Jean-Luc Godard Critical Essay | Critical Essay by John Bragin

Critical Essay by John Bragin

The essence of Jean-Luc Godard's La Femme Mariée is the transmutation of the dramatic into the graphic. The comings and goings of the characters, and the development of the story, are presented in the matter-of-fact way which is characteristic of Godard, and whose episodic nature reached its height in his film Vivre Sa Vie. The graphic elements in Godard's films are by no means new, they can be found in all of his work. What is new is the consistent movement into the graphic from the dramatic which is used as the basis of expression in this film, and which was only found in kernels in his other works…. Two of the film's title cards read successively: IN BLACK, AND WHITE, and it is between two contrasting poles that Charlotte moves, first searching at one, and then along a line to the other. The points on this line occur as...
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