Class Accidents and Car Struggles.

One of my favorite scenes in Weekend was the scene with tractor and convertible accident. You know, because I just love class struggles. As the tractor rolls across the frame, before the collision, you can hear that he is singing the Internationale, the socialist/communist anthem that originated in France. That was my first clue that this was going to be more than just an automobile accident. (And then the intertitle “Class Struggle” appeared and I really, really knew). Of course, the argument about who had the right of way quickly metamorphosed into which person lives the right lifestyle and each critiquing the economic decisions the other made. Godard clearly sides with the socialist, having the bourgeois woman making ridiculous statements about what she did with her husband. By the end, the woman and the farmer join the crowd of people who appeared to be watching the scene from in front of a collection of advertisements, and the Internationale plays again. This kind of mimics what happens at the end of the film when Corinne joins the band of revolutionaries after her husband is dead. And on a broader note, it reflects the whole message, and purpose, of the film.

This scene also plays into the bigger motif of car accidents. We see it right from the beginning when the thought of both Corinne’s parents and husband dying in traffic accidents comes up within the span of a minute. And then we hear Roland talking about he wants Corinne to die in the same way. And of course when the couple kills Corinne’s mother, they must burn her body... in a car. The car is a symbol of capitalism. It is expensive and something that the world can see and judge you by. So, how better to assert your right to a free market than to totally disobey traffic laws and common courtesy like Corinne and Roland do in the scene on the long stretch of road. And probably all of the audience has a car. One cannot help but think about their car being damaged in an accident, whether it is the small tap that occurs in the beginning of the film or the huge fire than destroys Corinne’s Hermes handbag (which is clearly more upsetting than all of the people who were destroyed in all of the prior accidents they just drive by). All of the accidents feed into the displeasure for the viewer. The accidents, the mangling of cars, are metaphorically the destruction of consumer society which is the goal of counter-cinema.