The comedy elements that appear in a large number of this film have to be said to be rare in Godard's movies. Except for the more complete plot of "Exhausted", "Weekend", "Contempt", and "Women are Women" are flooded with a lot of dullness. The strange character dialogue, coupled with the loose plot structure, often makes the audience enjoy the entire movie boringly with little laughter. And "Outside the Law" is interspersed with different jokes and comedy elements in many scenes. For example, every time Franz lights a cigarette for Audell, Audrey does not smoke, and when her favorite Arthur takes out the cigarette At the time, she dexterously withdrew one of them every time, Franz was expressionless on the side, but did not dare to attack in front of the favorite Audrey, but Arthur triumphantly showed his own ability.
And this kind of comedy element in the film is more of a black humorous comedy bridge. Many times the protagonist and the heroine mentioned "Billy Kid" and "South America" in the dialogues, which happened to be in the American Hollywood crime films of the 1950s and 1960s. The end subtitles "The Sequel of Extrajudicial Fanatics" will tell the story of the adventures of Franz and Odell in South America. Both are ironic of these repetitive and meaningless crime genres in Hollywood, which are for the mainstream. The critique of the film follows the will of the new wave of movies-to be a critical "author's film."
But the black humorous comedy serves the irony behind the absurdity after all, for movies, for politics, for people, for the so-called existence and nothingness. When the ending bullet shot into Arthur's body, based on the experience of crime movie viewers, he was destined to die quickly, but Godard made the actor bounce off the ground like a joke with Franz at the beginning. After shooting again and again, finally giving a fatal blow to the uncle who is also a gangster, he crashed down. The irony is the conventional evil ending of the crime film, the irony is the empiricism of the numb audience, and the irony is the 1960s. In a state of complete freedom, everything can happen, and then step by step toward the meaninglessness of life and the nihility of existence.
However, history seems to have made a joke for Godard. Such a critical anti-crime film has provided directors such as Quentin with a lot of nutrients to shoot new era genre films, Quentin's "Pulp Fiction" The "twisting dance" in "Twisting Dance" is undoubtedly a tribute to the "three-person dance" in "Outside the Law", and the fast-walking bridge in the Louvre seems to have traveled through half a century to come to the "Dream of Paris" Set.
Of course, the "Outside the Law" under the "black stockings" still has a deep "new wave" color. The opening of the three protagonists jumps and cuts, the dialogue scenes of the characters at a large depression angle, and the protagonist from time to time faces the camera and speaks to the audience. The "reflexivity" in the last sentence or two and the "tribute" to other New Wave movies are all film styles in the "New Wave" movement. Going deep into the story itself, the setting of polygamy between two men and one woman in the characters is reminiscent of Truffau’s "Ancestor and Occupation" and Godard's other film "A Woman Is a Woman". New Wave is good at and advocates. It is the doubt and uncertainty about politics and love. The ambiguity and dissociation of the relationship between the three people in the film is that the director wants to express the relationship between the two sexes. At the end of the film, when Arthur, who was originally a lover, died in a gunfight, the other two came out. Unexpectedly, there was no ups and downs of sadness, but seemed to have discovered the true meaning of love, and immediately began a new relationship in the car. The previous three-person dance in the cafe itself is actually a solo dance from the United States that can be danced alone. From the beginning, the three had a good time, each with their own thoughts, and only Audrey was dancing in the open space, just like the movie lines." Even though people are in the same space, they are like crossing the road. Everyone is a lonely individual after all. This loneliness is eternal.” In the final analysis, the emptiness of love refers to the emptiness of people themselves. The existentialist trend of thought is inseparable, just like the New Wave film movement itself. It was not a movement initiated for the rise of the European film industry, but an isolated, confrontational, and unanimous film by young French directors. The activities of artistic experimentation are lofty and arrogant, independent of the European continent.
Finally, to say something off topic, I like Wong Kar-wai very much, and Godard can be regarded as a director whom Wong Kar-wai particularly admires. The two have too many similarities. Both love to wear sunglasses. The narrative is loose and free, and the lens is used. Unique, and when I saw the image of the legendary footless bird when Arthur died in the "Outside the Law", I suddenly realized that the allusions of the footless bird in "A Fei's True Story" and the character of A Fei The setting actually comes from "Outside the Law". The protagonist of the film "The Law", Arthur, has an unruly and casual personality. The thought of loving someone is only a moment, and the thought of crime is only a breath. On the other hand, the point of one minute actually comes from "Outside the Law." Franz felt embarrassed in the coffee shop and suggested that three people were silent for one minute, while the one minute in the movie was silent, and the picture was silent. , But silent is better than sound. In the lines, "One minute has a different length in everyone's heart, and one minute may be eternal". If you use it to understand the lines of Wang Jiawei, A Fei, then everything is clear. "16th, April 16th. You are with me one minute before 3pm on April 16, 1960, because you and I will remember this minute. From now on we will be one Minutes friend, this is a fact, you can't change it, because it has passed."
Then a minute is both a minute and an eternity.
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