In Vivre sa vie I have attempted to film a mind in action, the interior of someone seen from outside.– Jean-Luc Godard, Télérama, 1962

Vivre Se Vie is a film told in 12 chapters, much like a novel or a screenplay. Although the film’s title ‘My Life to Live’ suggests it follows the life story of the protagonist Nana (which it does), it ultimately is structured as a documentary showing the events that led to her death. The film is very much alike a documentary of Nana’s life and death. According to director Jean-Luc Godard, “All great fiction films tend towards documentary, just as all great documentaries tend toward fiction… each word implies a part of the other. And he who opts wholeheartedly for one, necessarily finds the other at the end of his journey.” In a very French New Wave fashion, Nana is shown to be very withdrawn, distant and level headed when dealing with other people. Although small glimpses of Nana’s interior motives are shown.
Chapter 3 in the film, titled THE CONCIERGE – THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC – A JOURNALIST, shows Nana in a cinema watching Dreyer’s “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928). This scene is important because it shows a running theme throughout the film; women being interrogated, threatened and persecuted by men, which leads to their ultimately ends in death.
Godard doesn’t set out to make Nana the archetype of a “good” woman or the voice of a generation. Nana is her own woman, an individual off and on the screen. She is distant and withdrawn from the viewers, who do not create empathy for her. Godard expresses Nana’s journey in a way that is profound and poised and exploits life with a matter-of-fact approach, but does not make a distinct effort to create an emotional connection with the audience. It is this that creates the impression that the film is not fiction, but a documentary of Nana’s life in which she is suppressed and seen as inferior to her male counterparts.