An essay for university from a module on road journeys
Jean-Luc Godard’s
Pierrot le Fou (1965, France) depicts the character Marianne Renoir as a
free-spirited, strong female character. And indeed, as she takes to the road Marianne
begins to defy conventional gender roles, and takes on more of a masculine
role, using cars as a means of resistance. We can explore the ways in which
Godard uses the syntax of the film in order to portray Marianne as an
unconventional female character, and whether cars are always needed to resist
conventions of gender roles.
Cars
play a major role in the film, even before the road is introduced. Near the
beginning of the narrative we enter a party scene, in which a male guest talks
about an Alpha Romeo. He parodies an advertisement for the car, pointing out
qualities such as the ‘luxurious interior’ and the ‘great traction’. He says this
whilst looking at two women either side of him, in what seems to be a display
of authority through the paradigm of the powerful car; he appears to suggest
that a powerful car equals a powerful man. This idea is exemplified through the
mise-en-scène, particularly through the composition of the man standing central
in the shot, whilst he is framed by two women either side of him. The fact that
he is central and standing compared
to the women who sit exerts his dominance. Thus, it appears that power and
automobiles correlate with one another before the road is introduced.
Gender conventions are
established within the same scene before we are introduced to Marianne, so
these conventions act as a template, to which we can compare Marianne’s
resistance to the female role. These conventions are established when the women
the man talks to about the car are utterly disinterested and begin talking of
beauty products. Already we are injected with the notion that powerful and
dangerous products such as cars relate to men, whereas feminine products based
around beauty relate to women, establishing the normative gender roles. Therefore,
the typical male identity is represented as strong, whereas the conventional
female identity is represented as vulnerable and appearance-based.
We first acknowledge Marianne’s
resistance to the strictures of femininity when we view her through a car
windscreen. Viewing Marianne and Ferdinand through a windscreen seems to mimic
the act of watching a film itself, and thus brings our attention to the fact
that we are watching a fictional event through the use of reflexivity and
meta-cinema. Godard uses this throughout and may be commenting on the way
female characters can easily break the boundaries of feminine conventions in
fictional narratives, whereas in reality this may not be the case.
When
we initially witness the car, each street light that passes over the windscreen
alternates from blue to red; colours we come into contact with throughout the
film. Red and blue are present in both national flags, and the use of these
colours is possibly Godard’s way of blending together American and French
culture. Godard was fascinated with American culture and we can see this in the film, which almost certainly derived from the script
for Bonnie and Clyde (USA, 1967),
which at one point was offered to Godard.
Indeed, there are obvious connections between female characters Bonnie and
Marianne, both of whom break the boundaries of conventional female roles through
the genre of the road narrative.
In the film we certainly see
this Americanisation of the French new wave, balancing the American genre of the
road journey with the aesthetics of French cinema. When Ferdinand searches for
Marianne he asks a bystander if she’s seen a woman looking like a Hollywood
star, which links to the idea that Godard creates characters who envision
themselves as actors in American films. Portraying Marianne as a Hollywood star
places her within the frame of a conventional female, because we imagine
Hollywood stars to conform to gender conventions, not able to resist the
strictures of femininity as Smith suggests.
When
we first witness Marianne in the car Ferdinand says: ‘Don’t you like American
cars?’ to which she replies: ‘Sure’. However, before doing so we receive a
close up shot whereby she looks directly into the camera lens, and thus
acknowledges the presence of the audience. By acknowledging our presence as
America is mentioned, perhaps Godard is commenting on the use of the male gaze
in Hollywood cinema. Laura Mulvey indicates a possible way out of the male gaze
through alternative representations informed by feminism and avant-garde cinema.
It is possible to view new wave cinema, particularly Peirrot le Fou, as avant-garde due to the experimental aesthetics
in the film. When Marianne looks into the lens she becomes conscious of the
fact that as a female in cinema, she is viewed through a male lens and is
therefore breaking the boundaries of gender conventions through the
acknowledgement that she is placed there for male gratification, and in looking
directly at us she seems to defy the male gaze. Marianne breaks the fourth wall
throughout the film. This first instance in which she does so she is inside the
car, therefore we may propose that being on the road enables her to resist how
women are viewed in cinema.
Marianne’s power over Ferdinand seems
to shift whether she is inside or outside the car. Marianne climbs into the
driver’s seat of a car which is lifted for an oil change. The car, and therefore
Marianne are physically much higher than Ferdinand, and Godard appears to
utilise the shot composition to assert Marianne’s power over Ferdinand through
spatial awareness. However, perhaps the film implies that women cannot always dominate
men, as when Marianne moves to the passenger seat, the car simultaneously moves
down to ground level, and therefore the same level as Ferdinand, indicating the
hierarchy of gender is now balanced.
The film’s syntax shows how Marianne defies the strictures of
gender when inside the car, and submits to gender conventions when outside the
car. After burning a car they use, Marianne is depicted as infantile and the
power shifts onto Ferdinand. Ferdinand leads Marianne through water, and compositionally
she is always behind him. Here Godard utilises props, such as a child’s soft
toy which Marianne holds, indicating her vulnerability and innocence; traits
that denote ‘normative’ femininity, and show women as the weaker sex. Ferdinand
lifts Marianne down a hill, and we view them centrally through the shot, framed
by nature. Perhaps Godard is suggesting that men are naturally more dominant
than females, who are more infantile and need protecting, with the characters
displaying their ‘natural’ roles, with the natural setting reflecting their intrinsic
gender performances.
On the contrary, Marianne does indeed resist conventional
genre roles in natural environments, without a car. The film’s syntagmatic
connotation places Marianne in an evolutionary position of the hunter-gather,
as we witness a long shot of her catching a fish with a spear she has created.
It then cuts to a shot of Ferdinand firing an arrow, yet he does not catch
anything, followed by a short cut of Marianne with yet another fish. Thus,
framing Ferdinand’s failure with Marianne’s success allows the female to dominate
the male as we compare shots. Although she is not in a vehicle at this point,
she is still technically ‘on the road’. This particular scene takes place on the
beach; another natural setting. Therefore, Godard may in fact be suggesting
that gender conventions are actually socially constructed, and so in a natural
setting away from society, male and female ‘conventional’ roles become blurred,
with females no longer obliged to perform traditional gender roles.
Towards the films denouement
Marianne is depicted as a powerful female. A point of view shot from Marianne’s
perspective is used as we see the shot through the sniper scope. We do not
often see women kill men in films, and the act of physically killing a man is
perhaps the ultimate resistance to the strictures of the female role,
eradicating the opposite sex so that she has total control. Marianne shoots two
men while they are in a car, therefore the car acts as a symbol of female
empowerment, yet becomes a symbol of disempowerment for men. A close up of the
men is shown through the sniper lens, whilst the rest of the mise-en-scène is
completely black, centering our attention onto their panicked faces. In doing
so, they are displayed as highly vulnerable; a trait often aligned with
normative femininity. The camera is static while we see Marianne driving away,
emphasising her freedom; contrasting with the immobility of the dead men and
car, exemplifying their powerlessness as opposed to her power.
Before
we are introduced to the road, the film establishes normative gender
conventions. However, when Marianne enters an automobile and thus enters the
road, she begins to defy them. Marianne resists conventions
when she is able to travel away from society in which these conventions are
created, and it is the car which enables her to do so, becoming the ultimate, (but
not always essential) symbol of female power. Thus, I agree with Smith’s
statement, because Marianne resists the strictures of her female role through
the road. However, Marianne is killed, ending the film with death, as many road
narratives do. She is shot off the road away from liberation, and so by ending
the film with her death, this may be suggesting that in reality women cannot
flourish whilst resisting conventional gender roles, without being quite
literally shot down.
