Passion (1982 film)
| Passion | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Produced by |
Armand Barbault Catherine Lapoujade Martine Marignac |
| Written by |
Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Claude Carrière (uncredited) |
| Starring |
Isabelle Huppert Jerzy Radziwilowicz Hanna Schygulla Michel Piccoli László Szabó |
| Cinematography | Raoul Coutard |
| Edited by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Distributed by | Parafrance Films |
|
Release date
|
26 May 1982 |
|
Running time
|
88 minutes |
| Country | Switzerland / France |
| Language | French |
Passion is a 1982 film by Jean-Luc Godard, and the second feature film made during his return to relatively mainstream filmmaking in the 1980s, sometimes referred to as the Second Wave. Like most of Godard's work from this period, Passion is shot in color with a 1.37 aspect ratio. Cinematographer Raoul Coutard, collaborating with Godard for the first time since 1967, won the Technical Grand Prize for cinematography at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. The film had 207,294 admissions in France.
Jerzy is a Polish filmmaker working at a big studio in Switzerland shooting a series of tableaux vivants for a feature film. His producer Lászlo is impatient because there is no apparent story to this film and Jerzy keeps canceling the shoot, repeatedly citing difficulties with the lighting. In the process of making his film, Jerzy has gotten involved with two local women: Isabelle, an earnest young factory worker with a stutter, and Hanna, the worldly German owner of the hotel where the crew is staying. Hanna is married to Michel, an arrogant man with a chronic cough who owns the factory where Isabelle works.
Isabelle is fired from her job and attempts to organize her fellow workers to strike – not for her sake, but for their own. The film crew is meanwhile recruiting factory workers as extras for the series of tableau that Jerzy is shooting. Jerzy continues to search for the right lighting in the studio and to try to manage an increasingly unruly group of extras. At the same time he is trying to continue his relationship with Hanna, with whom he has shot some test footage that the two review together while discussing the intersection of love and work. Jerzy is also taken with Isabelle, who also wants to merge love and work. She tries to get Jerzy involved with her cause and to make meaningful connections with the film crew, asking them why films never show people working.
Finally, Isabelle and Jerzy have an intimate encounter and Isabelle gives up her virginity. She accepts a payoff from Michel, her fellow workers having abandoned their half-hearted attempt at a strike. Lászlo secures more money for the film but Jerzy feels the tug of the Solidarity events and his family back in Poland. Resolving to finish his project by other means, Jerzy leaves for Poland with neither Isabelle nor Hanna but with a waitress from the hotel. Isabelle and Hanna connect with each other and also decide to go to Poland.
Shooting began in November 1981 close to the Lake Geneva for the location scenes and in 1982 in the Billancourt filmstudios in Paris for the scenes shot in the studio. Godard had met Hanna Schygulla in Hollywood when she was shooting One from the Heart with Francis Ford Coppola. Godard asked Schygulla at once if she wanted to participate in his new film but she first wanted to see a synopsis. Soon after Godard sent her a three-page summary in English titled Passion: Work and Love. The film marks Godard's reunion with cinematographer Raoul Coutard; the last time they had worked together was on Week-end (1967), which is usually considered the end of the French New Wave.
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