As a fan of Godard’s oeuvre, “Every Man For Himself” is a Godard film that is best experienced than reading reviews about it. No words can describe the film correctly because everyone will have their own opinion of what the film is about. But if you have enjoyed Godard’s films from the past to even his later films, one can appreciate Godard’s contribution to cinema. In this case, a creative, bold and unique film that can never be duplicated. “Every Man For Himself” is highly recommended!
Image courtesy of © 2015 All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Every Man For Himself – The Criterion Collection #744
RELEASE OF FILM: 1980
DURATION: 88 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Color, 1:66:1 Aspect Ratio, French Monaural, Subtitles: English
COMPANY: Janus Films/The Criterion Collection
RELEASED: February 3, 2015
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Scenario by Anne-Marie Mieville and Jean-Claude Carriere
Music by Gabriel Yared
Director of Photography: Renato Berta, William Lubtchansky, Jean-Bernard Menoud
Edited by Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville
Art direction by Romain Goupil
Starring:
Isabelle Huppert as Isabelle Riviere
Jacques Dutronc as Paul Godard
Nathalie Baye as Denise Rimbaud
Cecile Tanner as Cecile
Anna Baldaccini as Isabelle’s Sister
After a decade in the wilds of avant-garde and early video experimentation, Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless) returned to commercial cinema with this work of social commentary, star-driven and narrative while remaining defiantly intellectual and visually cutting-edge. Every Man for Himself, featuring a script by Jean-Claude Carrière (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) and Anne-Marie Miéville (Ici et ailleurs), looks at the sexual and professional lives of three people—a television producer (Van Gogh’s Jacques Dutronc), his ex-girlfriend (The Return of Martin Guerre’s Nathalie Baye), and a prostitute (White Material’s Isabelle Huppert)—to create a meditative story about work, relationships, and the notion of freedom. Made twenty years into his career, the film was, according to Godard, a second debut.
After a decade of focusing on militant left-wing films and becoming a different type of filmmaker unlike the Nouvelle Vague director that everyone had come to appreciate back in the ’60s, by 1980, Jean-Luc Godard was ready to step back into the mainstream.
With more money and well-known French film stars, Godard would create “Sauve qui peut (la vie)” (a.k.a. “Every Man for Himself”), a film which Godard has called his “second first film”. It was a film which would lead Jean-Luc Godard to promote the film heavily in the United States but it was also a chance for Godard to show the world of his experimental style of filmmaking, which he had dubbed as “decomposition” (which features slowing down of action via frame by frame).
The film would star Isabelle Huppert (“Amour”, “The Piano Teacher”, “I Heart Huckabees”), Jacques Dutronc (“Sightseers”, “Factory Girl”, “Moonrise Kingdom”), Nathalie Baye (“Catch Me If You Can”, “An Affair of Love”, “Tell No One”) and Cecile Tanner (“Three Colors: Red”, “Requiem”).
The film would earn Jean-Luc Godard a Palme d’Or nomination at the 19980 Cannes Film Festival and nominations at the Cesar Awards, which actress Nathalie Baye would win “Best Actress – Supporting Role”.
And now, “Every Man For Himself” will be released on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of the Criterion Collection.
It’s important to note that this film is not easy to describe. It’s a film that is rather interesting because of its out-of-left-field dialogue but also because of it’s unusual characters and the experimentation which Jean-Luc Godard employs throughout the film. From slow motion shots, music and sounds just being cut or shortened and how far each of these characters go in order to find their own happiness or to survive.
The film is split up into three sections. In the first section, we are introduced to Paul Godard (portrayed by Jacques Dutronc), a filmmaker who is dating his estranged girlfriend, Denise Rimbaud (portrayed by Nathalie Baye).
Denise is trying to decide if she wants to give up a hotel she shares with Paul and leaving her job from a TV station where Paul currently works. She is often riding a bike.
The second section features Paul, who is picking up his daughter Cecile (portrayed by Cecile Tanner) from soccer practice and immediately, he has discussion with the soccer coach if he ever felt like touching his own daughter or having sex with her. We see Paul’s relationship with his ex-wife and his daughter, but also the arguments that he and Denise tend to have. Meanwhile, Paul meets Isabelle (portrayed by Isabelle Huppert), a prostitute.
The third section focuses on Isabelle and we get to see her life as a prostitute and the unusual requests that she gets.
By the final segment, everything comes full circle and we see the connection between each character.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“Every Man For Himself – The Criterion Collection #744″ is presented in 1:66:1. Before I begin, it’s important to note that if you want the best picture quality, you will want to get the Blu-ray version of this film.
On DVD, the film looks very good for a film of its age. While I’m sure the Blu-ray version is superior, “Every Man For Himself” shows good contrast, clearer picture quality and grain. While I noticed no film damage during my viewing of the short film.
According to the Criterion Collection, “This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit DataCine film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative.”
Audio is presented in French monaural and according to the Criterion Collection, “The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the 35mm sound negative. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube’s integrated workstation, and iZotope RX 4.”
Dialogue is clear through the monaural soundtrack with no sign of hiss or pops.
Subtitles are in English SDH.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Every Man For Himself – The Criterion Collection #744” comes with the following special features:
- Scenario De “Sauve Qui Peut (La Vie)” – (5:47) A 20-minute video submitted to the Centre national du cinema, in place of a screenplay, to secure Godard financing for the film.
- Sound, Image, and Every Man For Himself – (25:54) Film historian Colin MacAbe explores the way Jean-Luc Godard plays with sound and image.
- Jean-Luc Godard on the Dick Cavett Show – Featuring a promo plus two episodes (25 min. each) of Jean-Luc Godard being interviewed by Dick Cavett for “The Dick Cavett” show.
- Godard 1980 – (16:19) A short film featuring Jon Jost, Don Ranvaud, and Peter Wllen interview Jean-Luc Godard.
- Interviews – Featuring interviews with Marin Karmitz, Isabelle Huppert, Nathalie Baye, Renato Berta and William Lubtchansky and Gabriel Yared.
- Trailer – Features the theatrical trailer for “Every Man For Himself”.
EXTRAS:
“Every Man For Himself – The Criterion Collection #744” comes with a 6-fold insert with the essay “Themes and Variations” by Amy Taubin.
“Every Man For Himself” has always been a film that I look at in a variety of ways.
Jean-Luc Godard back home from vacation. Jean-Luc Godard has had enough of a decade without money making militant left-wing films and now he wants to come back to mainstream cinema.
While I did enjoy “Tout va bien” in 1972 and for the most part, the Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin collaborative years, the ’70s was a political time in Godard’s life as a filmmaker.
By 1980, the filmmaker was ready to take on mainstream cinema with “Every Man For Himself” which included a promotional effort by Godard to promote the film. With the support of producer Alain Sarde, who loved Godard’s films, he was able to obtain financing from television stations from France, West Germany and Switzerland.
Unlike his films from the past, “Every Man For Himself” marked a new direction for Jean-Luc Godard, the filmmaker. A difference of technology (in this case, it was the use of a video tape instead of a storybook) but also a difference in cinema. People held a newfound respect towards Godard for his contributions to French cinema.
But on the set, like his previous films, Godard was still Godard and his attitude on the set was well-known to be problematic, challenging and troubled.
The fact is that the character of Paul Godard reflected Jean-Luc Godard, the character of Denise was modeled after Godard’s companion, Anne-Marie Mieville.
No one knew what to expect from the film because Jean-Luc Godard never informed them what the scene would be about.
In one scene in the film, Godard has the camera focused on young actress Cecile Tanner who played the character of Cecile. A daughter who played soccer, while her father asks incestuous questions to the coach about his daughter. While Godard filmed Tanner close-up, she had no idea of the discussion the two men were having about the character.
For Isabelle Huppert (known for her performance in “Amour” and “The Piano Teacher”), she would have one of the more memorable scenes in the film, because they revolve around sex. And they are sexual scenes that are quite interesting to watch on the big screen and don’t expect to see in a Godard film.
From the character of Isabelle trying to get her sister involved in prostitution, meeting an older single man in his hotel room and wanting to roleplay or a scene which involves with a wealthy businessman with naughty requests.
But it’s a film where actress Isabelle Huppert shined. A woman who was the neutral balance to the characters, but in Godard’s words, wanted a character that would be a woman in suffering.
Nathalie Baye would portray the woman, Denise, a woman who wanted to escape. Escape the man, the city, the job, the home in order to go about her new life.
The film today may feel as Godard’s triumphant “fuck you” to humanity considering he is a filmmaker who walked on the beat of his own drum.  Saying things that may have contradicted himself, cinema. Saying things that irritated his fellow filmmakers and even those closer to him. But it’s because of his style of non-wavering to traditional Hollywood form and being unique and different that we appreciate about him.
Using freeze frames and other cinema expressions that would drive most traditional and modern cinema viewers mad, yet to not understand why a director would make such a film. The initial response received from those who watched at Cannes for “Every Man For Himself” is no different to Godard in the past and Godard in the present, people will say negative things about his film, there are those who will praise him for raising that middle finger in his films to no abandon, but this is Godard. This is cinema! He has done things his way, not everyone’s way. Every film, every decade we have seen a different Godard but for me, having appreciated his films for his audacious direction and going against traditional Hollywood norm, I appreciate him for that.
But I have to admit that I was a bit taken back, once you watch the Criterion Collection release of “Every Man For Himself” of the promotion he did for the film. Of course, he was making a mainstream film…yet Godard is Godard.
Wanting to create a film that he believed in and took the opportunity to promote the film with talk show host Dick Cavett (that was no doubt seemed at times during the interview that it could have been a disaster) and the return of Godard to cinema, alas, this movie should have been celebrated as his celebrated return to cinema but instead he experienced the ire of viewers who were not supportive of the film’s provocative sexual scenes. Which I can definitely see why the film shocked viewers then and I can see viewers being shocked about it in the present.
To save the film after the disaster at Cannes, the film was quickly called as “a work in progress” but later shown to the same journalists without any edits and interestingly, would be called a masterpiece. “Sauve qi peut” (Every Man for Himself) became the talk amongst critics worldwide.
“Every Man For Himself” had become Godard’s “second first film”. A moniker which he created and a film that will be remembered for its audacity and while one will never fully grasp what message Godard wanted to send to audiences, it’s a film that one would discover something new each time it’s viewed.
I enjoyed this film greatly because it was so unlike any film he had made previously. The sex scenes were unexpected for a Godard film, the dialogue was surprising but there was also some of that older Godard with the halting of music, the tragic death scene, the woman looking directly into the camera, the creative play of editing that would drive most movie fans crazy because they were never exposed to Godard’s art of cinema.
As a fan of Godard’s oeuvre, “Every Man For Himself” is a Godard film that is best experienced than reading reviews about it. No words can describe the film correctly because everyone will have their own opinion of what the film is about.
But if you have enjoyed Godard’s films from the past to even his later films, one can appreciate Godard’s contribution to cinema. In this case, a creative, bold and unique film that can never be duplicated.
“Every Man For Himself” is highly recommended!
