French Film Blog 3

http://www.screeningthepast.com/2013/06/a-musical-neorealism-jean-luc-godard%E2%80%99sune-femme-est-une-femme/


Diegetic and non-diegetic sounds are useful tools for a filmmaker to tell a story. Both have been an integral part of film making since the end of the silent film era. And as film and film-techniques, there seemed to have evolved a basic foundation of rules on how to employ both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. Enter A Woman is a Woman by Jean-Luc Godard. This film takes the playbook on diegetic and non-diegetic sound and throws it out the window. The film’s first scene quickly sets the tone by having the sound cut in and out, so much so that it appears that the film’s sound isn’t working. As the main character, Angéla is walking down a busy Parisian street the only audio noise is that of the clacking of her shoes as she walks. Then, the sound completely stops altogether, leaving to film totally silent for a good 5 seconds. As the film progresses there are several instances where the music is building towards the character breaking out in song, only for that musical tension to halt abruptly. In other instances, a soundtrack will play, be interrupted, and continue back up again. Sometimes a single soundtrack will be interrupted multiple times. These radical techniques employed by Godard are all part of Musical Neorealism, a movement aimed at bucking the conventions on the use of sound in film. Additionally, Godard also wanted this film to also stand as a new and unique take on traditional musical films.