Countercinema and WollenPeter Wollen's article, "Godard and countercinema: Vent d'Est", outlines the "seven deadly sins and the seven virtues cardinals" of cinema and deliberates on the formal elements that reflect counter-cinema, which director Jean-Luc Godard uses in almost all of his compositions. (Lana 120). Wollen lists the values of traditional cinema and questions them with their contemporary counterparts. He is incredibly supportive of Godard's counter-cinema approach and holds it in high esteem; however, Wollen has some apprehension about Godard's set of terms: “fiction/mystification/ideology/lie/deception/illusion/representation” (Wollen 120). Two films that use aspects of counter cinema include Godard's Tout va Bien and Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. These films, like counter-cinema itself, display a paradoxical attitude towards suturing and apply the conventions of Godard's counter-cinema. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Wollen begins his article by cataloging the “sins” and “virtues” of cinema. The “sins,” referring to the classical code of film, include: narrative transitivity, identification, transparency, unique diegesis, closure, pleasure, and pretense (Wollen 120). In contrast, Godard's avant-garde canons include: narrative intransitivity, estrangement, foregrounding, multiple diegesis, openness, displeasure, and reality (Wollen 120). The countercinema resists the "sewing" of the suture; suture demonstrates a closed world, a unified fiction, in other words, viewers are not aware of the editing of a film. This challenge undermines the façade of continuity and promotes frustration in viewers. Kicking off our exploration of the formal elements of countercinema present in Tout va Bien and Rear Window is the destruction of narrative transitivity. Narrative transitivity is defined as the “sequence of events in which each unit [] follows the one that precedes it according to a chain of causality” (Wollen 121). In Tout va Bien, Godard repeats the scenes twice, or even more times, one after the other, which results in the massacre of the continuum. The spectators' concentration is interrupted by the assembly tests. Another example in Tout va Bien that breaks the suture is the “Grocery Store” scene, in which the camera is freed from the camera's gaze. This causes dissatisfaction among viewers. Wollen describes the reasoning behind Godard's attraction to narrative intransitivity, stating: "[Godard] can interrupt the emotional spell of the narrative and thus the viewer, by interrupting the narrative flow, can reconcentrate and refocus his attention" (Wollen 121). In Hitchcock’s Rear Window, the “Ms. The "Lonely Heart" scene plays out briefly as his pleasure dissipates; this helps the viewer to discover the frame and modify it. By taking advantage of narrative transitivity through the repetition of shots and hesitation during scenes, nothing is hidden from the viewers. The next conflict is between identification and estrangement; this is defined as empathy and emotional involvement over divided characters and commentary (Wollen 121). Godard's initial devices for breaking involvement incorporate "the mismatch of voice to character, the introduction of 'real people' into the fiction, [and] characters who address the audience directly" (Wollen 122). This is evident in the opening of Tout va Bien; unidentified characters provide voiceover, and the tearing and signing of checks reveal the production side of the film that is traditionally hidden from the.
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