Courtesy of http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/animated-gif-sequence-from-godards-vivre-sa-vie/view

At the beginning of the screening session, Dan encouraged us to perceive Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1962 French New Wave film Vivre Sa Vie from a critical perspective rather than a narrative point of view. So below I analyse particular scenes in the film where Goddard clearly emphasises his experimentation of diegetic sound with camera.

The opening sequence of a close-up of Nana’s head from different perspectives is coupled by the juxtaposing of silence and an almost deafening soundtrack. Although the transition between silence to a sudden increase in volume was quite jarring, Goddard managed to establish that relationship of sound with visual where the deafening soundtrack perceives the distance of the close-ups on the screen. Although it did extend for a lengthy amount of time, it did intrigue me into wanting to know about the silhouette subject on screen.

Goddard’s decision to solely rely on diegetic sound during the café scene involving Nana and her ex-husband, drowned out most of the dialogue amongst the background sounds of the café. If I were to watch the film without the subtitles, then I would’ve struggled to understand the conversation. In this sense, I guess it’s a fidelity of what we expect to hear in a realistic situation at a café.

Silence throughout Nana’s viewing of the Joan of Arc film was an obvious foreshadowing of her death at the conclusion of the film. I developed this personal attachment with Nana through the silence and the mirroring of close-ups and emotion when the camera would cut between Nana and Joan.