Godard's In Praise of Love

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Jean-Luc Godard's 2001 movie In Praise of Love is a
meditation on what it means to have lived or, more
exactly, the meaningless of having lived.

We are told that life consists of youth, the regrets 
of old age and nothing in between. 

As Godard famously said, every movie has a beginning, 
a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order. 
In the case of this movie time slowly moves backward in
2 year increments or decrements announced by title cards.

A not young not old man has a project, either to do a 
novel a play or a film, he's not sure. At the end of
the movie the project is abandonned; the film ends 
with the statement 3 times repeated that there is no
word, no word, no word.

life today in France is aesthetically ugly. this is 
demonstrated by fleeting views of beautiful old 
buildings and fountains followed by long scenes
where actors quote gnomic one-liners from literature
while standing with their backs to us in front of 
grafitti covered walls or abandonned industrial sites.

today's life as a Frenchman" is defined by opposition
with "America". France has a history, "America" has
no history. French is mellifluous, an American speaking
English has an ugly accent. Americans don't even have
a name. This odd proposition is demonstrated by the 
existence of the united states of Brazil, Mexico and 
Canada whose citizens are variously Brazilians, 
Mexicans and Canadians whereas the citizens of the 
United States have no name at all. 

But according to the remarks desultorily uttered in
the film, French history is a dead letter like an
old person remembering his youth and French life 
today is a nullity. The characters attempt to 
construct for themselves a place to stand and a 
metric to evaluate events in the flux of the ugly 
everyday by quoting maxims from French literature 
like "Contentment is the godmother of the debris 
of time." The maxims which combine paradox (in the 
French manner) with utter banality jibe with nothing 
in the real world so they vanish from one's mind 
instantly after the saying of them. Of course this 
is Godard's intention: elsewhere in the movie the 
protagonist walks along a suburban railroad line 
where noisy trains pass while he reads from a book 
with blank pages.

Finally (actually earlier according to the title
cards) the movie journeys to Brittany where a 
representative of Spielberg and Associates is
concluding a legal agreement with an aged survivor
of the anti-Nazi Resistance during WW II for the
purchase of his history (a la Schwindler's List).
As it turns out, the man had turned his girlfriend
in to the Gestapo on the orders of the British
to conceal his resistance activities. She survives
the Ravensbruck concentration camp returns and 
marries him. The two of them live on and on and 
on, he a handsome old man, she a quite ugly old
woman, an emphysema sufferer wreathed in cigarette 
smoke breathing in labored gasps.

Makes you think, dont it? ca donne furieusement
a penser.

Later on, at the beginning of the movie, a young
woman is auditioned for a part in the project,
a young man declares his enduring love for her 
drawing the conclusion that it is not necessary
to see her again. The actress is asked if she
understands the man's remarks. Yes she responds. 
She is further asked if they make any sense. No
she responds.

Thus the title of the movie In Praise of Love
may be correctly deconstructed: there is no 
love and there is therefore no praise.

Joe Bob Briggs says check it out!