"I Know A Little About Her": An Alternative Meta-Film

The biggest artistic highlight of "I Know A Little About Her" lies in its form: a lot of narration, and even the narration becomes more important than the plot and characters. Roger Ebert summed it up well, a documentary of his state of mind about Godard. I think this movie can be classified as an alternative metacinema (Neo-metacinema) to some extent. Generally, meta-movies talk about the production process of a movie, such as the daily life of the director from the time he receives the project to the completion of the project, how the director edits the movie and how to schedule it on the set, the relationship between the director and the crew, how the actors view the entire movie, etc. And so on; and this meta-movie is about the central idea that the director wants to express when dealing with film elements such as images, plot, sound, etc.

That is to say, what this film wants to show is the "thought" that the director wanted to express in his mind when he made the film, not the life at the time of production or the finished product. In the film, therefore, the presentation of the story gives way to the presentation of the "ideas". In order to strengthen the absolute role of Godard's narration (that is, thought) in the film, Godard made a lot of designs: ① Characters and landscapes (various industrial wasteland, billboards, slogan, sign, text on books, etc. ) are intentionally symbolized. Godard has no intention to use more soundtrack or more composition or any other audio-visual means to increase the emotional or level depth of the characters and landscapes, because the excessively in-depth presentation of the characters and landscapes will distract the audience from his "" Thought” (i.e. narration) demonstrated attention. So the characters and the landscape don't matter, the story doesn't matter, what matters is the narration, what matters is what Godard wanted to say. Godard disdains to retreat behind the scenes like other directors to express the central idea with a story, because when we think about the arguments we want to express, what we have in mind is language, not images or sounds, so only language is the most direct , The most correct way to show "what the director wants to express in his mind when he processes the original film"; ②The heroine breaks the fourth wall to speak. This is a declaration of the camera/director's sovereignty over all film elements, showing the absolute power of the camera/director in the entire film. All stories, characters, landscapes are less important than opinions emanating from the fourth wall (in this case the director/camera), so their actions must show absolute respect for the mind (here, this presentation is absolutely The way of respect is that the actor shows his acknowledgement and even respect for the presence of the director by facing the camera/director); ③ When the character's narration begins, all other voices and all conversations should be quiet, because they cannot be overwhelming, the director issued The language is what matters (there are a lot of clips like this, including the most famous one with a lot of coffee froth close-ups in the cafe). The picture can exist, because the film wants to talk about what the director thinks when dealing with the elements of the film, so in theory, the picture and all other sounds can exist, but all other sounds will take over, so they are not allowed to exist.

However, I think the movie still has some shortcomings. For example, when the narrator speaks, other voices are hidden. Although it successfully emphasizes the dominance of the narration, the film is about "the thoughts that the director wants to express in his mind when he processes the original film", and what kind of "he is dealing with" It is a pity that the original film "is not fully restored in terms of hearing because other sounds have been hidden.