Les Cousins
The Cousins is obviously centered around its titular characters, Paul and Charles, and the way that they differentiate themselves. It doesn't put the two on equal ground, however, as Charles is visiting his cousin Paul at Paul's home (provided by his wealthy absentee father) in the heart of Paris, while Charles is accustomed to provinicial life. The heart of their difference doesn't seem so much to be, as it may appear on the surface, about whether or not they are willing to engage in hedonistic behavior but rather how they go about getting what they want. For one, Paul has his mysterious friend Clovis always at his side to go about without regard for scruples (as can be seen in the very first activity that Paul implicitly asks him to undertake, encouraging a fling of his to get an abortion). Clovis can be seen as the way that Paul deceives, that he makes a clever show so that his intentions are only displayed when it best serves Paul's purposes, and this is typified by the way that Clovis hides away money in the animal's mouth that hangs on the wall and conceals his actions each time he goes to it. Charles, on the other hand, cannot hold back his motives or methods from public purview, as when he cannot refrain from telling off a party guest that he does not like.

Both of their relationships with Florence reflect this disparity between the two. Charles cannot help but explain to her exactly how he feels about her, both in the strength of his feelings and his reservations due to insecurity. On the other hand, Paul sneakily arranges so that he can lure Florence into the apartment, in the hopes that he can break the burgeoning relationship she has with Charles. She serves as a manifestation of the conflicting desire in choosing between these two types of people: while Charles is initially flattering to her, his inability to actually achieve his desires (such as getting a private car ride with her) leaves her dissatisfied, and though Paul ends up playing her and in effect calls into question her own autonomy, she finds in him a sort of script to follow that is functional if not exactly empowering.

An interesting subtheme within the movie is the issue of race. The use of the Wagner music, which Paul performs a poem in German to, seems to indicate the relentless pursuit of the end is tied to not only feelings of personal superiority, but also ones of racial superiority. This is further implicated in Clovis's dismissal of the African from the party. We can see the difference between the cousins on this matter when Paul wakes up a sleeping Jewish guest by yelling "Gestapo!" and shining a flashlight in his eyes. Paul tries to distance himself from the macabre suggestions of this by focusing on its utility in getting him awake and out of the house, while Charles is preoccupied by the psychic toll this must have exacted upon him.

The 400 Blows
As the film is obviously preoccupied with youth, the relationships amongst the youths may be of secondary importance to that of the relationship they have with figures of authority, but it does define what separates the more societally functional classmates of Antoine from the types (such as the protagonist) who eventually gets carted off to a reformatory. They are all participants in mischief, as is clear from their running away from the teacher as they march through the streets or how, even while Antoine is being punished for his "singling-out" by his teacher, they fight amongst themselves during recess. What does distinguish Antoine is that he is consistent in his detractions from the figures of authority: while other students assure the teacher of their own innocence or how Rene attempts to ensure that his room is smoke-free when his father arrives, Antoine does little to confront those above him to mitigate his punishment but is either openly insubordinate or vacantly quiet when he awaits his sentence.

The other students also find alternative ways to misbehave, they are not always taking out their frustrations on those that actually influence their lives in a controlling manner but turn their mischief on one another. This can be seen as the student who sees Antoine skipping class later, feigning ignorance, goes to his doorstep to ask his parents if Antoine is still sick. In another scene where the conflict is not between two students but rather all against one we see the prized glasses picked up and vandalized by almost every member of the class subsequently. The former is a way that the student is able to break an understood rule amongst classmates while the latter shows how the students can form their own sort of power structure to censure a student who they believe to be obnoxious (which seems to be the most sinful trait throughout the movie, merely being an inconvenience). This sort of mischief even goes so far as to inconspicuously control those in power, as one student attempts (successfully) to distract another in the midst of a recitation to bring out the ire of the teacher and direct it at the student who is actually attempting to do his work and not the one who is misbehaving.

My Night at Maud's
An interesting aspect of the movie is how Jean-Louis picks out his wife-to-be Francoise. While she is certainly beautiful and he knows that she is of a similar enough of religious ideals that she is a Catholic as he is, he has never spoken to her when he eventually decides to marry her. Even before this admission to himself of his intentions for her he follows her wordlessly through the streets after mass. The extended sequence where he is continually confounded by tight alleyways and the cars attempting to go about their business ends in him losing her and craning his neck about to relocate her. The implied question at this point is what was he hoping to obtain by following her: some information about her life, or a chance to talk, and what excuse would he have for his presence wherever she ended up? It may appear that this is merely a way to underscore the unclear yet committed purpose he has for her, which will serve as the basis of his character throughout the movie.

The function of his near arbitrary choice of a wife is to link it with his religion. The majority of the movie is focused on what his faith has to say about his relationship with women (which he differentiates with other worldly pleasures such as wine or smoking) and so the parallel between the two is clear. When he is questioned about how he is Catholic, he states that his parents were, and that he chose to "keep it up." Here is a marriage of chance and commitment, a kind of leap-of-faith towards what was randomly bestowed upon him. So, as he allows repeated chance encounters to determine the object of his desires so does he allow the method of his life to be determined by fate. This is not to say that he downplays the importance of these things to him, but it shows his resolution to participating in the life he has been dealt.

Alphaville
The simplistic and arbitrary style of life in the city of Alphaville is intentionally left mostly indistinct from the present. While the particular indulgences of city may had yet to enter into French life, the technology present was not really distinguishable from that of the time (and though the artificial intelligence being would certainly be beyond the scope of the contemporary technology of the film, the voice is never given a distinct source and thus appears more as an understanding than an actual mechanism). The way that the minor, inconsequential choices that one may make (such as whether to drive through the north of the south of the city) mirror those of the rising consumerism of the time. The way that Lemmy's camera is considered a relic shows the way that the present "cutting-edge" is always giving way to more advanced technology (often by such insignficant degrees as to be unnoticeable). In fact, even within Alphaville the present manner of technology is not given nearly as much consideration as the near-future as its scientists do not speak of recent discoveries and innovations but rather those to come.

The nature of language within Alphaville is of central importance to understanding the nature of its operation. The typical Gideon's bible is replaced with a dictionary, constantly updated by means of exclusion. This is highly reminiscient of 1984 in its preoccupation with Double-Speak as a means to control the minds of citizens. There is also the comic misuse of space jargon to describe mundane Earthly existence (such as "intergalactic" travel or "light-years" losing its connection to distance but rather becoming a catch all term for large quantities). The situation becomes particularly bleak at the film's end when Natacha fumbles with the word "love" to describe her relationship with Lemmy, which suggests that those with a broken relationship with language may be manipulated even by the introduction of new words.

Le Bonheur
This film becomes practically unbearable with its constant audiovisual over-stimulation. The Mozart score, whenever it appears, has such unmitigated volume to it as to drown out all dialogue and ambient noises. The bright color palette that is used throughout the film never ceases as even the fades are not to the typical black but instead to a bright blue or orange. This serves to illuminate the concern of the film, namely sensual fulfillment. The focus of the story is of a man's infidelity and eventual replacement of his wife with his mistress. The pivotal scenes of the film are where Francois confesses of his relationship (with an undercurrent, but not an overt show of shame) to his wife, their final act of love-making, and her dissappearance to commit suicide. The way that he describes his relationship with his mistress is that it does not detract from his devotion to or need of his wife Claire, but instead that he merely found himself as if he had "extra arms" that needed to be intertwined with anothers.

The nonchalant attitude that the film takes to such a dark subject is due to its analysis of the acceptability of a certain attitude by society at large. Essentially, the need to stimulate is not called into question, it is taken for granted that to have more, one's "fill" as it were, would be an unreproachable goal. What this film shows is that Francois, and many of similar persuasion, are not concerned with seeing themselves as part of a complete system with his family but instead an individual that seeks fulfillment in his interactions with others. He describes his family as "four trees" within an orchard, and his mistress Emilie as a tree off on its own, and in doing so (though most likely unintentionally) shows that he views their grouping as not fundamental but only an organizational one, and as we see later, interchangeable.

Cleo 5 to 7
The character of Cleo certainly appears self-centered, and in some ways may be reprehensible because of it. However, there may be another way of perceiving her: that she is incapable of escaping her view of herself as an object of adoration and that she is losing her idea of herself as a person because of this. Her need to show off herself may be seen as not self-assured but rather neurotic and compulsory. She claims to be tired of her song as it comes on the radio in the taxi, yet she goes to the cafe and turns it on in hopes of seeing people react to her presence. Her sense of her "self" and the image that she portrays to others is deteriorating, as can be seen when she refers to her hair as a hat that she wears (and though it is revealed to be a wig, the uncertainty of these distinctions become clear). Her relationship with her husband is that he treats her as a pretty little thing, and the presence of so many kittens within her bedroom underscores this possibility of not seeing her as a person but instead a cute object that is kept around to be pleasant though not to converse with.

This changes as she meets the man on the bridge. Her spontaneous relationship forms not because either is seeking out company, but instead because they both meander to the peaceful site while no one else is around. Rather than play off the possibility of the severity of her illness as most of those around her do, he quickly commits to figuring out the state of her health with her. The allure that she has with him is that their relationship becomes even more non-corporeal as he is going to have to leave for war, and yet he still wants to maintain closeness with her. She gains through him a relationship defined without physical or sensory contact, but instead only in memory and personal understanding, which allows her a comfort that is missing elsewhere in her life.

Pierrot Le Fou
In this film Godard seems less interested in genre deconstruction than the absurdity and disparity between men and women. Though the film does stick to the general paradigm of the couple-on-the-run noir films, it breaks with it in so many ways (its tone, the plot, etc.) that it does not even feel like a parody so much as an unhonored premise. The attitude of that Ferdinand and Marianne have towards one another is perpetual frustration that they cannot play the roles the other wants them to (this can be seen in how Ferdinand is called "Pierrot" by Marianne though he corrects her each time and conversely how Marianne gets the wrong things from the book store). The film works as a continual inability to commit, in how their journey begins with Ferdinand leaving his family and ends with his unsuccessful attempt to stop his own suicide. It is mostly a raging against the way that one is forced to travel along predetermined paths (which is made explicit as they drive off into the sea only to prove that they can).

The distrust of women is particularly apparent in the character of Marianne. The general premise of their trailblazing is so that she might be able to meet up with a relative and get money from him, but this is proved to be fallacious as the man that she is speaking of is another lover. She leaves and reappears to Ferdinand suddenly, and her motives for doing so are questioned, though she presents herself merrily in contrast to his upset behavior (such as sitting down on the train tracks).

Their portrayal of the Vietnam conflict seems to be a criticism of American simplicity. Ferdinand attempts to portray a self-assured American through a string of buzzwords, and Marianne takes the stereotypes of Asian appearance, dress and speech to ridiculous extremes. While they make loud and colorful displays, they are only met with dumb approval by their American audience, who they coerce out of their money to further finance their travels.

Les Mistons
This short focuses on the fetishization and distance from women that closely mirrors that which a film audience would experience to its stars. While the youths appear to downplay their influence on Bernadette, thinking that she often does not realize their presence unless they jump out towards her and her boyfriend. This is most likely an underestimation, however, perhaps most obvious when she is in mourning of Gerard's death and passes by them, since while she doesn't turn to face them, they are gathered within a few feet of her in plain sight. While she is playing tennis she is obviously showing off her body, and considering that Gerard is more interested in the game, it is likely that she is doing it for the boys off in the bushes. With the joy that is readily apparent to her during these times, she is thrilled and empowered by the attention she is receiving.

The attention that the boys give to image helps to link the way that they relate to Bernadette and the way that the audience does. As they take the postcards and attempt to create a narrative (to forge the suggestion of Gerard's infidelity) so is the audience left with this piece of imagery of the film to create entire personas and conjecture about their natures (with all their secret nuances). The way that the boys cannot have an equitable relationship with her and resolve instead to look from afar, and to seek lingering traces of her after she has left, shows the distance that the movie screen invariably creates that cannot be traversed.

Les Carabiniers
Throughout this absurdist critique of war mentality the inability for the protagonists to properly relate to images shows how they are manipulated to the point of death. The naive nature of these characters is quite distancing, and their actions appear so foolish that one cannot possibly view any of them as a personal simulacrum, yet this distance causes the audience to have even more disdain for those who buy into the myths of military service. It becomes apparent immediately as Michelangelo and Ulysses are told what they will be able to do when they are off at war that they are brought in for the basest of human desires, namely the subjugation of all else to oneself as its own end. And while they do prove to be malicious in that they are remorseless executioners, the kind of carnage that they ask for is not acted out as one might expect. For instance, when they seize a house, it appears that Michelangelo will rape the woman there, and yet he only lifts up her skirt and looks. He does not see this (admittedly perverse and heinous) possibility for gratification, but is held back by his necessary voyeurism.

When Michelangelo goes into a cinema and watches a movie involving a nude woman, he is constantly shifting his position so that he might get a better perspective (and pays no heed to the others there that he obviously disturbs with his antics). It is as if he does not understand the difference between the presented and the real. This discrepancy is made even more apparent when Ulysses opens up the case contained the spoils of the war and only pictures are inside. They belabor all the wealth they've accrued by showing off each postcard and stating what it is, and it is not until Cleopatra and Venus become upset that they try to defend their alleged fortune. They recognize that there is a difference between this and the "real" things they represent, but the degree and nature of the difference is not analyzed deeply and they continue to go on putting names to the women in the pictures and enjoying the right to these things.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
This operatic musical is a display of the power that the way in which one conceives one's life has over it. From the beginning we see the rain coming down on the tow and the many umbrellas that serve to protect and identify those underneath it. The shop that Genevieve's mother owns and operates is highly stylized (as are most locales throughout the movie) to put an emphasis on its color, which is mirrored when she asks the color that each customer wants when they go through. The ability for this aesthetic thing to push out the mundane and preserve the cultivated appearance that one has achieved functions in the same way that the musical romanticizes the lives of these people. Just as Guy leaves Genevieve, so does he leave the screen, and as his absence leaves her to forget who he was and what he meant to her she is pressed to consider leading her life as her mother foresees it.

The simple lives that they lead practically border on being trashy. Guy and Genevieve have a whirlwind romance that results in a teenage pregnancy, and while he is away she marries a rich man who will most likely spend much of his time away from her. When Guy comes back from his service, he becomes self-destructive until his aunt's caretaker is left without a job by her death, and the two decide to take up the life that Guy had originally envisioned he and Genevieve would lead. These cliches never strike the characters as such, however, since they have loftier self-conceptions that protect them from the grim realities that they are living out.

Bonnie and Clyde
This film about the couple on the run, without a grand plan but adapting along the way to the various impediments and advantages that they are presented keeps up the tradition of many of the films of the French New Wave. The sexual tension of the titular characters remains unresolved throughout much of the movie, and its elusive nature is titilating to the viewer. The repression that Clyde has towards his sexuality seems to stem from grandiose ideas that both he and Bonnie are above it, though when his brother implies that they have consummated their relationship and asks how much pleasure Clyde exacts from it, Clyde jovially continues the charade. It is not his self-righteousness but rather his inexperience that has been the reason of his celibacy, and for a character that so obviously enjoys being in the priveleged position of understanding this reluctance fits well. The frustration that it engenders in Bonnie causes her to resent a more sexually fulfilled Blanche and urge C.W. to get a tattoo on his chest which he prominently displays.

The nature of rumor becomes a focal point throughout the story. The characters cannot resist telling who they are and their exploits to the random people they meet, even becoming self-defeating as Buck reveals his identity to a police officer during a heist. Their status becomes larger than they are as they read in the newspaper of robberies attributed to them that they are certain they could not have committed. In fact, the principal antagonist of the film is a Texas Ranger who they sought to humiliate by taking pictures with him as if they were friendly, and his status causes him to seek out revenge for the allegation. Even when C.W. agrees to participate in a plot to kill the couple he only does so because he believes the hype that they are untouchable.

Last Year in Marienbad
This jarring examination of the impossibility of identity without the aid of memory (as well as the malleable nature of memory itself) forces its audience to question who they are, how they have come where they presently are, and what are the unifying forces that allow them to understand what they want. Throughout the nameless story we see a man try to convince a woman that they have had a relationship in the hotel they are staying and that they should continue it. The roles that the various people staying at the hotel are emphasized through a play at the beginning of the film where most lines are delivered as the camera rests on the other character, caught in a stasis awaiting their line. As the play ends, the chatting amongst the audience is punctuated by periods of silence where each person is frozen, heightening the aire of performance that each person gives that alienates them from their actual identity and personal understanding.

Throughout the film there is a game that a certain man is so adept at that he does not lose. The various characters make suggestions as to how it is possible, but none truly understand it. This shows how if someone understands the way that these simple mathematical patterns play out then that person can eventually coerce others into behaving in the desired way. When the woman looks at a series of photographs aligned in the same manner as in the game, the connection between this becomes apparent. This skilled man meets with her to inform her of certain trivial facts that would disprove the fact that she had the alleged meeting with the other a year before, and his understanding of what information she needs to hear allows him to cement the doubt within her and eventually extract the other man from the situation entirely.

Hiroshima Mon Amour
This story of two lovers who don't truly know one another yet try to find meaning in their connection shows the necessity for one to come up with an overarching narrative to what is necessarily chaotic: life. Throughout the film we see shots of their wrists close to one another, both wearing watches, signifying that they are trying to synchronize their stories at this particular turn. This attempt at finding a similarity of their lives' struggles comes when they say speak of what their respective ages were at a pivotal time, and when the answers are 20 and 22 the discrepancy is elided, since they are "the same age, really." Their understanding of one another is quite simplistic, as they continue to be overwhelmed by their nationalities and conceive of one another as somehow representative of that ethnicity.

The beginning of the film sets the stage for most of this evaluation of the past by trying to recreate the atomic attack on hiroshima through a museum. There are various artifacts from the carnage that signify the most extreme alterations caused by the blast, such as a collection of bottlecaps that melt together into one immense blob. There are also video re-enactments of the attack that are cut to several times, showing again the most severe effects that the bomb had on the inhabitants. No matter how horrific the displays are, however, the overall feeling is much more sterile and dispassionate than the experience of the attack could have possibly been, and Lui reminds Elle of this constantly throughout her story, saying that she could not have really known Hiroshima. But the perceived past is nevertheless influential, as can be seen when Elle begins to refer to Lui as a previous lover, to try to make sense of the contingent aspects of her life.

The Story of Adele H.
In this film we follow the true story of a daughter of the famous writer Victor Hugo as she attempts, and fails, to become the love of Albert Pinson. She has travelled across the Atlantic, though none other than herself wishes her to, to meet with Albert in Halifax. We learn that she is obsessed with him to the point of hiding outside his home to watch him court other women. It is revealed that he is a charmer who will gain a woman's favor so that he can exact whatever he wants from her (with Adele this is the power of the status of her father) before he will leave her behind and move to the next object of his desire. She understands this, and yet continues to pursue him in the hopes that she will be able to bargain with him to fulfill the want he has left her with. She even seriously considers getting a hypnotist to trick him as he has her into being enthralled by her presence (and equally distraught by her absence) but gives up this pursuit when she realizes that this impossibly good promise is just that, and is only capable with a willing participant.

The most harrowing part of the film is after leaving Halifax she follows Pinson to the Caribbean, where she finally loses her will completely, exhausted in the street. When Pinson discovers her there, she no longer even acknowledges his presence (though he is still not trying to fulfill her desires but only attempting to get rid of her to save face). And yet in some ways she seems strangely actualized in having this permanently elusive love, as it has caused her to move across the world and break her spirit in pursuit of him. She has defined herself to a degree that would be impossible if he would have returned her affections, as she appears quite distant from all those who do care for her (from her father to the woman who takes care of her after she is bedridden). By becoming obsessed with this person who she has minimal contact with she turns herself into a person more defined by herself than any of the others around her.

Shoot the Piano Player
The piano player of this atypical noir film is the innocuous Charlie Kohler, who has given up life as a famous pianist to play for locals at a bar under the pseudonym (his real name being Edouard Saroyan). A waitress falls for him as she understands his past, and we see a long flashback to his past through her retelling of his life. This attribution of meaning to the past becomes a central theme to the film, as we see Charlie try to understand his role through the skills that he has honed in his former life. In one scene we see Charlie about to attend a piano lesson while he is hearing someone play a violin inside, and he attempts to ring the buzzer but eventually cannot after much trepidation, unable to interrupt the beautiful music. After he sees the woman leave and he goes in to play, he imagines the impact that his music would have on her as she periodically stops to listen and the music continues to be audible to her as she leaves the building. This attribution of her mirrored impression of his music is a source of confidence to him as he practices.

The way that Charlie becomes obsessed with his past can be seen while he stalks about the house that he has holed up in with his brothers. Left with a gun, he muses as to how he has been left with the genes of criminals like his brothers, and begins to think that the shop owner that he killed in self-defense was the result of biological determinism. The way that he reads into the meanings of his actions to reconstitute himself as an outlaw further entrenches him with his brothers, and by the time that he is attacked he has shirked the indecision that he had displayed earlier in the film and is able to join the fray and defend his new home.