Meetin' WA

[StevePulaski]

Meetin' WA (1986)
Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard

Rating: ★★½

Right off the bat, the thought of the revolutionary French director Jean-Luc Godard and the incredibly influential and acclaimed American director Woody Allen working together on a short film - one staged as an interview - is a dream come true for almost any cinephile. For some unexplainable reason, Godard and Allen seem to work on the same wavelength together, unless we're talking about "Meetin' WA," then they're on polar opposite sides, it seems. Ostensibly, the film is a casual interview between two directors, with Jean-Luc Godard halfway obscured on camera asking questions to Woody Allen, who appears to be trying to sit on a couch in a sweater as comfortably as he can, fighting off what seems to be some serious uncertainty and anxiety. Godard often asks unclear questions, with Allen sometimes noticeably confused on how he is supposed to answer such questions. The editing, which can obviously not be seen when shooting the film, is what works against the short itself and Allen. Godard seems like he doesn't take this project seriously in the slightest, interrupting Allen with wacky title cards, many of which having no purpose or connection to what his subject is saying, in addition to him cutting scenes off abruptly to show stray pictures to elevator music, as well as inserting wacky fade-to-black filters in for good abstract measure. Little by little, these distractions sort of cripple the entire project. In contrast, however, Godard shows a remarkable affection and appreciation for video production through these intriguing albeit unnecessary instances in editing.

When Godard does allow Allen to speak, "Meetin' WA" does get fairly interesting, with Allen reflecting on the magic quality of how cinema "transports" an individual to different time periods (in a monologue I agree with entirely), as well as the "cultural radiation" of Television and how its powers could never emulate that of cinema's, and so forth. Most of what is discussed is intellectually stimulating, however one wishes Godard would've taken his subject more seriously at least to allow him to finish his thoughts and sentences every now and then. As good as the video production can be, especially for the late eighties, one questions how much appreciation one could have for another person when their responses to important questions are muted or shortchanged thanks to creative editing.

Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.