Two in the Wave (2010, Laurent)
May 28th 2010 02:19
Godard (left) & Truffaut (right)
Two in the Wave (2010, Laurent)
Written May 27, 2010
French New Wave was an era that shaped cinema in profound ways. Therefore, it’s no surprise a documentary would be made about the Godfathers of French New Wave, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. With Two in the Wave, first-time director Emmanuel Laurent creates a sparse yet intriguing study of the relationship of these two men, who were at a time great friends, and frames it around clips from their film and the politics of the time period. French New Wave was born at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival. A young critic and cinephile named Francois Truffaut premiered his debut full-length feature, The 400 Blows, and suddenly any French film that existed prior was now Old Wave; the new generation was born and it was a generation of radical political views, secular ideology, the alienation of youth, and existentialism. Moreover, these cinephiles presented their films through a non-conservative visual style featuring jump cuts during tracking shots, improvisation, and a break in formal narrative, focusing more human interaction and the minute details in everyday lives rather than the complexity of plot. In short, French New Wave was about subverting and challenging the invisible style of pre-existing French Cinema.
Two in the Wave bounces around in its storytelling; we witness the commencement of New Wave at Cannes, Godard’s need to get into the action and the subsequent birth of Breathless, Godard and Truffaut's first collaboration. We touch on Jean-Pierre Leaud, the young actor who would become Truffaut’s alter-ego and would grow up on camera, splitting his time between Truffaut and Godard. The story of Leaud and the juggling of his two father figures is pushed to the background until the last act of the film to make way for some general history of Old Wave, New Wave and the American filmmakers these Cahiers du cinema writers gained their inspiration from. To fully explain this documentary would be to fully explain the complete history of New Wave; ironically, the film itself only skims the surface on this matter, choosing to be more of a montage of brilliant film clips rather than a detailed history of the genre. Regardless, Two and the Wave is still enjoyable to the non-cinephile eye (my fiancée rather enjoyed it) and is definitely an intriguing in its dissection of the men behind the cameras and the events that led to their eventual falling out.
Leaud (left) & Truffaut (right)
A conscious effort by Laurent is the exclusion of direct address interviews and this pays off ten-fold. Instead, the film contains voice-over narration, clips from films and real-life news reels and still photography. You’ll also find a seemingly random woman, sitting at a desk and flipping through old articles. You’ll find her at a movie theater as the film is sped-up rapidly and she’s posed in a succession of random shots. You’ll see her walking the streets of Paris, pausing to take a seat on the bridge where Jean Seberg was trying to give out New York Herald Tributes – and you’ll wonder what her purpose is. Simple: she is the viewer. She’s learning the story as we learn it and then relieving the events in her head. She’s consuming all that cinema has to offer. If you do a little research, you’ll learn her name is Isild Le Besco, a French actress/filmmaker. Godard famously said, “all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun”. Le Besco wields no firearm but she’s pretty and she’s framed with lingering shots, in the vein of New Wave. While her presence may not be necessary it can, nevertheless, be understood.
The strongest elements in Two in the Wave are those which focus on the directors’ (as well as Leaud’s in an incredibly memorable scene) pure love affair with cinema. Listening to each of them describe what the medium means to them and their function within it is fascinating. These scenes, inter-cut with some of the greatest cinematic footage to exist, are a joy. The only true negative in the film’s technical presentation comes from the lack of actual Truffaut/Godard footage. This may simply be because significant footage fails to exist. Whatever the case may be, it must be noted that aside from a few still photographs, Godard and Truffaut only appear on camera together in two brief scenes of black and white celluloid.
The film winds down to its inevitable, sad conclusion which is portrayed rather brilliantly via comparison to the artist Henri Matisse. In the end, Godard couldn’t separate his passion for both politics and cinema and thus, was left with no choice but to interweave the two. He’s been doing it for over 40 years and he’s still turning people off in the process (his latest film, which is most likely his last, has created a storm of controversy and divided opinions at Cannes). In an interview shown in the film subsequent to the release of Breathless, Godard notes he doesn’t care if people negatively critique his work. In fact, he considers it a victory if they do. Hence, Mr. Godard certainly is not losing any sleep over the defectors at Cannes this year. Truffaut went a different route; he stood by his political ideology but didn’t allow it to overtake his creative process in film. Instead, he went about making the films he wanted to make rather needed to make; in the end, Godard couldn’t handle this dissension. Some people say you’re either a Godardian or a Truffautian. This isn’t always the case and Two in the Wave proves it by taking two giants of cinema and placing them side by side, forever immortalizing them in celluloid; together.
Note: The magnificent film company Rialto Pictures has just re-released a 50th Anniversary addition of Breathless in select art-house cinemas. If you happen to live in the United States, click here for upcoming showtimes.
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