1. Introduction
French New Wave or La Nouvelle Vague is widely accepted as one of the most influential movements in the cinema of the 1960s. There emerged lots of excellent filmmakers during this movement and Jean-Luc Godard is certainly one of the most prominent pioneers. This paper will take Godard’s fourth film, Band of Outsiders, as access to Godard’s works from his early period of the French New Wave, specifically analyzing the juxtaposition of fantasy and reality in this film.
This paper will first briefly introduce Godard’s movies of French New Wave and Band of Outsiders. Then, it will discuss the relationship between fantasy and reality from aspects of cinephilia, self-consciousness, and portrayals of Paris. Next, there will be a comparison between Band of Outsiders and Fallen Angels by Wong Kar-Wai, bringing out their connections based on the above discussion. Finally, it can conclude that how fantasy and reality are related with each other in the New Wave movies.
2. Background of Band of Outsiders
Jean Luc-Godard is one of the most celebrated filmmakers during the New Wave period. His movies made in the 1960s, like Breathless (1960), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964), are generally regarded as typical representatives of the French New Wave. These movies, like most of the New Wave works, feature cheap productions with on-location shooting, handheld cameras as well as natural light, references to film history, post-synchronization, numbers of jump cuts, dialogues and characters’ behaviors based on improvisation, and metacinematic self-awareness.
Band of Outsiders, released in 1964, is a crime comedy loosely adapted from an American pulp fiction, Fool’s Gold, by Delores Hitchens. This movie, set in the backdrop of Paris, is about three young people with romantic illusions: one girl named Odile who is seeking love and acceptance, and two guys named Franz and Arthur who dream to be gangsters depicted in the American B-movies and pulp fictions. Odile meets Franz and Arthur in an English language course and both of them show affection for her. Odile told the guys that her aunt Madame Victoria and Mr. Stolz hide a large pile of money in the house in suburban Paris where she lives with them. The guys plan to steal the money and ask Odile to aid them. The movie documents what the trifecta does over the course of three days before the robbery. They dance at a café, runs through the Louvre, wanders in Paris at night. At the end when the robbery is committed, everything is not going as smoothly as expected that they fail to get that immeasurable sum of money, Arthur dies, and Odile and Franz elope to Southern America. Apart from the depiction of their crime, this movie also involves elements regarding love and romance, sarcasm and surrealism, as well as noir humor.
3. Cinephilia and Disenchantment
Cinephilia refers to the intense love of movies, and a person with a devotion to movies is called a cinephile. As Godard claimed in 1964 when Band of Outsider was released, his earlier films “were purely films by cinephiles” (Chin, 2001). The intensity of cinephilia is a common feature generally shared by the movies of French New Wave and particularly Godard’s works. There is also a use of disenchantment which makes the audience notice the dark side of cinephilia (Elsaesser, 2005). This section will analyze the cinephilia and disenchantment in Band of Outsiders to dig into the relationship between fantasy and reality in this film.
Firstly, the love of movies is specified in Godard’s works by embodying a nostalgia for classic European and Hollywood cult cinemas, especially American B-movies. Godard rationalizes this nostalgia in Band of Outsiders when the English teacher claims “Classic = Modern” and Odile quotes words of T.S.Eliot that “Everything that is new is thereby automatically traditional.” In Band of Outsiders, the influence of the famous Fantômas or Les Vampires series made by French director Louis Feuillade during 1913–1916 can be seized through the depiction of nocturnal suburban and urban spaces in this movie (Söderbergh Widding, 2017). Meanwhile, Band of Outsiders is an homage to classic Hollywood grade-B gangster movies of Godard’s youth, which “motivated him in the first place” (Monaco, 1976). Some scenes in Band of Outsiders were strongly reminiscent of those kinds of movies. For example, the three protagonists go to a café where they discuss the details of their robbery, which directly recalls American gangster films “in which crimes are plotted in coffee shops or diners” (Becker & Williams, 2008). The scene when Arthur pours liquor into Odile’s glass with Coke is also a reference to one American film (Becker & Williams, 2008). The nostalgia is also manifested by Arthur’ and Franz’s worship for American gangster culture. They are addicted to imitating the scenes in gangster movies that Franz pretends to shoot Arthur and Arthur pretends to be shot down to the ground and struggles painfully. In particular, Arthur shows an obsession with guns in several scenes.
Figure 1. The Imitation
Figure 2 & 3. Arthur’s Obsession with Guns
Secondly, the cinephilia is justified in Band of Outsiders by the portrayals of the protagonists who try to live out fantasies derived from their favorite movies or books. All the three main characters are being tired of their mundane lives. As the movie title suggests, they are “outsiders” who are marginalized and alienated by the dramatically expanding capitalist society. Odile is controlled by her aunt strictly: she goes to the English class in which she has no interest since her aunt finds it useful; she is asked to do the job as a nurse that she hates; her aunt also forbids her from doing things that she is longing for, like dancing and watching films. Franz seems to fail to find a job as mentioned at the beginning of the movie because the factory stops recruiting new employees considering the deteriorating business environment. Likewise, Arthur is also experiencing some troubles with his relatives due to money issues. Therefore, they take shelter in fantasies originated from movies and books to rebel against or escape from the frustrating realities. Arthur and Franz desire to realize their dreams of being gangsters by committing a robbery to Madame Victoria. They perceive themselves as heroes portrayed in American movies or pulp novels, and also justify their crime by stipulating that the money comes from illegal corruption. They plot their robbery and getaway incorporating details from American films and pulp novels. For example, Arthur says that they have to wait until the night as learned from the B-movies. Furthermore, Franz plans to go to the hometown of his admired American novelist, Jack London, and dreams to drive his Ferrari in Indiana, as depicted in Jack London’s novels, after they robbed Madame Victoria successfully.
As Elsaesser stated (2005), disenchantment is to create a role within cinephilia, like Arthur and Franz, and then exhibit the cinephile’s sense of “displacement and deferral”. Godard breaks the trio’s illusions of living in fantasies from movies ruthlessly and highlights the dissonance between fantasy and reality. The protagonists attempt to act out the robbery taking place in movies, while apparently, they underestimate the difficulties of committing a real-life crime and think it as simple as a game among children according to what Franz told Odile. They does not realize that the amusing fantasies derived from movies cannot really fit the reality and sustain their lives. Band of Outsiders moves from the fantasy to the reality in the end when Arthur is involved into a shootout with his uncle and finally shot by real bullets. Unlike the heroes in gangster movies who always take everything under control and survive with the help of partners, Arthur is easily killed by a real gun, while his “loyal friends” just stand by the shootout. The failure of the idealized robbery and the death of Arthur imply that Godard intended to make this movie as an elegy to those who “use film and popular literature as a form of day-dream-indulgence, becoming uncritically lost in the easy solutions and evasions of melodrama so that their awareness of reality is blunted" as commented by Robin Wood (Chin, 2001).
Figure 3. Shootout and Stand By
In addition, the dissonance between dreamlike wonderland in which the protagonists place themselves and the real world in which they actually live can be observed through the public indifference or even aversion towards them. For example, when the trio indulges in their adventures, such as running through the Louvre, dancing at the café, the audience can feel that they are isolated by the crowd. This isolation forms a strongly sarcastic contrast with their great pleasure. These scenes also emphasize that the movie-derived fantasies cannot fit in real life.
4. Cinematic Self-reflexivity
Cinematic self-reflexivity, or breaking the fourth wall, is one significant shared characteristics of New Wave movies, which makes the audience intently aware that they are watching a film. This quality of self-consciousness, stressing the artifice of the film, is intended to justify the inclusion of unrealistic elements and absurd plots in the movie. This section will mainly introduce the devices of the self-reflexivity used in Band of Outsiders.
1）Interaction Between Characters and Audience
In Band of Outsiders, characters would suddenly face to the camera and seem to talk or interact to the audience. For example, in the scene when Odile and Arthur smoke, Franz leaves and waves to the camera. Moreover, when Arthur proposes to go to a café to discuss the timing of their robbery, Odile turns face to the camera and asks “Why?”. In addition, when Odile and Arthur take the underground back to Arthur’s home, Odile looks directly into the camera and sings a song.
Figure 5. Franz Waves to the Camera
Figure 6. Odile Asks “Pourquoi” to the Camera
Figure 7. Odile Sings to the Camera
2）Commentary Narration
On the soundtrack of Band of Outsiders, Godard includes a narrator voicing himself, explaining the plot, describing the environment and atmosphere as well as commenting on the characters’ behaviors and innermost thoughts. Throughout the film, Godard's narration signals the audience to recognize the artificiality of this film and draws them back from the fantasies that he creates.
For example, after the first eight minutes, the aside says that “let’s pick up some words to give a brief summary of the story to those LATECOMERS”, which reminds the audience of the reality that they are watching a film. Moreover, in the famous dancing sequences, the background music is suspended suddenly, and the narrator starts saying: “Now it is time for a digression in which to describe our heroes’ feelings”, which drag the audience out of the romantic and dreamlike atmosphere. Additionally, at the ending sequence when Odile and Franz flee for South America, the narrator concludes that “My story ends here, like in a pulp novel, at that superb moment when nothing weakens, nothing wears away, nothing wanes. An upcoming film will reveal, in CinemaScope and Technicolor, the tropical adventures of Odile and Franz.” The narrator claims that this is a happy ending that girl and boy fall in love with each other and stay together happily, like a classic ending of Hollywood love movies. Though there would never be such a sequel, the promise of “an upcoming film” identifies the film as a film to the audience once again.
5. Portrayals of Urban Space
As Robin Wood noted, “the tension between the stylized and the naturalistic, the formal and the documentary” is a conspicuous feature shared by different New Wave directors including Godard, Truffaut, Resnais, Demy, and Rozier (Chin, 2001). This feature is revealed by their portrayals of the urban spaces, especially Paris. On the one hand, the filmmakers go out of studios to capture the street views of Paris in reality, with real café, shops and advertisements, and real everyday life of Parisians (Söderbergh Widding, 2017). However, on the other hand, the directors include unrealistic episodes when exhibiting the environment of Paris in their movies.
In Band of Outsiders, the scenes of Paris are not emulated in a studio but captured on location by handheld cameras with natural light, which provides the naturalistic quality to this movie. However, despite the on-location shooting, the street views seem to carry along a nostalgia for past cinemas (Söderbergh Widding, 2017), like the references to Feuillade’s series as mentioned before. Meanwhile, Godard adds some bizarre elements to endow the Paris, in which the protagonists live, with a fictional quality to distinguish it from the Paris in our real world.
For instance, when Odile runs to meet Franz and Arthur, she passes through a neighbor's yard where there is a tiger seemingly keeping as a pet but not in a cage or with chains. Petting a tiger seems kind of preposterous in a Parisian suburb, but it reminds me of the famous paintings of jungles and wild animals by the French painter Henri Rousseau. Though he never left France, Henri is best known for his paintings depict jungle scenes which he saw in his dreams inspired by illustrations in children’s books and stories of the soldiers who had survived the French expedition to Latin America. With the reference to Henri’s paintings, this appearance of the tiger can be seen as a figurative expression of Odile’s attraction to the wild considering her strictly restricted life routine. The tiger is also claimed to be a “symbolic of her infatuation with the tough guy Arthur” (Chin, 2001). Moreover, when Franz and Arthur are waiting for Odile by the river, Arthur is holding a piece of newspaper and reading news about Eastern Africa and Peking, both of which are quite far away from Paris. News usually acts as a medium for conveying facts in real life, while the news in the film sounds surreal and absurd which can only take place in the fairy tales. Those fantastic exotic news may not only imply that the ridiculousness of the world where the protagonists live but also be served as a metaphor for the seduction from distant lands to them. The stylized quality of Paris attached by Godard is based on the artificiality of films, which is coherent with cinematic self-awareness in New Wave movies.
Figure 8. Tiger in Neighbor’s Yard
Figure 9. Tiger by Henri Rousseau
6. Connection with Fallen Angels
Wong Kar-Wai, one of the most recognizable Hong Kong directors, has admitted that his movies have been influenced by the French New Wave and particularly Godard to a large extent. There are lots of similarities between Wong’s and Godard’s movies in disparate aspects, including the techniques and portrayals of characters. Wong includes references to Band of Outsiders in many of his films, such as the tale of footless bird in The Days of Being Wild and the escape to South America in Happy Together. This section will compare Band of Outsiders with Fallen Angels, one of Wong’s stylistically accomplished movies, and examine their connections based on my above analysis.
Firstly, the main characters in Fallen Angels can be viewed as melancholy “outsiders” seeking acceptance and relationship like Odile, Arthur and Franz. They are alienated by the mainstream or abandoned by a relationship, engulfed by loneliness and isolation.
Secondly, like Band of Outsiders, a homage to American grade-B crime movies can be perceived in Fallen Angels as well through Leon Lai’s hitman, Michelle Reis’s femme fatale, and those scenes of shootouts and killings. However, the shootouts depicted in Fallen Angels seems kind of preposterous, which can only happen in a film or people’s fantasies. When experiencing the shootouts, Leon always looks stunning, without any masks covering his attractive face, and invincible, without any panic or anxiety. It seems to reproduce the impressive and heroic images in the gangster movies. Nevertheless, the life behind this attractive image of a hitman is isolated and tedious. He lives alone, without friends, families or lovers. Leon becomes tired of his life of being a hitman and finally he is killed in his last task like the ending of Band of Outsiders when Arthur dies of an unexpected shootout. This is a similar use of disenchantment that Wong breaks the illusions of those gangster wannabes by exposing that fantasies cannot sustain a real life.
In terms of the techniques, Wong uses asides as a device of self-consciousness to speak the characters’ innermost thoughts out, which sounds that the characters are talking to the audience directly, rationalizing their wired behaviors and stressing the artifice of this film. In addition, “the tension between the stylized and the naturalistic” also exists in the portrayals of Hong Kong in Fallen Angels. Fallen Angels takes place entirely at night in Hong Kong and those nocturnal street views are shot on location. However, different from the realism movies or documentaries, the director depicts Hong Kong at night as an enchanting and dreamlike wonderland. Shooting in antiquated locations and playing old operas and movies on the soundtrack endow Hong Kong with a nostalgic fascination with the past. Meanwhile, the shaking shots caused by handheld cameras, use of ultra-wide-angle lens and Neon light attach an unrealistic quality to the city.
7. Conclusion
The relationship between fantasy and reality is an important theme in the movies of French New Wave. In Band of Outsiders, Godard places the audience in a dreamlike wonderland with romantic fantasies by a nostalgia for past cinemas and fictional portrayals of the city, but then draws them back to the reality by breaking the fantasies and devices of self-reflexivity. These features are also shared by Fallen Angels. New Wave movies constantly remind the viewers to be aware of a film as an artificial work, distinguishing the fantastic world in the movie from the real world where we live as well as revealing that movie-derived fantasies can never replace the reality.
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Bibliography:
Becker, S. & Williams, B. (2008). A Madison for Outcasts: Dance and Critical Displacements in Jean-Luc Godard’s Band of Outsiders. Cinémas, 18(2-3), 215–235. https://doi-org.eproxy.lib.hku.hk/10.7202/018559ar
Chin, D. (2001). " The Film That We Wanted to Live": Re-Releasing Modernist Movies. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 23(3), 1-12.
Elsaesser, T. (2005). Cinephilia or the Uses of Disenchantment. Cinephilia: Movies, love and memory, 27-43.
Monaco, J. The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, New York, Oxford University Press, 1976.
Söderbergh Widding, A. (2017). Fashion Apart: Godard and Fageol in 1960s Paris.
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