The final shot of Week end is a close-up of Corinne (begins at 1:38:55). She is snacking on a bone with meat while chatting with the leader of the Seine and Oisem, a group of “hippie revolutionaries”:
“Not bad,” comments Corinne after having tasted a piece of meat.
“A mixture of pork and leftovers of the English tourists,” he informs her.
“Those from the Rolls? ” she asks casually.
“There must be a bit of your husband, too” he responds with a neural tone.
“I’ll have a bit more later, Ernest” she states with nonchalance addressing an off-screen cook.
The shot ends with a gradual fade to black.
The shot is an example of how in art cinema, the linear and rational cause-effect logic of the classical narrative cinema is irremediably shattered. In this shot, cannibalism and even feeding on one’s spouse corpse are presented as unexceptional, ordinary actions. When informed about the nature of her meal, instead of being horrified, Corinne asks for more. How should her behavior be interpreted? How does this final shot help the spectator to make sense of the film?
In trying to understand Corinne’s behavior, I find useful to follow Bordwell: “[w]henever confronted with a problem in causation, temporality, or spatiality, we first seek for motivation” (654). Is there a plausible reason why Corinne consumes the corpse of her husband Roland without batting an eyelid. In a previous scene, a homeless rapes Corrine while she is sleeping in a ditch. Despite she screams and asks for help, her husband remains indifferent and continues to smoke a cigarette. This previous scene might suggest that the final shot portrays Corinne taking revenge. However, the tone of her voice and her attitude clarify that this is not the case. She is absolutely indifferent about her cannibalistic act. In addition, she seems to wear two wedding rings on her left ring finger. One of the two rings is smaller than the other one, and it is likely that it is her deceased husband wedding ring. She might be wearing her husband’s ring because it is made of gold, and this would underline her greediness. Still, she might also fondly preserve the ring as a token of their life together. The use of two wedding rings is purposefully ambiguous. It seems clear that Corinne does not see a contradiction on keeping Roland’s ring and eating his corpse mixed up with other meat. Another way to rationally justify Corinne’s action is to consider whether she has gone mad. This hypothesis does not find sufficient supportive ground in the film. For roughly ninety minutes Corinne and Roland have been the protagonists of mischievous cruelties without showing any qualm of conscience. Therefore, I find legitimate to assume that Corinne’s personality has not gone through any sort of significant transformation. She is perfectly lucid.
Since the realistic motivation does not bring to any satisfactory result, let’s follow Bordwell and try to consider the “authorial motivation.” What is the claim that Godard’s makes through this film? Endless interpretations can be made on the meaning(s) of this film. In my opinion, however, the film is primarily a portrait of how humanity has reached a point of not return and it is apathetically engaged in self-destruction. Corinne and Roland are moved by greed: every week they attempt to poison her father in order to inherit his wealth. At the same time, they are both cheating on each other with no apparent sense of guilt. Two opposing tension are at play simultaneously: one constructive (attempting to illegitimately improve their financial situation) and one destructive (mining their relation as a couple with extra-marital affairs). The motivation behind the couple’s actions is inconsistent and fluctuating. When their plans do not turn out as expected, they have no discernable reaction. They simply continue on their way without knowing where they are heading. This is exactly one of the distinguishing features of this cinematic mode of narration: “the character of the art cinema lacks defined desires and goals” (651). In a similar fashion, the final shot provides no resolution at all. What will happen to Corinne? Literally everything.