Existentialist Themes in Film- Ingmar Bergman and Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard:

Brief biography:

·         December 3, 1980- present

·         Born in Paris, France. He was the second of four children. Became a naturalized Swiss citizen in the 1940s. His father was a doctor with his own private clinic while his mother came from a long line of Swiss bankers.

·         French / Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic.

·         His film-making approach reflected his interest in how the cinematic form intertwines with social reality.

Notable Works:

·         Breathless (1959)

o   This film is about cowardliness, foreboding, betrayal and death; on the difficulty of being who we pretend to be and of knowing ourselves.

·         Contempt (1963)

o   This film revolves around the disintegrating relationship between the screenwriter (Paul Javel) and his wife Camille. According to Godard, this is ultimately a film about filmmaking, and his own autobiography.

·         Weekend (1967)

o   An episodic odyssey of an upper-class Parisian couple’s weekend trip to visit the wife’s mother. Social values such as sex, consumerism, and family are explored in surreal ways.

Ingmar Bergman:

Brief Biography:

·         July 14, 1918 - July 30, 2007.

·         Born in Uppsala, Sweden as the son of a Lutheran pastor.

·         Influences on his works- the frequent remarks he received on the importance of his childhood helped him in the development of ideas and moral preoccupations, religious art (primitive, graphic representations of Bible stories and parables that he found in Swedish churches)

·         Swedish Film writer-director

·         Became the hallmark for existential/philosophical relationship drama. He is known to have “created his own cinematic world” through his use of recurring environments, themes, characters, stylistic devices, and more.

Notable Works:

·         Metaphysics and Man (1956-1964)

o   Bergman’s best known films are made during this period.

§  The Seventh Seal (1957)

·         Bergman’s allegory of man’s search for meaning.

§  Wild Strawberries(1957)

·         A dramatization about one man’s voyage of self-discovery

§  “Silence of God” Trilogy (1961-1963)

·         Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

o   This film presents a vision of a family’s near disintegration and a tortured psyche that is further taunted by God’s intangible presence

·         Winter Light (1962)

o   A look at the human craving for personal validation in a world that is seemingly abandoned by God.

·         The Silence (1963)

o   A disturbing and brilliant vision of emotional isolation that occurs in a spiritual void.

Simone De Beauvoir

·         January 9^th 1908 – April 14^th 1986

·         Lived in Paris, France

·         French Feminist/ Existentialist Philosopher

·         Notable Works

o   She Came to Stay (1943)

§  Fictional

§  Depicts Beauvoir and Sarte’s relationship with Olga and Wanda Kosakiewicz, former students of Beauvoir.

o   The Second Sex (1949)

§  Book focused on the question of what is Woman, and the problem of female oppression

o   The Mandarins(1954)

§  Novel depicting the lives of French intellectuals post World War 2

·         Quotes

o   What is Woman?

§  “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”

§  “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman”

o   Oppressed Women and the Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic

§  “The whole of feminine history has been man-made. Just as in America there is no Negro problem, but rather a white problem; just as anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, it is our problem; so the woman problem has always been a man problem.”

§  “Woman is the incidental, the inessential, as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute-she is the other."

§  “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”

§  “The advantage of the master, he says, comes from his affirmation of Spirit as against Life through the fact that he risks his own life; but in fact the conquered slave has known this same risk. Whereas woman is basically an existent who gives Life and does not risk her life, between her and the male there has been no combat.”

o   Why Do Women Remain Opressed?

§  “Woman enjoys that incomparable privilege: irresponsibility. Free from troublesome burdens and cares, she obviously has ‘the better part’. But it is disturbing that with an obstinate perversity – connected no doubt with original sin – down through the centuries and in all countries, the people who have the better part are always crying to their benefactors: ‘It is too much! I will be satisfied with yours!’ But the munificent capitalists, the generous colonists, the superb males, stick to their guns: ‘Keep the better part, hold on to it!”