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The Sign of the Sociologist: Show and Anti-Show in Godard's "Masculin Feminin"

1990; University of Texas Press; Volume: 29; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1225316

1527-2087

Joel Haycock,

Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

In an interview given during the filming of Masculin F6minin, Godard described the film in these terms: [Pierrot le fou] was a show, there was something of a show about it; this one won't be like that at all, it'll be an anti-show. With Pierrot, people felt things; they didn't understand, but they felt something. They said: 'Well, he's putting on a show.' It was an emotional subject, there was nothing reflective about it. There won't be in Masculin F6minin either, but it will be a film between one reflection and another; it can't interest many people-it's made too fast.' The oppositions Godard sets up here associate understanding something with the anti-show and feeling things --having a purely emotional response to a filmwith the show. These oppositions suggest a didactic purpose (a film that aids understanding) requiring some different form. Masculin F6minin (1966) answers this description, but in a very limited way. Unlike Pierrot le fou (1965), it centers on social issues and, accordingly, it also looks and sounds very different. But though conscientiously unspectacular in its subject matter and presentation, it nonetheless shares in, rather than challenges, the conventions of the ordinary narrative film. The title Masculin Feminin presents the two terms of most love stories, like Man and a Woman.2 But the more clinical categories, masculine, feminine, point up a transformation in tone from that of most love stories, and already give the film a psychological or sociological inflection. The title does not promise to tell us about-in the words of a later intertitle-nothing but a woman and a man-but instead about what is characteristic of men and women, about something broader than simply the stories of individual men and women. The title graphics indicate as much, presenting the syllables MA, SCU, LIN separately. In breaking down the French word masculin into its component parts, the film implies that it will subject that idea to analysis and reflection.3 The subtitle of the film also declares its intention to go beyond the show. Like that of Vivre sa vie (A Film in 12 Tableaus), the subtitle of Masculin Feminin relates to the structure of the film. It appears in the same graphic design as the second half of the title: FEMININ/15 FAITS PRECIS. The joining of the two emphasizes the importance of the subtitle to the film's conception. The dichotomy anti-show/show applies to the contrast between this conception and that signified by the subtitle in Vivre sa vie. A Film in 12 Tableaus situates