Watch Every Man for Himself For Free

From my favorite movies..

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Godard's splendid return to more "mainstream" cinema is a powerful meditation on love and (mostly) sex. It is often disturbing and profound, as well as silly and darkly comic. Some of the humor seems juvenile, but it is hilarious nonetheless, and beyond the dirty jokes is a masterful avant garde film that is philosophical, sadistic, sexy, and deeply emotional.Godard has always been a highly ambitious filmmaker, and to this day his works proceed to increase in experimentation, and "Every Man for Himself" certainly displays his ability to have fun with film. Behind the unique synthesized soundtrack running throughout this film, various experimental visuals are utilized, particularly the effect of Godard randomly pausing on certain frames, creating a slow motion-esque look.Complex issues and characters populate this dense, yet brief masterwork of French cinema. The ending is one of simultaneous happiness and tragedy, as it the situation ends a slightly ambiguous, yet hugely fitting note as the main "lovers" walk away from the viewers, and the film.

If you're a fan of film, a cinephile, or took film classes in school, you probably did an entire section on the iconic director Jean-Luc Godard. You might have heard your film buff friends or professors show you why Godard is one of the best filmmakers to ever grace the big screen. And if you've seen any of his films, you would have to agree, which is why Criterion loves releasing his films under the brand.His 1980 film, titled 'Every Man For Himself' was nominated for the Palme d'Or Award at Cannes that year and was almost nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars that same year. Prior to 1980, Godard's films were very experimental in nature and mostly done and a very small budget with small name actors. Godard himself has said that 'Every Man For Himself' was like being reborn again, as this was considered his return to mainstream filmmaking with a decent sized budget and well-known actors.While this film had those new aspects, Godard continued to revert back to his experimental ways with the use of movement and music, particularly using slow motion to elevate certain scenes. What Godard tries to convey and tell us with 'Every Man For Himself' is that no matter the choices you make in life or the paths you decide to go down, you usually end up looking after yourself only. Godard even said that a better title for this film would be 'Save Your Ass'. 'Every Man For Himself' plays out like three separate one-act plays that centers on a certain character in each act. We all know that Godard has influenced tons of directors, one of them being Quentin Tarantino, so it shouldn't be a surprise that each character here and story line cross paths at some point in the film, much like the characters did in 'Pulp Fiction'.We meet Paul Godard, who is a filmmaker who has been having a long affair with a woman named Denise. This ultimately led to his divorce from his ex-wife. Since Paul is a moody son-of-a-gun, and doesn't want to put in the time emotional effort to make Denise happy, she decides she needs move out and live in the country. But Denise also struggles with leaving the unhappy life in the city that she knows in order to make a change for the better. Meanwhile, Paul tries to appease her, but at a distance, as he seems to sabotage himself and relationships, because he wants to be alone.This is conveyed by his very unorthodox conversations and thoughts towards young girls, which is fairly creepy. Paul ends up meeting a prostitute named Isabelle, where after their session, she continues her evening of work with several other clients, who are not above abusing her. But she doesn't seem to mind her line of work or life. Even when her sister comes to town to look for help and money, Isabelle convinces her to become an escort instead of helping out. And while Isabelle looks over the girls under her tutelage and the clients that abuse them, she never breaks, but instead basks in her life choices. Godard perfectly weaves each of these characters into literally running into each other, where each person is forced to make a life decision and get on a better path.As we see Paul, who seems to be his own worst enemy try and be the better father and ex-husband he should be, it's just inevitable for dire consequences to catch up with him. It's quite a brilliant style for Godard too, as he uses the slow motion technique to upgrade these choices we make that influence the rest of our lives. 'Every Man For Himself' might not have the indie look or raw feel as his earlier films, but Godard sure made a great film that makes us look at our own lives and think if we've made the right choices.

I never did quite 'get' Dali. All those contortions. Grotesque shapes. Stunted creatures. Then one day I saw clues. His 'melting pocket-watch' (The Persistence Of Memory) was not just a silly timepiece, bent out of shape like wax melting off a table. It was the fluidity of time, how we perceive time in different ways. When we have fun (for instance) and time seems to speed up. When we're bored, and it slows.Our inner experience of time is affected by our perception. Our focus, our mental state, it makes a big difference. We are similarly affected by how things are presented externally. Trees flashing past so quickly they are almost a blur. Have you ever been on a train as it traverses a wooded hill? But see the same trees from the hilltop and their majesty and poetry become evident. In both cases, perhaps there is no absolute 'reality' – only different ways of perceiving it. At any one second, our senses are overloaded with more data than our consciousness allows. It is less a case of 'seeing what is really there' - but of exerting control over our selection process, our filtering, and deciding what data to take time to consciously process; and what our conscious mind ignores.Perception is, for Godard, an enduring theme. Speed it up, slow it down. The camera mimics the process of visual perception. It chooses what to observe, and how. It 'tells' us what to think. Can cinema, by its careful control of simulated perception, increase our understanding of 'how' we perceive things? Or alert us to the possibility that there is 'more' in front of our eyes than we might have assumed on that busy day? The nominal plot revolves around a three characters. A filmmaker called Godard. Denise, a writer/editor trying to make a career change. And Isabelle, a prostitute (Isabelle Huppert) trying to better herself. Godard and Denise are in the painful process of ending a relationship. He is also going through a tough time with his ex-wife and daughter. Denise sees Isabelle being abused in the street. Isabelle sleeps with Godard after going to a movie with him. She wants to get a new place to live – even phoning about a flat during a bizarre sex scene - and she wants to work for herself instead of the pimp. Not knowing Godard is the landlord, she visits their cottage up for rent as Godard throws himself across the table at Denise.Three wildly different life trajectories. Intersecting in ways that allow the film to challenge accepted notions. Toying with the nature of perception. And even asking how we get to where we want to be in life – or not. Separate chapters - after the intro sequences - for each character. Then 'Music' brings all three together. (Look out for unusual sound tropes as well.) Slow Motion – by whatever name we call it – is almost as conventional as Godard gets. While the narrative is far from mainstream, it is a more recognisable cinema experience than much of his most challenging (or didactic, uncommercial) work. And it provides material to sustain many repeated viewings.The film includes about 15 'stop-action' shots, where the image is stopped completely, slowed down, replayed, and/or speeded up. We don't just analyse images outside of their diegetic function: we are able to invent a parallel diegesis. It is almost like the break-up of a relationship where a man and woman see 'reality' from totally different perspectives. Godard deconstructs his own maxim of 'truth 24 times per second' by varying the speeds. Outwardly hollow moments contain more than might otherwise meet the eye. It is not the subject matter and characters that demand Brechtian analysis, to become aware of our spectator involvement, so much as the process of perception itself. In a scene where an executive orchestrates a scenario with two prostitutes and another man, we are again confronted with complex metaphor, ("Okay," he says, "we've got the image, now we'll take care of the sound.") But here, the symbol of prostitution is not playing into the Marxist-bourgeois analogy so commonly used by Godard in films such as 2 Or 3 Things I Know About Her. In the debauchery, we can see the construction processes and their perception, the images, the sound, used to no specific purpose other than gratification – thus mimicking the production of mindless entertainment in Hollywood consumerist cinema.Compounding such stop-motion tropes is the use of interior dialogue. Isabelle plays out another life in her head while having sex with clients. What do we choose to 'see'? To hear? Comparison of the prostitution scenes and the scenes where natural, spontaneous sexuality is apparent or implied, coupled with the 'selection' process we make when determining how we 'see' things, might reflect not only on how men and women (or any two people) can be 'in tune' – but also, with different emphases affecting the data-perception process, the very gender difference apparent when we look at how men and women might typically view things differently. There might be life apart from the diegetic one. We might choose what we perceive to be 'real' – but ultimately we make our own reality.Dehumanization occurs when a person is not able to order their life according to their will. At that point, the individual has become a slave to the senses rather than their master. One might not be able to change the territory in which one finds oneself – but, by standing back far enough to discern the wood from the trees, one might at least find new perceptions that can be converted to reality.

The foremost image in this film, which I find difficult to erase from my memory, is that of the 2 prostitutes, 1 john and 1 lackey set up. How original. It made me think of "Vivre sa vie" and then "2 or 3 things I know about her". Granted these are the only Godard films I've seen, but the sex trade theme is definitely prevalent.In the earlier films, of course, it's toned down but one of the things they all have in common is the coldness of the transaction and the purely business way that they are carried out. It almost seems as though they have not been directed by a man, but a woman.All in all, I find Jean Luc, one of the more honest and clear thinking directors of not only our generation, but any generation. Can't wait to see more.