A moment that stood out for me in Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin feminin was toward the end when the film showed people walking in the streets of Paris. The people shown weren't actors that were a part of the movie, they were real people being filmed. Some of them don't look at the camera, but a lot do, obviously unknowing what the camera is even there for. The street shots of people walking was not only shown for a solid couple of minutes near the end of the film, but also a few more times in earlier scenes as characters spoke in the background. Most of the time when films show cities, it is either scenic far away shots, or if it is a shot of the street, the people in it know they are in a movie and they are there on purpose. Godard's use of real people going about their daily lives gives the movie more of a sense of reality. This style of filming shows how interested Godard was in the documentary style of filmmaking and how blurred the line between documentary and fiction this particular film really is, as we discussed in class. Not only the street shots hinted at the documentary style, but also the improvised dialogue and interview-style conversations as the camera focused on one person for long periods of time.
Godard uses several film techniques that stray away from the usual rules filmmakers live by, so it is safe to say Godard believes film should be unique, without rules or guidelines. In this case, the documentary style he uses throughout the film shows that he believes film should be more real and lifelike than just fiction. He once said, "Every film is a documentary of its actors." He also said, "All great fiction films tend towards documentary, just as all great documentaries tend toward fiction… each word implies a part of the other. And he who opts wholeheartedly for one, necessarily finds the other at the end of his journey."
Godard believes every film is a documentary in a sense, and every film should try to be somewhat of a documentary, if it wants to be any good. He definitely does that with this film.
