I’ve now seen this Godard/Gorin film a few times in my life (and have already written about it once on my blog), and it manages to be more accessible than much of Godard’s work in the 1970s, but also still very much concerned with theoretical ideas. It’s the film of a public intellectual, primarily, so when voice is given to revolutionary ideas, it feels less like the directors giving voice to those who have been rendered voiceless, and more a critique of mainstream media in occluding such voices, and in denying power to those exploited under capitalism. The film nimbly flits between these moments of confrontation — usually presented frontally, with bodies crowded into the frame — and satirical digs at management and media, such as our factory manager being subjected to his own factory’s rules leading to him breaking a window to take a leak. Voices at the start and end lead us through the expectations of the narrative for a commercial film, as cheques to all the actors and crew are being signed, and throughout there’s this tension between what Godard and Gorin want to say about power and representation, and what capitalist practices demand, yet it’s never quite as boring as that all sounds. There are sequences as visually arresting as anything in Godard’s filmography, there’s as much humour as anger, and there’s Jane Fonda.
CRITERION EXTRAS:
- The main extra is Godard and Gorin’s 52-minute follow-up Letter to Jane: An Investigation about a Still (1972). Following the release of the feature, the two regrouped to talk about that film but chose instead a photo of “Hanoi Jane” listening to the North Vietnamese as a way of talking about their film. It at once seems to sum up Godard’s idea of making films as a means of film criticism, of synthesising arguments about images and where the power lies, while also being rather excoriating about the actress in his own film, whose agency is removed from her by these two guys talking over the image and asking who it benefits and what it all means.
- There’s a brief interview with Godard from the same year, clad in a bathrobe and unshaven, trying to put across what the two were trying to achieve with Tout va bien, which is a pretty thoroughgoing critique of capitalism and power.
FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Directors/Writers Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin; Cinematographer Armand Marco; Starring Jane Fonda, Yves Montand; Length 95 minutes.
Seen at National Library, Wellington, Wednesday 16 May 2001 (and on DVD at home, London, on Monday 26 August 2013 and Sunday 10 November 2019).
filmcentric 