2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle (1967)

(On Cable TV, June 2022) The first thing that comes to mind while watching Jean-Luc Godard’s 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle is some kind of amazement that it’s seen as a film statement from a major director rather than an incoherent and pretentious Youtube-level video essay crafted by some crazy guy in his basement. Oh, sure, there’s a world of difference between Godard and just some guy with a video camera and way too much time, especially by 1967. Godard had already done more for filmmaking art by that time than hundreds of so-called YouTubers, and even his slide in kookiness throughout the 1960s could still be seen as a charming step forward for his artistic evolution. Then there’s a remarkable difference in clout between having the bankability of someone like Godard going all-out on the parallels between rampant urbanization, capitalism and prostitution compared to just some guy putting such sites on a video-sharing site. But in the grand grinder of history, I really wonder if the only thing separating 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle from Youtube essays in a few decades will be that this one is associated to a director having delivered polished narrative films. Suffice to say that I didn’t enjoy it all that much – Godard literally whispers his narration over shorts of urban landscapes, a perfunctory set of narrative scenes alluding at daytime prostitution (a surprisingly popular idea throughout 1960s–1970s French cinema) to increasingly exasperating effect. It makes a grander statement in Godard’s filmography, though: one of a good artist getting far too big for his britches and turning not only political (a justifiable turn in 1967 France), but being crazy and pretentious about it. Gone was the playful filmmaker spinning his own distinctive take on American archetypes, replaced by long decades of doing essentially what we wanted, and critics trying to be nice about it. As much as I don’t enjoy that part of his career over the earlier one, the one-two 1967 punch of La Chinoise and 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle is vital to tracking his entire filmography and his “political” years from 1968 to 1980. But you’ll notice that fewer people ever talk about that essentially the disposable phase of his career…