As dw noted in an earlier comment, director Jean Luc-Godard had a cameo in the film short Raoul plays for Cleo and Dorothee. This appears to be a self-referential nod to the rise of the French New Wave filmmakers -- most of whom began as their careers as critics and moved into filmmaking by directing short films while they wrote and worked on larger projects that gave them cinematic prominence. I assume Raoul was supposed to be like a young Godard and Anna Karina a send-up of the muse she became in films like Alphaville and Band of Outsiders.
The short itself seemed rather silly and portrayed the women like helpless dolls. Anything to that?
4 comments:
Yes, silly and doll-like are good descriptions. I should probably watch the short again, because I feel like it was important but I didn't feel like I really got it.
The theme of the short was subjective perception where a parallel set of events was worse or better depending on the dark glasses. So this clearly has relevance for Cleo and her state of mind. But a second thing going on is that Anna Karina is clearly an object and not a subject. We wouldn’t get the dark and light views of her except for Godard and his glasses. So maybe this is a slight dig at Godard and his portrayal of women, or maybe it marks the point were Cleo will no longer just be a kitten and will start to come into her own.
Thanks for the insight -- I'm inclined to think the director was taking a dig at her male peers, friendly relationships nonwithstanding.
Was the use of the short heavy-handed? Or did the quirkiness make up for it?
And was there supposed to be a connection between Cleo's penchant for sunglasses and the short?
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