Eve saying yes
or no is s sort of sequel to the scene in Weekend where Roland and
Corrine meet Emily Bronte and Tom Thumb in a forest. The odious protagonists
are baffled by the two fantasy characters, and end up setting Emily on fire as
she recites a poem.
They are
entirely caught-up in their own materialist fantasies and this type of nature
romance escapes them utterly.
Somewhat
similarly, the “interviewer” of Eve is utterly indifferent to the indifference
of nature through which Eve wanders as he presents her with posers on the
capitalist way of life.
In both films, it
seems like two incompatible worlds appear alongside eachother. The indifference
and romance of nature is set alongside capitalist mores, or against political
certainties that are just as fanciful, in reality.
Then, the
bookstore scene in One Plus One (prev) sets fascist ideology against
pulp smut. This echoes the smutty opening to Weekend which sets up
almost a monstrous pornographic road movie, seemingly centred on the anal
fixation on capitalist-goods. In one scene, a guy called Balsamo hijacks the
pair and reveals himself as the result of God sodomising Alexander Dumas. Even
he, though, is repelled by their bourgeois fantasies, and turns their car into
a flock of sheep.
Having seen One
Plus One – plus the Godard interview included – I can see that Godard is
very much the crude satirist almost in the mode of Rabelais (scatology and
extended risqué jokes). Scenes like Eve are his way of putting straight-laced
rationality against melodic form. “An
orgasm is the only moment life cannot be cheated?” “Yes”.
In a way, One Plus One is a sequel
to Weekend with
virtually the same pornographic fixation. The black rebel amongst the hulks of
cars with the three captured white women rhapsodises over the fascination of
their white flesh to his ancestral black race.
Again, in the bookstore scene, the very straight-line racism of the
intoned fascist text is counterpointed by the camera panning over ridiculous
pulp titles of women whipping men and adventures in lingerie, with the odd Green
Lantern. The ridiculousness of the body-fixations seems in direct opposition to
the racial certainties being read out.
“When sex is problematical, in walks the
totalitarian?” Eve is asked. “Yes” she says. “And
the one thing you have learnt.. is not to make love when you don’t really feel
like it?” “Yes”. There is the pulp voiceover of a seemingly sci-fi
romance, which references a sordid fondling of fur. It could also be noted that
the two girlish black interviewers of the car-hulk rebel are very appealing in
a streetwise black fashion, loose and guileless.
It seems, then, that Godard is counterpointing the serious political
content of his 60s films with louche body-oriented material which is really
pretty appealing, whether black, white or pulp sci-fi.
As was said previously in P96
your body-responses are always real. At the beginning ofWeekend, where the
girl is describing an orgy, the sordid fixation on anal erotica at least
produces real responses in the participants. It seems that sex in Godard’s 60s
films, whether sordid or simply pretty, takes on something real and that
counteracts a fixation on words.
What you could say is that the reality if sex underlies capitalism, and
that the more technologically vacuous the more the sex itself becomes vacuous,
as in the scene at the start of Weekend.
Sex is a good metaphor as it can either be good or bad, bodywise. The
body can therefore act as a metaphor for the brain and, in the case of physical
boredom, the sexual aspect becomes totally technological. IE a robot (prev.)
Don’t forget these films are about 50 years old, as where we are today
is much more advanced towards a state of physical boredom – a numerical world
of algorithmic heads. Even looking at the Rolling Stones’ studio one soaks up
the atmosphere of basically people just sitting around and casually coming-up
with a groove. It can be pretty hard work with take after take, but there is
also the fact that from out of nothing comes something.
I was reading-up on the Stones, and they started out as Blues and
African-based, later, with Brian Jones departure becoming a Chuck Berry style
band. You can see this in the studio, where Jones concertedly plays the bongos.
Music, like sex, is a very direct hit and is often accentuated by
atmosphere. Atmosphere often means just the space to be able to feel something
without conscious thought or the presence of words. Eve is in the garden is
atmosphere, and indifferent to human words.
50 years on from the films one can see the advanced technology induces
physical boredom and hence the numerical/sexual fixations that are more or less
vacuous. In other words, the counterpart to a society of the head (word) is
the vacuity of sex.
In traditional rural societies, again as previously noted, the supple
strength, particularly of the female spine, is accentuated by bunched clothing
(see Eve). Women is the fields are a source of strength to the well-bred human
race (see also the rhythmic sexpression of Fulling Hyborian Bridge 60)
Millet (Ruth HB92)
Wild Horses
Millet (Ruth HB92)
The body in its natural state of activity is sexually expressive by its
nature. The sexual aspect of rural societies is not detached from the work
aspect, the economy.
What this really means is that the body is physically very expressive,
supple and strong, and so very appealing. It’s almost the guileless appeal on associated
with African tribes before the expansion of Western civilization.
Dahomey Amazons of South Sahara
Guilelessness is an aspect of the body-in-action, the natural state of
human affairs. Ancient Greek culture was tied-up with the naked athletic
pursuit; Minoan bull-dancing was another ancient European pastime.
Wild Horses
In One Plus One, there’s an intermittent voiceover that plays when
the Stones are rehearsing in the studio and one hears bits of carnal pulp
sci-fi. Meanwhile in the studio are seen the acts of the musicians, some of
which are highly sensual.
Wyman plays bongos and writhes his torso; Jagger tweaks his leg
repetitively and forcefully; the sleek grace of Richard’s limbs. In other
words, the work the Stones are doing much more resembles old-time field-labour
that inevitably has a sexually expressive aspect.
The atmosphere of the studio is appealing and joyful if stressful. By
contrast, body movements nowadays are often bored and listless. The pulp
proximity in Godard’s film adds spice and a type of gay abandon that counteract
the sexless intonations of propaganda.
If you watch the bookstore scene, the intoning guy hands out a blank
sheet to each punter as they give a fascist salute. This is very reminiscent of
Carpenter’s They Live! Which I’ve
also remarked on previously. Words in the modern scene ARE propaganda simply
because they ARE words.