S3E11.5: Vivre sa vie

I think part of Nana’s whole thing about wanting language to be precise, comes from watching movies and seeing the things she feels, articulated *better* than she feels able to express by herself. As an autistic woman who’s recently developed a special interest in romance novels, I can relate to the frustration of having to vaguely muddle through things socially, bc neither you nor the other person has bothered to organize your messy feelings into a form intelligible to others- the way films and books are made deliberately intelligible to the reader. However, it’s important to note that only part of that is a communication issue- the other half is that real people often don’t HAVE easily intelligible or resolvable feelings, the way fictional characters would.

Something that I'm getting hung up on is that even though Godard is making a film with a deeply sympathetic portrayal of women and women's suffering at the hands of men in a patriarchal society, by the very nature of being a male director making a film about women he himself is participating in this exploitation and harm being done to women. When the conversation got to the topic of the Poe poem and the painter becoming so enamored with the portrayal of his wife at the expense of her neglect and how this is Godard jerking himself off about how he's doing the same thing, I'm just thinking "dude, you already know that you are doing something harmful and are sabotaging your marriage by obsessing over the image of your wife rather than your wife herself as a person, just stop", and I think that demonstrates a lot of how this film misses the mark. Godard as a filmmaker is more interested in the image and the idea of women and their suffering than he is the actual women and suffering. He is disconnected from the reality of the situation, and as an artist participates in the control and exploitation of women, even if they are fictional. Something that I've often thought about is that an author is entirely responsible for the suffering they put their characters through, and that if it wasn't for them wanting to tell an interesting story or explore these ideas which would lead to the characters suffering, then they wouldn't suffer. So essentially, Godard has taken the place of the patriarchal system, reproducing it in film form as the director, and subjecting Nana to this. Even if the film is sympathetic to Nana, Godard is ultimately at fault for her misery, and my extension us the audience. He could have given her a happy ending, but he thought it more fitting that the woman died as a victim and a failure to communicate his male ideas. I feel like a woman director would have let her live.

The way Nana essentially tries to cope with her current situation of being a sex worker by claiming that it was a choice of her own free will is ironically denying herself her own agency and self determination. He makes herself a slave to the whims of fate and her own passivity. The choices of free will that she makes are themselves not full choices of a free person, but one of someone in a desperate situation, and also one which she allows herself to fall further into due to her own passivity. She does not allow herself the freedom of choice or the ability to choose her own fate because she does not truly take responsibility for her ability to choose.

Christ, Abi gets me with some of her quotes. Today's: "If the universe is trying to kill you then it's an act of self-defense to destroy the universe."

I desperately want this podcast to do "Triumph of the Will", just to see it subjected to the SCUM rating

I’m a little late to comment here but what does Abbi say around 34:12 “all that shit that wasn’t as good as *what?*”

Ah, Godard... the ur-example of why critics should on no account be allowed to make movies.

Have you considered watching ’The Villainess’? An absolute banger of an action film with women assassins and EXCELLENT cinematography and fight scenes, Shin Hakyun really brings his A game

I don’t know if this is an idea from philosophy or an Abi original, but when she said “if the universe is trying to kill you then it’s an act of self defense to destroy the universe” I screamed. I was driving home from work and this line fucking stun locked me.

Today I learned about the FemDom Effect. German is a beautiful language.

Any chance of doing "Day of the Jackal"?

Martyrdom just isn’t groovy, baby.

I really appreciate how Alice and Abigail showed alternate reactions to the movie's showing of passivity, that it can feel nice to be seen for being passive and it's okay, but also infuriating for some because of that same acceptance of passivity. I've never encountered such questions, or at least with the lens y'all used, so having representation that no matter the answer, that it's just important you eventually come to answer, really helps. Also, as for media that trans'd me, I'd say it was Doki Doki Literature Club, so there's that.

Ngl Revolutionary Girl Utena was about the idealization of passivity as a form of death/undeath in a way that makes me go "she's just like me for real" without absolutely fucking itself up with hatred of sexwork. Godard can go do maoist self time out about it. Great episode!

As someone who repeatedly curses my own passivity but struggles to do anything to remedy it, I appreciate this little shot in arse. You're good people.

Listening to this, hearing Alice breathlessly fawn over all the Frenchness of practically every shot while Abbi gets decreasingly subtle with her fury at Goddard, was kind of like listening to your parents in the runnup to a shouting match that ends with a lamp getting shattered against a wall. But crucially, Abbi is fully in the right here: Interesting cinematography in service of demonizing sex workers is still morally bankrupt. There are other trans allegories Alice!

Devon, I understand that this means that the -next- next bonus episode after Abi's will be YOUR pick. I am here petitioning you to please please make your cohosts watch The Fall. And before you make your decision to not heed me bc literally why would you, consider: my birthday is coming up

This may sound weird but I enjoy it when theirs disagreement because you all make excellent points about you’re interpretation of something and why you may like it or not. As always another excellent episode.

no!! my verfremdungeffekt!!!!

ah yes another episode that 5 minutes in i have to make a judgement call, stop listening, and add another movie to my growing list of movies that i will watch some day when i have my shit together and can focus

I did clock the pauses but thought you were just all thinking very intently!

Well, this works out bc I was already thinking of listening to this one again anyway. I already heard the original release, so when I saw it again in my feed unlistened to, it felt like a sign.

Thank you so much for your concern :p

Nooo my inadvertent meta-verfremdungeffekt podcast episode has been de-verfremdungeffekt-ified 😭

RESTORE THE SNYDER CUT