It’s a Comic Book, Not a Film. (TFR Article)

By Meseret Haddis

Jean-Luc Godard’s Made in U.S.A. is hard to describe. Anna Karina plays Paula Nelson, a proto-type of noir-film detectives, who often narrates the film as she processes her thoughts. She’s a journalist who has come to Atlantic City (Paris) in search of her lover, Richard, whom she discovers is dead. The film follows her, following leads, questioning suspects, all to get down to the truth of Richard’s death.

It’s not surprising that when I watched this film I was reading as much as I was listening, which was something that started to happen when I began watching Godard’s post Pierrot Le Fou films. Made in U.S.A. and Pierrot Le Fou, both use the images of comic book characters and cartoons juxtaposed to images that were filmed. Masculin féminin, released in 1966, also splits narrative into boxes (or vignettes), mimicking the method of comic book storytelling. A comic book, much like these three Godard films, can have juxtaposed ideas, images, and dialogue; characters hare panel frames and, subsequently, thoughts.

What Godard does in Made in U.S.A., is transform each scene into a kind of panel. An example would Paula’s attempt to follow a lead into a doctor’s office), turning her head in paranoia while a nearby female doctor puts on her coat (pictured above). Later on, these two characters are introduced; Paula points a gun at her, and leads her into an examining room. When another gun-toting doctor enters, Paul turns her head again, mimicking the same motion she made a few seconds earlier. Through the flash-forward (something effectively used in comic books), we watch the sequence play-out in the context of the situation. This repetition of movements or sequences seems arbitrary at first but, when viewed in context, they fit together.

Made in U.S.A.’s visual style also creates parallels to comic books. A color palate of red, white and blue litters the background of many scenes, which all take place in Atlantic City, France (fictional, of course, but so is Gotham City). The Technicolor pops like the color in a new comic book pops, with an abrasive punch. Godard’s words don’t fail in their punch, either, as he takes the panel frames of how comic books are structured and uses that fragmentation to structure the film’s story.

The way the film’s narrative is atomized into pieces and fragments adds to the characters relationship to time the same way comic book characters relate to time. Super heroes are generally a certain age, perpetually defeating villains and saving the day. Made in U.S.A. mirrors that feeling. Paula tells a barman that she’s 22. He replies, “22 years from now, you’ll be double that,” to which Paula adds, “Yes, I’ll be 26.” Time has no effect on Paula, who is trying to discover the cause of Richard’s death. Time seems to stand still, with dates being mentioned, but again, without the context, they’re just words.

At the bar, Paula talks with a man named Thomas about sentences. Thomas believes that sentences are meaningless (”The dictionary says so”). Paula explains that words put together make sentences, “Which makes perfect sense”. Thomas replies, “I disagree. Sentences can’t both be meaningless and make sense.” Soon after, the barman interjects: “If you won’t make sentences, I can’t understand or serve you.” In reaction, Thomas conjures a few nonsensical sentences (”The glass isn’t in my wine,” “The barman is in the pen’s jacket pocket,” etc).

Godard’s film is a sentence with missing words, yet those missing words are essential to understanding the sentence/film. Each given word, like a frame in a comic book, is an important contributor to your understanding of the film. Sometimes the most memorable panels and frames in a comic book are at the beginning or end, but they are only memorable because of the frames between them. Which means essentially, that you need words to make a sentence, not the other way around.

Made in U.S.A. is now playing at the Film Forum until January 22.