„Cadre de vie”. Jean-Luc Godard’s „Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle” (1967), French TV and Architectural Discourse

Abstract

The article demonstrates how Jean-Luc Godard’s Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle (1967) contributed to the contemporary critical discourse on (social) housing estates (grands ensembles). With his work, the filmmaker aimed to show the grand ensemble, or ‘the big(ger) picture’ of what it meant to live in contemporary consumerist oriented France. The protagonist Juliette Johnson represents the French citizen and simultaneously the metaphor of the Paris Region that underwent a huge transformation. The main interest of the text lies in the use of the 360-degree pan shot and the notion of cadre (frame), as they connect film theory and the contemporary discourse about how the décor, i.e. the (built) environment, influences people’s cadre de vie (living conditions). A close reading of two film sequences and a historical contextualisation of architectural discourses and theories is completed by a comparison with documentary TV programmes. While they had fostered the critical discussion about housing estates already before, they used the panorama shot only after Deux ou trois choses…

Keywords

• Jean-Luc Godard
• French cinema
• housing estate
• architecture
• Cité des 4000 Sud
• panorama shot