a different direction to Zavattini
and, alongside Rossellini, opted for a neorealism of the person (Cardullo 117). Shiel echoes Bazin when he
remarks: Perhaps more than any other filmmaker, Fellini pushed the boundaries of neorealism to their breaking
point (113). Shiel remarks that Fellinis films of the 1950s all employed realism as a window on to internal
character although, like the films of Antonioni and Rossellini, they never strayed far from social concerns and
presented their personal tragedies as narratives with real social implications (113).

For Bazin, La strada and Rossellinis Europe 51 (1952) remain neorealist on the level of their aesthetic. This
aesthetic which Bazin, following French ecclesiast and critic Abb Amde Ayfre, calls phenomenological, is one
of neorealisms genuine achievements (Cardullo 117) and informs the action rather than merely representing it.
Cardullo remarks:
In describing neorealism as phenomenological, Ayfre means what Bazin says in the first sentence of the next
paragraph: that nothing is ever revealed to us from inside the characters in the quintessential neorealist film. In
philosophical terms, neorealism limits itself to a description of characters interactions with one another
(neorealism of the person, according to Bazin) or with their environment (socialist neorealism, according to
Bazin). What neorealism does not do is emphasize characters particular psychological problems or obsessions
(120).
If we accept this reading of Bazin, it would appear Godards film has more in common with the earlier socialist
neorealism with its emphasis on the characters interaction with their environment. What this reading omits,
however, is that for Bazin it is not all internal states as such, but one internal state in particular, that neorealism
does not give us: psychology, or better still, pathology. What the neorealism of the person does provide is what
Bazin calls the soul of the character. It is possible to summarise Bazins approach to the question of the interior in
neorealism in two premises: 1) neorealism does not cast the destiny of its characters in pathological terms; and 2)
that the internal state which Bazin calls the soul in the neorealism of the person is revealed socially, through
interaction between characters. If for Bazin neorealism does not give us any internal state (as in pathology, wishes,
desires, psychology), and if Bazin defines La strada as a neorealism of the person, then the soul which he refers
to in Fellinis film must not be something internal but something external, the soul must be produced or at least
revealed by the interrelations between characters and between characters and their environment. Commenting on
the characters of Gelsomina, Zampan and The Fool in La Strada, Bazin remarks:
The very being of these characters is precisely in their not having any [psychology], or at least in their possessing
such a malformed and primitive psychology that a description of it would have nothing more than pathological
interest. But they do have a soul. And La Strada is nothing but their experience of their souls and the revelation of
this before our eyes (117).
When Godard used the term neorealism in 1960, then, he was referring to a mode evolving through filmmaking
practice and its surrounding critical discourse, in which numerous definitions of neorealism were proposed. To the
materialist element of neorealism Fellini added the spiritual, and Antonioni the psychological, dimension. Like Fellini
and Antonioni, Godard also provides a neorealism of the person, not from the perspective of the soul or pathology
(Godard is neither a spiritual nor a psychological filmmaker strictly speaking) but from the point of view of an
uncomplicated nature confronting a complex social situation. Godard remarks that Une femme est une
femme shows a woman who wants a child in a very absurd manner, while it is the most natural thing in the world
(Bergala 1998: 224). This pronouncement should not necessarily be taken as a reflection of Godards views on
motherhood; it is more interesting to examine the way Godard raises the idea of maternal desire as one of the
central problems of the film. Godard does not, however, offer us any psychology: Anglas desire is not explained in
terms of any psychoanalytic or pathological motivation. Moreover, in line with Bazins prescription, Anglas wish is
revealed through action and dialogue, through her interactions with Emile and Alfred and with her environment.
Significantly, the more hostility Anglas wish confronts, the more it increases in strength.

Returning to Fellini, Shiel comments that the Italian director was convinced that filmmaking involved a creative
intervention into and shaping of reality, not simply its reflection (113). Like Bazin, Shiel observes too that Fellinis
neorealism was a countertendency to the mode proposed by Zavattini. For Shiel this is evident in Fellinis
preference for non-naturalistic performance:
[Fellini] never used non-professionals in leading roles . All of his films mixed neorealism with elements of comedy
or farce which required actors to make frequent sudden changes in expression, mood or tone, contradicting the
pure realism of performance other neorealists found in actors from the street (113-114).
Like Fellini, Godard elicits a theatrical style of performance from his professional actors in Une femme est une
femme and when Shiel describes the female protagonist of the films of Antonioni, Rossellini and Fellini as a
woman part naf, part harlot, part saint, rather than glamorous urban sophisticate (116) he could equally be
describing Karinas Angla. Of the title character of Nights of Cabiria (1957), Shiel remarks: Cabiria is
characterised in terms of a fundamental emotional malleability. She shifts repeatedly between pathos and comedy
in the manner of a circus clown . (116). Angla has this same emotional malleability and this is exemplified in the
scene in which, during an argument with Emile, she falls to her knees sobbing before suddenly laughing and
declaring I no longer know if I should laugh or cry. Godard remarked of Une femme est une femme:
I meant it to be contradictory, juxtaposing things which didnt necessarily go together, a film which was gay and sad
at the same time. One cant do that, of course, one must be either one or the other, but I wanted to be both at once
(Sterritt 6).
Anglas emotional malleability contributes to the sudden changes in tone that characterise Une femme est une
femme as a reflexive film. However, Godards use of performance style has different consequences to Fellinis.
Edgardo Cozarinsky remarks:
In Une femme est une femme, as in his more obviously serious films, it is this uprootedness of modern experience
that Godard explores and dramatizes. Even this close-knit texture of small bistros, striptease joints, political
suspicion and conjugal wavering is constantly violated in its naturalistic surface, not just by the comic turns of the
plot but by Godards reminders not only that the film is a performance but that the projected images are themselves
illusory (26-27).
Godard uses interruption and dramatisation to show us this uprootedness of modern experience. The narrative is
constantly interrupted by various devices and the film is book-ended with Angla directly addressing the camera
with a knowing wink, acknowledging the spectators and demonstrating her awareness of being an actor in a film.
The use of a highly theatrical acting style in Une femme est une femme often associated with the musical interrupts
the drama to draw attention to its social background. Although melodramatic elements were already evident in the
classic neorealism of Rossellini and the second wave neorealism of Fellini, Godard takes things further, and in this
the influence of Brecht is significant. Commenting on Brechts Epic Theater Walter Benjamin writes:
The task of epic theatre, according to Brecht, is not so much the development of actions as the representation of
conditions. This discovery (alienation) of conditions takes place through the interruption of happenings.The art

of the epic theatre consists in producing astonishment rather than empathy. To put it succinctly: instead of
identifying with the characters, the audience should be educated to be astonished at the circumstances under
which they function (150).
During an argument in the couples apartment, Angla says to mile: before acting out our little farce, we bow to
the audience. Following this remark, they stand in the kitchen doorway, which frames them as though they were
on stage, then bow and smile at the camera.

This gesture comes just before their argument escalates further, interrupting the drama and alienating the
conditions of life from the drama. Similarly, Godard uses an extreme long shot for another argument between the
couple to interrupt the drama and draw attention to its social background: Emile and Angla appear as tiny figures
on the street pushing and shoving one another. Filmed in this way, against the background of the social, the
domestic problems of a young couple are reduced to insignificance.

Godards experimental use of sound, often juxtaposing loud jarring noise with silence, also creates unease in the
audience who, are never allowed to fully relax into the drama. This is best exemplified in the opening sequence in
which ruptures of sound are interspersed with near silence in a very short space of time. The rapidity of these
changes functions as a sonic assault on the viewer, especially for audiences unaccustomed to such radical
experimentation with film sound. In 1962, following the first screenings of Une femme est une femme, Truffaut
remarked that
audiences were taken by surprise. Godard went too far for them in the sound-mixing. When the girl comes out of
the caf, theres suddenly no sound, just complete silence. People immediately think the projector has broken
down (Graham and Vincendeau 207).
***
Une femme est une femme is generally considered Jean-Luc Godards lightest film. Alistair Whyte remarks:
Although A Woman Is a Woman contains the seeds of Godards later development, it is, undeniably, a lightweight
film. (11). Colin MacCabe describes the film as the most joyful of Godards films, indeed perhaps his only joyful
film (134). For a director who delights in contradiction, these remarks indicate it may be among his
most serious films. That the film belongs to the same period as Le petit soldat (1960) andVivre sa vie suggests it is
more than just a light-hearted parody of a sex-comedy (Neupert 2007: 228), or an homage to pretty women, to
fun, to Hollywood when it was vivacious (Gilliatt 75). The tendency in Godardian scholarship has been to set
aside Une femme est une femme in relation to Godards other films of this period. When it isincluded, it is generally
along the more narrow lines of Godards experimental use of genre, and even then it is often glossed over. This
may have something to do with its generic unclassifiability, which prompted Truffaut to remark that it was a strange
film that didnt fit into any category (Graham and Vincendeau 208). Godard himself claimed he came on the
subject of Une femme est une femme while thinking about a musical neorealism, a conjunction he invented and
described as an absolute contradiction (Bergala 1998: 224). The overall look of the film too is deceptive: it is
Godards first studio film and his first shot in colour and Franscope. These features pushed critics into resolving the
generic paradox of the film in favour of the musical, despite the fact Une femme est une femme also includes many

stylistic features of Godards other, grittier films. Rather than approaching Une femme est une femme as an
anomaly, generic or otherwise, I have tried to re-situate the film in the wider context of Godards work during this
period. This shift in emphasis from the musical to neorealist aspects of the film is necessary if the more complex
issues the film raises are to be uncovered. As James Monaco as early as 1976 remarked: Une femme est une
femme deserves more serious attention than it has so far received (137).

Works Cited
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Routledge, 1996.
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York:

Shocken Books, 1968.

Alain Bergala (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard par Jean-Luc Godard. Tome 11950-1984. Paris: Cahiers du Cinma, 1998.
, Godard au travail: les annes 60. Paris : Cahiers du Cinma, 2006.
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Italian Neorealism (1942-1951). Film Art:
Bordwell and Thompson. New York: McGraw-Hill,

An Introduction. Ed.

2004. 485-486. Print.

Nicole Brenez and Michael Witt, 1750 Percussion Rifles Work of the Document, Rights and Duties of
Cinema. Rouge. Web. 21 Mar. 2010. <http://www.rouge.com.au/9/percussion.html>
Peter Brunette, The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.
Jean Collet, No Questions Asked: Conversation with Jean-Luc Godard on Bande part. Focus on Godard. Ed.
Royal S. Brown. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1972. 40-45.
Edgardo Cozarinsky, Une Femme est une Femme. The Films of Jean-Luc Godard. Ed. Ian Cameron. London:
Studio Vista, 1969. 26-31.
Jean-Andr Fieschi, The Difficulty of Being Jean-Luc Godard. Trans. Roberta Bernstein. Jean-Luc Godard: A
Critical Anthology. Ed. Toby Mussman. New York: Dutton, 1968. 64-76.
, La Difficult dtre de Jean-Luc Godard. Cahiers du cinma. No.129 November 1962: 14-25.
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David Sterritt. Jackson :

Mississippi UP, 1998. 69-84.

Sidney Gottlieb, Rossellini, Open City, and Neorealism. Roberto Rossellinis Rome Open City. Ed, Gottlieb.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 31-42.

Peter Graham and Ginette Vincendeau, ed. The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks. London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009.
Colin MacCabe, Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70. London: Bloomsbury, 2003.
Alain Masson, An Architectural Promenade. Continuum 5.2 1992. 164-65.
James Monaco, Godard Women and the Outsider. The New Wave. Ed. Monaco. New York: Oxford UP, 1976.
98-125.
Simona Monticelli, Italian post-war cinema and Neo-realism. The Oxford Guide to
and Pamela Church Gibson. Oxford: Oxford UP,

Film Studies. Ed. John Hill

1998. 455-460.

Richard Neupert, A History of the French New Wave Cinema. Madison: Wisconsin UP, 2007.
Jacques Rancire, Film Fables. Trans. Emiliano Battista. Oxford: Berg, 2006.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, When Is A Musical Not A Musical? Chicago Reader July 25, 2003.
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Noa Steimatsky, Italian Locations: Reinhabiting the Past in Postwar Cinema. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 2008.
David Sterritt, Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews. Jackson: Mississippi UP, 1998.
Alistair Whyte, Introduction. Godard: Three Film Scripts. By Jean-Luc Godard. Trans. Jan Dawson, Susan Bennett
and Marianne Alexander. London: Lorrimer, 1975. 7-15.
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York: Dutton, 1966. 216-228.

[1] Stanley Donens On the Town may be considered a precursor to musical neorealism, while Jacques
Demys Les Parapluies des Cherbourg and Lars Von Triers Dancer in the Dark make later use of the genre.
[2] See, for example, Jonathan Rosenbaums review of the film When Is a Musical Not a Musical?

About the Author

Felicity Chaplin

Felicity Chaplin is a PhD candidate at Monash University in French and Film and Television studies. Her thesis is
entitled La Parisienne in cinema. Her research interests include: classic Hollywood and French cinema; star
studies; fashion in film; and the history, art, literature and culture of nineteenth century Paris. Her translation of
Nicole Brenez recently appeared in Lola.
Screening the Past publications