A Woman Is A Woman

  With the exception of Godard's Breathless, I found this film to be one of his most innovative.  Angela a stripper, her boyfriend a Cyclist, and his best friend Alfred.  The film plays between a playful comedy/musical, and a drama.  Although in the film Alfred calls it a comedy and tragedy.  Angela is Emile's live in girlfriend who is obsessed with getting pregnant. Angela has even taken a fertility test saying that she is ovulating, and that this would be the best time to get pregnant. She has tried pleading with him, and even threatening him that she will sleep with just about anyone in order to have a baby.  He is not ready and fights her on the subject.  They both go out, and try to make the other jealous.   

   She gets so desperate she turns to his best friend Alfred, who she knows has feelings for her.  After her seeing Alfred behind Emiles' back she sleeps with him, she thinks that maybe they both love each other but soon realizes that he just lusts after her, and she is just using him.  After, she decides to tell Emile what she has done, and expresses that she loves him and no one else and that she's sorry.  He seems upset, but believes her because he knows how desperate she had been to have a child.  They decide to sleep with each other right away to ensure that she's pregnant and to say it would be his.

  The movie uses music, and a play like comedy style to keep you from seeing the more serious nature of the story.  Angela has cheated on her live-in boyfriend with his best friend, for her own selfish need.  It's interesting to note that Godard plays with this notion that Angela hates the idea of modern woman, who are selfish, don't cook dinner, want careers, and hold off on having families.  And yet she herself has a job as a stripper, burns dinners, and seems just as selfish by wanting a family without Emile's consent.  She herself is a modern woman, but disguises it with this notion of her being domesticated.  

  It's interesting how Godard shoots some scenes at Angela's work by creating this magical arch, that once walked through changes your clothes instantly.  And the use of color-lighting on Angela's face for one of the final scenes in her heartfelt song close-up.  

There was a couple of scenes that stuck out more, as French Newave'ish.  Like when Godard shot a couple of scenes with Angela and Alfred while they were  hanging out on the street as they posed.  The other is when Angela and Emile have a fight in the bedroom, and use books in order to tell the other how they're feeling.  The beginning also shows the actors addressing the camera, as if they're knowingly acting in front of an audience.

SuAnn