Weekend (1967)
Director: Jean Luc Godard
TRT: 105 minutes
Budget: $250,000
THE CONCEPT:
Bourgeois French married couple Roland and Corinne Durand take a journey to secure the Corinne's inheritance from her dying father. It contains a pseudo-autobiographical storytelling that depicts satire and realistic detail. When their car stalls on the countryside, they continue on foot. On the way they encounter everything from armed revolutionaries to historical characters and a man claiming to be God.
HOW THE MONEY WAS RAISED:
Godard peaked during the French New Wave, a movement of young filmmakers who made personal films with a low budget. Because this was a big deal at the time, people were willing to participate in the raising of the money. It was a revolution that sparked Godard's career. People wanted to revolt against the tradition of quality and start making things REAL.
BUDGET AND HOW IT WAS SPENT:
The total budget of Weekend is estimated at $250,000. Because the film is centered on this new ideal realistic storytelling, much of the budget was put toward art, and creating multiple diegetic worlds.
ART DIRECTION:
Certain scenes for example like the massive countryside car wreck scene would require some of that budget. The bourgeois class would go on trips to the country (their idea of roughing it). The cars were also part of the celebration of the French New Wave because they were only blue, white and red (the French flag).
TARGET MARKET:
Weekend was meant to appeal to young filmmakers during the French New Wave. Because this film was something never scene before, it appealed to a much larger audience.
HOW IT REACHED THAT MARKET:
Godard heavily connected to story telling but plays with concept known as a film within film (breaking the forth wall). What made this film also very appealing was that it was almost like a commentary on the Hollywood genre. Godard's ideal was to break away at this Hollywood mold and create something more transparent so that cinema can present realities similar to our own.
THE FILM'S GROSS:
The gross income for Weekend is unknown, but from the information given by other films such as "The Married Woman" cost $100,000 to make and grossed over a million. Godard never took any of the profit for himself. When he asked for the support of Columbia Pictures, he put all the profits into the film.
THE FILMMAKERS CAREER AFTER THE FILM:
Godard's career continued to the present with a large amount of successful shorts and feature films. Weekend was the last film he made during the French New Wave. Some of the most famous and successful Godard films are "Breathless" (1960), "Made in USA" (1966) and "Every Man for Himself" (1980).
Author's Note: Source: Wollen, Peter. "Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent d' Est." Film Art: An Introduction, 1993: 79-91.
