The Story of Water (1961)
Truffaut/Godard Short Film from Criterion's The Last Metro Blu-Ray
Mar 19, 2009
Included in the supplementary features of the newly released Criterion Blu-Ray edition of Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980), The Story of Water is an 18 minute embodiment of the French New Wave movement in cinema; deconstructing classic elements from American Film Noir and Italian Neorealism, with a decidedly French twist.
With the full-force fury of the French New Wave film movement behind them Truffaut and Godard were just beginning to feel their oats when they co-directed this small gem. Truffaut had just completed two back-to-back master works, The 400 Blows (1959) and Shoot The Piano Player (1960); and the reverberations from Godard's landmark film Breathless (1960) had only just begun.
Truffaut/Godard Together
With the wham, pop, bam of a smoking hot Jazz soundtrack echoing through the French countryside (one of many odd contradictory elements), Godard himself narrates the loosely constructed story of a young woman attempting to make her way from her home in the country to Paris, amid a massive flood.
The Girl (Caroline Dim) hops, skips, jumps myriad obstacles to reach her destination; along the way pointing out notable personal landmarks, like the swimming pool where she learned the backstroke, and the homes of relatives and friends; all the while digressing into rhapsodic monologues about life, love, and art.
Once on stable ground, by way of a makeshift bridge, a bicycle and a leaky boat, The Girl hitches a ride with The Young Man (Jean-Claude Brialy). The Young Man predictably begins to flirt with his new passenger, while she carries on with her musings about art, literature, and philosophy; self-consciously referencing the Italian poet Petrarch, master in the Art of Digression.
After driving around in search of a way out of the village, The Young Man's car stalls in a muddy hole in the road; providing for a brief romantic interlude. The young couple find a dry patch of land to lay together and talk, and romance, to little avail; they digress. And before you know it, wham, pop, pow, back on the road; arriving in Paris just in time to see the water rising up to the base of the Eiffel Tower; embracing The Young Man, The Girl says, "This is happiness".
Truffaut/Godard Apart
Godard and Truffaut would take divergent paths after Une histoire d'eau; while Godard continued to expand upon the experimental, existential elements of New Wave cinema with films like Contempt (1963) and Band of Outsiders (1964), moving further and further away from the conventions of Hollywood cinema; Truffaut, after having made what many consider the greatest of all New Wave cinema, Jules and Jim (1962), seemed to move closer to embracing a more Americanized and conventional style with Fahrenheit 451(1966) and The Bride Wore Black (1968).
As would suit the paths chosen, Godard's unpredictable and unweildy works would produce a loyal cult following; while Truffaut's infatuation with Hollywood would soon merge into a unique style like that of no other filmmaker, triumphantly returning to form in the 1970's with two more masterpieces, Day For Night (1973) and Small Change (1976); capping the decade with his last great movie, The Last Metro (1980).
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