Brian Henderson's "Towards a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style"

Notes on Brian Henderson's article Towards a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style:

Everyone that lived through the 1960s experienced one of the most tumultuous times in political ideology. Finally leading to May 1968 in France when the country was virtually shut down because of two-thirds of the French workforce going on strike after many student and worker led protests. These events had major influence on film practice and theory, especially in France. While many of the nouvelle vague and left bank directors had made films with political connotations prior to 1967, e.g., Alain Resnais’s Nuit et brouillard (1955) and Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Jean-Luc Godard’s Le petit soldat (made in 1960 but released in 1963) and Les carabineers (1963), Agnès Varda’s photomontage Salut les Cubains (1963) and in Italy Bernardo Bertolucci’s Prima della Rivoluzione (1964), in late 1967 and early 1968 a shift occurred to more overtly political films. Robert Stam characterizes this shift by stating that film culture moved towards a “politicization of aesthetics” (Stam, 133). Godard’s films from 1967 to the mid-1970s can exemplify the shift in films. The theoretical shift can be represented by Cahiers du cinéma changing of editors during the time. In 1963 Éric Rohmer was replaced by Jacques Rivette, who tried to extend the cultural base of Cahiers but it was not until 1966, when Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni print an editorial manifesto for Cahiers advocating a ‘new cinema,’ that the shift officially started and became more radical after 1968 and through the early 1970s (Hillier, 13-14). In the United States around the early 1970s Brian Henderson wrote a few essays that helped bring a theoretical approach to film analysis for Film Quarterly (Henderson, 54). His most influential work was his segment “Toward a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style” that he wrote for a critical study of Godard’s 1967 film Weekend, titled “Weekend and History.” While the article serves as a great introduction to this phase of Godard’s career, it falls short in explaining the implications of this new style, especially in a post-May 1968 context.

Henderson begins his article by claiming that Godard developed a new camera style, roughly beginning with in 1967. Henderson is primarily interested in the “long, slow tracking shot that moves purely laterally” displayed in these films (54). He begins by briefly explaining the shot, and then contrasts it against the tracking shots of other celebrated directors in order to explain how Godard’s shot is ‘new’. He then differentiates how the shot is utilized in Godard’s own films and how Weekend seems to be the only one completely structured around that shot. He continues the article by talking about the flatness of Godard’s shot and his use of planes of action. In order to further prove that Godard’s style is new he compares it to the two prominent schools of film aesthetics: Bazinian composition-in-depth and Eisensteinian montage. Concluding, he provides implications of this new style.

This new camera style can be understood best when juxtaposed with Murnau, Ophüls, and Fellini’s tracking shot, as Henderson does. Murnau uses the tracking shot in order to prove depth of space by moving the camera back and forth, diagonally or in an arc, or any other movement that creates depth. Godard’s shot moves strictly on a 0°/180° track that matches the subjects in the shots. The shot is also unlike Ophüls’s because his tracking shots are “essentially following shots”, which only serve to follow characters, creating an “individualist conception of the bourgeois hero” (55). Godard’s camera never prefers a certain individual to another, leaving no room for heroes or special alignment with any one subject. Lastly, it is different from Fellini’s shot in two main ways. First, Fellini’s shot interacts with the reality of the film world unlike Godard’s that is unaffected by the reality of the film world, i.e., it exists simply for itself. Secondly, Fellini’s tracks are mostly subjective where as Godard’s never are.

Henderson then turns to analyzing the use of depth Godard employs in his shot. His shots are almost always long takes yet adhere to none of the uses of the long take that André Bazin praised. Most importantly, Godard is not interested in the realism that was Bazin’s main purpose for the utilization of the long shot and take. Godard is simply presenting a “single-layered construct” for the audience to engage more critically in and take a stand for or against it (56). Henderson also mentions how the term “flatness,” in cinema studies, has negative connotations and that is one of the reasons Godard employs it. Godard’s subject in Weekend is the bourgeois, so he uses the flatness as a way of displaying them negatively, as well as to deviate from the “depth” so prominent in bourgeois cinema. Another reason Godard refuses depth is in order to open up new subject matter instead of embellishing on the same subject matter, e.g., showing different sides of the same subject, as is done in traditional use of depth. Henderson continues his explanation of the importance of flatness in this style as he discusses the organization of Weekend.

He begins explaining the organization by stating that the flatness is part of the whole, not the part, in terms of the overall construction of the film. The flatness is part of the whole because it is not until the film is finished that the flatness can be revealed, because a film can appear flat but in the last ten minutes it can utilize depth. Thus, Godard’s use of flatness is revealed as part of the whole when at the end of Weekend no depth has been displayed on any subject. Godard’s tracking shot is also particular in the sense that he always films his subjects in the long shot, achieving a “converse flatness” (61). Elaborating further, Henderson states how even when Godard employs several planes of action, they are always parallel, never intersecting; maintaining their flatness.

This flatness, or “single-plane construction”, departs from both prominent schools of film aesthetics. According to Henderson, both the montage and depth-in-composition schools advance action by “a way of the alteration and interaction of planes”; in montage it is done by editing and in depth-in-composition by movement (62). As mentioned previously, Godard’s style refuses interaction of planes, it exists in a “single-lateral plane”, suggestive of infinite length (63).

In concluding his article, Henderson spends the last paragraph explaining the implications of this new style. In simplest terms, this new style has direct ideological implications. As opposed to the world of depth offered by other cinema, “Godard’s flat frames collapse this world into two-dimensional actuality; [implying] a demystification, an assault on the bourgeois world-view and self-image” (63). Godard does not need depth to criticize the simplistic world of the bourgeois. As previously mentioned, this two-dimensionality and flatness also forces the viewer to critically contemplate Godard’s subjects.

While Henderson’s article serves as a perfect complement to Godard’s film of the period, Henderson does not focus enough in the implications of the style. He also fails to contextualize this style in view of the May 1968 events. He also does not place enough importance in Godard’s ability to foreshadow the explosion that would happen in May 1968. La chinoise was released in France on August 30, 1967, the film dealt with a group of Maoist students who are applying the tenets of Maoism to their daily life. Less than three months later, on November 20, Nanterre, the same university of La chinoise, witnessed the largest student strike in France to date (Birchall and Cliff, 160). While implying that Godard’s film actually aided in the strike actualizing might be a stretch, stating that Godard, more so than other people, knew something was about to happen. Weekend premiered less than four months after La chinoise on December 29, 1967. Premiering only five months before the May events, the film clearly anticipates many of the tensions that would explode in May. While the events in May did not originate over night and many of these tensions had been on the brink of exploding since before Weekend, the proximity of the film’s release date and the events should not go overlooked. Another characteristic of Godard’s style that Henderson completely overlooks is the Brechtian influence. In Weekend Brecht’s presence can be detected, even with the minutest understanding of Brecth’s aesthetic. For example, the notion of an active spectator, the breaking of the “fourth-wall”, contradictions in characters, etc., all these notions and more are clearly found throughout Weekend.

In writing “Towards a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style”, Brian Henderson crafts a highly accessible and informative article on Godard’s inaccessible cinema from 1967 to the mid-1970s. The problem with the article is that he understates the implications of the style and does not contextualize it. It is safe to say that this cinema would have not happened without the turmoil of France at the time or the influence of Brecht and the absence of these aspects leave the reader with the sense of an incomplete article.

Citations
Birchall, Ian and Tony Cliff. "France - the Struggles Goes on." International Struggle and the Marxist Tradition. London: Bookmarks, 2001. 159-217. Print.
Henderson, Brian. "Towards a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style." Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. 7th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. 54-64. Print.
Hillier, Jim, and David Wilson. "Introduction: Cahiers Du Cinéma in the 1960s." 1960-1968: New Wave, New Cinema, Re-evaluating Hollywood. London: Routledge, 2001. 1-24. Print.
Stam, Robert. "1968 and the Leftist Turn." Film Theory an Introduction. Malden, Mass.:
Blackwell, 2001. 130-40. Print.