UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Department of European Studies and Modern Languages

ON COMMUNICATION:
THE WORK OF ANNE-MARIE MIEVILLE AND
JEAN-LUC GODARD AS 'SONIMAGE' FROM 1973 TO 1979

Submitted by M. J.E.Witt
for the degreeof PhD
of the University of Bath
1998

COPYRIGHT

Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. This
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This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and
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Abstract
Sonimage is the name of the experimental audio-visual 'laboratory' established
by Anne-Marie Mieville and Jean-Luc Godard in the 1970s. Against the backdrop of
the dissipation of gauchiste activity after May 1968, Sonimage moved from Paris to
Grenoble (in 1973), and then to Rolle in Switzerland (in 1977). Three films (Ici et
Ailleurs, Numero deux, and Comment ca va), and two series for television (Six fois deux
[Sur et sous la communication] and France tour detour deux enfants) were completed.
Appropriating the subtitle to the first of the television series, this thesis argues
la
discourse
little
discussed
body
sur et sous
that this
of work contains a sustained
Godard/Mieville
living
'unde?
use
on
communication:
a civilisationcommunication.
video as a research tool through which to pursue a unique and ambitious project:
drawing on information
theory, they slow down and analyse contemporary
their
through
own
communication processes, simultaneously generating counter-models
foresees
subsequent
As-such,
textual
and
their position precedes
self-reflexive
practice.
influential critiques of the media age by theorists such as Jean Baudrillard.
Beginning with an intellectual and historical contextualisation of Sonimage* this
(television,
foci
focuses
thesis
systematically on the project's successive component
journalism, language, metaphor), and identifies at its core the presence of a radical
Godard/Mieville,
operating
demonstrate
It
that
to
communications model.
goes on
by
framed
scales
of
dense
sliding
framework,
Post-Structuralist
texts
within a
construct
'generative' metaphors which produce a rich, provocative, aleatory discourse, one which
Godaidian
the
functioning
of
serves as a succinct schematisation of the texture and
is
it
on and against,
discourse as a whole. If the Sonimage project is on communication,
but always operating in relation to, language.

Contents

Abstract

Contents

ii

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

vi

Introduction
i
ii
iii
iv
v

Sonimage: a very brief history

Anne-Marie Mieville
Aims of thesis
Methodology
Survey of literature

1
9
13
15
17

Chapter 1- From politics to the new context: 'under'

television

1.1

Introduction

20

1.2
1.2.1

The critique of socialisation 'under' capitalism: human 'monstres'

The political context of Sonimage and enduring influence of
Althusser

21
21

1.2.2 Docile bodies: the calibration of the body as machine and

splintering of identity

30

1.3
1.3.1

The repudiation of political theory: Id et ailleurs

From the Groupe Dziga Vertov to Sonimage: the reworking of
Jusqu' la victoire in Ici et ailleurs

39
39

1.4
1.4.1

'Under' television
The new world-space redefined by the proliferation
imagery

44
44

1.5

Conclusion

of media

52

ii

Chapter 2- Sonimage on television

2.1

Introduction

54

2.2

Video

55

2.2.1

Early experimentation with video technology

55

2.3
2.3.1

Information theory
Information theory: terms and concepts

64
64

2.4
2.4.1
2.4.2
2.4.3

On television
Information theory at work 1: entropy
Information theory at work 2: the conception of the audience
On and against television 1: Six fois deux

69
69
72
77

2.4.4

On and against television

2.5

Conclusion

2: France tour

87

90

Chapter 3- On journalism
3.1

Introduction

92

3.2
3.2.1

On the press
Godard's involvement in the alternative
press after May 68

93
93

3.3
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.3.3
3.3.4
3.3.5

The 'crime(s)' in information

Objective news reporting in question: the journalist as 'criminal'
The explosion of the conventional interview format
A basic communications model: sending a letter
Information and the flow of capital
Myth in the media

100
100
107
109
111
112

3.4

Conclusion

115

Chapter 4- On communication
4.1

Introduction

117

4.2

'Entrevoir': the use of video as visual research tool

118

4.3

120

4.3.1

Imperceptible frontiers: the focus on relations and exchanges

between things and people
Doxa doxa doxa

4.4
4.4.1
4.4.2

Political blockage: political representation as theatre

The political demonstration as paradigm of phatic communication
Pornography/anality: the body as figure

130
133
137

111

128

4.7

142

Conclusion

Chapter 5- Under and on language

5.1

Introduction

143

5.2

Under language

143

5.2.1 The theoretical backdrop: from Structuralism to Post-Structuralism

143

5.3
5.3.1

On language
Metaphors we live by

159
159

5.4

Conclusion

169

Chapter 6- Texts in motion: generative metaphor

6.1

Introduction

170

6.2

Generative metaphor

171

6.2.1 Generative metaphor: outline of a theory

6.2.2 Generative metaphor at work 1: Numero deux

171
178

6.2.4 Circularity, multiple images and reflexivity: metaphorsof metaphor

186

6.2.3
6.2.5
6.2.6

6.3

Generative metaphor at work 2: France tour

184

The generation of narrative via metaphor: 'Qu'est-ce que c'est que

192

Generative metaphor and viewer co-operation

194

Conclusion

197

cette histoire?'

199

Conclusion

Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix

ABCD-

Information theory
Mediation and blockage
Language and the split subject
Metaphor

204
208
213
214

Notes

225

Bibliography

284

Filmography

331

IV

Acknowledgements
Thanks for film and video availability to Christine Barbier Bouvier at the Inatheque
de France, Erato Productions, Rene Gaston at France Telecom, Pam Gilmore at the
BFI, Sylvia Harvey, Tom Heslop at The London Film-makers Co-op, Eric le Roy at
the CNC, Sandrine Malbranque at Hamster Productions, Sidney Marillier, Metro
Pictures Limited, Tracy Moore, Sylvie Richard at INA, Melissa Thackway, and
Magali Vergne at Marithe et Francois Girbaud Design. Many thanks to Chris
Williams and Gareth Hembrough (at Bath) and Ken Lyndon (at Roehampton) for
their constant technical help. Access to audiovisual material at the (now defunct)
Video Library at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the BFI, Censier (Paris III), and
the Videotheque (Paris) made the research for this thesis possible.
I am very grateful to Dominique Bax, Claudine Cornillat, and Jacky Evrard,
organisers of the 'Le Tout Godard' retrospective at the Le Magic Cinema (Bobigny),
La Lanterne (Courbevoie), and Cine 104 (Pantin) in Paris in January and February
1989. This retrospective allowed me to view the virtual entirety of Godard's work
when I was doing the initial research for this project.

Conducting this researchwould not have been possible without the help of the staff
of the following libraries: the University of Bath, FEMIS, CNC, Censier (Universite
de Paris III), the periodical section of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and the
Bibliotheque de l'Image Filmotheque. Particular-thanks to the BFI library staff and
the Bath University Inter-library loan staff.
In addition to talks given by- Jean-Luc Godard in London and Paris, papers on
Godard's work given by Jean Douchet, Marc Cerisuelo, Philippe Dubois, Alain
Bergala, Jean-Paul Fargier, Fredric Jameson and Raymond Bellour in France and the
U. K. in the course of research for this thesis have been very valuable.
I would like to express my enormous gratitude to my supervisor, Wendy Everett, for
the support and guidance far beyond the call of duty that she has given me over a
long period of time. Thanks, too, to my colleagues in the Department of Modern
Languages at the Roehampton Institute London for encouraging me through the final
stages of this project.
Thanks to the many friends who have been supportive of this project, and special
have
doubt
(even
thesis
Witts
I
this
Jack).
would
the
thanks to all
other
very much
late
its
reached
present state without the unswerving support of my mother and
father. Thank you.

Above all, thanks to Alex, for everything else.

List of Abbreviations
A2
AIE
ANJRPC

Antenne 2
Appareil Ideologique d'Etat
Association Nationale des Journalistes Reporters-Photographes et

Cineastes
APL
BFI
CFDT

Agence de Presse Liberation

British Film Institute
Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail

CFT
CGT
CNC
EGC

Confederation Francaisedu Travail

Confederation Generale du Travail
Centre National de la Cinematographie
Etats Generaux du Cinema Francais

FEMIS
FR3
GP
IdHEC
INA
ORTF
PCF
PCMLF
PLO

Fondation Europeenne-pour les Metiers de 1'Image et du Son

France Regions 3
Gauche Proletarienne
Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques
Institut National de 1'Audiovisuel
Office de Radio-Television Francais
Parti Communiste Francais
Parti Communiste Marxiste-Leniniste de France
Palestine Liberation Organisation

PSU
SLON
TF1
UJCmI

Parti Socialiste Unifie

Service pour le Lancement des Oeuvres Nouvelles
Television Francaise 1
Union des JeunessesCommunistesmarxistes-leninistes

vi

Introduction
Just as the Sonimage work has remained largely invisible, so the history of the
Sonimage period has remained obscure. Bio-filmographies

of Godard tend to skip over

Sonimage, and are frequently incomplete or inaccurate. I begin, therefore, with a brief
historical retrieval of the Sonimage period and the premises on which the experiment
was founded, situating Anne-Marie Mieville at the heart the Sonimage practice, before
setting out the aims, logic, and methodology of my thesis, and surveying the principal
literature devoted to the topic.

Sonimage: a very brief history

The name 'Sonimage'was first usedby Godard in late 1972, following his return
from a lecture tour of American universities
Tout
Gorin
Jean-Pierre
to
va
promote
with
bien and Letter to Jane. ' In the course of this visit Godard purchased some of the video
equipment with which to set up the first Sonimage studio in Paris (in avenue du Maine,
in the XIVt

arrondissement) in early 1973. This Paris-based Sonimage video atelier

was established by Godard with Anne-Marie Mieville.

Gorin was peripherally involved

in the initial stages of the new venture, but the breakdown of gauchiste aspirations, the
commercial failure of Tout va bien, a lack of engagement with the new concerns
introduced by Mieville, together with a desire to move beyond the shadow of Godard's
lecturing
he
in
his
departure
(where
California
took
post
a
up
name, all culminated
to
in the Visual Arts Department of the University of California at San Diego).

Godard claims to have embarkedon dozensof unfinished projects between 1972

his
for
traces
handful
1978
of
although
which only a
and
of shots were completed,
in
form
displaced
invariably
in
subsequent
reappear
abandoned projects
reworked and
'
works.
originally

The first Sonimage project, a colour video work to be entitled Moi je, was
conceived by Godard with Anne Wiazemsky.

When Godard moved with

Anne-Marie Mieville to Grenoble and established the Sonimage 'laboratory', the Moi je
in
in
Cinema
Pratique
Storyboard
travelled
them.
project
with
extracts were published
the Summer of 1973, and preparatory work

film
the
continued on

into

1974.3

Documentation regarding this enduring founding project, held until recently by the
1

Service des archives du film of the Centre National de la Cinematographic (CNC), is

due to move to the Bibliotheque du Film in Paris (BIFI).

The Institut National de

1'Audiovisuel (INA) was reported to be involved in co-production, but following the

breakup of the ORTF (l'Office

de Radio-Television

Francais) in 1974 (when the

monolithic state broadcasting corporation was reconstituted as seven separate companies,

requiring TF1, A2, and FR3 to compete with one another, and allowing FR3 and INA
to function as producers of films for television), funding was withdrawn and the project
'
collapsed. Moi je was envisaged formally and stylistically as a video vision-mixed
assault on, and explosion of, the closure of the reverse angle shot. Medium close-up
head and shoulders shots, and their reverse angle, are presented simultaneously in a
manner very close to that subsequently enacted in the dialogue sequences between
Nicholas and Vanessa in Numero deux in 1975, and in the silent 'dialogue' of Nous trois
in 1976. Similarly, as Marc Cerisuelo rightly observes,
much of the thematic content
of Moi je has been displaced onto Godard's fractured address which frames Numero
deux.s

Two other projects originated in Sonimage'sParis period: a video to be entitled

(a va mal, whose title further contributes to the series of observations on contemporary
society inherent in the ironic Tout va bien, and replying two years in advance to
Comment ca va (a film

which deliberately

intertextual
itself
overt
via
positions

references in relation to Tout va bien). 6 ca va mal envisaged video in a preparatory

sketch-book role, that of tracing the parameters of the final form of a film in a way that
foresees the skeletal video scenarios which Godard systematically used to construct the
frameworks of all his films from 1979 to 1983. The second project (for which Godard
made numerous sketches) was to be entitled The decline of the dollar, an elaboration of
fall
Godard/Gorin
The
rise and
an earlier
project previously referred to as

of the

American dollar.
Once the company was established, with enough video equipment installed to
ensure near-autonomy in production terms, Sonimage's Grenoble phase was extremely
productive.

In quantitative terms, the group produced almost 19 hours of finished

material; all except France tour detour deux enfants (henceforth France tour) were
completed at the Grenoble site. Godard and Mieville's hope during the initial years of
the Grenoble experiment was to produce as many as two or three short films each year
at low cost. In an echo of the desire of the filmmakers and film technicians radicalised

by the events of May 1968, the Etats Generaux du Cinema Francais (EGC), to
implement practical measures to break the divorce in capitalist societies between
instance,
for
(through,
the projection of
audiences/consumers and spectacle/products
films outside existing film distribution outlets, in locations such as factories), Sonimage
sought to distribute films on video cassette amongst like-minded organisations and
These
(schools,
trade
associations).
student
groups
unions, radical political groups, and
hopes for an alternative distribution network proved economically unrealistic; funding,
given negligible prospects of financial return, rapidly dried up. As Godard told Colin
MacCabe, 'the more we lowered the prices, the less we were offered'. ' The intended
distribution

of Ici et ailleurs on video following

its completion in 1974 failed to

materialise, and it eventually received a limited commercial release on 16mm in 1976

(after, that is, the completion and distribution of Numero deux).
Eager (as ever) to talk publicly

of economic considerations and constraints

regarding his work, Godard informs us precisely of the company's financial make-up in
September 1975: 'Sonimage, c'est une S.A. R.L au capital de trente millions qui est le
successeur d'une ancienne societe qui etait coproductrice de certains de mes films et qui
est proprietaire d'un petit studio de cinema-video. i8 Principal funding for the purchase
from
Godard
from
independent
Rassam,
Jean-Pierre
equipment
came
of
and
producer
9
finance
Subsequent
Mieville
francs).
(who
invested
themselves
two million new
and
from
directly
Gaumont after Rassam (who had previously executively produced
came
the commercially disastrous Tout va bien) bought into the company, becoming one of
the two major shareholders. Initial funding for the technical equipment for the
Sonimage studio was raised on Numero deux and Comment Ca va, both of which were
for
the
Large
budgets
aside
set
were simply
portions-of the production
commissioned.
10
the
indirectly
Gaumont
If
much
of
technology.
co-produced
purchase of
effectively
Sonimage work, Godard was quick to point out in interviews that such 'generosity' did
infrastructure.
distribution
not extend to their making available their extensive
Decentralisation is a central defining premise to the Sonimage practice: the
from
Paris,
foremost
first
Sonimage
Grenoble
a
move
to
and
relocation of
constituted
a desire to resist the political

('Ce
West
hegemony
the
pas
capital
of
and cultural

Grenoble, c'est la Province et en tout cas pas Paris)>'"). Godard here seems to suggest
that Grenoble was an arbitrary choice of destination, but this was not entirely the case.
The draw of the presence of industrial inventor Jean-Pierre Beauviala, who had made

feeding
into
this
base
for
his
the
technical
and optical research,
the town the
development and manufactureof Aton cameras,should be noted; we know Godard to
have been a regular visitor to the Aton factory.12 Similarly, one might point to the
Switzerland,
between
Paris
Grenoble
and
as a midway point
geographical situation of
birthplace,
back
Mieville's
hindsight,
logical
to
the
way
a
stepping stone on
and, with
Rolle, to where Sonimage moved in 1977 (and where both Mieville
both live and work).

and Godard still

This, at least, is the rationale frequently provided by Godard:

Sans doute parceque je suivais Anne-Marie Mieville pour qui Grenoble etait une
etape entre quitter Paris et son envie de rentrer en Suisse. Mais le mouvement
venait d'elle. C'etait aussi parce qu'il y avait Beauviala, on a cru que ce serait
13
un ami.

Sonimageco-financed a project in collaboration with Beauviala to develop a silent handheld 35mm camerawith the handling qualities of Super 8, to be known as the 35/8. If
the project ended in failure (in Godard's eyes, if not Beauviala's) and mutual
recriminations, the presenceof Beauviala as a potential technical collaborator should not
be forgotten, and Godard has often reiterated his admiration for the inventor's work
since.
A fascinating early indicator of Godard's-urgeto leave Paris hovers beneaththe
her
dialogue
Wiazemsky)
between
(Anne
Veronique
philosophy
and
surface of the
lecturer, Francis Jeanson (played by himself), in La Chinoise: on a train on the way to
in
Paris
inability
his
Nanterre
laments
to
write or work
the
university campus, Jeanson
for
details
his
in
time
two
a year-long experiment of
any more and
plans
months'
Veronique,
who
(via
Asked
by
Godard
of
the
character
culturelle.
action
provincial
be
is
he
to
sad
relayed Godard's questions to Jeanson through an earpiece) whether
definitive
Mieville's
Godard
foresee
in
Jeanson
leaving Paris,
and
terms which
replies
flight from Paris six years later with uncanny precision:

Jeanson:
Veronique:
Jeanson:

Non, je suis ravi.

T'es ravi?
Oui, enchante. Mais oui, parce que je n'arrive
De toute facon, je n'ecris pas quand je suis
Its
C'est

l'heure
livres.
de
toute
pas vrai.
en province, il y aurait peut-eire la possibilite
d'action, et en plus, d'ecrire.

plus travailler ici.

Paris. Je parlais
Et
pas.
n'avancent
de faire cette forme

Perhaps most importantly for Godard, the move was an act of resistance in the face of
the intensely centralised systems of televisual and cinematic production and distribution.
As such, it again closely mirrors and puts into practice one of the central issues debated
by the EGC (whose working

groups drew up 19 projects aimed at a profound

restructuring and transformation of the French film industry").

Amongst the most

controversial was Project 4, which sought to confront the highly centralised cultural
production characteristic of Gaullist France, and proposed the implementation of a
number of radical steps to set in motion cultural decentralisation. In relation to cinema,
this would have entailed a reorganisation of the industry around a network of regional
film offices to support film production, exhibition, and training.

Mobile cinemas were

proposed as a means of projecting films in factories and remote rural areas. One should
bear in mind that it was largely the enormity of the implications of the issues raised by
Project 4 that finally (and decisively) contributed to the failure of the EGC to arrive at
an agreed overall policy statement. The thrust of the Project, however, is precisely that
which provides the impetus to Sonimage's logic of decentralisation. Thus Godard could
claim in 1975 that 'L'ideal, dans l'avenir, dans une- France socialiste et decentralisee,
serait que les films soient concus et co-produits par des municipalites ou des collectivites
locales. "'

If the Groupe Dziga Vertov had played lip service to this quest to decentralise
film and television production ('Socialisme des regions', as Godard's hand-written graffiti
puts it in Cine-tract 10), at times even touring the regions to present and discuss their
films, then Sonimage puts theory into practice. As Rene Predal astutely points out, this
transposition of a veritable living cultural organism into a provincial context reinjects
life back into hollow

talk of 'regionalisation'.

Sonimage effectively

pre-empted

(in
implementation
decentralising
the
movement
recognition
government
and
of such a
16
by
houses)
ten
the
years.
establishment of eight regional cinema production
guise of
To create a viable work practice beyond the demands and restrictions of the dominant
mainstream, Godard and Mieville

deemed it vital to move geographically outside the,

pervasive influence of the accumulated sets of tightly

centralised social, political,

cultural, and economic constraints spiralling out from Paris:

Ce que j'ai essaye de faire avec Sonimage, c'est d'avoir un petit peu de materiel
pour reapprendre, pour avoir le temps de composer avec lui, d'o la necessite de
se retrouver hors de Paris, et inversement celle de se retrouver un moment
5

Paris a cause de la centralisation de Paris. Il faut quitter Paris pour faire de

l'information. "
As the Grenoble era of the Sonimage project broke up, caustic reflections on the
illusions of hopes for regional practice can be traced across subsequent films.

Paul

Godard (Jacques Dutronc) aggressively chastises Denise (Nathalie Baye) in Sauve qui
bicycle
buying
for
by
(la
believing
her
life
and moving
a
vie)
she can really change
peut
to the countryside.

Denise, for her part, voices doubts as to whether the challenges

inherent in the type of (unspecified) experimental project on which she is working will
find
a receptive provincial audience.
realistically

Such doubts should not, however,

colour our appreciation of the centrality of an applied regionalism in the Sonimage work.
Traces of bitterness are also clearly visible in Godard's open criticisms of former
Sonimage collaborators who he felt had betrayed the collective working premise of the
group, dismissing them as 'De- faux amis! ' and 'Des opportunistes.

Les gens qui vous

disent toujours: Ouais, ouais, on est d'accord. C'est comme dans les communautes.
C'est toujours les memes qui vident les cendriers. 'I

suggest, rather, that such acrimony

is best attributed to the dead-end in which the whole venture appeared to terminate at
the end of the 1970s: France tour, in which Godard and Mieville

had invested an

(it
by
A2
hope,
was
time,
unprecedented quantity of
and creative energy, was shelved
broadcast
two years later), and the hugely ambitious collaborative project with
eventually
the Mozambican government, Naissance- (de 1'image) dune nation, foundered in its
inception stage.19
If decentralisation constitutes one of the key premises on which the Sonimage
by
is
it
founded,
is
indicate,
Godard's
an
complemented
then, as
experiment
comments
insistence on implementing- a-truly collaborative practice. He repeatedly claims across
2
deux'.
1980s
'On
faire
that
the 1970s and
ne peut pas
quelque chose que quand on est
Godard's withdrawal from institutional frameworks of film production and distribution
to
in
desire
1968
the
mystique
whose
to
authorial
constituted,
evade
part, a
after
Indeed, from his political engagement and

he
had
largely
so
contributed.
construction

the formation of the Groupe Dziga Vertov, through the experience of the collaborative
fought
has
Godard
1980s
repeatedly
to the present,
video experiments, and across the
to revise and counter in his practice the powerful and distorting weight of the notion of
Godard
is
it
hindsight,
that
With
clear
cineaste as unique and original creative source.
has always sought to work with a close-knit group of regular collaborators: throughout
6

the 1960s, he was largely successful in achieving long-running interaction with a fairly
small group of actors, producers, and technical and creative collaborators. Any attempt
to reapproach Godard's work in its entirety would doubtless have to work through this
recognition of Godard as an essentially collaborative

artist.

Reducing his former

promotion of auteurism to the desire for self-recognition (le type important, c'est moi,
je suis un auteur, c'est moi l'important alors il faut faire attention moi)>2'), he has
repeatedly stressed the intrinsically collaborative nature of filmmaking and the extent to
depends
it
which
on input from diverse contributors:

Et cette histoire'des auteurs, qu'on avait inventee pour exister, en se comparant

aux ecrivains! Dans le cinema ce n'est pas vrai, un film se fait au minimum
deux ou trois, aux deux grandes parties, faller et le retour, le positif et le
negatif, le gain et la perte, pour employer des images. Toujours deux. Moi
j'ai toujours cherche m'associer. La decouvertede 68 ce fut de m'associer avec
Gorin, puis avec Anne-Marie, une autre force qui vous permet de produire. 22
May 68 functioned for Godard as a watershed in terms of rethinking his relation
to his star status and the type of cinema within which such a status constricted him. His
self-subjection to collaborative work was also due-to an absorption of the impact of the
Structuralist assault on the subject as whole and centred, and on idealist notions of the
artist as unique source of

inspiration.

Or, as reformulated

through

Godard's

characteristically trenchant language of the time: 'Je crois que je n'ai personnellement
rien dire. '2' Godard's transition from auteur to quasi-anonymous group participant
Structuralist
impact
demonstration
the
constitutes a remarkable concrete
of
of the
challenge to authorship on a then massively feted living

artist.

The revision of

idealist
desire
the
Maoist
to enact
auteurism,
contradiction, and theoretical assault on
conceptions of subjectivity,

desire
in
1968
the
to
for
Godard
around
all converged

he
what
constituting
redistribute received production relations via collaborative practice,
later termed 'la veritable rupture' of 1968.24 Furthermore, he always acknowledged the
depth
of Gorin's contribution,
extent and

desire
founding
him
the
to
to
attributing

least)
(at
departure
displaced
form
from
two
the
of
conceive a new
point of
of cinema
'authors'. For his part, Gorin was violently dismissive of what he termed'that shitty old
2'
Godard was always scrupulously insistent on stressing the
the
mystique of
auteur'.
in
1971
Monde
Le
films,
to
Groupe
Dziga
Vertov
the
collaborative nature of
contacting
Groupe
had
from
the
them
to
ask
correct an article
the previous week which
presented

Dziga Vertov films just shown in Brussels as his alone, rather than collaborative
26
pieces.
Besides Godard, Mieville,
GRUPO DE COLABORARDORES SON IMAGE

input
Sonimage
Beauviala,
the
the
other
of
and

collaborators has tended to remain unacknowledged. As regards actors, the presence of

Pierre Oudry in the lead role of Numero deux, and of Michel Marot in Comment ca va,
Sonimage
from
Godard/Gorin
to
the
to
the
collaboration
appears
suggest continuity
bien.
But
in
Tout
Oudry
Frederic,
Marot
PCF
the
va
played
and
work:
representative,
such intertextual references are decidedly loaded: Marot, we recall, plays the role of
reactionary foil to Mieville's neo-gauchiste critique of the press in Comment Fa va. As
regards creative and technical collaborators, Gerard Martin, assistant director on Marin
Karmitz's Camarades (1969), embodies a concrete link between the Groupe Dziga
Vertov and Sonimage, numbering amongst those participating in the Groupe in 1970,
and subsequently credited as 'conseiller technique' on Numero deux.
importance is director of photography William

Of particular

Lubtchansky, who shot the 16mm

extracts to Ici et ailleurs, the-35mm material of the video monitors in Numero deux, was
(Sur
deux
Dominique
foix
Chapuis
Six
for
imagery
et sous
responsible with
the video
of
la communication) (henceforth Six fois deux), is credited as technical adviser on France
tour, and as director of photography (with Renato Berta and Jean-Bernard Menoud) on
Sauve qui peut (1a vie). Gerard Teissedre-worked as video engineer on Numero deux
and Six fois deux, and Pierre Binggeli was video adviser on France tour.

One should

largely
in
bear
the
then
it
constantly
mind that
was the expertise of all the above with
Sonimage
domain
technicalfacilitated
the
technology
that
unexplored
of video
vastly
27
aesthetic experiments.

The Sonimage work constituted, therefore, a unique attempt to play out a

decentralised collective experimental audio-visual practice.

If it ended in apparent

belies
its
in
left
any notion of
the
the
trail
wake wholly
vitality of
of work
paralysis,
failure. In this thesis, I will use the term 'Sonimage' to designate the collaborative work
Insisting
1979.
Godard
from
1973
Anne-Marie
Jean-Luc
to
Mieville
on such
and
of
first
term
is
the
was
terminological precision
necessary since, as mentioned above,
appropriated by Godard in 1972, and the company technically continued to exist until
1981 (co-producing both Sauve qui petit (1a vie) and Passion).

Godard and Mieville

were eventually obliged to relinquish the title since another company was registered and
became
in
(which
turn
Films
JLG
'Sonimage'
the
to
trading under
same name:
gave way

Peripheria). The completed works produced by Sonimage (as understood in this specific
deux
(1975),
Comment
films
(1974},
Numero
Ici
Ailleurs
the
three
and
qa
are
et
sense)
France
(1978).
fois
deux
(1976)
(1975),
Six
tour
the
two
television
and
and
va
series
These works constitute, therefore, the primary focus of this study, although I include the
traces of the incompleted projects Moije (1973) and Naissance (de 1'image) dune nation
(1977-79), the special issue (No. 300) of Les Cahiers du Cinema edited by Godard in
May 1979, and the partial transcripts of Godard's series of lectures in 1978 at the
Montreal Conservatoire d'Art Cinematographique in Introduction line veritable histoire
du cinema, as integral to my overall corpus.

Anne-Marie

Mieville

Anne-Marie... je lis sur tes levres...j'invente des histoires par ton canal. (Fromthe

on-screen text in Nous trois)

Recentresearchhas at last startedto recognisethe centrality of the work and role

of Anne-Marie

Mieville

28
Godard's
1970s
from
to
the
to
present.
the early
output

Attention will doubtless eventually also turn to her own cinematic output: Papa comme
maman (made for television, 1977), How can I love (1984), Le Livre de Marie (1984),
Faire la fete (1986), Mon cher sujet (1988); Mars et Venus (1991), Lou n'a pas dit non
(1994), and Nous sommes sous encore ici (1997) (She also co-wrote the script for Michel
Soutter's L'amour des femmes (1981); for- full details, see filmography).

Her shifting

in
their
Godard
the
to
of
their
endurance
testifies
roles with
post-Sonimage work
Sauve
her
it:
qui
co-edited
absolute centrality within
collaboration and
she co-wrote and
(1982),
the
(1979),
(la
film
Passion
du
Scenario
script
wrote
collalzgtated
vie)
peut
on
for Prenom Carmen (1982), co-edited Je vous salue, Marie (1983), co-wrote Detective
(1984), co-directed and appeared in Soft and hard (1985), co-produced Le Dernier mot
(1989), co-directed Le Rapport Darty (1989), is credited as art director on Nouvelle
(1991),
Part
de
(1990),
L'Enfance
co-wrote and coco-wrote
vague
and co-directed
directed Pour Thomas Wainggai (1991), and co-wrote and co-directed Deux fois
cinquante ans de cinema francais (1995).
The two have worked together since 1973, the lengthy reworking of the Groupe
Dziga Vertov rushes for Jusqu' la victoire into Ici et Ailleurs constituting the initial site
9

lays
here
the ground for the
they
their
collaboration;
produced a seminal work which
of
frames
Sonimage
the
much of their
arguably
and
subsequent
project,
which
entirety of
later work (collaborative and autonomous). If they were essentially 'a couple' across the
Sonimage period, Mieville
mutually

has recently evoked their subsequent (and long-standing)

in
her
tender and
supportive relationship, artistic as much as emotional,

humorous raise-en-scene of Godard in Nous sommes sous encore ici (1997). 29 Godard,
for his part, has frequently acknowledged his debt to Mieville in interviews from the
1970s to the present, a recognition now enshrined in his on-screen homage to her in
episode 4B of Histoire(s) du cinema, Les Signes parmi nous.

The Sonimagework is essentiallythe result of a collaborative ventureplayed out

between Godard and Mieville.

It revolved around the attempt to live out a working

practice in which the divisions of labour and of the sexes were dissolved in a reflection
on the implications of finding pleasure in one's work whilst collaborating with a partner
loves
(to love work, and work at love).
one

The Sonimage films and television

programmes are all infused with a reflection on this attempt, saturated with permutations
on successive relative inflections of travail- and amour (which remain central to the
concerns of both Sauve qui peut (la vie) and Passion):

II ya les images commodes, on distingue l'amour du travail, la maison de

l'usine, les vacances du loisir; mais, pour moi, il n'y a pas de difference entre le
travail et le loisir, c'est comme-si on parlait des temps forts et des temps faibles
d'une melodie. (... ) L'amour et le travail, c'est lie: d'ailleurs, on dit bien faire
l'amour, c'est parce qu'il ya une notion de travail. "'
If Mieville played a variety of central roles in the Sonimage work (co-author and codirector of Ici et ailleurs, Comment ca va, Six fois deux and France tour, co-author of
Numero deux, actor in Comment ca va, editor of Ici et ailleurs, and co-editor of Six fois
deux), an unravelling of the relative input of each into the separate works serves a
function more schematic than real. Mieville and Godard are equally implicated at every
body
Sonimage
collaborative
the
genuinely
project, producing a uniquely and
stage of
of work (the work of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet perhaps provides a close
model).

It is for this reason that I have no hesitation in employing the dual name

Godard/Mieville

where appropriate.

Male/female collaboration of this type constituted the culmination of a longGodard's

for
Godard.
The
Godard/Gorin
approached
standing quest
collaboration
10

developed
ideal,
but
Mieville
the
and refined the
collaborative working
association with
dissolve
desire
As
long-held
Godard's
to
they
and merge the
a couple,
model.
embodied
divisions between the sexes, and between the private and the public spheres in a working
practice.

As early as 1965, Godard had complained of the inability of discussing the

cinema with Anna Karina, suggesting that this lack of compatibility

in their work

culminated in the breakdown of their relationship:

Ce qui me manque le plus au fond, c'est une femme qui parier, dit-il.
Malheureusement les femmes qui m'attirent ne sont pas celles avec qui je
prendrais plaisir parler. C'est difficile bien sr... tout clans une. Ce serait
l'ideal, comme la ville la campagne.31
The conversation between Godard and Paulo in Lecons de choses (in which Paulo adopts
the laterally-thinking

provocateur

role embodied by Godard in countless press

interviews) incorporates direct criticism of the overly male inflection of the Graupe
Dziga Vertov and the Godard/Gorin collaboration: 'L'est pas deux types qui devaient
discuter ensemble, mais un type et une fille. '
Mieville

As a photographer (they met when

was employed as stills photographer on Tout va bien), Mieville was actively

in
the construction and production of images and sounds, rather than, as an
engaged
actress, subservient to male directorial concerns and desires.

It should be noted that the near-total absenceof interviews with Mieville in

which she talks of her collaborative

for
the
Godard
poses a problem
work with

index
An
Godard.
from
first-hand
of
testimony
researcher: most
about the work comes
Mieville's aversion to publicity can be gauged from her refusal to respond to the series
Obscura.
Camera
journal
her
by
film
feminist
to
the
of questions sent
editors. of the
Godard
issue
and
on
to their extended special
Mieville's work (which focuses-primarily on-the Sonimage period) this glaring lack of

They identified

in the introduction

information on the precise nature and extent of her collaboration in specific areas of
Sonimage's practice. 32 Had she been eager to put forward her own version of her role
within

Sonimage, one might have expected Camera Obscura to have provided a

her
forum.
to
She
has
to
contact
my attempts
particularly receptive
also not responded
in the course of research for this thesis. It is not difficult to imagine that such wariness
on Mieville's part is in large part due to a reluctance to be typecast as Godard's
'assistant'. This is precisely the pigeon hole into which Gorin found himself tucked
during the Groupe Dziga Vertov period, and to which, despite a fascinating and varied
11

"
has
himself
Godard
languish.
destined
filmography,
he
observed
to
seems
post-Godard
Sonimage
the
invited
Mieville
work,
of
to
present screenings
that when
was
introductions invariably relegatedher to a subservient and peripheral role:
Heias, ceux qui m'entourent et ceux qui ont des relations avec moi n'ont pas pu
des
fait
Ce
debarasser
ils
moments
qu'
qui
quand
ont un rapport avec moi.
s'en
ete
des
je
femmes
la
des

a
choses comme ca,
connais ou
que
relation
meme,
des
films
fois

des
1'invite
Anne-Marie
Mieville,
aller presenter
on
compliquee...
'...
il
la
travaille
dans
fait;
avec
qui
a:
y
presentation
quelle a
mais chaque-fois
Godard'. On ne dit pas: Anne-Marie Mieville... 34
Contemporaneous journalistic

her
belittled
downplayed
both
role,
and
commentaries

ignoring
her contribution altogether. Her reaction to this tendency
often
simply
most
to dissipate the weight of her involvement has been simply silence. Even at definitive
des
in
Sonimage's
Images',
'Bistrot
debate
INA
trajectory,
the
the
moments
at
such as
did
fois
deux
Six
Mieville
to
the
not attend.
media,
where
was previewed and presented
Godard spoke alone, the 'debate' becoming a Godardian soliloquy to an almost silent
35
in
the article
her
Furthermore,
it
is
indicative
that
treatment
press gathering.
of
la
de
launch,
'photographe
Mieville
is
this
et monteuse
reporting
referred to as
cooperative Sonimage de Grenoble'.

She indeed fulfilled

phraseology effortlessly relegates her position and contribution.

these roles, but such

On the contrary, whilst

being cautious not to overcompensate for this critical neglect of Mieville's role, one
impulse
the
to
dynamic
Mieville
creative
that
and
might postulate
provided the principal
for
the thematic concerns which
responsible
in
be
a
cast
in
insistently
Godard,
would
reading,
the
a
across
such
works.
recur so
into
ideas
her
audio-visual
the
creative
substance of
more reactive role, channelling

Sonimage enterprise, and was primarily

terms. Indeed, this is a reading with which Godard himself would quite possibly concur,
degree
the
to
this
during
period
having repeatedly acknowledged in interviews
after
and
indebted
Mieville's
to
the
were
works
which

input in terms of their general working

dialogue.
images,
and
practice as much as specific scenes,
following
dividends
the
has,
Mieville's strategy of silence
paid
arguably,
dissolution of Sonimage. Rather than evaporating in the wake of Godard's image, or
condemned to struggle (like Gorin) with the overbearing shadow of a short period of
independent
in
Godard,
has
Mieville
strong
a
succeeded establishing
collaboration with

12

in
her
identity
to
continuing
work
a great
through
even
whilst
own work,
cinematic
Godard
to the present.
collaborative
with
of
roles
variety

Aims of thesis
The Sonimage era has remained largely unexplored, and critical interest in the
Sonimage work has tended to overlook its context (the painful post-68 trajectory out of
Ici
Thus
ignore
key
to
the
several of
works virtually altogether.
militant politics), and
et Ailleurs, Comment ca va, and Six fois deux have attracted minimal attention from
critics, Numero deux and France tour faring only very slightly better. As for the various
incomplete Sonimage projects, most have never been explored in any detail. Neglected
by aestheticians, who dismissed the Sonimage work as a direct reembodiment of the
overtly political project of the Groupe Dziga Vertov, by cinephiles, who refused to
engage with work on video for television on an equal footing with cinema, and finally
by political commentators, disillusioned by Godard's revision of his political position,
the history and project of the Sonimage-period have remained coloured and obscured by
an unfortunate convergence of critical misunderstandings and prejudices.

This state of affairs applies as much to the critical reception of the works at their
time of their initial distribution (or broadcast) as to subsequent research. Ici et ailleurs,
Numero deux and Comment ca va received the barest of critical attention on their
Sonimage
in
interest
fact
little
the
Pointing
work,
journalists
to the
took
that
release.
dearth
too
evident
rarely venturing outside Paris to Grenoble, Godard ascribed the all
of interest in the Sonimage work to pervasive assumptions of a regional marginal
36
Other
Le
than
hence
'du
negligible.
sous-cinema' and
collaborative video practice as
Monde's nostalgic heralding of Godard's 'return' to cinema on its front page, the only
deux
Numero
Cahiers
du
the
Les
of
Cinema's
release
marking of
marked exception was
brief
Sonimage's
political
dossier
new
of articles which sought to engage with
with a
37
The
the
form
of
reaction
the
the
work.
of
radically novel video-infused
and
held
largely
to
has,
I
in
sway
body
suggest,
to
this
relation
of work
mainstream press
Godardian
dismissing
the whole enterprise as a purely
the present, approaching and
in
Coleman,
John
incomprehensible.
a
for
the
most
part
narcissistic
and
project,

13

has
for
deux,
Numero
tone
the
prevailed as the
what
typically vitriolic review of
set
dominant critical opinion:
Just when it seemed that Jean-Luc Godard had finally shot his bolt, up comes
Number Two to prove as much, at least to my satisfaction. [... ] Number Two is
as close to self-indulgent aestheticism as you can get, an obfuscation of two or
three things its director knows about Life. 38
The critical reassessment demanded by Godard's re-entry into art cinema with Sauve qui
1979
(la
in
1973
1979
to
the
to
served,
vie)
perhaps
off
years
peut
paradoxically,
close
rather than focusing attention on them: the Sonimage work, when visible, was viewed
almost universally as an aberration, and his return to 'real' cinema a return to sanity.
Given this context of confusion and critical neglect, the underlying aim of this
thesis is simply to bring the Sonimage era and work into the light.

Furthermore, it

intends, through archival research, and textual and contextual analysis, to demonstrate
that the apparent heterogeneity (dubbed a 'charabia indigeste' by Guy Hennebelle39) of
the works' forms and contents belies the presence of a coherent Sonimage project, and
This
functions
in
frameworks.
identifiable
project may
theoretical
to
one which
relation
be dense and aleatory, flying in the face of the norms of academic orthodoxy (and so
but,
discourse
Godardian
to
a
the
as
whole),
wholly conforming
mercurial texture of the
as I aim to demonstrate, it exists. Only having identified and retrieved this project can
importance.
begin
its
implications,
to
evaluate
we
assumptions,
and possible
The entirety of Godard's work is clearly infused with an intuitive exploration of
(or
insisting
the
forms
diverse modes and
subtitle
on
of communication. Adopting and
'second first' title) to Six fois deux, this thesis aims to demonstrate that the Sonimage
'communication':
a
contemporary
a
audio-visual
of
unique
critique
constitutes
project
'Western')
for
(French,
read
which
project on and under communication, on a civilisation
living under communication (a formulation which, as we shall see, embraces both
institutional modes of communication as much as everyday speech). Six fois deux, we
Godard,
importance
to
who
the
culmination of a project of enduring
recall, constitutes
had nurtured the concept of an extended work on contemporary communication
form
in
before
Groupe
Vertov
the
Dziga
of an unrealised vast
the
work
processes since
24-hour film project entitled Communication(s). It is worth noting in this respect Gorin's
a
Groupe
on
Vertov
Dziga
a
variation
the
that
the
simply
was
entirety
of
work
claim
draft script for this project. 40 I have little doubt that a much-needed critical overhaul of
14

the work of the Groupe Dziga Vertov would reveal, beneath a veneer of political
index
high
low
index
of reflections
posturing, a very
of politics, and a correspondingly
language,
in
television,
the
on
and
press:
other words, on communication.

Such a re-

less
Groupe
Dziga
Vertov
the
as the seminal piece of
reading would reposition
work
filmmaking

political

is)
lionised
by
it
(and
many
still
as which
sometimes
was

academics (a schema wherein the Sonimage work becomes a confused post-political

'charabia') than as the tentative exploratory

'bande-annonce' of the analysis of

communication processes in the Sonimage work.

Here, I suggest, the reflection on

communication cuts across theory and practice, so nourishing a project that develops on
fronts
multiple
simultaneously: overtly pursued as the principal reflection in the content
of the works, and inscribed in the very form they take, their conception and textual
operations.

These are the two principal aims of this thesis. They also feed into my two
secondary aims: to demonstrate that the Sonimage project, however apparently
impenetrable, constitutes a self-contained critique of communications processes that
precedes and foresees the influential

Jean
theorists
as
such
subsequent work of

Baudrillard, and, secondly, to position the Sonimage work as the site of creative ferment
out of which the concerns of Godard and Mieville's subsequent work can be shown to
arise.

Methodology

The methodology informing this thesis is essentially empirical.

Rather than the

frame
I
to
this
filter
texts,
seek
theoretical
of
single
of
a
a
succession
projection
across
discussion through contextual analysis of the Sonimage work, focus at length on content
inscribed
in,
Sonimage
(an
facets
as
the
the
to
project
exploration of
successive
analysis
(a
theory
the
through,
textual
of
the
texts),
analysis
played
out
and
ending with
conception and functioning of the Sonimage texts).

This structure is premised on a

recognition of the Sonimage work as intensely self-reflexive.

are all tightly interlinked,
reflexivity

embodying the political

Context, content, and text

(as opposed to purely formalist)

4'
is
The
Sylvia
Harvey
has
'political
project
termed
of what
modernism'.

inherently informed by, and operates explicitly in relation to, the socio-political climate

15

and conditions of the time; these feed into the themes and subject matter of the works,
which in turn are used as a point of departure for an auto-critical reflection on the
functioning of the texts themselves as representation. But if the structure of this thesis
is marked by a deliberate move from context, across the (more or less) overt substance
of Sonimage project, to an analysis of textual functioning, it should be recognised that
the discussions in each chapter are steeped in all three of these 'stages'; where
applicable, therefore (and the discussion of Godard's role in the alternative press at the
beginning of Chapter 3 is a case in point), I reserve the freedom to move across context,
content, and texts in any given chapter.

Chapter 1 focuses,therefore, on the socio-historical, intellectual, and theoretical

context within and against which the Sonimage work was played out. The next four
chapters analyse in turn successive facets of Sonimage's disssection of contemporary
communication.

Chapter 2 explores Godard/Mieville's

appropriation of video and

critique of television (on television, and on a society living 'under' television).

Chapter

3 focuses on Godard's involvement in the alternative radical press as precursor to the

Sonimage critique of journalism (on journalism).

Chapter 4 explores the application of

video as a visual quasi-scientific ethnological research tool through which to analyse

communication processes (on communication).

Chapter 5 moves on to an exploration

of the logic of Sonimage's critique of language and metaphor (on language, and on
subjects living 'under' language),

The final chapter, in the context of the arguments

advanced in Chapter 5, concentrates on the texts themselves, proposing a theory of

'generative metaphor' to account for their structure and functioning.
If my methodology thus refuses the implementation of a single theory, this thesis
is, however, informed by, and operates in relation to a succession of theories, the work
The
Barthes
Roland
contextual analysis of
providing
of
a recurrent point of reference.
Chapter 1 seeks to redefine the Sonimage project in relation to the theory of
The
Birth
by
Punish:
Michel
Foucault
in
Discipline
of the
advanced
and
socialisation
Prison and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's seminal gauchiste polemic, L'AntiOedipe: Capitalisme et Schizophrenie, both contemporaneous with the Sonimage work
(rather than through the explicitly political theory in relation to which it has habitually
been positioned). 42 Chapter 2 draws on Claude Shannon's information theory and
Raymond Williams's critique of the forms and structures of broadcast television (and
especially his theory of 'planned flow') as a means whereby to approach Sonimage's

16

discourse on television. 43 Chapter 3 seeks to provide a rationale for the Sonimage

critique of journalism

with reference to information

theory.

Chapter 4 traces the

theoretical heritage of Godard/Mieville's use of video into the work of Maurice MerleauPonty and Walter Benjamin, and unravels the presence of a radical communications
theory at the heart of the Sonimage work (again informed by information theory, and
pitching itself constantly in opposition to what Roman Jakobson termed 'contact' or
'phatic' circuits of information). 44 Chapter 5 positions the Sonimage critique of language
in relation to the models provided within Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, and
draws on George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's Metaphors We Live By to suggest the
presence of a sustained critique of metaphor in the Sonimage work.

Chapter 6 adapts

and refines a theory of generative metaphor formulated by Donald Schn, and draws on
the theory of 'stereoscopic vision' in metaphor advanced by Paul Ricoeur, and on Linda
Williams's exploration of metaphor/narrative relations in Figures of Desire. 45

Survey of literature
One of the principal reasonsfor this thesis is that very little researchhas been
conducted into the Sonimage work or era. This is despite calls for such work by a
number of the most astute commentators on Godard. Jonathan Rosenbaum, for instance,
suggests that the political and formal importance of the Sonimage work 'far exceeds that
(... ) that were fetishized by certain English and
American academics'.46 Colin MacCabe acknowledges in his collaborative book on
Godard that the television work requires another book, points elsewhere to the Sonimage
is
France
tour
'missing
perhaps
British
that
step' to a
work as the
public, and suggests

of the "period of agitprop films"

the most important work Godard has produced ('probably the most profound and
beautiful material ever produced for television'). 47 This latter sentiment is echoed closely
by Raymond Bellour. 48 Jill Forbes, picking up on MacCabe's observation on the density
Politics,
Sounds,
Images,
Godard.
in
the
television
also
and complexity of
material
identifies the need for 'a work of greater length on the whole of Godard's work, and, in
49
for
his
detailed
television work'.
particular, the need
a more
study of

A consideration of all work on Godard clearly implies a project far larger than
I have room for within the context of this short introduction, and the reader is directed

17

to the bibliography for further references. I confine myself here to a survey of important
and/or recent work on Sonimage, and of the key texts produced by Godard of direct
relevanceto Sonimage.
Wheeler Winston Dixon's recent book on Godard draws heavily on secondary
sources (themselves often anecdotal), often simply reporting the testimonies of others
in relation to films he has clearly not seen (such is the case with Comment Fa va), and
producing a pedestrian and largely descriptive piece of work.
entitled

'Anne-Marie

Mieville

Chapter 4, promisingly

and the Sonimage workshop',

deals quickly

and

superficially with the Sonimage work before cutting to Godard's work in the 1980s (to
"
bulk
is
devoted).
the
the
overwhelming
which
of
chapter
Colin MacCabe's book, mentioned above, functioned as an important tool in
directing attention onto Godard's post-1968 activities.

Whilst strong in its political

contextualisation of the Groupe Dziga Vertov work, and in bringing out the political
resonances of these films, it is less successful in grappling with the dense Sonimage
texts.

This overemphasis- on the political

formal
the
or aesthetic
expense of
at

considerations is unfortunately compounded by the implicit

elision of the two quite

distinct practices and projects (the Groupe Dziga Vertov and Sonimage), plus the
subjugation of both to the all-embracing 'Godard' of the book's title.
Attention should also be drawn to-the valuable collection of essays on the work
in
1982,
Obscura
Godard/Mieville
in
Camera
and
of
triple
published
a special
edition of
"
A
Constance
(on
France
Penley's
'Les
tour).
de
la
Enfants
Patrie'
survey
especially
'Le
Collet's
Jean
include
crime
of other particularly well-informed critical articles would
dans l'information' and 'Godard aujourd'hui: Du bon usage de la television', Serge
Daney's'Le therrorise (pedagogie godardienne)', Colin MacCabe's'Le travail de Jean-Luc
Godard en video et television', Gille Deleuze's 'Trois questions sur Six fois deux', and
Jonathan Rosenbaum's 'Numero deux'. 52
I will finish with a brief word on the key non-audiovisual work produced by
Godard with direct relevance to Sonimage. The anthology Jean-Luc Godard par JeanLuc Godard contains many, but by no means all, key texts and interviews relating to
Sonimage. My research has retrieved a large number of other interviews from disparate
in
documented
have
hitherto
been
these
to;
are
sources which
not
collated or referred
Section B. 10 of the bibliography. I also draw on Godard's articles for the radical journal
J'accuse, all but one of which (to my knowledge) have never been referenced or cited

18

before (see Section A. 7 of the bibliography).

The other two works central to a

discussion of Sonimage are the transcription of his Montreal lectures and the special
issue of Les Cahiers du Cinema he edited in 1979. The lectures, partially transcribed
himself
Godard

histoire
du
Introduction
terms
cinema, constitute what
as
une veritable
S3
'psychanalyse
de
de
Coming towards the end of the
a sort of
moi-meme,
mon travail'.
Sonimage era, it constitutes a wide-ranging stock-taking and self-reassessment, provides
the first overt manifestation of Godard's self-repositioning

historian
(which
cinema
as

culminates in Histoire(s) du cinema), and contains countless indications of Godard's

view of the Sonimage work, and, simultaneously, of how a route back into an art cinema
by
underwritten
video might be negotiated. Les Cahiers du Cinema No. 300 is no less
important in relation to Sonimage. Besides containing extensive reflections on the failed
Mozambique project, it provides a concise resume of the concerns and people central
to Godard at the end of the Sonimage era, especially in the guise of letters to AnneMarie Mieville, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Elias Sanbar, Wim Wenders, Jean-Pierre Rassam, and
Jean-Pierre Beauviala.

19

Chapter 1
From politics to the new context: 'under' television
1.1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims to situate the Sonimage project away from partisan politics,
and in relation to 'softer' concerns such as the politics of the everyday, domestic politics,
and a critique of the media. It concentrates on Godard/Mieville's first completed film,
Id et ailleurs, as the space in which the failings of the political work are worked
through, and the parameters of the new project mapped out. The Sonimage project is
characterised by a relentless critique

and revision

of political

dogma, whilst

simultaneously engaging with new technologies and multiple theories, and so shunning
all-embracing political frameworks in favour of a 'politics of information'.
this chapter seeks to demonstrate that following

Above all,

Godard's detour through militant

politics, Sonimage takes the new world-space circumscribed by the proliferation of the
media as its principal point of departure. Sonimage's critique of late capitalism operates
as an analysis of a media-constructed society, its subjects conditioned not only through
the socialising rites of passage (school/family/work),

but through constant exposure to

the media as figured across the Sonimage texts in television and magazines: children,
in advanced industrialised capitalist societies 'come to life' via television.

This chapter seeksinitially, therefore, to demonstratethat the Sonimagework is

quite distinct from that of the Groupe Dziga Vertov.

If anything, Sonimage is

characterised by the systematic revision of the posturing and excesses of the militant
films, a revision most acutely felt in the reevaluation of the rushes of the abandoned
Groupe Dziga Vertov project Jusqu' la victoire (also sometimes referred to simply as
Victoire) in the first Sonimage film, Ici et ailleurs.

The depth and implications of this

(and,
largely
by
often, contemporary)
unacknowledged
revision went
contemporaneous
Dziga
Vertov.
frequently
Groupe
bracket(ed)
in
Sonimage
the
who
with
commentators,
The majority of mainstream critics failed to perceive in Ici et ailleurs, Numero deux, and
Comment ca va, not to mention the television work, this shift from a faith in partisan
political theory which foresees Jean-Francois Lyotard's interrogation of the primacy of
theory in his seminal 1979 'report on knowledge', La condition postmoderne. ' Inversely,

20

and of the experimental formalist

commentators sceptical of Godard's politicisation,

premise of much of the Groupe Dziga Vertov work, were quick to scorn Godard's
'
before.
beliefs
wholesale rejection of ostensibly ardently-held
of only a year or two
This chapter is divided into three principal sections. It begins with an analysis of the
vestiges of politics visible in Sonimage's critique of the human animal socialised 'under'
capitalism, as figured in the- enduring influence of the work of Louis Althusser.

It

proceeds with an analysis of Id et ailleurs as the key space in which partisan politics
is revised and displaced by a concern for television and the media, and concludes with
an exploration of the central premise of the Sonimage project, that the subject of
capitalism is, above all, one constructed by, and in relation to, the media; literally,
'under' television.

1.2

THE

1.2.1

The political

CRITIQUE
'MONSTRES'

OF SOCIALISATION

'UNDER'

CAPITALISM:

HUMAN

context of Sonimage and enduring influence of Althusser

The gulf between the Maoist revolutionary logic of the Groupe Dziga Vertov and
the pluralistic fusion of feminism, psychoanalysis, and personal politics which informs
the Sonimage work, is vast. As such, the shift between the premises of the two groups
is emblematic of the enforced revision of a political dogma which continued to herald
imminent social revolution, despite widespread evidence of pervasive political stagnation
in the aftermath of May 68. The films of the Groupe Dziga Vertov of 1969 and 1970
(including

the uncompleted Jusqu' la victoire),

despite factional

shifts, are all

by
belief
that May 68 heralded the beginning of a process that would
a
underpinned
culminate in revolution. In the face of the overwhelming Gaullist reaffirmation of power
in the second round of parliamentary elections on the 30 June 1968, the reinstatement
of a particularly

conservative regime, and the breakup of many of the revolutionary

workers' and students' groups, gauchiste optimism was unsustainable.

In the context of a discussion of the shifts in Godard'spolitical position during

the 1970s and 1980s, mention should be made of the serious injuries he sustained in a
motorcycle accident in Paris during preparations for Tout va bien. This is not to suggest
that he underwent any resultant existential crisis, so much as to recognise that the result

21

filmmaking
frenetic
to
the
activity which
of the accident was a sudden and enforced stop
had continued uninterrupted from A bout de souffle to this point.

Godard observes

(foreshadowing the views of numerous commentators) that he had unconsciously desired

j'en
'Je
increasing
break
intervention
avais
que
pense
to
this
confusion:
period of
external
de
la
les
d'une
d'une
prison, envie
envie
gens ont
maniere ou
autre, comme
envie
d'arreter, de souffler un peu sans se mettre la main au collet soi-meme. J'avais envie de
la maladie. r3

The Sonimage work relentlessly criticises self-subjugation, and the subjugation

be
Groupe
Dziga
Vertov
The
theory.
summarised
to
might
project
political
of others,
imagery
('false'
'son
by
false
imagery
juste'
'correction'
the
application of a
of
as the
subjected to 'correct' political analysis): 'Notre tche de cineastes marxistes-leninistes:
4
des
fausses'.
Serge
Daney
dej

justes
des
images
commencer mettre
sons
encore
sur
his
in
discourse
the
theoretical
to
overbearing severity of subordination
encapsulated
a
term 'therrorisant' which he employed to designate the tone and structure of the entirety
'
Sonimage
in
impetus
Godard's
the
The
this
partisan political output.
of
autocritique of
in
locates
Vertov
too
Dziga
Groupe
the
project
the
excess
work
and miscalculation of
juxtaposed
a
easy an appropriation and projection of political theory, against which are
As early as 1973, Godard's repudiation of
his
is
dogmatic
complete,
overly
political theory, and of generalised political analysis,
measured and reflective personal politics.

demarcate
the
local
conceptual
the
attention shifted onto
and personal, concerns which
working space of Sonimage:
film
le
de
je
vrai
Pour ma part,
cinema, que
m'apercois, apres quinze ans

film
ma
j'aimerais
montrerait
sur moi qui
aboutir serait un
politique auquel
famille
de
film
dit
qui
falle
femme et ma
je
un
ce- que
suis, autrement
6
la
base
du
cinema...
populaire
represente pour moi
in
in
life
France
insistence
of
Mieville's
on the primacy of the everyday realities
determines
the
thematic
the
gauze
the mid-1970s over
projection of a rigid political
the
Sonimage
against
consistently
the
warns
concerns and structure of
work, which
logic.
This
image
by
autocritique
theoretical
the
an overly sophisticated
obliteration of
is condensed in Ici et ailleurs into the use of the 'Internationale', where the sound is
literally turned up (and visually emphasised by showing the movement of the VU
meter), thereby obliterating successive images of struggles 'ailleurs':

22

On a fait comme pas mal de gens. On a pris des images, et on a mis le son trop
fort. Avec n'importe quelle image: Vietnam. Toujours le meme son, toujours
trop fort, Prague, Montevideo, mai soixante-huit en France, Italie, revolution
Portugal,
Ireland,
Espagne,
Pologne,
torture
en
culturelle chinoise, greves en
Chili, Palestine, le son tellement fort qu'il a fini par noyer la voix qu'il a voulu
faire sortir de l'image.
Recognition in Ici et ailleurs of the imposition of political theory is given particularly
poignant form: at a literacy school organised by the Palestinians, a woman repeats a
revolutionary text. This scene literalizes the inscription of a political discourse across
an individual subject in a powerful and blunt way. Rather than merely stating that they
as Western intellectuals obliged a distant political movement to fit their pre-conceived
revolutionary theory, or that the Palestinian movement was itself misguided in projecting
an inappropriate theoretical framework onto its own people, Mieville and Godard simply
depict this double top-down logic, together with its brutalizing effect on the individual.
Mieville identifies the divorce between the repetition of grandiloquent phrases and the
reality of the woman's life, a reality wholly neglected within the terms of this political
logic:
fur et mesure de cette repetition, eile a fair de plus en plus morose,
au
..
lui
dont
Elle
fair
des
d'avoir

de
on
embetee.
occupations
a
envie
retourner
demande pas de parler, meme si ces occupations ont voir avec la repetition, le
quotidien, les tches du quotidien, 1'interieur ou pas d'une revolution.
L'automatisme s'installe force de repeter des mots dans un certain ordre qu'elle
Les
dit,
dit
Mais
comment?
et
n'aurait srement pas
comme ca.
qu'aurait-elle
textes parlent, parlent, mais parlent jamais du silence.
in
the silence often
advocates reflection and silence, echoed
literally played out on the soundtrack, which serves to draw attention to itself as a tactic,
interpretation
its
(over
insisting
and
the
visual
on the primacy of
whilst simultaneously
in
his
in
Ici
Godard
by
This
is
ailleurs
et
emphasis on silence
explanation).
reiterated
in
les
turn,
for
'le
de
set
a
silence,
to
temps
choses',
obtain
silence
call
voir simplement
On the contrary, Mieville

in opposition to the unbroken noise of television (Betty establishes silence as anathema

to television in France tour 5), and which simultaneously contests the authoritative
The
documentary
nearthe
soundtrack.
conventional
explicative voice characteristic of
total silence of Nous trois constitutes the radical culmination of this tactic in the
Sonimage work, whilst Mieville's silent montage evoking the death of Che Guavara in
Photos et cie schematically opposes silence to political
23

theory.

In a vision-mixed

failure
Che's
Mieville
images
Che
American
attributes
of
and
war-planes,
assemblageof
belief
in
his
death,
his
the overriding
to
misplaced
and
subsequent
as a revolutionary,
demonstrate
to
theory,
to
primacy of
and goes on construct an evocative silent collage
and enact a practical 'human' alternative, which, in turn, functions as a microcosm of the
7
fois
Six
deux
in
strategy of
as a whole relation to the televisual apparatus.
Mieville's role in the revision of politics is also visible in the dislocation of the
(usually) male voice on the soundtrack in traditional polemical documentaries, as well
as in the films of the Groupe Dziga Vertov. The closure guaranteed by the interpretative
male voice is displaced in the Sonimage work into hors-cadre male-female debate,
which functions as a defining structural aspect of the Sonimage work, exemplifying both
the move away from an all-embracing political paradigm, and the quest to counter the
division of the sexes in practice. Far from circumscribed, the Sonimage texts function
through the interplay of multiple media in constant motion and process. 'Truth' is only
to be found in this flux, rather than in any self-contained discourse applied en bloc. As
Godard insists in Jean-Luc, 'Il ya pas de verite... il ya pas de verite generale.' France
tour repeatedly reiterates this- dissolution of truth to a moment of process by inserting
the word 'verite' onto the screen as a question.

Rather than announcing a 'truthful'

sequence in the programme; its use-suggests that somewhere in the conjunction of

images, sounds, and the fragments of society they represent, strands of truth emerge.
Far from an essence, truth is in transit: 'Disons que la verite passe, qu'elle sort... Mais
dans quel lens va-t-elle?... peut-etre qu'elle y rentre.

C'est tout ce que j'essaie de

savoir... Mais eile passe par l. A un moment, eile passe l. i8 The term punctuates the
(be
description
defining
the
truths
all
series enigmatically:
of
crisis of unproblematic
they Marxist or 'bourgeois') is, therefore, insisted on as a principal strand of the subject
matter of France tour. Jacques Aumont, who rightly criticises the common elision of
difference
key
Sonimage
Godard's
the
that
the
work with
political period, argues
between the two practices lies precisely in a notion of truth complicated through the
le
le
'La
nest
travaille
entre
champ,
rapport
complex use of sound:
verite
nulle part; elle
hehors-champ, le hors-cadre, - teile est la premisse majeure du dispositif de France Tour
Detour. "
What is more, the critique of excessive 'sound' contains not only a revision of
the Groupe Dziga Vertov years, but an autocritique of the failings of the ongoing project
undertaken by Sonimage.

In Avant et apres, which concludes and evaluates Six fois

24

deux, Godard (via his on-screen televisual intermediary) identifies the principal weakness
of the series in their treatment of those they interviewed, suggesting that the interview
format to which they were subjected was contaminated by an overly rigid 'sound' which
set them up and exploited them: 'souvent on a parle trop fort... c'est parce que nous
10
faibles...
'.
France tour also turns the critique of excessive 'sound' back on
sommes
Godard/Mieville's

own practice: they blame Arnaud and Camille's evident loss of

interest, and adoption of increasingly evasive tactics as the series progresses, on their
own clumsiness and over-enthusiasm. Betty hints at this in her critique of Camille's
increasingly dour disinterest in the sixth movement ('eile a quelque chose de tres vieux
dej... eile en dit pas plus qu'il faut, juste pour pas avoir d'emmerdements...
c'est de
notre faute... '), and the eighth movement makes the critique overt: '...on cherche
seulement dialoguer, et on donne l'impression qu'on veut he dernier mot'. The final
movement ends with a mise en scene of this disdain for interpretative closure: Albert
suggests that 'il faudrait dire quelque chose' (to summarise, evaluate, interpret, and
conclude), to which Betty replies simply 'Pourquoi? Non. Pas specialement. '
Reviewing what he has termed his 'leftist trip'", Godard defends the preeminence
of the political as a necessary excess, and one counterbalanced by the five years of video
experimentation:
A des moments, il y avait trop de son dedans; mais effectivement, c'est comme
avoir la fievre ou avoir la folie, il fallait des moments avoir trop de son. [... ]
il y avait un discours de- militant: Vive la revolution! Wive la classe
...
ouvriere! ou des trucs comme ca... completement malades, mais malades c'est
pas injurieux, c'est plutt triste. "
The Sonimage work is driven by the desire to employ video to slow down and dissect
reality, and to work the material back into new fictional departures. This 'convalescent'
nature of the Sonimage work, which seeks to reengage with new fictional narrative
forms, is distilled into the very structure of France tour. the stop-start interviews with
the children precede the sections entitled'histoire'

(which conclude each movement), and

obliquely suggest the types of stories it may be possible to tell from the point of
departure of their exploratory research. Alain Bergala, writing on Comment ca va,
rightly stresses the centrality of 'narration retrouvee' in a film widely perceived as
13
didactic
kind
in
later
Godard
As
to
another excessively
of epitaph
a
work.
sugest,
was
to Sonimage, this period constituted above all an attempt to 'm'enlever des theories', to

25

jettison
to
entirely an engagement with
theory,
refusing
whilst
shed reliance on political
14
issues.
concurrent progressive political
Every character and situation in Sauve qui peut (1a vie) is underpinned by an
fictional
back
lessons
ten
a
the
onto
the
years
previous
of
autobiographical extension of
functions
film
The
as a pivotal point
also contains a reflection on politics which
matrix.
in the film, and constitutes a key moment in the trajectory of Godard and Mieville's
deserting
to
Kundera's
blackbirds
Milan
tale
the
moving
the
and
of
countryside
work.
the cities (from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) is appropriated as a commentary
on their own relation to the primacy of politics. Kundera's narratives, often critiques of
Soviet communist politics and their implementation in the former Eastern bloc (filtered
through localized portrayals of intimate and sexual relations), are very close in tone and
subject matter to Godard and Mieville's

work of the 1980s.

This proximity

is

acknowledged in Sauve qui pent (1a vie) through the appropriation of the 'blackbird'
story (it is suggested by Paul Godard to his daughter for her school essay project, and
the cover of the book is briefly shown on the screen), in which Kundera dismisses
politics in a single sweep, recasting history from the point of view of a non-human
event, that of blackbirds resettling in the cities. This provocative redistribution renders
irrelevant the intricacies of social struggle: 'Au regard de la planete, cette invasion du
de
l'invasion
dans
le
de
l'homme
important
incontestablement
merle
que
monde
plus
est
l'Amerique du Sud par les Espagnols ou que le retour des Juifs en Palestine."' Paul
Godard's (Jacques Dutronc) suggested conclusion to the essay encapsulates Godard and
Mieville's new-found stance at the end of the 1970s: 'Personne nose interpreter les deux
'6
le
1'homme
derniers siecles de 1'histoire comme 1'invasion des villes de
merle' .
par
Sauve qui peut (1a vie) contains a further dismissive aside on former loyalties in
Coca-Cola.
drinking
boy
Chinese
Denise's
flat
the photograph on the wall of
of a
Denise (who, in Godard's words, 'porte un peu les restes du gauchisme'), presumably
flat,
her
"
its
it
for
Maoist
Isabel,
retains the
takes
over
resonances.
who
cherished
image on the wall, pointedly claiming to like it because she likes Coca-Cola. Politics
thus enters the post-Sauve qui peut (la vie) work as a resonant but distant memory, an
is
increasingly
tenuous.
later
Godard's
to
cinema
relation
and
art
relevance
era whose
Mao's name is taken in vain in Prenom Carmen in 1983, where Oncle Jean (Godard)
derisively evokes him not as the influential 'poet-philosopher-politician'

who expounded

the interpenetration of theory and practice, and the primacy of autocriticism, but as a

26


la
By
Godard
('il
donne

Chine').
the
toute
mid-1980s,
cook
manger
great
a
was
distancing himself entirely from any vestige of partisan politics; asked to characterise
his political position at this time, Godard simply replied 'None'.18
As suggestedabove,critical responseto the Sonimagework has been marked by
a failure to recognise the enormity and implications of the conceptual distance separating
it from the militant period. Misunderstandings were compounded for Anglo-American
audiences in that those grappling with Godard's politicisation were unready for the crisis
and reassessment of politics figured in the Sonimage work. Many critics were, and to
a large extent still are, all too willing to compartmentalize and dismiss Sonimage as a
direct continuation of the Groupe Dziga Vertov and Godard/Gorin collaboration from
1969 to 1972.19 On the other hand, commentators who had appropriated the Groupe
Dziga Vertov as exemplary in their concurrent attempts to construct
a semiotic Marxist
film theory quickly recognised the shift,
for
the most part, were not inclined to face
and,
for themselves the implications of the
20
about-face.

Whilst one must insist on a clear division between the two practices, it is
inevitably not clear-cut, and key ideas
issues
in
to
the
each period:
are equally visible
which Gorin and Godard turn in Vladimir et Rosa and Tout va Bien in 1971 and 1972,
notably feminism and domestic politics, feed directly into the Sonimage work. Bridging
the two practices is also a continued rejection of the established parties of the Left.
Both the Groupe Dziga Vertov and Sonimage reject the PCF as reactionary, excessively
bureaucratic, and profoundly complicit with the factory patronat during and after May
1968, thus echoing Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit's archetypal gauchisle contention
that 'le PC et la CGT ont fait, pendant les mois de mai et juin, pratiquement et
2'
The
PCF
le
jeu
la
bourgeoisie'.
du
de
de
l'Etat
theoriquement
pouvoir, c'est--dire
et
is exploited as paradigm of blockage throughout both periods, as exemplified in its
in
hypermarket,
Tout
icon
the
that
provocative equation with
principal
of consumerism,
is
depicted
Bien:
inefficacy
is
in
the
PCF
the
the
party
of
va
parodied
a sequence where
its
stall and laying out its wares amidst the uniform rows of consumer
as setting up
identification
is
What
Left,
the
and
the
more,
critique of
goods.
mainstream
conservatism

of

ostensibly

radical

groups,

bissects

Sonimage's

of the

critique

of

institutionalised sexism and racism: the PCF's profoundly reactionary attitude towards
the social role of women is exemplary in this respect.22 Furthermore, this critique of the
PCF was not simply adopted by Godard in the wake of May 68, but constitutes a proto-

27

CGT
Ouvriere,
PCF,
films:
Force
his
the
and
are all
throughout
earlier
gauchiste refrain
(Jean-Pierre
Paul
in
(Michel
Debord)
in
by
Robert
with
conversation
passing
criticised
Leaud) in Masculin feminin, for instance, and in La Chinoise, when Henri (Michel
Semeniako) staggers, blood-covered, into the flat being used by the Maoist cell, he has
pointedly been beaten up not by fascists, but by the PCF.
Surveys of Godard's emergent politicisation across the 1960s have been carried
23
out elsewhere. The blend of Maoism and anti-establishment quasi-Marxist gauchisme
arrived at by Godard around May 68 was ushered in by the Left-wing

anarchistic FIN

DE CONTEand FIN DE CINEMAintertitles at the end of Week-end, which, in turn, gave

way to the anarcho-spontaneiste Situationnist-influenced

emphases of Le Gai savoir and

the Cine-tracts.

One should recognise that, whilst

an easy shorthand, it is an

oversimplification

to consider the Groupe Dziga Vertov films as drawing on a stable

base of political theory, which was repudiated en bloc after 1972. On the contrary,
distinct changes in the politics of the Groupe Dziga Vertov are visible from 1969 to
1971, especially the flirtation

in
visible
with an anarcho-leftist spontaneisme, clearly

both Vladimir et Rosa and Tout va bien. 24 These changes reflect the emergence of an
increasingly bleak political climate in the wake of May 68, as much as the political
profile of the group, and the shift in principal collaborator from Jean-Henri Roger (on
British Sounds and Pravda), then a member of the hardline Maoist Parti Communiste
Marxist-Leniniste

de France (PCMLF), to Jean-Pierre Gorin, a former journalist and

theoretician with the Union des Jeunesses Communistes marxistes-leninistes (UJCm1)

from the mid-1960s until its outlawing by the government after May 68 (together with
Cahiers
Les
25
to
in
Gorin
PCMLF).
Steeped
Althusser's
the
teachings,
contributed
Marxistes-Leninistes

(the UJCmI journal), and brought a rigorous Althusserian auto-

critical reflection to the group's work.

The intellectual encounter with Althusser, as

figured in the actual encounter with Gorin during preparations for La Chinoise, is visible
in the prominent inclusion on-screen of issues of Les Cahiers Marxistes-Leninistes in
Normale
Ecole
26
lectures
had
film.
Gorin
followed
the
Not
Althusser's
at
the
only
Superieure (lectures which culminated in the AIE article), but we know he and Godard
to have had an advance draft copy of the as yet unpublished article, which, as Jean-Paul
Fargier (then writing for Cinethique) was later to suggest, provided the key to the
Godard/Gorin collaboration ('le Godard-Gorin'). 27

28

The influence of Althusser's philosophical transposition of Maoism to a European

context exerted an enormous influence over many of the radical political splinter groups
active around May 68. The attraction of the Maoist model on which it resides lies in
its refusal of a single correct theoretical grid, its insistence on endless questioning, and
its call to interrogate situations 'all-sidedly'28: all such characteristics, as Julia Kristeva
observes, made this ostensibly least dogmatic of dogmas a profoundly

seductive

'anarchist outbreak within Marxism'. 29 If Sonimage are eager to expunge all hint of
political dogma, traces of the Marxist-Leninist

context of the Groupe Dziga Vertov are

nevertheless visible, albeit with ever-diminishing

potency, and nowhere more clearly

than in Althusser's theory of social assujetissement, and in his critique of the role of the
'appareils ideologiques d'etat' (AIE) in reproducing a pervasive reactionary bourgeois
ideology and docile subjects within capitalism. 30 Althusser reworked the classic Marxist
division of State into base and superstructure in his
argument that the dominant ideology
is reproduced less by overt State control (through the
for
judicial
system,
police and
example), than by institutions normally considered innocent (such as the family and
education system), which ensures 'une reproduction de sa soumission 1'ideologie
dominante pour les ouvriers et une reproduction de la
l'ideologie
bien

manier
capacite
dominante pour les agents de l'exploitation
3'
de
la
et
repression'. Issues axiomatic to the
Althusser-influenced Maoistlgauchiste Left in France in the early 1970s, and notably the
widespread view of the education system as ossified, are central to Sonimage. Whilst
recognising this enduring influence, one should be alert to subsequent scepticism
regarding Althusser's model of the imaginary nature of the relation of the individual to
ideology through the AIE, its loose appropriation of Lacanian theory, reductive elision
of diverse institutions, and its profoundly pessimistic fatalism in relation to political
change. Terry Eagleton points out, for instance, that Althusser's contention that even
before birth '1'enfant est donc dej sujet' effectively rules out scope for change through
32
struggle.

What should be recognised, above all, is Sonimage's residual reliance on

Althusser long after the abandonment of partisan politics across the Sonimage work,
in
a reliance on the Althusserian model of social assujetissement and,
visible primarily
be
discussed
in
following
the
as will

draw
in
to
on
continues
a project which
section,

Althusser's formulation of the reproduction of ideology through the AIE.

29

1.2.2

Docile bodies: the calibration

identity

of the body as machine and splintering

If the Sonimage work rejects Marxist-Leninism,

those of Foucault

and Deleuze/Guattari,

of

other 'softer' theories, such as

are present as important

touchstones.

Furthermore, it is underscored by a broadly Althusserian reflection on the impact on the

human subject of institutional consumer capitalist organisations of time and space: the
division of labour, the separation of home from work, the roles of the sexes in relation
to this initial division, the separation of work from pleasure, the exertion of power via
the Althusserian ISAs (school, factory, university, and so on), and the power relations
inscribed in the minutiae of the regulatory cycles that constitute daily life (going to
school, to work, to the cinema, on holiday).

As Susan (Jane Fonda) suggests in Tout

va bien, 'en dehors de l'usine, c'est l'usine', a formula developed by Godard in Jean-Luc,
in
encapsulated
and
a central visual figure of the Sonimage work, the stasis of the
vicious circle.

A recognition of the basis of capitalism in systematic separation and

repetition is first explored in Godard's work in Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle,
in
its
focus on the construction of identity within the confines of regularising
and
divisions, the film prefigures the- Sonimage work more than the Groupe Dziga Vertov
work which followed it. 33 As tentatively explored in Deux ou trois choses que je sais
d'elle, therefore, Sonimage analyse the human subject as caught at the intersection of
such vicious circles, of the divisions (between the sexes, labour and leisure, home and
day and week, of weekends and holidays).
Godard articulates this clearly in Jean-Luc ('Puis l'usine ca sera pared le lendemain.

work) and repetitions (of the working

Puis ca, puis ca, puis ca tourne, sans faire, sans faire de spirale'. ), and the effects of such
in
Pierre's
deux,
Numero
caught
the
as
primary subject matter of
regularisation constitute

la
des
'il
pointer
aller
cons, pour
ya un paysage, qu'on traverse comme
assertion that
maison'.

This critique of the normalization and 'fabrication' of the human subject as

Sonimage
infuses
including
implies,
the
the
entire
all
monstre,
violence such a view
project.

As Monique

insists in Nanas, innate spontaneity is quashed by rigid

normalizing social dictates: 'au depart, on a un certain spontaneite, et puis qu'apres, petit
petit, eile est vraiment enterree...'. In this critique, the influence of Althusser is clearly
at work.

As already suggested, Althusser identified

the education system as a

disenfranchised
heart
the
to
of
manipulative apparatus of state control, a view close
'visit'
is
It
in
be
France
this
tour can
student sentiment.
read as a protracted
context that
30

to (and critique of) school by Godard/Mieville, both in the senseof the actual filming
of the children within various situationsat school (in the classroom,in detention,in the
playground), but also in the wider senseof an exploration of the child's universe as
dictated and constructed by school-going and television (which are shown as equally
fascistic in form and effect). Within this scenario, school is less a place for learning,
than an oppressiveinstitution in which children are allocated instructions for their future
social roles: at home, in the office, in the factory.

During childhood and adolescence,

children are, as it were, held in reserve for pre-designated future roles.

School as

enforced incarceration, and source of social 'programming', is already viciously parodied

by Godard in Le Gai savoir. Patricia Lumumba ('Elle')
postulates the extension of
schooling ad absurdum: 'On sait en effet que l'opposition de gauche a obtenu de ses
complices au gouvernement que la scolarite soit obligatoire en France jusqu' 55 ans'.
In an instance exemplary of the
provocative depiction of school as incarceration
(especially in France tour), children
are equated in Lecons de choses with prisoners of
war, caged behind high wire fences. If the underlying logic to the critique of schooling
derives from Althusser, the
structural similarities between the outside appearance and
internal layout of the buildings (the
regimented layout of the classroom desks, for
instance) establishes visual
correlations between the institutions, and arguably derive as
much from Michel Foucault's polemic on the structural interrelations of schools and
prisons in Discipline and Punish (which will be discussed at greater length below) as
from Althusser's functionalist
elision of the AIR 34
Perhaps the most powerful portrayal-and critique of school comes in France tour
7, shocking in its visible physical violence: during a gym class, children are told to form
a line and then to peel off in turn to- the left and right alternately. When a child,
Marina, in a lapse of concentration, veers off to the wrong side, she is grabbed by the
arm, pulled back into line, and harshly admonished by the teacher. The male voice-off
is unequivocal in its protest at such treatment which is presented as visual proof of the
Sonimage case against school:
Les copies conforment. Les originaux, on deforme. Des leur naissance, les
monstres sont pris en charge par les organisations militaires, dans le but de
fournir de la main d'oeuvre bon marche et docile aux grandes compagnies
industrielles.

31

This gauchiste critique of school is very close to Ivan Illich's thesis in Deschooling
Society (first published in 1970), in which he argues that the 'hidden curriculum' of
(provocatively
school
cast as an industry) is to confine children, to construct and mass
produce 'childhood', and to nullify

creativity through relentless ritual: 'No society in

history has been able to survive without ritual or myth, but ours is the first which has
"
dull,
destructive,
its
initiation
into
needed such a
protracted,
myth'.
and expensive

In

a comment that might act as a subtitle to France tour, Illich wrote that 'Learning and
the assignment of social roles are melted into schooling. i36 Mieville pursues this critique
of school into Le Livre de Marie, powerfully depicting the brutal impact of the ritual of
school in Marie's perverse fantasy of teaching a class by rote, whilst Godard, as in his
introductory monologue to Numero deux,
posits school as enforced child labour ('le
travail enfantini37) through which the next generation of factory workers is produced: 'Ils
nous foutent 1'ecole, et puis- apres on peut pas s'en servir. (...) Les ouvriers, les
enfants d'ouvriers, ils vont l'ecole, et puis apres 1'ecole ils vont l'usine, et ca revient
au meme'.

The conditioning of the human infant as docile subjectof capitalism, particularly

via schooling, is the obsessive focus of France tour, and is explored through the
'impression'texpression' opposition that
38
in
France
As
Sonimage
the
permeates
work.
tour 5, children are equated with all manner of recording surfaces, innocent open
systems subject to state programming ('impression') which will produce a subject to
occupy

predetermined

Godard/Mieville

specific

social

position

thus equate the reproduction

and

function

of 'children'

('expression').

with the printing

of

newspapers, or with the school copying machine operated by Arnaud at length

Arnaud's capacity for self-expression, it is suggested, is
is
he
dictated
by,
logic
impressions
to
subjected
entirely
which
and reliant on, the
of the

throughout this programme.

on a daily basis. Mieville's series of poetic formulations on the soundtrack near the
beginning of this episode, all invoking the-notion of 'impression', are highly suggestive,
in
a powerful evocation of an inevitable solitude: 'Chiffrer un message.
and culminate
Imprimer Va. Impression d'ensemble. Impression de solitude. '
Godard/Mieville's

exploration of the socialisation process focuses on the impact

of institutionalised distributions of time and space, as figured for Godard/Mieville

television.

in

Similarly, in Comment Va va, a correlation is drawn by Odette (Mieville)

between the rhythms of work and the repetitive conventions of the newspaper: 'Le travail

32

aussi, c'est un quotidien'.

If this regularisation of time and space is figured in the

Sonimage work through the conventional time/space relations of the newspaper, the
magazine, and television, it is the timetable ('espace et temps, enchaine l'un l'autre',
as it is formulated in Photos et cie), that embodies the daily, monthly, and annual cycles
into which the nascent human animal is inserted. Again, Foucault's work operates here
as a clear pole of reference, especially in its analysis of the emergence of methods
imposed by the timetable (establishing rhythms, imposing specific operations, and
regulating the cycles of repetition) and their subsequent transposition from monastic
communities to institutions such as schools, workshops, and hospitals. 39

The extension of the timetable as paradigm of the violence of the regulatory

routines of capitalism is especially clear in Photos et cie. In response to Godard's
question 'alors comment employer son temps occuper son espace, comment s'organise
un emploi du temps?', the reply ('ben, comme ca') is illustrated by a series of equated
images of 'chaines': a production line, two
severed heads on a pole, prisoners behind
barbed wire, an advertisement for
club-med hotels, three television monitors, a DNA
double helix, and a family.

Similarly,

conceptions of work are interrogated in Y'a

personne in terms of imposed distributions of time and space: 'On tche de mettre en
evidence, partir de cette recherche dun
du
du
d'emploi
la
temps,
celle
emploi,
notion
temps perdu et retrouve ou gagne, et finalement celle d'un travail qui s'est perdu dans
la nuit des temps morts quotidiens. i4 Indeed,
a key conceit running through the
Sonimage texts is that of contemporary life
as a television programme: superficial,
repetitive, predictable, and uniform.

Godard evokes this correlation very succinctly in

his monologue near the beginning of Numero deux, condemning the 'grande societe
multinationale qui fabrique des programmes'. Just as the term 'societe' invokes the
notions of 'society' and 'company', so 'programme' is repeatedly used to regroup
connotations as disparate as DNA and the AIE, eliding the base unit of television (the
television programme) and ways of seeing inscribed (programmed) within subjective
4'
perception.
The Sonimage discourse on the normalisation process frequently operates through
metaphors appropriated from the realm of mechanical mass production, and projected
onto identity.

Just as the word 'programme' is a multiple metaphor, so the term 'plan'

denotes not only 'plans' in the sense of the scenarios of mainstream films or television
programmes, individual

'shots', the city streets, or a map of the metro, but 'plans'

33

ingrained in subjective ways of seeing.

The terms GEOMETRIEand GEOGRAPHIE,

by
frame
France
3,
tour
the
CONNU,
and so establish a wealth of
word
punctuated
individual
'cognitive
to
the
the
of
street plans'
maps and
charting of
suggestive allusions
identity: 'Les monstres ont un plan, pas seulement un plan de la ville, mais du monde.
Et la ville, c'est juste une image de ce plan qu'ils tirent chaque jour en quantite
industrielle. ' Guy Scarpetta, identifying the overriding importance to Godard/Mieville's
work of an unpicking of convention within subjectivity,

recognises here a crucial

divergence from Brecht, and notably, from his use of his alienation effect to encourage
audience participation and increase political consciousness. For Sonimage, the very
gestures and thought processes of the individual are saturated in convention:
Godard s'attache surtout denoncer (et c'est
sans doute plus profond) l'alienation
dans la perception en tanz que teile:
celle qui fait que nous sommes
programmes, non seulement dans notre conscience, mais dans notre facon de
voir et d'entendre (ou plutt: d'etre incapables de voir et d'entendre hors de
certains codes, de certaines homogeneites). 42
The inscription of received homogeneities within
figured
in
Sonimage
is
the
perception
work in imagery of road intersections; traffic either follows or transgresses the dictates
of the road layout and signs, the flashing of indicator lights (the slow motion pulse of
a lorry's indicator in France tour 3) or the unexpected arrival of a vehicle going the
wrong way (as in the emblematic sequence in Ici et ailleurs of a 2CV reversing into a
busy junction) figuring attempts to contest and explore such conventions.

Thus when

Camille replies to Godard/Linhard's- question as to how she manages not to get lost ('Je
connais le chemin'), the statement is picked up and repeated in a comment exemplary
of this use of roads and 'plans' to figure- the reproduction of conventional coding's of
reality within the individual: 'Elle a un plan, et eile s'y tient. '
For Sonimage, as for Foucault, the focus of social conditioning and constraint of
the human subject is the body.

A visible focus on the body pervades the Sonimage

individual
isolation
by
in
the
the
terms
of
of an emphatic solitude conveyed
work, often
body within the frame, and by the recourse to back-lit silhouetted shapeless hulks, the
dissection
'monstres'
but,
the
through
of the
anonymous
of capitalism,
visual
above all,
body and its component vocabulary of gesture in France tour. The body as locus of the
socialisation process is succinctly summarised by Betty (in voice-off) in France tour 5:
'le corps, comme du papier, une surface pour enregistrer'. Godard/Linhard goes to great

34

lengths in dialogue with Arnaud in France tour 10 to draw a direct analogy between the
passage of food and television through the body via an exploration of the expression 'ca
fait chier' (in through the eyes and mouth, into the stomach, and out of the anus).
Godard/Linhard suggests at one point in this poetic game a direct link between the
ingestion of TV programmes and an insidious control of the human body ('Les histoires
l'estomac
un moment donne, ca va dans le corps.').
ca
passe
par
aussi,

This

programming of the body is conveyed literally in Numero deux in a dense recurrent

image,
face,
inscription
family
life
Vanessa's
that
the
of
vision-mixed
visual
across
of
dual
the
complex
subjugation of the body both to the family and, through the
suggesting
superimposition of the electronic image, to the dictates of television.

Sonimage'sexplorations of the body and gesture(particularly in Sixfois deux and

France tour), and the underlying thesis that capitalism exerts its power directly on the
body via a meticulous and regimented control of time and space, draws extensively on
Foucault's argument in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (first published
in 1975, so coterminous with Sonimage's work) that the body is the site of regulatory
discipline, domination, ritual, and punishment. Foucault's concern is to reveal what he
terms a'political technology of the bodyi43wherein a modem form of slavery is achieved
not through appropriation and ownership, but through an imposition of 'docility-utility'
constraints, prohibitions, and obligations, all
44
life.
daily
disciplinary
veiled manifestations of a
monotony active throughout
Sonimage's dissection of the body contends, echoing Foucault's history of the body as
locus for the implementation of power, that a Taylorisation of gesture has spread from
for
(washing
factory
line
from
up,
the
to all gesture,
production
the commonplace

via a series of ostensibly non-ideological

logical
(if
a
and, as such, constitutes
body
the
and of
radicalised) endpoint of earlier representations of the programming of

instance) to the most intimate (love-making),

desire in Godard's science fiction films of the 1960s.45

These comments on the body as a carefully calibrated machine, and, figuratively,
as a model of the programming of the human psyche, require some moderation.
evolution in Godard/Mieville's

position is identifiable.

An

The fecund exploration of the

body in France tour reveals a shift in Sonimage's position vis--vis both the body and
representation: wholesale denunciation of the social programming

of the body is

displaced by a systematic quest to uncover disjunctions latent in the uniformity

corporeal movement.

of

Where Marey had sought early in cinematic history to apply the

35

invisible
to the naked eye, and,
to
tool
examine movements
camera as a scientific
famously, to optimise energy efficiency in an experiment on the maximum weight a
soldier can carry over a given time (experiments soon applied by Henry Ford to an
factory
line),
Sonimage
the
return to the
optimisation of gesture efficiency on
production
impetus of Marey's experiments in order to disrupt the uniform flow of images and the
body, and so reveal the discontinuities latent in everyday movement.
aimed to maximise efficiency, Godard/Mieville

Where Marey

body
the
the
seek out
points at which

resists total subjugation:

Des qu'on arrete une image dans un mouvement qui en comporte vingt-cinq (ce
qui nest pas enorme, c'est cinq fois les doigts de votre main, c'est quelque chose
que vous pouvez encore penser), on s'apercoit quun plan qu'on a filme, suivant
comment on l'arrete, tout coup il ya des milliards de possibilites, toutes les
permutations possibles entre ces vingt-cinq images representent des milliards de
46
possibilites.
Godard himself links the decompositions ('ralentis') of France tour directly to Marey,
or, rather, to a missing link between Marey and Lumiere, a gap filled by video's facility
for subjecting images to a wide range
inexpensive
post-production
of simple and
techniques:
C'est 1'histoire de Marey, qui avait filme la decomposition des chevaux et quand
on lui a pane de l'invention de Lumiere il a dit: completement imbecile,
pourquoi filmer a la vitesse normale de ce qu'on voit avec les yeux, je vois pas
quel est l'interet d'avoir une machine ambulante... Alors la machine manque
effectivement entre Lumiere et Marey et il ya un moment o tu as besoin de
repartir. Un plan comme ca to permet d'avoir envie de faire un panoramique, et
tu sail un peu, meme techniquement, ce qu'il ya dedans...47
For Sonimage, therefore, the body is, ultimately, that which evades total conditioning. 48
The examination

of the body in France

tour is, ultimately,

an exploration

of

representation passim, a very real search for the base elements of a new signifying
practice, new points of departure for the fictions of the 1980s art cinema. As Jacques
Aumont points out astutely, the body is used reflexively throughout France tour in this
j'exagere
'Presque,

peine, un film sur le corps humain comme paradigme meme

way:
de la representation et de 1'expression'.49 The capacity of the body to evade total
subjugation to capitalism is played out in dazzling bodily flights, usually in dance,
sequences which startle the viewer with their vitality and abandon. The ice skater in

36

Marcel (an extract from one of Marcel's Super 8 films), and the dance by the naked
young girl at the end of Rene(e)s (reworked within fictional parameters by Mieville in
Le Livre de Marie, and transposed onto singing in Mon cher sujet), exemplify this
capacity of the body to resist social conditioning, and its role as a pointer towards a new
signifying practice (see Appendix B(iii)).

Nowhere is the renewed vigour and optimism

Godard
allow
will
and Mieville to return to cinema proper in the 1980s clearer
which
than in these briefly glimpsed images.

The saturation of the Sonimageimagery in frames and grids operatesas a visual

for
conventional time/space relations (including, as we have seen, television
shorthand
and the timetable).

They figure not merely the paralysis of conventional forms and

but,
simultaneously, the violence of the normalizing
representation,

process on the

individual, viewed most consistently through the Sonimage work in terms of the infant
or child.

As in Alphaville and Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (Juliette's torso

framed against the myriad windows of the B LM, for instance) before it, the Sonimage
juxtaposes
the flesh, form, and movements of the human body against
work repeatedly
frames and grids to denote the violence of the subjugation of the body to the rhythms
of capital. The imagery of the Sonimage work is so saturated with such iconography
that the inhabitants of the screen can quite literally barely move, so 'incarcerated' are
they.
Sonimage's exploration of theinfant
human
innocent
as
construction of the
'monstre' is distilled in provocative terms into Mieville's commentary on the image of
commuters emerging from the metro in France tour 2:
Les monstres sortent chaque jour de la terre... Its wont pendant huit heures se
Depuis
desindustrielles
mettre au service
grandes exploitations
et militaires...
de
honteux
le

cette
quelques annees, on a cherche
mecanisme
comprendre
demarche... Il semble aujourd'hui prouver que les monstres ont besoin d'oxygene

diriger
leurs
d'argent,
la
faible
honnete
luminosite
d'un
suffit
et
que
et
salaire
pas.
This notion of 'monstre' ('de gentils monstres', 'un peu monstrueuxi50) denotes the end
product of the socialising process, and is figured elsewhere in the portrayal of the
archetypal capitalist subject as 'telespectateur' or tourist. The monstres are creatures of
habit in every sense: just as their (our) lives are circumscribed and conditioned through
the repetitive cycles of consumer capitalism, so they (we) crave the familiar.
Sonimage's project

aims to

explore

the functioning
37

of

If

successive socializing

mechanisms, so, like Foucault in Discipline and Punish and Deleuze/Guattari in L AntiOedipe: Capitalisme et Schizophrenie (published in 1972), their underlying concern is
to explore and unravel the conditioning of desire. Just as Deleuze and Guattari depart
from the question of how the masses could be made to desire their own oppression
within fascism, so Sonimage elaborate a poetic-scientific

discourse which seeks to

evaluate how and why the people could prefer a return to Gaullist conservatism
following May 68 over and above the momentum and promise of change figured in
gauchisme. Foucault's preface to Deleuze and Guattari's L Anti-Oedipe summarises this
insistent emphasis to his and their work, that of the tracking down of fascism and
fascisizing elements ingrained in human behaviour, and especially in the petty symptoms
that make up the 'tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives'. 5' Foucault's comment
serves to encapsulate a major portion of Sonimage's project:

How does one keep from being fascist, even (especially) when one believes
be
to
a revolutionary militant? How do we rid our speechand our acts,
oneself
our hearts and our pleasures,of fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that
is ingrained in our behaviour? The Christian moralists sought out the traces of
the flesh lodged deep within the soul. Deleuze and Guattari, for their part,
pursue the slightest traces of fascism in the body.52
The motivation for Godard/Mieville's
implicit

critique of the divisions and repetitions

in capitalism is to cast in relief the processes whereby the fascistic can be

be
to
reproduced within- individual
shown

perception and desire, a quest already

in
the economical image of the inscription of the fascistic within
summarised
succinctly
bien:
in
Tout
Susan (Jane Fonda) holds up a pornographic photograph
va
subjectivity
which obscures and replaces her face/head. As Odette/Mieville summarises in Comment
je
'Ben,
pense qu'on a peur de voir quand on a peur de perdre sa place. Et peutca va:
etre que desirer le fascisme, c'est avoir peur de perdre sa place. Alors, on dit rien, on
ferme les yeux. '

38

1.3

THE REPUDIATION

OF POLITICAL

THEORY:

ICI ET AILLEURS

Ici et ailleurs embodies,in its short self-contained form, all the elementsof the
resolution of the profound
disillusionment,

and protracted crisis of political

belief,

and ensuing

which forms the backdrop to the subsequent Sonimage work.

Godard claimed in 1978, and without exaggeration, the making of Id

As

et ailleurs

53
five
intertitle
in
flashing
Political
is
took
the
years.
revisionism
exemplified
effectively
A CELA which punctuates the film like a warning beacon. It should be
EN REPENSANT
deux
further
Ici
Numero
the
to
that
release
of
et
served
complicate
ailleurs
after
recalled
Sonimage
the
early
of
work.
readings

Without Ici et ailleurs, the transitional piece

which defined the new project, Numero deux and Comment ca va lacked an introduction,
if
(Ici
blue.
films
Whilst
the
the
three
as
out
of
are complementary pieces
and appeared
deux
Comment
Numero
television,
the
on
a network
ca
va
ailleurs
and
on
et
print media,
fiction
Id
to
the
these
et
reapproach
without
within
context
critiques),
of
of attempts
is
largely
the
extensive
re-evaluation
of
absent, an absence
partisan
politics
ailleurs,
for
least
accounts
undoubtedly
at
some of the confusion which greeted the release
which
deux.
Numero
of

1.3.1

From the Groupe Dziga Vertov to Sonimage: the reworking

vidoire in Ici et ailleurs

of Jusqu% la

The importance accordedJusqu' la victoire by Godard and Gorin can scarcely

be exaggerated: they took on the commission of Vladimir et Rosa from Grove Press
British
for
Universities
American
the
to
their
tour
With
project, and
pay
of
specifically
Sounds and the storyboard for Jusqu' la victoire was a further attempt to financially
films'
the
of
guarantee completion

Godard travelled to Jordan no less than six times

"
film.
for
1969
Summer
in
November
the
between
and the
of 1970
preparation

The

film was conceived as the culmination of the Godard/Gorin collaboration, accompanying

'inevitable'
documenting
the
and
homeland.

historical

process of Palestinian return to their

Shot in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan from late 1969 to mid-1970 at the

invitation of Al Fatah (the principal revolutionary Palestinian group), Godard and Gorin
(with the collaboration of camera operator Armand Marco), aimed to trace the inexorable
Palestinians
to victory.
the
of
march
39

The Jordanian army's offensive under King Hussein against the Palestinians in
Amman in September 1970, subsequently known as Black September, resulted in the
deaths of thousands of combatants and civilians, including many of those filmed by
Godard, Gorin, and Marco in training and in action for Jusqu' la vicloire. Not only did
this fundamentally alter the status of the film from a vital historical work heralding
imminent revolution to an archival record of a tragic and ill-conceived moment in the
history of the Palestinians, but made nonsense of the unswerving optimism informing
the political logic which had assumed Arab unity, and underwritten the conception of
the film as a sequence of images culminating in victory (all underscored by the MarxistLeninist analysis on the soundtrack). The miscalculation by the Palestinians, combined
with the guilt at the realisation of the projection abroad of a desire for revolution which
had stagnated in France, enforced a full-scale revision of the assumptions of Godard's
position.

Godard and Gorin's faith in theory per se had obscured the severity of the

for
the
those they had filmed.
situation
of
reality

Godard/Mieville

now viewed their

'export' of a revolutionary model as fatally inflected with imperialistic arrogance, and

they were left with the images of many Palestinians, now dead, and were faced with the
how
to work those rushes into a format which acknowledged the faults of
problem of
their position, as well as returning the images, in the words of Serge Daney, ' ceux
qu'ils appartiennent, aux morts. '56

Id et ailleurs identifies the assumption that an ineluctable result of successive

revolutionary movements across history is revolution in either France or Palestine as
sheer over-optimism.

This autocritique is- carried out through the video images of those

killed in the Amman massacre, images washed over by the electronic roll bar on the
film.
the
that
punctuates
screen

The editing of the film is extremely powerful: each

harsh
blue
lament
in
lifeless
(yet
look
the
culminates
a
out of
accusatory)
autocritical
image.
image
fatally
in
The
'addition'
is
the
televisual
the
wrong
again encapsulated
of
feedback
in
bar
(a
the
the
on
calculator
verbally
enacted
process previously
of electronic
USA).
As
in
in
Godard's voice asserts, 1789 + 1968 + 1936 + 1917 =
Made
scene
death,
not revolution: '...probablement force d'ajouter de 1'espoir des reves,
and
chaos
des
d'addition...
faire
d
erreurs
ou plutt qu'on se retrouve pas loin de zero on a
on a
des
des
fait
additions,
mais
soustractions'. Accompanying this revisionist discourse
pas
is a rejection of the neo-imperialist 'export' of revolutionary zeal by those who had failed
to realise their revolutionary aspirations at home: 'Si on voulait faire de la revolution

40

leur place, c'est peut"etre qu' cette epoque on n'avait pas vraiment envie de la faire l
Serge
(Mieville).
Daney,
nest
l
in
1981
on
pas'
writing
o
que
on
plutt
o on est,
(Circle
invokes
Flschung
Deceit),
Ici
Die
Schlbndorifs
of
et ailleurs in his
Volker

Schlbndorffs
liberal
well-intentioned
classically
of
mainstream
attack on the naivety

film:
Schlbndorff est tres intelligent. Il comprend tout, mais trop tard. 11 fait
de
devenu
d'etre
monstre
cynisme au moment o n'importe quel exun
semblant
de
80,
les
compris,
tiers-mondiste
a
au
ces
seuil
annees
que
guerres
gaucho
justes dans les pays pauvres sont d'abord le pauvre decor de sa psychanalyse
divan
Qu'il

lui.
Nous
sauvage.
n'y
a
personne
son
sauver,
sinon
personnelle,
"
1.
en sommes
failed
the
of
light
this
autocritique
projection
of
of
revolutionary aspirations
In the
is surprising that Godard and Mieville should have courted criticism, albeit
it
abroad,
Mozambican
by their involvement in attempts to
the
government,
invitation
of
at the
infrastructure
in
Republic
of
an
audio-visual
the
nascent
parameters
of
the
trace
S8
late
1970s.
in
the
Mozambique

from
Jusqu' la victoire weighed heavily on Godard and
hours
of rushes
The ten
in
itself.
of
material
posing
quantity
a
problem
Gorin, the sheer

The film's Marxist-

however thoroughly imbued with the Vertovian premise of montage

logic,
Leninist
(as well as after), was invalidated. Even before the
during
the
shooting
before and
by
Godard
Mieville
in
Grenoble,
Godard and Gorin had
taken
up
and
footage was
it,
to
draw
organise
and
to
edit
the
proposing
to
attempted
on
material
reflect
repeatedly
in attempting to film an historical
59
inherent
Gorin,
indeed,
had
process.
on the pitfalls
by
difficulties
Jusqu'
la
the
presented
June
the
victoire
material
as
early
as
of
spoken
'a film on how to film history', a project
they
that
might
now
make
1972, suggesting
Palestine footage, along with fictional
the
'include
all
stuff,
newsreels,
would
which
in the Second World War'. 60 An indication
French
underground
the
the
of
on
material
by
Godard,
this
impossibilty
accorded
project
the
and
urgency
evident
of
and
difficulty
footage
than
it,
rather
from
be
working
through
painfully
the
can
gauged
discarding
Godard
day
for
that
and
she
spent
every
a year and a half attempting
Mieville's claim
Ici
film
et
ailleurs:
the
work
took up the majority of 1973 and
on
edit
and
to organise
Mieville
Grenoble and setting up the Sonimage
were
Godard
to
and
relocating
1974, as

b'
studio.

41

The repudiation of political theory is first overtly articulated in the image of the
young girl in the bombed-out ruins of a house in Karame as she recites the Mahmoud
Darwish poem 'Je resisterai', a sequence which lays the foundation for variations on the
same refrain across the following five years, in which, as suggested at the beginning of
this chapter, Godard/Mieville

castigate the Groupe Dziga Vertov practice for having

imposed theory in a way which obscured rather than elucidated potentially significant
elements within the image ('le son tellement fort qu'il a fini par noyer la voix qu'il
de
1'image').
faire
is
later
in
This
Ici et ailleurs
to
sortir
same
critique
returned
voulait
in relation to images of the Palestinian guerillas, all of whom were killed in the Amman
September:
brutally
Black
Godard
of
massacres

his
criticises
assumption that, as a

intellectual,
far
Western
removed from mortal danger, and divorced from the
committed
daily
dangers
faced by the Fedayeen, he might have
realities
practical
and
simple
anything of value to contribute to their cause. This divorce, Godard/Mieville

argue, is

by
heady
the
obscured
optimism of the all-flattening political optimism of the
what was
logic of Jusqu'ir la victoire: 'C'est vrai que meme du silence, on n'a jamais ecoute en
de
tout
a
on
suite voulu crier victoire, et en plus leur place...'.
silence....

The logic and structure of Ici et ailleurs is based on the recognition that the
conversation of the Fedayeen talking amongst themselves was not translated, but, rather,
by
a political discourse which appropriated and exploited their image. The
over
washed
film is infused with the sense-of guilt left in the wake of the realisation of this highhanded distance from their ostensible comrades.

Elias Sanbar, Godard and Gorin's

interpreter in Jordan and Lebanon during the shooting of Jusqu' la victoire, has
contributed a fascinating testimony to the impact on both himself and Godard of the
discussions
these
had not been translated, and we learn that it is
that
crucial
realisation
the eventual translation of these key sequences that constitutes the point of departure for
Ici et ailleurs.

The Fedayeen, filmed following

a night-time manoeuvre in the course

of which two of their group had been killed, tired and tense, vent their anger and talk
through the practical weaknesses of their tactics, discussions all 'obscured' by a
theoretical elaboration of the importance of autocriticism in their revolutionary practice.
In the process, their veritable status as peasant farmers behind their image as guerillas
is equally obscured. Only two years later, whilst attempting to work this material in the
initial Sonimage studios in avenue du Maine, did Godard literally turn down the volume
of the overlaid theoretical discourse, and raise the volume level of those sitting on the

42

Sanbar
in
background,
in
to translate their exchanges, and so
the
asking
circle
a
ground
discovering the practical simplicity of their concerns. Rather than theory and practice,
the Fedayeen were concerned with the imminent mortal danger they faced. In short,
they were discussing their own deaths:
Nous etions abasourdis, lui parce qu'il m'avait pas alors demande de traduire ce
langue
la
hommes,
dont
disait
naturelle, profondement
c'etait
ces
et moi, moi
que
les
les
de
theories
tant
et
n'avoir alors strictement Tien entendu,
culpabilise
de
de
frappe
de
C'est

cette
cette scene,
surdite.
partir
convictions m'avaient
decouverte, que Godard btit ce qui est pour moi le passage le plus fort, le plus
tragique de Icf er aflleurs, celui, pathetique, o Godard montre cette scene et
des
d'une
voix cassee comment nos voix avaient recouvert celles
raconte
hommes que nous ecoutions jusqu' les reduire neant.62
This recognition of having quashed the content of the image through misplaced overis
is
Sonimage
the
the
theoretical
work
correctness
cornerstone on which
zealous
founded, the moment from which a future practice arising from a reassessment of the
becomes
In
Ici
possible.
et ailleurs, where these sequences play a seminal role, the
past
inflections
Palestinian
tones,
the
and
of
pauses,
voices themselves are accorded
silences,
particular prominence, the act of translation

itself heavily emphasised (spoken by

Mieville's voice with a slight delay). As Mieville laments, in comments which draw Ici
et ailleurs to a close:
images
d'o
d'ecouter
incapables
de
ete
ces
vient-il
que
et
et
nous
avons
voir
...
toutes simples, et que nous avons, comme tout le monde, dit attires choses
propos d'elles, autres choses que ce qu'elles disaient pourtant... sans doute est-ce
fort,
le
trop
et
ne
savons
ni
est
voir, ni entendre, ou alors que
son
que nous
couvre la realite...
If the untranslated group discussions numbered amongst the key sequencesaround which
'choses
la
(these
Jusqu'
doubts
then
the
victoire revolved,
the aborted
and concerns
incroyablement
simples,

simples') unveiled

via a translation of these scenes are

fundamental to Sonimage's concern for the politics of the everyday.

To conclude this positioning of Ici et ailleurs as fundamental to the Sonimage

demarcates
it
be
it
film
that
theory,
the
whilst
rejects political
work, should emphasised
Al
for
Fatah,
its
PLO
the
through
and
pro-Palestinian
stance,
notably
markedly
support
a
and provoked considerable reaction on its (belated) release, and was, effectively,
by
censored the prompt threat of violence. The film was programmed to open at the

43

'Quintette' cinema in Paris in September 1976, but a bomb in the cinema forced its
(sic))
('pour
des
techniques'
under the pretence that the
raisons
purement
withdrawal
16mm copy of the film was in too poor a state.63 This film against politics thus,
Groupe
(or
far
Dziga
the
than
of
any
all)
greater reaction
paradoxically, provoked a
Vertov films.

1.4

'UNDER'

1.4.1

The new world-space

TELEVISION
redefined by the proliferation

of media imagery

La grande Waite, qui nest pas la ntre, qui est celle de nos parents, ca a ete la
tele, un ensemble. C'est irremediable, c'est une mutation. (Godard,X982)64
Oui, tellement de moyens de communiquer,
(Comment ca va)

de
sen servir.
et plus aucun moyen

The refusal of the Marxist-Leninist framework that had circumscribed, and given
Groupe
Dziga Vertov work, is accompanied by a redirection
to,
the
closure
a guaranteed
from
away
partisan struggles, and onto a recognition of a world-space
of attention
redefined through the multiplication

of images and sounds in the media. In terms of

how to best use the rushes from Jusqu' la victoire in France in 1974, Godard/Mieville's
interrogation
images
by
launching
turns
those
the
on
an
of
problems
posed
exploration
into circulation with the pre-existent connotations in the Western media around the
Middle East, 'revolution', and the Palestinians. The recognition of the complication of
the situation for all imagery is encapsulated in the pivotal sequence of the multiple slides
in Ici et ailleurs; slide images are lit up side by side within a single 16mm cinematic
frame, multiple

images invading

the space.

The sequence constitutes a spatial

determine
the
pre-existent
and
connotative chains which circumscribe
visualisation of
any image within media society:
image quotidienne fers ainsi partie dun systeme vague et
n'importe
quelle
...
complique, o le monde entier entre et sort chaque instant... n'importe quelle
image... n'importe quelle image... quotidienne... quotidienne... [... ] il n'y a plus
...
d'images simples... seulement de gens simples qu'on forcera rester sages...
...

devient
image...
de
trop
nombreux
comme une
nous
c'est ainsi que chacun
l'interieur de lui-meme... et pas assez 1'exterieur... nous sommes remplaces peu
44

a peu... par des chaines ininterrompues d'images, esclavesles unes des autres...
[...] chacune sa place... comme chacun de nous sa place... dans la chaine
...
d'evenements,sur lesquels nous avons perdu tout pouvoir...
The shuffling of a pile of Gerard de Villiers pornographic/adventure novels (Massacre
Amman, A I'Ouest de Jerusalem, and Les Perdus de Bagdad), exemplifies this
recognition that the explosion of the media has ineradicably altered the transmission and
reception of meaning: any image is inevitably circumscribed by pre-constructed chains
discussed
blur
level
source, aim, and
of address, chains, as
of significations which
in
imagery
in
individual
inscribed
the
as much
perceptions and expectations as
above,
itself. As the books are shuffled, Godard's half-whispered voice intones his realisation
la
how
it
logic
Jusqu'
the
this
victoire
and
of
challenge,
renders
and
project
new
of
doubly misplaced. His observations- are distilled into a powerful expression of pathos,
is
beat,
despair,
in
its
closer to
which,
monotone, repetition, and relentless
regret, and
poetry than to the traditional voice-off commentary:
ici ca va pas... je peux rien faire... tres vite en France tu sais pas quoi faire du
film... tres vite, comme on dit, les contradictions eclatent... et toi avec... et je
commence a le voir... et je commence le voir... que moi avec... tres vite,

le
dit,
je
les
eclatent...
toi
voir
et
on
avec...
commence
contradictions
comme
et
lorsque
je
le

ceci ceci ceci...

avec...
moi
avec...
moi
et
commence
que
voir que
devenu
devenu
lorsque
ceci65
ceci...
est
cela...
est
ceci
cela... ou
cela cela

The conditions which allowed the relative innocence and carefree abandon of the
Nouvelle Vague and Godard's 1960s art cinema have, Godard and Mieville suggest,
disintegrated,swampedby the 'explosion' of television which has forcibly redefined the
from
its
displacing
image/sound
cinema
production and consumption,
parametersof all
diversion.
key
image
incidental
in
the
the
to
that
site
of
of
society
position as
The Sonimagework thus functions as the point of departurefor the elaboration
in
1990s,
discourse
by
'death
1980s
Godard
the
which
and
of cinema'
spun
across
of the
'
The
have
deemed
been
is
'occupying
television.
to
to
the
of
subjugated
power'
cinema
by
television, can, with
this
the
recognition
of
of
envelopment
of
cinema
evolution
hindsight, be traced in the eruption of the television monitor from within the cinema
key
Godard's
Feminin
(with
Masculin
turning
1960s
the
the
art cinema of
screen across
flickering,
the
sharp,
electronic image in total contrast to the softness and clarity
point),
'
image.
tones
the
the
and
grain
of
cinematic
of

The loss of vitality in an art-form now

doomed to take its place alongside rival electronic imagery is succinctly expressed in
45

Godard's preface to Truffaut's posthumously published Correspondances, where the

Nouvelle Vague is invoked as an era of lost innocence ('En ce temps-l, la magie
68
feeds
directors
into
Wim
Wenders.
the
such as
existait encore'), and
positions of other
In this respect, the Sonimage work figures a painful recognition, in the context of France
of the early 1970s, of the principal socio-political change to society as having come less
from militant activity than from a quiet, creeping, and catastrophic mutation 'from
within': television.

In Rene(e)s,Godard/Mieville foreground elementsof Rene Thom's exposition of

in
emission
image
They
theory.
the
catastrophe
and
of the cat eating
capture
appropriate
demonstrate
to
the notion of capture ('le chat a triomphe du catastrophe') as
a mouse
for
the mutilation of cinema by television, which, in turn, is visually equated
metaphor
in
image
fascism
(embodied
an
of Hitler).
with

The emphasis in Thom's elaboration of

his
theory
on
contention that 'toute la vie repose sur 1'emploi continuel de
catastrophe
by
accompanied
a sequence from Week-end of Corinne (Mireille Darc) and
catastrophes',
'Lui' (Jean Yanne) making their way along a road littered with burning wrecks and
in
find
Oinville,
is
injected
does
their
to
Not
quest
only
corpses
with rich connotations.
this vision of consumerism run amok signify the degradation of all imagery in the era
but
in itself constitutes an exemplary sequence of cinema (Week-end)
television,
of
cannibalised and regurgitated within the grid of network television (albeit couched here
69
deux).
insisted
fois
time/space
by
Six
the
unusual
coordinates
within
on

For Sonimage, quality of information has been smotheredby quantity. In the

place of communication

is a sterile and immobile

mass of regurgitated forms and

reproductions: Une masse- considerable- d'informations

donc
pas,
une
circule
qui ne

fait
se
qui
ne
pas.i7 In Ici et ailleurs, this distorting weight of the sheer
communication
quantity of imagery produced and consumed in advanced capitalist countries is (in an
intertitle) set in opposition to the silent role to which Godard/Gorin condemned the
Fedayeen within their original conception for Jusqu' la victoire, 'UN FLOT D'IMAGESET
DE SONSQUI CACHENTDU SILENCE'(the words de sons and du silence are flashing). The
following

in
Comment ca va (1975), the same critique is reinvoked, this time
year,

broadened through one of Godard/Mieville's

oblique poetic formulae, media imagery

now cast as a wall which blocks communication and conceals reality: 'On dit le mur du
il
le
mur des images aussi, qui se transforme en mur du silence, bruit du
son, mais ya
silence, silence avant forage, orage pendant la nuit nuit fasciste...' (Marot).
...
46

A central platform of Sonimage's position is as simple as it is provocative: the

explosion of the media has led to a reduction in meaning.
information serves to obscure, not reveal, reality.

The very quantity of

As Godard insists to the Liberation

journalist in Jean-Luc, 'Plus on sait, moins on sait... on sait moins', maintaining that the
media simply reiterates received perspectives on the same events, thereby reinforcing a
de
from
'Oui,
to
those
plus
montre
on
which
events:
secure position
view and'consume'
de
mais
on
voit
plus,
moins en moins.
en

Les images de television, c'est comme la

"
d'ascenseur'.
Godard and Mieville
musique

in
their recognition of the
are not alone

by
dislocation
in
developed
to
the
experienceradical
capitalist societies engendered
proliferation of the media, and it is important to identify their specificity by positioning
their project in relation to other commentators, and notably to the polemics of Jean
Baudrillard.

The notion of the loss of external reference,or the reduction in signifying power,
of imagesand soundssubjugatedto the media (or homogenisedon their passagethrough
television), has become a central refrain in discussions of Post-modernism, and is
is,
for
It
Godard
Mieville's
reformulated
across
post-Sonimage work.
and
constantly
instance, encapsulatedin Godard's provocation in Scenario du film Passion, where he
in
backs
images,
turning
their
that
to
the
newsreadersare effectively themselves
argues
dominated
(and
so
and controlled)-by the images:
surveyed
C'est l'image qui les voit, et c'est ceux qui manipulent les images qui les voient...
ceux qui manipulent les images qui poussent les speakers des actualites au cul...
72
fait
comme
ca
qu'on se
et c'est
enculer...
A critique of the quantity of images-constitutes- a growing, if largely subterranean, strand
implicit
instance,
is,
for
into
1960s
1970s.
It
theorists
the
the
across
to the work of
and
in Guy Debord's seminal Situationnist tract, La Societe du spectacle (itself a frequent
in
literature
on Post-modernism), where the author argues that the
point
reference
in
is
the role of passive
society
attend
contemporary
spectacle
of
we
which
essence
"'
In
lives
1966,
our
own
and a pre-packaged reality as spectacle.
voyeurs, consuming
Barthes, too, wrote of the paradox in the inverse relationship between the number of
representations and the corresponding effacement of reality:

C'est l sansdoute un paradoxehistorique important: plus la technique developpe

la diffusion des informations (et notamment des images), plus eile fournit les
moyens de masquer le sens construit sous l'apparencedu lens donne."
47

Similar positions can be traced in the work of other commentators such as Susan Sontag
"'
Raymond
Williams.
and

Only during the late 1970s and 1980s did widespread

recognition of a new world-space awash in media imagery give rise to a variety of

formulations

designating the loss of genuine imagery within

a ceaseless flux of

reproductions: Serge Daney's'Visuel', Paul Virilio's 'bloc image' and Raymond Bellour's
'entre-images'. But Sonimage is perhaps best positioned between two key commentators
on the media: Baudrillard and- Marshall McLuhan.

McLuhan's thesis that television's

in
lies
inherent
in
itself
('The
for
the
the
potential
medium
communication
revolution
is
dismissed
besides,
is
by
hopelessly
Sonimage
the
message')
naive, and,
medium
as
by
disproved
the evidence of their own experience and experiments:
already
On a fait croire que la television etait le triomphe de l'image. 11ya un escroc
qui s'appelait MacLuhan qui a meme servi a ca. Alors qu'en fait il ya de plus
en plus de photos et de moins en moins d'images. Il ya des quantites de petits
bouts de reproductions qui ne montre pas. Si vous me dites: j'ai vu une image
de 1'Afghanistan la television, je vous dis: non, vous avez vu l'image d'un type
avec un turban. Pour faire une image, il faudrait qu'il y ait au moins une trinite
la
personne de la television joue un role dans cette trinite. Sinon il n'y
que
et
pas d'image, 1'enfant ne sort pas.76
On the other hand, Godard/Mieville

refuse in equal measure the terminal pessimism of

Jean Baudrillard's heralding of, and rejoicing in, the proliferating

of televisual, media, and computer-generated imagery.

self-referring spirals

Whilst they share much of the

impetus and substance of Baudrillard's analysis (and it should be pointed out that the
Sonimage work both precedes and accompanies Baudrillard's critiques), the Sonimage
Where
inevitable
Baudrillard
pessimism.
the
such
that
result of
rejects
work
contends
the media revolution (from video to computers, and in particular CD-Rom and Random
Access Memory)

is the collapse of reality and its representation into a universal

simulacrum via the exponential capacity for simulation, Godard/Mieville,

identifying a

similar catastrophic effect, counter such pessimism with the vitality and vigour of their
in
Godard's
Predal,
in
Rene
Baudrillard
to
a
perceptive
relation
practice.
short article on
Sonimage
beginning
just
is
in
body
that
to
the
out
points
work,
of work
vanguard of a
importance
the
of the dislocation engendered to all aspects of daily life by the
register
impact of television: 'Alors que les plus grands penseurs viennent A peine de decouvrir
le mal, Godard ne peut pas immediatement decouvrir seul l'antidote. Mais il dit par sa
pratique qu'il faut chercher, et c'est l l'important. '"

48

The assertion in Avant et apres that 'Si rien passe, c'est parce que tout passe'
foreshadows Baudrillard's assertion, ten years later, that 'la television ne renvoie pas a
du reel, eile est dans l'hyper-reel, eile est le monde hyper-reel et ne renvoie pas a une
78
A text by Baudrillard
autre scene'.

that coincides very closely with Sonimage's

in
first
1977, identifies this new world of 'proliferating information
published
position,
79
and shrinking sense'. He argues that existing circuits of information serve simply as
the space of a vacuous mise en scene of genuine communication processes in which
'Information

devours its content', and that 'Instead of facilitating

in
itself
the staging of communication.
exhausts

communication, it

Instead of producing meaning, it wears

itself out staging it. i80 In a subsequent essay, Baudrillard

develops his thesis in the

following terms:
We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of
communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does away
with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end to every
But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene in
representation.
pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and
communication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of all
functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their availability, their
in
branching,
forced
in
in
their
their
their
regulation,
significance,
performativity,
in their polyvalence, in their free expression... "
Information, for Sonimage as for Baudrillard, no longer serves to communicate a need
'fills'
but
the social space set
to
referentially
meaningful
articulate
statements,
simply
or
for
it.
aside

Pushing this critique to parodic excess in the script for the unrealised

Godard
identifies
Story,
The
a complicity
project,

between those who mass-produce

imagery and the maintenance of the status quo to deliberately

'L'industrie

obscure reality:

des films et des disques nest pas soutenu par les multinationales pour

Que
les
les
la
de
Faire
effacer.
mais
pour
c'est
scene,
choses
cacher.
mise en
montrer
les images roulent encore plus vite que l'argent. i82 This polemic constitutes a memorable
formulation

formal
formulaic
the
to
en
scene
and
of mise
quite opposed
pervasive

thematic repetition of mainstream televisual and cinematic production, denoting, rather,

that which effaces the spiralling

morass of surrounding hostile imagery rather than

it.
to
contributing
If the signifying power of all imagery is irrevocably complicated and muted by
the changing context in which it is produced, circulated, and consumed, then this new
context has, according to Godard/Mieville's

argument, a profound and direct effect on

49

identity; both on the construction of an individual's self-image, and, as suggestedearlier,

on the construction of perception itself.
Turning first to identity in the televisual age, Godard/Mieville

suggest not merely

but
imagery,
is
faced
individual
that this
that the
with a morass of reductive and partisan
imagery provides the coordinates through which a self-image is constructed and
imagery
is
less
Sonimage's
As
than an
of
external
an
such,
project
analysis
projected.
feeds
into,
how
imagery
the construction
conventional
of
circumscribes,
and
exploration
in
(the
Ici et ailleurs, we recall, are partially made up of television
identity
actors
of
monitors at one point).

With hindsight, it is clear that the advertising images that

increasingly obscure the walls of Paris across Godard's work of the 1960s announce and
in
by
images.
1960,
As
those
experience
partly
early
as
constituted
an
urban
explore
Le Petit soldat, the camera roves across the carefully chosen magazine images pinned
hotel
in
imagery
in
Forestier's
Bruno
the
media
room,
an early exploration of
wall
on
in Godard's work in relation to identity.

By the time of Le Gai savoir, Godard's first

film explicitly about (and for) television, this concern for the causative interpenetration
identity
imagery
is
de
('Ce
1'image
and
soi'), and
overt
qui
est
c'est
en question,
of media
lays the ground for its centrality to Sonimage::
Comment trouver sa propre image dans fordre ou le desordre des autres, avec
1'accord ou le desaccord des autres... et pour ca, ben, comment fabriquer sa
image?
Une image de marque, c'est--dire une image qui marque, une
propre
image qui laisse des traces... (Godard,off, in id et ailleurs)
As for the equally provocative
Godard/Mieville

assertion of the construction of perception,

argue that the weight and monotone carried by media imagery reduces

our capacity to see and think critically,

Sonimage
filtered
the
throughout
a contention

human
the
through
emphasis
an
on
eye, and specifically the eye as maimed or
work
mutilated.

This strand to the Sonimage project rests on a dual thesis: that media

imagery constitutes a kind of 'fog' through which it is difficult

to see clearly, and,

simultaneously, that the repetitive conventional forms of such imagery oblige those
in
them to constantly see the world through the logic of the very specific
submerged
in
they
set
place.
gauzes

Furthermore, this position has remained central to their

collaborative work to the present: they claim, for instance, in L'Enfance de fart (1991)
that 'De toutes les tyrannies, la plus terrible est celle des idees'.83 As suggested, it is
articulated throughout the Sonimage work in the repeated foregrounding of the human
50

in
imagery
faces,
and,
particular,
savage
of
mutilated
eyes,
and heads, combined
eye,
with a concurrent postulation of a widespread 'cancer' of sight and perception.

The

cumulative savagery of such imagery, always drawn from the mainstream media,
culminates in Comment ca va and Photos et cie.

The media affects one's sight,

obscuring the daily injuries of life under capitalism.

Godard had already fully

formulated this thesis in his article on Le Cercle rouge for J'accuse, the following
extract announcing this crucial component of the Sonimage polemic:
tous les films, toutes les emissions la con, tous les magazines, toutes les
...
photos, apres tout, celui qui les fabrique, tout ce qu'il cherche, c'est probablement
to rendre aveugle en dehors de l'usine. Pour que quand tu y rentres, le
lendemain, tu ne t'apercoives meme pas que tu y rentres. Tu ne t'apercoives
meme plus que 1'usine est un bagne. Car tu seras aveugle. Et les pieges du
patronat, tu ne les verras meme plus. Ou moins bien. 84

An exploration of the dulling of critical faculties by the wash of the modern

media, particularly the electronic media, is at the heart of Commentca va:
Modeste? Peut-titre pas tellement que Va. Finalement, qu'est-ce qu'elle disait
Odette avec ce petit film video? Que la television et la presse etaient pourries,
et puisqu'on la regardait et qu'on les lisait, le regard aussi etait pourri, et nos
bouches et nos mains, en resume qu'on avait le cancer, et nous les premiers, et
qu'on ne le disait pas, et on le disait pas parce qu'on le savait pas. On savait pas

parce qu'on voulait pas, on voulait pas parce qu'on pouvait pas. On pouvait pas
parce qu'on ne montrait pas, on montrait pas parce qu'on ne voulait pas.
Just as we are submerged in endless impoverished

images, so too we see in

In
in
this
ways.
sense,
an echo of the extended postcard sequence at the
predetermined
Carabiniers,
Les
the stacks of roughly shuffled images in the sequences that
of
end
Comment
Photos
et
cie
and
punctuate
ca va (sequences which reuse many of the same
images)
constitute, at their most provocative,
magazine

a model of 'monstrous'

human
the
subject is this stack of received gauzes and ways of seeing
subjectivity:
85
top
the
In a similar vein, and in a model directly
one
on
of
other.
superimposed
Sonimage's
identity
to
vision
of
applicable
as ensnared in chains of conventional
imagery, Jean-Paul Fargier suggests a provocative model of the contemporary subject
incruste',
'I'homme
that is, as a televisual talking head severed within
as

an ever-

backdrop
of media images, a body immersed in 'Des millions d'images en
changing

pretes
surgir instantanement. i86
reserve,

51

The importance accordedthe expansionof television and the media by Sonimage

has a lengthy history in Godard's work; numerous sequences in his earlier films point
to an increasing recognition of a profound shift engendered primarily
Thus, as Mireille

by television.

Latil-le Dantec points out as early as 1967, Godard's world is 'un

monde prefabrique, prepense, preparle, pre-ecrit.

Monde des conventions sociales et

idees
des
revues, des slogans publicitaires,
morales,

du cinema, de la television... '.

Furthermore, she identifies silence (the intertitle SILENCEcloses Le Mepris and begins
Made in USA) as a touchstone of authenticity to offset predetermination from early in
his oeuvre. 87Reaching, as often, for the aphoristic exaggeration, Godard had already
proffered the notion of contemporary society as a comic strip in Deux ou trois choses
d'elle:
'Il ya de plus en plus interference de l'image et du langage... et on
je
sais
que
la
limite
dire

que vivre en societe aujourd'hui, c'est quasiment vivre dans une

peut
enorme bande dessinee'. If a concern for the interpenetration of media imagery and
identity

simmers, therefore, beneath the surface of Godard's prior work, then the

combined revision of political priorities and new reality of the France of the 1970s
brought it centre-stage: for Sonimage, France is a society living 'under' television.

1.5

CONCLUSION

This chapter has sought to demonstrate that the premises of the Sonimage project
from
distinct
logic
largely
derive
Groupe
Dziga
Vertov,
those
their
the
of
quite
and
are
in opposition to the militant practice. That project is both on and against theory, but not
it:
Marxist-Leninism/Maoism
without

may be repudiated, but 'hard' theory makes way

for 'softer' theories, notably those of Foucault and Deleuze/Guattari. On the other hand,
the revision of theory is not clear-cut.

It is perhaps paradoxical that it should be the

functioned
Althusser,
of
which
work
as such a central plank of theoretical support to
much Maoist/gauchiste activity around May 68, that, despite Godard/Mieville's

desire

to purge their work of dogma, remains a highly visible reference point to Sonimage. I
have also demonstrated that Ici et ailleurs, a much neglected film, constitutes the key
to the new position staked out by Sonimage, and the most useful entry point into the
new project.

Within the context of a desire to unravel the socialising process, the

backdrop to this project is, simply, television.

52

For Sonimage, French society of the

1970s is essentially a society 'under television', and the Sonimage work constitutes a
major contribution

to an analysis of the effects of living

in the media age, often

foreseeing, as I have suggested, influential subsequent theoretical work (and the later
institutional recognition of the impact of the media in the guise of the proliferation of
courses devoted to media and television studies). If the backdrop to the Sonimage work
is the explosion of the media ('under television'), then at its hub is television.
following

chapter will trace Godard/Mieville's

appropriation

The

of video technology to

forms
in
the
television;
complicate,
and
other words, on
with,
and
codes
of
engage
television.

53

Chapter 2
Sonimage on television
2.1

INTRODUCTION

If, as suggested in Chapter 1, the Sonimage project is shaped in response to the

breakup of gauchisme, but defined, primarily,

in relation to a shift in image/sound

production and consumption ushered in by television, then a major focus of that project
is an analysis and radical critique of television. The centrality of television as object of
Sonimage
the
work was succinctly caught in a Bonnaffe cartoon published
study within
in Le Monde at the time of Numero deux's release: a cinema audience watches a
'
in
focus
image
This
television
the
the
a
of
middle
of
cinema
principal
screen.
projected
is
in
issues
level
it
the
true
the
thematic
the
as
as
of
project
engages with at a
of
by
functioning
the
texts,
two
the
and
of
series
commissioned
and especially
conception
(and so designed for insertion into the programming grid of) television:

Six fois deux

France
tour.
and

This chapter aims to trace-and analyse the double movement of this critique,
in
directly
it.
Before
the
to
relief
cast
with
rationale which underpins
engaging
seeking
Godard/Mieville's

critique of television, it is necessary to consider the two principal

tools on which it depends. The first of these is technological: video.

information
theory.
conceptual:

The second,

Both tools, as is argued in Chapters 3 and 4, also

in
dissection
information
Sonimage's
flow
blockage)
(or
the
multiple
visual
of
of
support
As
itself
discussion
this
to
chapter
such,
will
confine
of the aspects of video
a
contexts.
information
theory which underscore the critique of television; other
technology and
related aspects will

be discussed in the- context of their role as the rationale for

Sonimage's wider critique of communication processes. This chapter begins, therefore,

discussion
of the emergence of Godard/Mieville's
with a

appropriation of video as

is
through
the
television
played out, continues with
which
critique of
principal medium
a survey of the theoretical parameters of information theory, and concludes with an
analysis of the combination of the two in Sonimage's dissection of, and discourse on,
television.

54

2.2

VIDEO

2.2.1

Early experimentation

with video technology

Discussions of Godard's interest in video tend to point to his desire to use the
then new technology in La Chinoise, and then jump to its evident centrality in the
Sonimage work, especially via the Moi je project.
Godard's use of video was further-reaching

This opening section argues that

and more systematic than such a view

allows, especially as regards the Groupe Dziga Vertov years (and, notably, 1968 to
1972), and proceeds to position it as central to Sonimage's working practice.

Whilst La Chinoise is far from the only instance of Godard's pre-Sonimage

interest in video, it is certainly true that he first proposed its use at the time of
film
in
for
1967, suggesting that the fictional nascent revolutionary
the
preparations
terrorists should employ it as an autocritical tool. The cost proved prohibitive, and so,
it,
Godard
the technology made an appearance not as a tool, but 'en tant que
put
as
2 The date nevertheless marks the beginning
personnage'.
of his awareness of video as
a potentially

fruitful

new medium: Taurais voulu 1'integrer dans le film

comme

instrument, ils se seraient filmes, regardes. C'est ce moment-l que le mot et 1'envie
"
les
disponibles.
By 1969,
machines n'etaient pas encore
sont entres consciemment mais
become
had
in
more
readily
available,
employed
precisely this autocritical
and
was
video
fashion by the radical collective, Les cineastes revolutionnaires proletariens. 4

In October and November 1972, whilst touring the U. S with Tout va bien and
Letter to Jane, Godard and Gorin bought video equipment and met a contact in New
York who was experimenting with the new technology. 5 During an address to students
in
Maryland,
Gorin
Godard
him
University
those
the
of
a
and
criticised
at
videoing
formulation

which lays the foundation

for the use of video within

Sonimage's

'Perhaps
interesting
is
the
thing
that you can grab the
most
with
video
programme:
if
down
But
it
it
you
can
grab
more
more easily, maybe you can put
camera easily.
it
better.
i6
think
about
and
easily
In 1970, Godard was openly calling for the appropriation of video equipment by
'
militant groups. He and Gorin played out this scenario in Vladimir et Rosa in 1971 in
the form of a physical attempt to wrestle video away from absorption into mainstream
'imperialistic' televisual practices, its threat as a militant tool thereby diffused. Godard's
in
encouraging the use of video amongst activist groups has even led to the
role

55

suggestion that the widespread interest in video technology after 1968 within such
due
largely
his
influence!
to
groups was

In interviews in the mid-1970s, Godard is

dismissive
focus
for
the
cultural 'animation'.
of
use of video as a
virulently

As early as

1972 he was actively seeking contact with a variety of groups exploring

video

technology, all of which served to shape (if only as negative poles of reference)
Sonimage's emergent practice.

At

the beginning

of

1971, innovative

experimentation was already in progress in Lausanne, where responsibility

video
for the

for
Regards
Television
Suisse
Romande
ten
entitled
a
minute
programme
was
of
making
left-wing
Les
JeunessesProgressistes. The conception and making of
to
group,
a
given
the programme was recorded on video and subjected to discussion, and we know Godard
to have been present at at least one of these heated debates about how to construct a
'
democracy.
programme on youth and
Grenoble's Nouvelle Ville was a focus for extensive experimentation with cable

television in the 1970s. Such activity might be assumed to have functioned as a

draw
for
Godard
in
base.
No
Mieville
their
contact
and
considerable
choice of regional
have
fully
however,
Godard
to
taken
appears
place,
aware of
although
was
whatsoever
its existence,and, at one point, considering the possibility of collaboration:
On n'a pas choisi Grenoble cause des experiences de video ou de television par
cable qui y existent. Je ne-les ai-jamais vues. On n'avait pas de produit leur
proposer. Maintenant, on en a, on va pouvoir aller les voir pour voir s'il ya
a
faire,
chose
quelque
ce dont je doute pour 1'instant, car c'est plutt concu
comme de 1'animation. Ce sont des gens qui diffusent avant de produire. Ce
qu'ils produisent est alors- tellement conditionne par le mode de diffusion qu'ils
font le meme type d'emission que Chauvel TF1. '0
In this statement we find traces of a key post-68 debate around audio-visual production.
In the immediate wake of the events of May, directors, technicians, and others involved
in audio-visual production explored potential alternative distribution structures within the
framework of the EGC. Godard, on the contrary, insisted on the primacy of production,
indicate
he
form
the
would
argued,
of distribution
which,

required.

This guiding

in
Grenoble,
is
dismissive
Sonimage
visible
again
of
where
were vehemently
principle
from
departure
the
point
of
of the pre-existence of a structure which simply
working
(misplaced
broadcasting
the
reduced
scale
a
make-up
on
mimics
of existing
systems
'faire
le
to
en
pauvre
meme truc que les riches! ', as Godard suggested"), with
attempts
militants

emulating and replicating

the monolithic

56

logic of dominant audio-visual

distribution structures (conceived before the existence of the products themselves),

structures subsequently 'filled in' with an arbitrary assortment of programmes.
during the attempts of the EGC to formulate new less rigid distribution
Godard insisted unswervingly

on the initial

necessity of having

Even

structures,

something to

distribution,
that
of
a
suitable
mode
communicate, and out of
necessity constructing a
12
into
taking
the
the
audience addressed.
process simultaneously
account
nature of
Godard and Gorin were- buying, exploring, and distributing video equipment
throughout the Groupe Dziga Vertov

period.

As Godard later pointed out, the

distribution of video technology to militant and political groups constituted a significant

by
the group: 'Ensuite dans les annees 68-74, on a achete un
policy
and conscious
de
incroyable
petites videos de reportage qu'on a donnees aux Palestiniens, des
nombre
13
ete
de
de
'.
Godard
grands diffuseurs
ouvriers, un peu partout, on a
materiel video...
had
Gorin
video equipment in Jordan and Lebanon during the shooting of
certainly
and
Jusqu' la victoire in 1970 (although the film itself was shot on 16mm), and their
interpreter, Elias Sanbar, has related how Godard donated the entirety of this equipment
to a young Palestinian commander, Jawad, in southern Lebanon. 14 No concrete traces
lightweight
this
early
engagement
of
with
remain

video, but the equipment was

bought
films'
budgets
for
(made
the
the most
using
portions
of
available,
presumably
by
European
basis
Godard's
television
the
companies
on
of
name alone, companies
part,
his
of
politicisation
as yet unaware

and collective working practice).

Despite the absenceof any surviving videotapes from this period, it is clear that
Godard and Gorin explored video technology during the Groupe Dziga Vertov period
in a far more sustained way than is- generally recognised. This involvement was
instrumental in clearing the way for the break with the traditional parametersof political
'counter' cinema marked by the foundation of Sonimage in 1973. Godard, for the most
following
in
16mm
May
68
(editing
Gai
Le
worked
savoir, shooting the one and
part,
two reel Cine-tracts, and working on Un Film comme les autres'S). Via 16mm, and,
increasingly, via video, Godard was consistently experimenting with technology
traditionally compartmentalised as 'amateur' (16mm) or so new as to escape such
categorisation (video). It is on video, the new audio-visual medium whose use and
potential remained,asyet, outside the rigid distinctions separatingthe 'professional'from
the 'amateur',on which Godard and Mieville settle as the key tool for their audio-visual
research. The foundation of the Sonimage studio, and acquisition of machinery,

57

occupied Godard and Mieville for the majority of the years 1973 to 1975. At the outset
of the project, Godard bought not one, but three televisions, and by May 1975, had
accumulated a total of six cameras (one colour), twelve monitors, and two telecine
16
for
Of almost comparable
transferring
to
machines
photographs and slides
videotape.
importance was Sonimage's acquisition of a good quality photocopier, which they used
from early on as a cheap way of copying, dissecting, and juxtaposing 'found' images in
their quest to intervene in the surrounding mire of media imagery. "
The founding premise to the Sonimage collective

was the desire to work

collaboratively, with small production teams, on projects relating to concerns arising

from their daily experience and immediate environment; Godard casts himself and
as artisans in interviews throughout the Sonimage period ('des ouvriers de

Mieville

l'audio-visuel qui peuvent etre notre propre patroni1'). This necessarily entailed working
outside regimented professional parameters of production and distribution, and video,
it
brought
with
considerable autonomy in terms of production:
crucially,

L'idee, c'etait de parcourir la chaine du cinema. Mais c'est difficile: on ne peut

pas avoir un labo soi, c'est trop specialise. Tai trouve la video interessante
parce qu'elle permet de parcourir la chaine bon marche: de la camera au
televiseur, il n'y a qu'un fil, c'est plus facile qu'au cinema. Du moins au cinema
le
vous ne pouvez pas de la meme maniere.19
The lure of video is thus its capacity to by-pass (and so inherently threaten) the
imposed
by the rigid production timetables, and the
technical
constraints
and
economic
division of technical roles, in mainstream audio-visual production.

It afforded Godard

freedom
to experiment in a way he had constantly sought during the 1960s
the creative
(which led him very quickly to produce or co-produce his own films), and to be flexible
his
formulaic
than
rather
of
work,
constructing
stages
a
mise en scene of a preall
at
existing script within the confines of a tight production schedule. Ownership of the
inception,
from
initial
the
equipment
meant
control
of
entire production circuit,
video
development,
through
project
and
production, editing, and postproduction.
Godard
Mieville
and
video,

Through

approached their dream of having the freedom to work

by
commercial restraints in a way approaching that of a writer ('travailler un
unfettered
peu, comme un romancier'20). As early as 1970, indeed, Godard had been predicting the
significant

social and technological

impact of video, and had even postulated the

future
of
a
regional video 'factory' as a possible way of forging a low budget
existence

58

practice which would allow him to continue to work in spite of ever dwindling
21
funds.
production
Given the dearth of production funds for marginal, experimental, and political
cinema, ownership of the video production chaine guaranteed Godard/Mieville

a degree

of stability beyond the flow of capital. Their desire to establish an experimental audiovisual atelier,

eliding

the artificial

divisions

of technical processes, labour, and

production 'stages', can be traced directly to the theoretical and critical writings of Dziga
Vertov. It might be argued that Godard and Mieville's vision of the autonomy afforded
by video is a direct elaboration of Vertov's unrealised dream of the film 'laboratory'
frequently evoked in his critical writings:
If I had my way, I'd write- such films not with words, but directly with image
and sound. Just as an artist works, not with words, but with pencil and oils.
Just as a composer writes a sonata, not with words, but directly with notes or
sounds. I could do so, however, only with a special organisation of the
production process aimed at films of this special type. This would be possible
"
in
laboratory
frequently
the
I've
only
creative
of which
written and spoken.
Godard and Gorin claimed that the primary motivation to their appropriation of the
Dziga Vertov name in 1970 (under which to subsume Godard's post-1969 output as
collaborative work) was to counter the widely unchallenged quasi-sanctification

of

Eisenstein as exemplary paradigm of 'revolutionary filmmaker', whilst Vertov and his

had
Kino
Pravda
been
of
reduced to the status of peripheral candid camera style
notion
23 This polemic permeates the Groupe Dziga Vertov films,
into
cine-verite.
and continues
the Sonimage work.

Of equal importance to this debate, however, is the extensive

Dziga
in
Vertov's
by
Godard
frequently
to
with
critical writing,
engagement
alluded
interviews in the 1970s, and which culminates, I suggest, less in the Groupe Dziga
Vertov period than in the realisation of the experimental collective video 'laboratory' at
24
Sonimage
the
the core of
work.

The principal dislocation engendered by the ability to control the entire

dissolution
familiar
the
hierarchies
process
was
technical
the
roles
production
of
of
rigid
from professional audio-visual practice:
La video est interessante, pourrait eire interessante, parce qu'on voit l'image tout
de suite. Les rapports techniques et l'hierachie technique ne sont pas les memes,
des
]
[...
les
l'operateur
etre
c'est
est voyant.
memes, car
pourraient ne pas
..
deux
d'etre
la
interessants
sur
je
d'etre
deux,
tres
permet
et
video
crois,
rapports,

59

une image, d'etre plusieurs, d'etre forces d'etre plusieurs parce qu'on voit 1'image
tout de suite.25
Control of the video chaine brought not just the ability to evoke at will an immediate
image on the screen,an image which servesas the basis for discussion or criticism (as
played out in the dialogue around the video monitor in Comment Fa va), but the
displacementto traditional divisions of labour discussedabove. As SergeDaney notes
astutely, this attempt to live, love, and work within an ongoing creative practice 'oil
l'amour et le travail ne s'opposeraientplus', always constituted the hub of Godard's'vrai
26
gauchisme'.
The emphasis on the immediacy of video representation is echoed in the
Sonimage work via a recurrent reference to polaroid imagery ('Polaroid arrive un
les
o
gens veulent voir immediatement, et jeter ensuite, tandis que Kodak
moment
de
le
desir
montrer demain. i27). Romain Goupil has spoken of the seminal
exprime
impact of this displacement to Godard's practice within Sonimage:
La video, inversement, change tout le rapport. On peut montrer le plan dont on
a discute avant, et tout 1'equipe. Si on est en cinema, avec les delais de
laboratoire, ca devient dramatique de refaire un plan deux jours apres, cause
de l'argent et des producteurs qui sont derriere. En video, j'ai vu Jean-Luc
effacer le plan et le recommencer. Il ya un rapport fondamental qui a change
avec la video par rapport au cinema, aux images, aux acteurs, et ca, tout le
1'a
senti pendant la preparation de Sauve qui peut. Tout le monde etait
monde
disponible, mais dans le doute absolu...28
What is more, Godard argues that such an assault on received hierachies in collective
fundamentally
informs
The
finished
the
the
product.
practice
aesthetic make-up of
video
immediacy and comparative simplicity of video, the ability to construct an image and
then visibly alter it on screen (so that it absorbs, and responds to, discussion and
differentiates
from
film,
markedly
video
and makes the technology particularly
criticism)
for
The
inherently
is
practice.
thereby
group
nature
redefined away
of montage
suitable
from its traditional segregation to within a film's postproduction. Rather than producing
image,
finished
cinematographic
subject to the temporal dislocation of developing and
a
printing, the capacity of video simply to present enables Sonimage to approach the
image not as end result, but as point of departure, a springboard for discussion from
finished'image'
the
eventual
which

could be produced. Godard stressed the importance

dislocation
to perception inherent in video technology in conversation
the
potential
of

60

with Jean-PierreBeauviala:
Par rapport l'image, il ya quand meme une idee qui est liee au cinema, puis
la
1'image
fait
titre
l'image
la
television,
camera
ca
que
va
c'est que
qu'a reprise
du film. Pendant un moment, on a pense differemment avec la video parce que
d'image,
dois
il
1'ecran,
tu
n'y
a
pas
en
comme eile passe perpetuellement sur
faire une partir de celle que tu vois. 29
Through the copresence of image and pro-filmic,

video intrinsically

opens up the

into
incorporation
Vertovian
the planning and shooting of
a
of
montage
of
possibility
a film.

Furthermore, it provides the freedom to reshoot sequences numerous times on

a single section of tape, thereby avoiding expensive filmstock wastage. An enduring

logic can hence be traced from video to Godard's thesis in his seminal 'Montage, mon
beau souci' (1956), where he argues that talk of mise-en-scene immediately implies and
includes montage: 'Savoir jusqu'o l'on peut faire durer une scene, c'est dej du montage,
de meme que se soucier des raccords fait encore partie des problemes de tournage'. 30
Video constitutes the culmination and realisation of this important early critical position.
The films produced by Sonimage between 1974 and 1978 are informed by the
liberating dislocation of dominant working relations and hierarchies brought about by
the extension of the material properties inherent in video technology, which, in turn,
Godard
and Mievilles
underpin

post-1979 practice. Godard has often acknowledged the

influence of video on his subsequent cinema output ('La video m'a appris voir et
du
le
travail
cinema dune autre maniere. i3'), an impact visible in the emphasis
penser
on close collaborative

work with very small shooting teams, and the quest for a

democratic group structure (as opposed to dictatorial

based
around an
relations

If
form
film
ideally
the
then
auteur-god).
video
to
was
was
omniscient
suited
research,
into which the fruits of that research could be reinvested: '...se vivre et se voir la
television, puis au cinema on peut faire des histoires. r32 Godard has often likened these
newly-formulated

production relations to the female reproductive system (an image

consciously used to construct an opposition to an assumed model of production relations

in dominant cinematic and televisual practice as inherently patriarchal):
Je me considere toujours comme un garcon qui fait des films, mais je considere
que l'appareil de production que j'ai effectivement monte moi-meme avec bien
des deboires, c'est plutt un organisme de type feminin: la maniere dont on a
organise le materiel, de produire un film, de repartir le temps; il ya une espece
de democratie alors qu'avant c'etait plus centriste. 33
61

Alain

Bergala has perceptively

impact
the
on the cinematic
summarised

in
Godard's
that
from
detour
noting
through
the
work,
video
production chaine resulting
by
in
in
dislocating
led,
the
turn, to the repositioning of
role played
the success
cinema
video in Godard's subsequent films:
Il ya eu chez Godard un grand desir de refaire des images chimiques sur grand
ecran. Et comme ca a marche pour lui, ce retour au cinema, cela a amene un
la
de
la
fonction
de
la
C'est--dire
qu'actuellement
changement complet
video.
La
lui
le

video, c'est
Bert
cinema.
video
plutt preparer, regarder, reflechir
tout ce qui tourne autour du cinema de Godard. Elle est comme un metalangage
de ses films. 34
Video thus came to function as a thoroughfare for the raw material that might be worked
into the film, resulting in veritable video scenarios which assembled and juxtaposed the
building blocks of the final work: '...I can shoot something and see it immediately, all
the while imagining a real screen behind'. 35 The role of video in Godard's work thus
came full circle. Having applied the- dislocated production chalne of video to cinema,
his
displaced
thereby
the
own practice, video
successfully
chaine
within
and
cinematic
If
in
in
the vitality of
'research'
to
cinema.
relation
a supportive
role
was repositioned
his art films of 1979 and the early 1980s runs counter to the creative pessimism of his
Groupe
dogma
the
in
late
the
1960s,
of
the
work
whilst simultaneously overturning
Dziga Vertov work, this renegotiated position was due almost entirely to the newfound
liberty afforded by video. Or, as Godard puts it, 'A force d'etudier la communication,
36
finit
on
par vouloir communiquer'.

Goupil,
Romain
director
discussions
(including
Godard,
Mieville,
Lengthy
artistic
Beauviala, and the joint directors of photography William

Lubtchansky and Renato

Berta) surrounded the preproduction of Sauve qui pent (la vie). The aim was to
37
for
35mm
film
later
release.
cinema
to
transferring
the
on
video,
conceive and shoot
image
distributors
Disbelief on the part of
as to the possibility of attaining a satisfactory
before
had
desires
(Godard
further
proving the
three
to wait a
years
curtailed these
38).
In
the
Leitre

Buache.
Freddy
shooting
on
transfer
a
report
potential of such a
with
of the film, Leos Carax points out that one option considered was to actually attach a
donc,
de
film
'puisqu'elle
de
to
au
the
tout
suite,
video camera
camera,
voir
permet
moins, de s'entendre sur les niots entre techniciens et metteur en scene - des mots
comme dense en parlant photo, ou suivre en parlant cadrage, etc.'39 He goes on to
in
stress, the absence of this use of video, the centrality of Mieville's photographs as the

62

focus for discussion around what colours, angles, distances, and tones they were aiming
for, and what instructions to give the laboratory for the processing of the filmstock.
Whilst Sauve qui peut (la vie) drew heavily on the insights gained from the use of video,
the use of film resulted in great difficulties:

the gift of immediate vision was taken

away. Colin MacCabe reported that Godard was 'visibly anguished by his inability to
see immediately what had been captured in the image'. 4 The return to the technical
norms of cinema was clearly difficult:

'He kept muttering that he felt blinded, trapped

in an impenetrable fog and the first long take of the day was shot again and again. '41

To resume, therefore, we have seen that video has a multiple impact on

Godard/Mieville's

project: the immediate duplication of the pro-filmic,

(and resultant

dislocation to traditional hierachies in film production), the financial liberation

and
aesthetic possibilities of sheer tape length (including the ability to reshoot at will on a
single section of tape), the nature of the editing process (involving a layering process
of images over one another rather than the sequential structuring of lengths of film, with
its basis in physical cutting), the
capacity to present an object from multiple angles
simultaneously, the ability to scrutinize an object over a long period and then subject it
to a range of cheap post-production

processes, and the potential of video as a

thoroughfare through which to process and juxtapose imagery from multiple realms. In
the light of the new media-defined world outlined in the previous chapter, video allowed
Godard and Mieville to appropriate
and subject any image to analysis and discussion,
and to etch graffiti across it with a video pen. Video thus functioned for Godard and
Mieville as the perfect thoroughfare for images
and sounds. If, as Pascal Bonitzer
argues, television enacts a process of homogenisation by 'levelling' disparate imagery
within a repetitive programming grid ('la disparite mais l'homogeneisation des images
dans un continuumi42), video allows Godard/Mieville

to mimic and enact an analogous

reverse process of television's homogenising effect. Speaking in 1975, Godard expressed

the opportunities offered by video thus:
L'interet de la video consiste d'abord pouvoir reinjecter toutes les images que
je veux: eile permet toutes les transpositions et manipulations. Et surtout eile
me permet de penser en image et non en texte. Ainsi en Numero 2, je pourrai
reinjecter des passages de A bout de souffle, et aussi tourner en 16mm d'autres
43
passages, etc.

A major benefit of video, and one which is implicit both in the medium's inherent length

63

imagery
be
imagery
the
set
other
on,
and
against,
and
ease with which
can
superimposed
through simple editing, is this ability to function as wayward cousin to broadcast
television, enabling Godard/Mieville to appropriate and displace images from their usual
contexts.

It is thus first and foremost through video that Godard/Mieville

attack

mainstream television, and simultaneously invent their own models of a different form
of television. Before approaching those critiques of television, however, a survey of the
key facets of the principal

theoretical' support on which they draw is required:

information theory.

2.3

INFORMATION

2.3.1

Information

THEORY

theory: terms and concepts

Le mot information, ca vous dit quelque chose? (Godardto Jeanne

cleaning woman in Y'a personne)

Becq,

the

Godard/Mieville, I suggest, use information theory in three ways: firstly, to

provide a model of genuine 'communication'; secondly as an overall communications
circuit

(which,

communicative

above all, insists on taking

process); and, finally,

the spectator into

in
the
account

as a model to project onto communications

flows.
The
highlight
information
in
blockage
to
processes so as
points of movement or
latter is especially applicable to Sonimage's quest to analyse 'information' in a broader
first
two are
is
the
length
in
the next two chapters, while
returned to at
context, and
directly relevant to Sonimage's engagement with television. This section aims, therefore,
It
information
theory.
Godard/Mieville's
to trace the emergence of
appropriation of
begins with an unravelling of the theory (which is particularly necessary given the
'Theory'),
by
in
Chapter
1
Sonimage
is
of
that
absence
the
an
contention
marked
work
functions
I
as a key platform of the Sonimage project, one entirely
suggest,
which,
legitimacy
by
Sonimage,
of
and
commentators on
overlooked
and which restores a sense
44
body
habitually
inconsequential.
derided
of work
coherence to a
as
The history of information theory is intricate and, as yet, incomplete. Given that

its appropriation by Godard/Mieville is straightforward, this analysis requires less an

elaboration of the reworkings of Claude Shannon's original model within communication

studies, than an understandingof the principles and aspirationsof his model.

64

Shannon published two articles in 1948 dealing with the problem of sending
45
brief
from
This
to
was
modest
one place
messages
another as efficiently as possible.
based on the contention that the transmission and reception of all information

is

governed by universal laws. This claim led to a plethora of enthusiastic interpretations

of Shannon's work by scientists and social scientists, who proceeded to apply the
principle to myriad 'information

be
be
in
to
shown
systems'
which a message could

encoded, sent, conveyed, and received. Jeremy Cambell notes how Shannon, uneasy at
in
liberal
interpretations
1956 against
his
theorems,
such
of
published a warning
46
faith
in
information
the
truth
theory.
all-pervasive
excessive
of

Warren Weaver, in the philosophical essay accompanying Shannon's theory,

defines communication extremely broadly as 'all procedures by which one mind may
affect another', or, even more provocatively,

'all human behaviour'. 47 Crucial to an

'information',
Shannon's
is
he
term
to
the
the
of
model
understanding
gives
specific slant
using it to designate the maximum potential information expressed and received within
a given system. As Weaver writes:
The word information, in this theory, is used in a special sense that must not be
be
its
information
In
not
must
confused with
ordinary usage.
particular,
in
information
be
[...
]
To
confused with meaning.
sure, this word
do
to
theory
what you
as
to
say,
communication
you
relates not so much
what
48
could say.
Lack of a sustained reading of the term 'information'

for
many of the overaccounts

Traces
domain.
information
of
into
theory
the socio-cultural
ambitious extensions of
in
the
Sonimage
in
intentional,
work
the
such confusion, albeit often
are visible
je
la

('un
diverse
que
mode
'information'
mot
types of
provocative rapprochement of
DNA
instance,
it
in
for
197849),
literally
Godard
and a newspaper
put
eliding,
prefere', as
discussion
in
is
Godard's
'information'
of catastrophe
It
a
the
term
casual use of
article.
d'information')
that
in
Rene
Thom
Rene(e)s
('
que
theory with
parlez
ne
mon avis, vous
thus
term,
the
Thom
succinctly
to
of
an
misuse
exasperated outburst against
provokes
between
terminology,
the
such
and
of
use
conflict
summarising
a rigourously scientific
the potential benefits of a looser approach (used by Sonimage to a poetic end, for
instance):
Ah, ce mot information, quelle calamite. [... ] Je pense que c'est une, un effort
de purete epistemologique elementaire qui consiste remplacer le mot
65

d'information par le mot forme. [... ]

particulier les idees les plus vagues.

On y met tout ce qu'on veut, et en

To suggest that the Sonimage use of information theory is a priori invalid, however,
because applied in an insufficiently
of Godard/Mieville's

sustained way, is to underestimate the sophistication

understanding of information theory, and to ignore the deliberate

assault on linear logic integral to the Sonimage work.

The scientific basis of information theory, with its suggestion of scientific

precision, is important to bear in mind in a reading of Godard/Mieville's

work.

The

Groupe Dziga Vertov, we recall, justified its work not as bourgeois art, but as scientific
'research'. Already in La Chinoise, Guillaume (Jean-Pierre Leaud) calls for theatre to
function as a laboratory of life.

In the Sonimage work, the discourse of science is

appropriated and subverted in a tactical move guaranteed to rile both aestheticians and
scientists. Information theory serves, on the one hand, to situate Sonimage within quasiscientific parameters, whilst on the other, its use is so aleatory as to render it closer to
the intuitions of poetry than to the norms of'science'. 5 It is indicative of the Sonimage
project that no attempt is made to work through such methodological contradictions, and
that they

are, on the contrary,

employed

to evoke a ferment

of

suggestive

rapprochements. The Sonimage work stakes-a partial claim to scientific respectability,

whilst

deliberately

eliding

conceptual

models

and their

implementation:

easy

compartmentalisation of subject matter or theoretical tools is inherently problematised,

and methodological turmoil is exacerbated by the posturing and often unsustainable
unequivocal stances taken by Godard in interviews at the time (inevitably leading to
countless accusations of incurably muddle-headed thinking).

Godard/Mieville's interaction with a scientific discourseis figured most overtly

in their 'dialogue' with Rene Thom.

The making and broadcast of Rene(e)s was

followed by residual exchanges in interviews, Godard vexed by Thom's resistance to his

loose usage of scientific terminology, and Thom perplexed at Godard's hostility (figured
in the inscription of faux over many of Thom's statements in the finished programme).
Godard was already interested in Thom's work as early as 1972, unsurprising given the
correlation between Thom's work on morphogenesis and his own long-standing interest
in the emergence of form (which was later to culminate in Je vous salue, Marie).

Jean-

Marc Levy-Leblond relates that Godard, immobilised in hospital following his motorbike
accident, was particularly

eager to discuss Thom's work, the mathematician enjoying

66

considerable success following

the publication in France of Structural Stability and

Morphogenesis: An outline of a general theory of models in 1972.51 The breadth and

ambition

of Thom's book

interdisciplinary

doubtless attracted Godard, with

its unconventional

leaps, and its insistent emphasis on the benefits of visual scientific

both
(which
by
theory
the
underscored
analysis,
anti-teleological premise of catastrophe
views the world as a ceaseless process of the creation and destruction of forms).
Catastrophe theory functions for Godard/Mieville

as the ultimate 'counter-paradigm',

radically contesting received teleological views of logic and human progress; it thus
functions as a figure for modernity, for the dislocation to received ways of seeing latent
in experimentation and innovation.

As Thom writes at the end of his book in terms we

may well apply to the Sonimage work:

Many of my assertionsdependon pure speculation and may be treated as daydreams, and I accept this qualification - is not the day-dream the virtual
catastrophein which knowledge is initiated? At a time when so many scholars
in the world are calculating, is it not desirable that some, who can, dream?52
Shannonset out to explore the accuracywith which communication symbols are
transmitted, how precisely these symbols convey the desired meaning, and how
efficiently this received meaning affects behaviour. His theory postulates a model
consisting of an information source, a message,and a transmitter that changes the
message into a signal suitable for sending over a communication channel to a receiver.
He allows too for incidental interference ('noise') to the encoded message whilst in the
53
Information
channel.

is thus quantifiable as a physical entity (such as a mass or

Mieville's
Godard
implications
has
to
and
This
energy), and thus measurable.
crucial
its
because
transmission and
information
is
work:
physically quantifiable, the process of
reception is visible, and hence open to visual dissection, and video provided a
for
visual analysis.
this
potential
particularly receptive medium through which to exploit

Two conceptscentral to Shannon'smodel of direct relevanceto Sonimageare the

related terms redundancy and entropy.

Whatever is predictable or conventional in a

degree
hand,
denotes
is
the
Entropy,
termed
the
of
redundant.
given message
on
other
randomness (or low predictability)

in a message; the larger the uncertainty, the greater

the amount of information conveyed when that uncertainty is resolved. Such concepts
highly
in
seductive
a project on communciation, and especially in one engaged in
are
a tireless assault on stereotype, both in a critique of existing institutional

67

forms of

communication, and as rationalisation for the maximisation of randomness within

Sonimage'sown practice.
In April 1972, in response to a question regarding the importance that he and

Gorin accord the Structuralist work on language, Godard's somewhat grandiose reply
situates their work firmly away from linguistics, and on the terrain of 'information',
bounded, rather, by television and the media:
Nous sommes des travailleurs de l'information et en tant que tels, nous
recherchons les travaux d'autres travailleurs de 1'information dans les domains
scientifiques, chimiques, biologiques, mathematiques, etc. Nous nous apercevons
que noun avons des connaissances scientifiques quasiment nulles et que ca nous
sa
beaucoup.
nuit
Later in 1972, Godard makes explicit reference to Shannon for the first time (to my
knowledge), referring to him
ideas
down
American
'who
about
general
as an
put
scientist
information thirty years ago',
knowledge
demonstrate
to
of
a working
proceeding
'noise'. 55 Anecdotally, when Sonimage
firm
by
into
computer
a
premises vacated
moved
in Grenoble, they adopted the firm's logo:
ecriture',
they
'Informatique,
than
calcul,
rather
56
Godard
'Information'
for
'Informatique' and retained the rest.
simply substituted
recognised that the principal

dislocation to his work engendered by May 68 was

precisely this shift in his interests towards an exploration of the flow of information in
all domaines:
Pour moi, par exemple, la vraie influence de mai 1968 a ete de m'agrandir
l'information en general, en tenant compte du fait que celle-ci, dans mon
domaine - des images, des sons, un salaire rayonne autant par la television que
par le cinemas'

Whilst information theory is perhaps not writ large acrossthe Sonimage texts,
successive 'clues', some quite overt, are left by Godard/Mieville,

and most clearly of all

in Comment ca va. Mid-way through the monologue delivered by the Michel Marot
character, he recalls the terms in which the female character, Odile (Mieville),

has

chastised both him and the PCF for failing to move beyond repetitive denunciation of
reactionary forms: 'Au lieu de to fatiguer crier pendant cinquante ans mort au
fascisme, tu aurais mieux fait d'etudier les theoremes de Shannon.' Although Comment
Va va is probably the least known or shown of the Sonimage works, this overt reference
to information theory makes it all the more curious that its use by Godard and Mieville
68

has not been explored.

information

The following year, 1976, Godard/Mieville

again foreground

theory as pivotal to Six fois deux via their incorporation of Godard's

discussion of the implications of Shannon's model with Rene Thom in Rene(e)s. Thom
even graphically depicts Shannon's model on the blackboard (see Appendix A(i)).

The

information
theory is, therefore, most visible in Comment ca va and Six fois
centrality of
deux: Six fois deux presents itself simply as sur and sous communication: on processes
of communication, and on the subjects of those processes,processed and constructed by
them. Chapter 4 will look in detail at how the local concerns identified via information
theory constitute the subject matter of Six fois deux.

In Comment ca va, its use is

perhaps even clearer: within the fiction internal to the film, a communications circuit is
set in place, and the movement of a single image across that circuit cast in relief.

2.4

ON TELEVISION

2.4.1

Information

theory at work 1: entropy

As suggested above, redundant information within information theory is far from

irrelevant to the transmission and interpretation of an encoded message. On the
contrary, noise and interference are crucial constitutive elements in the communication
process. The value of noise is recognised in Odette/Mieville's

in
question
rhetorical

Comment ca va, 'Et le bruit alors, ca n'a pas de rapport avec l'information? ', a question
underscored by her insistence that Taudra reparler du bruit, d'ailleurs'.

Barthes, we

(along
'cacographie'
information
draws
for
his
basis
theory
the
of
recall,
on
concept
as
the lines of cacophony), by which he means the valuable communicative power of
disruptive interference to the 'information' of literary texts. 58 For Barthes, Julia Kristeva,
Tel
Quel
in
disjunctions
1960s,
the
theorists
the
and ellipses were
textual
of
and
language
(which,
importance:
if
broke
such shifts
accorded enormous
with conventional
from a Post-Structuralist perspective, underpins the entire Symbolic order), then they
also served to forge a direct link between the modernist text and the actual cultural and
social revolution

59
it
The
it
both
which,
was argued,
prefigured and paralleled.

importance of such a cacographic melange is clearly evident in the uninterrupted static

shots of Six fois deux, in which a single subject is presented for immeasurably longer
is
than
customary in the characteristically frenetic pace of television. Emphasis
periods

69

is shifted away from any easily accessible meaning in the replies themselves onto the
silences, hesitations, and inarticulacy of the interviewees: the silences are presented as
importance
as their conventional antithesis, the televisual soundbite.
of equal

Rather

than an interviewee being introduced and situated by an authoritative voice, such direct
presentation offers the viewer a very different contract: by displacing the position of the
subject/object, the reception and consumption of information is also complicated.

The

simplicity of the imagery, and its subsequent treatment (or, rather, lack of treatment) in
post-production,

resists the surface speed of television, and simultaneously

draws

attention to the mediations obscured by television's self-presentation as an unmediated

window on'reality' (an illusion systematically countered by Godard/Mieville through the
treatment of the screen as surface on which to manipulate and write: 'juste une plaque
sur laquelle viennent s'inscrire des choses' (Avant et apres)). The long duration of the
image of a young red-haired
is
instance,
for
in
d'histoire,
Pas
exemplary of the
girl
extended presentation of an object. Her image is presented, with no prior justification
or accompanying explanation, for the viewer to simply look at to see if it contains or
reveals any information of interest to him/her personally.

Similarly, at the level of an

entire programme, Jacqueline and Ludovic's 'madness' is presented in Jacqueline et

Ludovic unfettered by conventional televisual documentary conventions, which would
couch them within a series of 'expert' explanations and interpretations, a simple and
611
deux.
foil
by
Six
Robert Stam as the 'scandal' of
provocative tactic referred to

Rather than a successionof pre-packagedassumptionsof what is interesting, the

is
far
interest
intrinsic
is
confronted with an extended mix of material whose
viewer
from guaranteed. The challenge and potential pleasure of the programmes lies in the
freedom to enter into, and navigate within, the heterogeneous material, constructing an
individual route through it. In this respect the focus of the programmes is less a
traditional notion of 'subject matter' than us, the viewers, in our specific contexts, with
our individual prejudices, assumptions, and desires. The astoundingly adventurous open
finds
its inspiration
texts
the
nature of

and rationalisation

in the importance of

by
information
to
reinforced
theory,
contention
a
redundancy
communication within
Godard's comments on Six fois

deux in 1976.

Below the surface of Godard's

terminology, I suggest, the logic of redundancy is at work:

Je ne sais pas si ces emissions sont interessantes, mais on compare le noninteressant de notre travail avec le non-interessant habituel la television.... La
70

faire
du
de
du
faut
du
Il
temps
temps.
temps
permet
prendre
mort
pour
video
vivant.

"'

As often in Godard's practice, a given theory often provides the schematic rationalisation
of prior intuitive positions: Shannon may provide the coherent model and terminology,
but Godard had long since minimised redundancy and maximised entropy in his work.
His statement in 1969 regarding long uncut close-ups foresees in every way Sonimage's
information
the
theory:
of
entropic
via
exploitation

To me the best picture is just a close-up of somebody. If he's saying something,

all right, or if he's saying nothing, all right too. If it's not always interesting
there is at least two or three seconds in an hour that are interesting and that's
62
like
That's
Warhol.
I
Andy
already something.
why
Godard/Mieville

champion entropic material,

between
distance
the
where

elements is postulated as an index of the degree of freedom afforded the viewer, and of
the extent of potential

communicable

information.

Separation and distance as

prerequisite for communication are powerfully encapsulated in the extended video pen
reflection on the image of a mother and baby in Pas d'histoire.

In this sequence, it is

from,
its
for
is
dependent
the
that
and
separation
suggested
child's capacity
on
speech
dependence on, the mother.
communication

is rapidly

This

insistence on distance

expanded (by a voice-off)

as prerequisite

into a general principal

for
of

Elle
distance.
'S'il
Il
il
distance.
varie,
ya communication,
communication:
ya une
ya
'
The
distance,
il
de
il
possible.
toujours
une
communication
mail
ya
sinon
n'y a pas
distance (fleuve) is the precondition for communication (courant): 'il ya un courant dans
le fleuve'.

The 'freedom' on the part of the viewer to make correlations and associations
from
Straub)
fissures
termed
(borrowing
between
Wittig
Monique
the
of
what
within and
Godard's lacunary films, can thus be seen as a theorisation of the textual disjunctions
63
Godard's
A striking example of a comparatively
characteristic of
early art cinema.
highly entropic message containing a resultant high degree of information is given by
Godard to the first of the two Liberation journalists in Jean-Luc. In an anecdote about
receiving a postcard from a young girl, Godard argues (and the journalist struggles to
understand) that it is precisely because he has to work to decipher the mis-spellings and
'bad' grammar that genuine communication takes place:

71

Godard:

Journaliste:
Godard:

Je m'apercois par rapport la gamine, si tu veux, que moi je lis

ses cartes postales uniquement parce qu'elle fait beaucoup de
fautes d'orthographe, et que le fait quelle en fait beaucoup...
C'est ca qui to parle?
Non. Mais il me force lire. Tiens, quest-ce qu'elle a ecrit?
Si eile en faisait pas, je lirais pas. Meme si elle ecrit ((bon
baisers, bientt, vu quelle fait dix fautes en trois mots, je me
dis, tiens, quel mot elle- a ecrit l? Puis je lis au moins... mais au
moins je suis vingt secondes de plus avec eile, et avec eile. Elle,
une partie vraie d'elle. Ben, puis c'est pas plus que ca.

So a belief in the logic of entropy infuses all the Sonimage texts. The following two
chapterswill discusshow its very absence,as exemplied in conventional phatic circuits
of information, representsthe paradigm of the 'blocked' information flows relentlessly
foregrounded (and treated as interchangeable) across the Sonimage work. The following
section, however, focuses on how information theory allows Godard/Midville

to think

through the question of the audience, both that constructed by broadcast television, and
that addressed by their own television series.

2.4.2

Information

theory at work 2: the conception of the audience

Filmmakers and television programme makers tend to assume broadcasting

(etymologically,

to 'sow as- widely

as possible') as implicit

in the aims of their

desire
The
profession.
of the Hollywood

dream machine to address as broad a public

is
difference
(of
succinctly
of
regardless
as possible,
gender, race, class, or nationality)

('Universal')
Hollywood
in
logos
by
the
the
studios.
names
caught
and
many of
adopted
Godard stresses this point in Toutes les histoires via the incorporation (twice) of the
familiar RKO logo: a great radio beacon astride the world, radiating its waves across the
image. The aim of the Hollywood studios to broadcast their products was thus distilled
into the corporate imagery through which they wished to be perceived, imagery which
uncannily

foresees the centralised structure of broadcast television

(a correlation

deliberately drawn out by Godard in this sequence). In a discussion of the logic of

'broadcasting', Raymond Williams summarisesthe underlying historical perversity of
modem information technologies (and their resultant vulnerability to abuse):
Unlike all previous communications technologies, radio and television were
72

systems which
processes, with
that the means
communication

primarily devised transmission and reception as abstract

little or no definition of preceding content. [... ] It is not only
of communication preceded the demand; it is that the means of
64
their
preceded
content.

Godard identifies this tendency of broadcasting structures to construct the audience as

an undifferentiated mass in his provocative aphorism that 'A la television, on a invente
le spectateur avant les programmesi65 or, 'Le spectateur ne devait pas exister. 11existe
66
has
la
faite'.
Once
the
parce que
societe est mal
provocative charge of such remarks
subsided, this critique raises far-ranging questions: how can, for instance, a progressive
political practice operate in the context of a pre-constructed audience? It underpins
Sonimage's attempt to address and reach like-minded regional groups ('des gens qui
certains endroits de leur existence quotidienne me ressemblent un peu. i67), rather than
formulaic
programmes, and is clearly schematised by Godard/Mieville
reproducing
the portion of a document produced as part of the failed television
Mozambique

(itself

a failed

attempt to set in place an institutional

in

project in
television

broadcasting structure from the point of departure of the needs and realities of the
Mozambican people). 69

The spectacularcommercial failure of some of Godard'searly work, notably Les

Carabiniers, brought him face to face with the reality of 'the audience'. He claims that
the first time he conceived of his audience as a collection of individuals, rather than as
amorphous group, was after the very low attendance for Les
Carabiniers ('L, c'est la premiere fois que j'ai vraiment pense au public'. 69). The desire
an unquantifiable

to address everyone simultaneously in the same way is constantly equated by Godard,

from the Sonimage era onwards, with fascism ('une sorte de perversion douce', 'le
triomphe meme du nazismei70),whereby a fixed viewing space is assumed and reinforced
by the structure of the institution: '...quels sont les gens qui ont un grand public quand
meme?

Ce sont les dictateurs, avec les grands films de television.

La television

fonctionne comme les dictateurs: eile a tant de public un seul jour en une heure. '"

The

monolithic unidirectional broadcasting model which characterises television inherently

seeks to maximise viewing numbers at every moment, and so provides the logic to
virtually

all broadcast television production (including telefilms); a pressure to 'hold

onto' viewers, very different from that in the closed viewing space of the cinema, works
its way through into every moment
internal
Thus
the
telefilm/programme.
the
of
dramatic *fluctuations of a self-contained cinema film are displaced in their televisual

73

counterparts or derivatives.

Indeed, in an important respect, they are no longer

permissible: the fact that any extended downbeat sequence on television will result in
a rapid loss of viewers is a crucial component in the constitution of all television
programming.

Information theory provides a communicationsmodel that explicitly incorporates

a viewer-audience-receiver into its schema (see Appendix A(ii)).

It thereby insists on

taking the question of the position, needs, and demands of the viewer into account at
every stage of communication, both in relation to existing institutional circuits, and as
the basis for the bricolage of tentative new models. "

The specificity of local viewer

positions, as against the assumption of uniformity imposed by television, is insisted on

by Godard in Jean-Luc (and used as an unattributed voice-off in Comment va ca): '...le
premier texte faire doit etre fait par la personne qui regarde la photo, et qui dit d'o
il la regarde'. Godard/Mieville's

project thereby rejoins longstanding critiques of the

uniformity

(in
Brecht's
broadcasting
call
of
structures, notably

and unidirectionality

relation to radio in 1932) for the need for an active co-creative listener in the
democratisation of broadcasting structures:

The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatusin public life,
a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive
as well as to transmit, how to let the listener speakas well as hear, how to bring
him into a relationship instead of isolating him.73
Brecht's position, if not this actual statement, is evoked in a lament in Comment ca va
('Puissance de la radio, impuissance des auditeurs... '), and mirrors subsequent influential
Left-wing critiques of broadcasting structures coterminous with the Sonimage work, and
in
1970
('the
Magnus
Hans
Enzensberger's
the
media
notably
socialist critique of
industry that shapes consciousnessi74).
Enzensberger summarises his view of the authoritarian structural premises on
which film, radio, and television are based as reproducing 'the characteristics of the
monologue'75 and points out that it has no technological justification:
On the contrary. Electronic techniques recognise no contradiction in principle
between transmitter and receiver. Every transistor radio is, by the nature of its
construction, at the same time a potential transmitter; it can interact with other
receivers by circuit reversal. The development from a mere distribution medium
to a communications medium is technically not a problem. It is consciously
prevented for understandable political reasons.76

74

This argument accords closely with Godard/Mieville's position. In Comment ca va, for
instance, they lament the fact that in the fabrication of a newspaper, the relation of a
its
to
newspaper
eventual reader is never addressed in the conception of news. In terms
recalling both Brecht and Enzensberger, the reader is posited (by a disembodied voice
on the soundtrack) as an 'emetteur et recepteur' who is positioned in such a way as
simply to consume, not to produce; precisely an 'emetteur l'envers' (as it is formulated
in Comment ca va).
intermediary)

Similarly,

Godard insists (through his unnamed televisual

in Avant et apres that a prerequisite for a 'softer' future broadcasting

system would be one in which 'celui qui ecoute parle aussi.' Enzensberger's summary
of repressive (rather than emancipatory) uses of the media, serves as a succinct summary
of Godard/Mieville's critique of broadcasting structures, and notably the passivity of the
audience:
Repressive use of media

Emancipatory use of media

Centrally controlled programme

One transmitter, many receivers
Immobilization of isolated
individuals
Passive consumer behaviour
Depoliticization
Production by specialists
Control by property owners or
bureaucracy

Decentralized programme

Each receiver a potential transmitter

Mobilization of the masses

Interaction of those involved, feedback

A political learning process

Collective production
Social control by self-organization"

In his fractured exposition of information theory in Rene(e)s,Thom notes all

is
particularly
and
possible relevant components affecting a single act of communication,
designate
'information'
to
that
advertising
to
the
out
point
popular use of
at pains
word

is,
the
or
press quite simply, wrong in that demand is absent:
Il ya un emploi encore plus suspect de la notion d'information, cest lorsqu'il y
a plus de demandeur du tout, c'est 1'emploi journalistique et publicitaire. Dans
l'emploi journalistique, le joumaliste suppose 1'existence dune demande, et
quelquefois meme la cree artificiellement, hein. Et dans 1'emploi publicitaire, la
chose tout fait typique est que faction qui a suscite 1'information est une action
qui doit beneficier non pas l'individu qui Miez l'information, et ca c'est quelque
chose de tout fait contraire au schema global de la notion d'information.
The use of graffiti

to respond to circuits which allow for no feedback (writing

over

advertisements,for example) constituted an important form of dissent around May 68,

75

and is emblematic of Godard's work from 1967 through to the video pen graffiti of Six
fois deux.

One might even argue that Godard's use of graffiti

as a central tactic

throughout the period 1967 to 1970 foresees video's facility for inscribing words on
images through the video pen, constituting a virtual invention of a video practice before
material engagement with the technology.

Recognition of the role of graffiti as a way

of breaking into, and redirecting, closed circuits of 'information' is particularly evident

in Le Gai savoir and the Cine-tracts, where it is employed to counter advertising, which
is treated as an embodiment of fascism. "'

The question of the viewer is underscoredby the use of video. In tangible terms,
video presents an immediate image, and makes Godard/Mieville

into the images' 'first

viewers'. The question of who is conceived as recipient of a message is thus inherently

foregrounded by the technology itself: for which audience, where? Furthermore, as
to
in
discussed,
image
be
the
already
response
can
substantially tweaked, even erased,
feedback from this initial viewing:
Je me suis mis penser le spectateur, mais penser que le spectateur existait,
et des moments, je me suis dit que la realite pour moi etait d'essayer de savoir
ou d'imaginer que moi, je suis Fun d'eux, et d'autres par exemple la television
ou la video m'ont aide sous une forme materielle penser ca simplement parce
que le fait d'avoir un moniteur, un televiseur en fin de chaine, la video vous
permet d'avoir toute la chaine, c'est--dire permet de vous penser comme
producteur qui enregistre une image de camera, comme laboratoire, etc. Peutetre penser toute la chaine qu'on ne voit pas au cinema; la camera, le laboratoire
et ensuite le theatre ou le cinema comme on dit en Europe, puisqu'on voit
l'image tout de suite en video, c'est--dire de se penser en tout cas comme l'un
des premiers spectateurs, ou en tout cas en position de spectateur...79
The insistence on taking one's audience into account in the construction and
transmission of a'message' (in the form of a television programme or film) is central to
the Sonimage work, and reflexively

in
in
the guise of the
France
tour
accentuated

images
parodic
evocations of
of the telespectateur. As John Ellis argues, the position
home,
is
family
'bystander'
the
the
television
that
the
and
within
of
viewer
of
within
whose glance needs to be caught and held, prolonging the pastime (as opposed to
activity): 'The TV viewer is therefore constituted as an individual

who is prone to

consume TV broadcasts, but needs to have attention drawn back to them. i8 Precisely
such an image of the telespectateur is embedded in France tour 4: a cat paws erratically
light
the
pulsating across an oscilloscope, sporadically captivated by the play of light,
at

76

but singularly divorced from an engagement with either the technology or its 'message'.
In the tenth mouvement, the viewer is figured in a variety of animals, addressed within
"
broadcasting
circuits as uniform cattle.
mainstream

Such figures of the telespectateur

are not always so good-natured, however. The violence in the pre-construction of an

heads,
bodies,
is
figured
disturbing
images
in
of mutilated
also
arbitrary viewing position
and faces (particularly in Ici et ailleurs and Photos et cie). If such imagery denotes the
telespectateur of institutional

broadcasting structures, then a major impetus to the

Sonimage television programmes is a reconception of such structures from the point of

departure of thinking of the audience in terms of real individuals rather than as a
influential
following
block.
Williams's
drawing
The
Raymond
two
uniform
sections,
on
critique of television (which, first published in 1974, accompanies the Sonimage work)
will consider how Godard/Mieville

2.4.3

conceive and compose this new television.

On and against television 1: Six fois deux

La television: Le monde est loin, la television est l, tout pres, qui rassure.
(Photos et cie)

The commissioning of Six fois deux came about almost by default. Manette
Bertin, programme consultant at INA in the late 1970s and early 1980s, claims that it
Sonimage
having
due
Grenoble
Godard
to
the
was only
visited
at
recently-equipped
U-matic
his
two
state-of-the-art
studio
weeks previously, and seen
recently-installed
video equipment, that he thought of asking Godard to fulfil

his exacting production

82
Bertin
FR3)
In
June
1976,
Maurice
(director
Cazeneuve
six
offered
of
requirements.
two-hour blocks in the evening that coming August.

Several scheduled programme-

impossibly
had
last
the
severe production
out
pulled
at
of
moment, complaining
makers
Summer.
for
The
imminent
leaving
that
in
the
schedule
gaps
constraints,
programming
have
been
it
is
idea
Godard,
true,
by
television
would
very
of commissioning a
series
inconceivable without the existence of INA's bold experimental production policies up
to 1978, but the programmes served first and foremost, as Godard put it succinctly, to
'plug the gaps' in the programming grid. 83
The over-familiarity

its
its
the
television,
of
singularity
of
assumptions regarding

audience, and its constant recourse to stereotype, had all already been summarily

77

dismissed as 'des bourgeois qui bourgeoisent' (repeated twice) in Tout va bien.

As

Mieville subsequently suggests in Soft and hard, television's principal confidence trick
('profondement

malhonnete') is a double movement, that of the undifferentiated

homogenisation of all material and, simultaneously, the self-assured assertion that the
les
(les
in
it
depicts
innocent:
'La
is
television
ne
which
objects
natural and
manner
de
les
le
donnant

tout
temps,
montrer,
pas
montre
pas
qu'elle
n'arrete
choses)
penser
et que les montrer, c'est ca, c'est ce qu'elle fait.

Et que les montrer, c'est de cette

has,
it
'
Television's
self-presentation as guarantor of veracity and validity
maniere-l.
is suggested, now permeated everywhere; to be on television (and especially to work for
television) has become an existential statement.
barely exists.

Inversely, what television ignores,

Godard has often played on the pervasive perception of television as

somehow inherently

valid

and worthwhile,

Marcel
that
suggesting

his
to
agreed

interview when understood that it would be 'au nom de la Television'. "

Raymond Williams identifies the defining characteristicof broadcasttelevision

The
keyed.
is
flow',
'planned
into
disparate
result,
that
as
of
miscellany
a grid
which a
if we follow Williams's thesis, is a false plenitude in which level of address and subject
matter are levelled, and subjected to the relentless, yet arbitrary, logic of a never-ending
85
syntagma. The units are transformed as they are keyed into the stream of conventional
images and sounds, thereby composing the principal characteristic of television, theflow
itself (which, in turn, is punctuated with constant trailers announcing forthcoming
is
flow).
internal
'the
Thus
something
to
that
sustain
organisation
attractions
same
real
86
declared
Or, as Godard suggests rather more economically
than
the
other
organisation'.
(playing on the dual register of television as planned flow which programmes its
for
Godard's
i87
'Programmer,
l'unique
de
la
predilection
television.
c'est
subjects),
verbe
fractured
foresaw,
fragment
highly
the
medium
to,
the
suited
arguably
and was certainly
has
He
its
syntagms.
emphasis on the stringing together of unrelated
of television, with
its
draws
acceptance of the
that
television
was
one of the principal
of
even suggested
fragment as a bona fide form ('... moi je ne fais que des morceaux et meme souvent je
This
de
faire
de
la
les
acceptes'88).
television
sont
suis plus content
morceaux
o
conception of television as a reductive, monolithic, and centralised medium, broadcasting
serial assemblies of an arbitrary assortment of 'units' (gameshows, commercials, news
bulletins, soap operas, and so on) is crucial to Sonimage's critique of television in Six
fois deux and France tour.

78

Equally important is the recognition that television takes place in the home, and
addressesthe individual as part of a family (Fredric Jameson, we recall, dubs television
a 'home appliancei8').

As Godard puts it simply in Avant et apres (through his

intermediary), 'la television, c'est une affaire de famille'.

On its entry into the home,

television redistributes the living space (usually the living room) into a set of viewing
positions fanning out from the television monitor: exemplary literal distributions of
furniture are clearly depicted in the scenes of the family viewing television in Ici et
ailleurs. Godard had already lampooned the elevation of television as an object (outside
its function) to status symbol in the self-congratulatory

discussion of the set recently

9
by
Charlotte
in
Pierre
Une
Femme
and
acquired
mariee. Sonimage identify a profound
shift from the cinema as social space for communal entertainment to the placement and
address of the audience in the home via a monolithic broadcasting network.

In the

be
is
'alone
is
be
'many
(become)
in
to
to
television,
cinema, one
one
alone', whereas
(become) many'. 9' In 1975, Roland Barthes evoked the transgressive and erotic quality
of the communal experience in the dark involved in cinema-going in opposition to the
everyday consumption of television in the home:

Dans ce noir du cinema (noir anonyme, peuple, nombreux: oh, 1'ennui, la

frustration des projections dites privees! ) git la fascination meme du film (quel
des
Evoquez
1'experience
la
TV,

qu'il soit).
qui passe eile aussi
contraire:
films, nulle fascination: le noir y est gomme, 1'anonymat refoule; l'espace est
familier, articule (par les meubles, les objets connus), dresse: 1'erotisme - disons
du
lieu
l'erotisation
faire
l'inachevement:
la
legerete,
mieux, pour en
comprendre
dont
la
Familie,

forclose:
la
TV
eile est
par
est
nous sommes condamnes
devenue l'instrument menager, comme le fut autrefois 11tre, flanque de sa
92
marmite commune.
The passage from cinema to television is cast as that from spectacle to the ordinary,
from creation (and the investment of interpretative desire and work on the part of the
identified
in
lack
to
work
the
repetition, encapsulated
spectator)
of energy and

as

characterising all aspects of television in a voice-off in Comment ca va: 'On regarde plus
la tele, enfin je veux dire, on l'allume, et on la ferme. i93
The position of television as familiar object in the home serves to establish its
consumption less as an activity than a pastime, and alters the nature of the contract
between viewer and medium. What has been lost in the process of the envelopment of
cinema by television is the notion of projection, both in the sense of the projection of

79

outsize images on the cinema screen and interpretative engagement, a rapprochement

caught in Godard's contention in Soft and Hard that 'toute entree dans la salle est une
sortie du spectateur de chez lui' (in which the notion of social event and active viewer
"
are
engagement
neatly elided).

Godard argues that in television, the projection of an

enlarged image ('le je etait projete et agrandi; il pouvait se perdre, mais on pouvait
retrouver l'idee, il y avait une espece de metaphore') is replaced by a broadcasting
system which itself projects (positions and constructs) not images, but its audience, a
shift accompanied by a pervasive collapse of direction and purpose:

Avec la television, au contraire, la television ne projette pas, eile nous projette

et donc on ne sait plus o est le sujet. Dans le cinema, ou dans l'idee d'ecran,
ou chez Platon, la caverne, il ya une We de projet. Projection, du reste, en
francais (dans d'autres langues c'est peut-etre autre chose) mais en francais:
projet, projection, sujet. On a l'impression qu'avec la television, au contraire, on
la recoit et on est assujettis, qu'on est les sujets du roi, ou quelque chose comme
95
ca...
The thrust of Sonimage's assault on the norms of television is encapsulated in its
regional base, and in the regional inflection

to the programmes.

Both series, but

especially Six fois deux, seek to construct a 'softer' decentralised televisual practice, and
to actively resist the centralised universalising homogenisation of broadcast television.
Six fois deux self-consciously proposes itself as a pointer towards how such a blueprint
96
look,
'une television regionale, ou mieux: villageoise'.
of regional television might
Godard and Mieville, reflecting on the aims and weaknesses of this attempt in the final
difficulty
fois
Six
deux,
importance
Avant
insist
and
programme of
et apres,
on the

of

constructing a regional practice:

On travaille en province. Parler d'un chmeur, le garage d' cote, on est force
de passer par Paris pour qu'il voit l'emission. On pourrait tirer un cadre, et puis
lui montrer tout de suite, et puis lui faire payer pas cher. Mais c'est pas
le
il
faut
faut

il
Paris,
chez
voisin qui
possible,
remonter
redescendre
et puis
il
faut
dix

On
jours,
les
tous
quatre mois pour
metres.
et
est
se voit, on se voit
qu'il nous dise le matin, par hasard, en se croisant au comptoir du bistrot, Ah,
j'ai vu ce que vous avez fait, c'est pas mal, ou c'est bien. On voudrait qu'il
le
dise
il
Paris,
Nous
detour
fait
tel
par
centre.
en
plus, mail
peut pas, ca
par
un
sommes notre propre centre, et nous devons passer par un autre centre qui
renvoit la peripherie. Meme la qualite de l'image en souffre. Nous faisons une
image magnifique, mais cause du systeme centralise de television, cette image
est deteriore parce qu'elle passe par Paris, dans une usine. Il lui faut un
passeport, techniquement. Techniquement, ce passeport s'appelle SECAM.
80

Pour voir tes Couleurs, il faut un passeport SECAM en France. [... ] Chaque
fois, ca passe par un centre.
Comme ca on est sr que les citoyens
communiqueront pas entre eux, que l'image qu'on aura fait d'eux, l'image de ce
petit garcon, si belle, avec pleine de lumiere, eile sera abimee. Il faut quelle
soit abimee. Si eile etait belle, tu to rends compte?

If broadcasttelevision is characterisedby the flooding of its territory from a central

point (Sonimage use the terms 'arroser' and 'inonderi97),then decentralisedproduction
deliberate
constitutes a
assault on the monolith from the margins: 'une television
"'
municipale qui n'existe pas encore'.
The denial of mediation, and the illusion of transparent accessto the object
represented by television, is subject and substance of the Sonimage work.

Godard

summarised Ici et ailleurs as 'sur des fausses distances', a formula which embraces both
the profoundly centralising premise of audio-visual production, and the illusion of access
to 'ailleurs' via television. 99 The Sonimage approach to television's monolithic centrism
is based on a refusal of these- 'fausses distances', whilst their role as mediators is
simultaneously emphasised in their own work: mediations are multiplied

and made

visible, over-emphasised in response, and opposition, to the surface flow of broadcast

television.

The concept of 'mediation' in all its permutations is distilled into the figure

(the body-image) of the curious character in Avant et apres, neither technician nor
journalist, but simply mediator who relays Godard's words via the headphones in a
powerful image of television itself. The time-lapse between Godard's virtually inaudible
immediately
its
intermediary,
by
whispering voice, and
the
mirrors, and
repetition
magnifies, the mediations obscured in conventional television. This insistently indirect
address (the presenter transmits the information off-screen to the side, never emulating
direct address) constitutes Sonimage's most sustained overt reflection on television,
despite
is
Jean-Luc
its
television,
in
treatment
of
more aphoristic and anecdotal
whilst
the constant displacement of the traditional interview format onto a figure of mediation
itself: Godard seen through the journalist.

From the beginning of the 1960s, Godard had viewed the stasis of televisual
forms as the opposite of what genuine television should be, and a direct result of its
bureaucratic centrism: 'La television, c'est l'Etat, 1'Etat, c'est des fonctionnaires et les
fonctionnaires... c'est le contraire de la television.

Je veux dire, de ce qu'elle devrait

etre. Mais j'aimerais beaucoup en faire. i1 Similarly, it is suggested in Avant et apres

that the true potential of television has yet to be discovered, let alone put into practice,

81

la
but
is
Nous
television
that
sommes
avant
standard
nothing
a mutant aberration:
and
de
la
television'.
naissance
If television's planned flow provides the backdrop to both series, Sonimage's
difference,
fois
deux
distinct;
in
Six
later,
France
tour,
such
a
and,
are quite
responses
in spite of great thematic consistency, is clear in a comparison of any two extracts from
the respective series.

Six fois

unmistakably an'alternative'video
formal simplicity.

deux is more confrontational

is
it
abrasive;
and

counter-form, emphasised by its 'amateurish' tone and

France tour, on the other hand, appears more comfortable in the

programming grid of television (in terms of colour, lighting, the reliance on sequential
segmentation, and the recourse to repetition),

but, arguably, engages even more

profoundly with the forms and assumptions of broadcast television.

What unites the

two, overriding these differences, is the obstinate difference of both series in the face
of the context of the televisual norms into which they are inserted, a difference most
marked in their consistent refusal of any instantly accessible and readily digestible
'content'.

Sixfois deux disrupts the flow of television by complicating its internal rhythms
with

tactics such as the long fixed

(usually

medium)

shot'.

Philippe

Sollers,

disappointed with what he

read as the 'didactisme primaire' of such methods, argues that
10'
Godard's prior work had, in any case,
(who
Sollers
foreseen
television.
and above all,
elsewhere champions Godard's later work passim as a 'duel heroique avec la T. V. ', and
has proved one of the staunchest defenders of Godard's late work102)clearly anticipated
an injection of vitality into television's flow, rather than a deliberate and measured slowlater,
(and,
deux
fois
The
Six
difference
of videos
motion explosion.
specificity and
of
Soft
film
Passion
du
for
Scenario
and
and
television
transmission such as
conceived
hard) is cast sharply into relief when extracts culled from mainstream broadcast
form
in
(often
the
of that
television erupt unexpectedly through the surface of the texts
paradigm of convention

for

Sonimage, the Journal

Televise).

The figures

of

inherent
(the
television's
television
speaker/speakerine, the subjugation of
conventional
capacity for spatial disjunction to the logic of direct address, 'l'homme incruste', the
harsh lighting, garish colours, and the repetitive rhythm of 'news' items) reveal their
acute artificiality,

and are rendered grotesque. What is more, their new context even has

the effect of lending them a bizarre beauty, an otherness lent by their sudden and
transitory unfamiliarity.

Godard/Mieville

thus achieve the barely imaginable: making

82

conventional television look strange.

Six fois deux resists and subverts television's planned flow, proffering endlessly
inventive variations on temporal and spatial relations. The extended mise en scene of
the still Dacca photograph in Photos et cie, and the variety of voice-off/text/image
it
invokes,
therefore implicitly
relations

complicates the unidirectional

time/space

relations of conventional television, whilst immediate countering these in practice. A

similar case could be made for myriad other sequences which enact this dual process of
destruction (of televisual norms) and creation (of alternatives) within the heart of
television itself.

Sequences which operate through vision-mixing,

particularly

rapid

wipes (notably in Ici et Ailleurs and Comment ca va), exemplify this dual process.
Similarly, a further way in which the conventional time/space relations of television are
disrupted is via intertextual allusions and references, ranging from auto-citation to the
reformulation of familiar concerns in different terms across successive programmes.
Cross-referencing recurs throughout Six fois deux, not least as a direct result of the
conception of the series around pairs of programmes: a loose set of concerns is evoked
in the first of the two programmes, and is reworked in relation to the reality of an
individual (or small group of individuals) in the second. Such a structure challenges the
assumption of television as a linear (and disposable) syntagm through the introduction
of 'vertical' strands which refer backwards and forwards to elements of all the other
programmes.

Godard demonstrates this visually

in Jean-Luc through sweeping

horizontal ('j'ai pas toujours envie de faire ca') and vertical ('j'ai envie des moments
de faire ca') arm movements. Simultaneously, frequent references are made within the
series to the immediate past, present and future, and, in particular, to the production
context of the works, so inherently

attacking and disrupting television's constant

'present'. Thus the illusion of instantaneity in television, wherein the time and work of
illusory
is
is
beneath
breathless
present,
the
effaced
production
presentation of an
constantly punctured by tense changes, and plays on the distance between the time of
recording and the time of transmission.
Godard/Linhard
example,

Talking to Camille in France tour 1, for

between
hesitating
by
'present'
illusory
the
punctures this

future
the
tenses in his description of how her image will be received and
and
present
consumed ('les gens qui vont... qui to voient en ce moment la television... ').
The brief of Six fois deux is first and foremost to de-professionalise television.
Colin MacCabe's identification of three principal innovations to Six fois deux in relation

83

to traditional

television (the suppression of direct address, the types of imagery

incorporated, and the choice of interviewees) constitutes a useful survey of some of the
issues on which the series turns, but tends to downplay the importance of how the
formal conception of the series engages with, and opposes, televisual forms and
figures. 10' If broadcast television is an uninterrupted uniform planned flow of discrete
deliberately
is
fois
deux
(and
flow,
Six
then
that
couched
within
constituting)
units
conceived on all fronts as a tool with which to disrupt the flow, primarily by slowing
it down, a process illustrated by the insertion of the U-matic cassette (figuring

disruptive capsule) into the VCR at the beginning of each programme. Inversely, where
television is shown to represent almost nothing, because representing everything too fast,
Sonimage force it to go even faster, as in the flashing of the advertisements at the
beginning of Photos et cie (accompanied by the shrill mechanical screeching noise).
Don McCullin's claim that a 'good' photograph should 'grab' the eye ('accroche l'oeil tout
de suite') is thus appropriated and, accompanied by the image of a severely mutilated
head, forced (as often with such 'external' imagery) to feed into Sonimage's own thesis
that the very speed of television's depiction and disposal of events contributes decisively
to its lack of genuine communicative power. The garish colours and clean light of
television are countered by the muted, measured (and often extremely beautiful) tones
and colours of Six fois deux, but, more than this, are outdone through the sudden
introduction of shocking images of savagery
and human suffering.

Ironically, such a deprofessionalisation of television is only imaginable by a

Carried
(a
Godard's
by
out
in
professionalism underwritten
name).
professional
this case
by an amateur (an outsider), it would be simply dismissed as incompetence. Indeed, in
the two

decades that have passed since these programmes were made, such

'incompetence' has been fully

recuperated to within

the accepted conventions of

television: in the light of the explosion of camcorder culture and the 'personal diary'
format, amateurism is now effortlessly incorporated into television's flow as convention
(the image quality of U-matic or Hi-8, wind noise on the microphone, sudden jerky
camera movement, and so on), denoting the subjective and personal, and simultaneously
institutional
the
of
weight
obscuring
support behind such programmes. In this context,
it is noteworthy that Six fois deux's transmission on FR3 was accompanied by an attempt
to situate and explain the series as technically inept, whilst simultaneously seeking to
recuperate it as an amusing, if inconsequential, distraction.

84

The first programme was

its
Sonimage's
by
technical
attempt to
quality.
an
announcement
regarding
prefaced
be
the
television
allowed to pass without
not
pre-determination
of
could
resist
explanation:
Cette emission n'offre pas les caracteristiques techniques habituelles nos
programmes. Mais la methode d'enregistrement elle-meme fait partie de 1'essai
tente par l'Institut national de l'Audiovisuel. C'est pourquoi nous n'avons pas cru
etre, pour une experience, intransigeants sur la qualite technique. '4
The uniformity of television is also subverted through the ready incorporation of
slang and dialects (or even untranslated foreign

languages, as in some of the

advertisements 're-wired' at the beginning of Photos et cie), off-screen noise or voices,

looks off-screen to people not grounded (and thus sanctioned) within the discourse,
sudden and violent cuts (or vision-mixed wipes) which often involve intense clashes of
colour, abrupt changes in pace and rhythm, leaps in sound level, wind noise (buffeting
the microphone),

and long static uncut shots.

Countless examples pepper each

programme, and are well illustrated in Jean-Luc: Godard, in the course of being
interviewed, turns to someone out
of frame and says (referring to unspecified people
wanting to enter the Sonimage studio), 'Oh, ils peuvent entrer, mais qu'ils fassent pas de
bruit'. His casual interruption of the programme, figured in the intrusion of others into
the room, is sacrilege in televisual terms (such space would remain unarticulated, such
disruptions carefully excluded).

Where television models itself on the monologue and refuses silence, Six fois
deux models itself on the diverse, soft, broken patterns of speech. In this way, the
including
(the
the
emphasis on speech within
programmes
range of regional accents,
Godard's marked Swiss accent), and the speech patterns exemplified in the tentative
Jacqueline
(particularly
interviewees
and
the
attempts at self-expression on
part of the
Ludovic, Monique in Nanas, and Louison), come to figure the form of the programmes
themselves. Just as their voices hover and repeat themselves, so the Six fois deux text
hesitantly.
stutters

Where Jean Collet identifies a varied chorus of voices within the

'os
fois
Six
deux
itself
series, we might postulate
as type of awkward, exploratory song.
France tour 4 suggests that the subjection of ostensible 'live' programming to a deferred
time-lapse (thereby ensuring ultimate editorial control for programme editors) has
detracted from television's potential to operate at a more human rhythm: 'Les syndicats
et la direction ont interdit le direct.

Tout est differe, les bonheurs, les malheurs, les

85

difficultes. A force d'etre en differe, la vie elle-meme, les gens finissent par l'admettre
differente,
differente de ce qu'ils revaient.' Sixfois deux reclaims the humanity
comme
encapsulatedin speechas a model for counter-television; it thus plays out, in the words
of Robert (Bernard Noel) in Une Femmemariee, 'la voix d'un homme normal 1'epoque
de la vitesse'.
So speechis as crucial as a figure for the texts as within the works. The openended and entropic discussion/interview/monologues

of Six fois deux, made possible by

the tape length of video, had long been sought by Godard: Deux ou trois choses que je
sais d'elle, for instance, was conceived around the series of interviews which punctuate
the narrative of the finished film. 106 Similarly,

for
One
AM
predict this
plans

combination of video and interviews: 'Each one will talk for maybe ten minutes. I'll ask
them questions if they want. Or they can talk. Or say nothing, if they want. i107 Jean
Eustache's Numero zero (1971), a two-hour filmed dialogue between Eustache and his
grandmother, prefigures Sonimage's insistence on uninterrupted discussion within the
film and as the film. 108 The title of Numero deux doubtless constitutes, at least in part,
a reference and homage to Eustache's film, Jean-Pierre Ruh's work on sound with both
Eustache and Sonimage providing a concrete link between the two. But it is the Six fois
deux interviews which are most heavily
Numero
indebted
directly
to
zero, as
and
Eustache himself recognised, remarking that Godard/Mieville's

programmes were the

only practice even remotely comparable to his film. 109 Indeed a series of direct
transpositions can be traced from Numero zero to numerous aspects of Six fois deux, not
but
just in Odette Robert's almost uninterrupted
Louison),
foresees
(which
monologue
in the camera set-up (the single angle, incorporating fragments of Eustache from behind,
including the jump cuts, as used in Pas d'histoire), the incorporation of the technical
d'histoire),
Pas
before
dialogue
to
is
(structurally
the
crucial
preamble
proper
underway
introductory
in
dialogue
the
beginning
the
after
screech which announces the
and
of the
shots of Odette Robert in the street (a sound appropriated by Godard/Mieville

and used

to punctuate the advertising images at the beginning of Photos et cie).

This model of television as human speech is again evident in the visual hesitation
of the tentative typing of the 'amateurish' on-screen text in Six fois deux. This attempt
to create a soft, regional, 'home TV', which seeks to acknowledge and incorporate its
errors and shortcomings, is expressed clearly in Avant et apres:

fois sur et sous la communication, chaquefois en montrant

a
avance
on
chaque
..
86

des details precis, en faisant beaucoup d'erreurs, beaucoup de maladresses,

essayantde montrer le terrain situe entre notre maladresseet nos erreurs...
Six fois deux presents itself as a deliberate outline of what a genuine local television
might look like, full of 'fautes d'orthographes' (as discussed in relation to information
theory) which are actively exploited as the basis for a new audio-visual form, beyond
the received grammar of mainstream television.

2.4.4

On and against television 2: France tour

France tour, made during 1977-78 in Rolle, was witheld from broadcastby A2
for almost two years (until April 1980) in a case of more or less overt censorship which
can be ascribed to politics internal to A2. Commissioned by A2 when the channel was
under the directorship of Marcel Jullian, Maurice Ullich had replaced him by the time
France tour was completed. After viewing fifteen minutes of the unorthodox 'adaption'
it
broadcast
G.
Bruno's
Third
Republic
to
Ullich
of
school primer,
categorically refused
('Pas question de diffuser ca 1'antenne. Ce n'est pas du tout l'esprit de la chaine.''lo,
or, as reported elsewhere, 'ca ne correspond pas au produit commande. '"').

The belated

broadcast of the series, in three blocks of four programmes (in the framework of ClaudeJean Philippe's Cine-Club on A2 at I1 o'clock on Friday evenings) rendered redundant
the conception of the programmes around an engagement with the figures of prime-time
television. Such compartmentalisation in an art cinema slot ensured that the programmes
lost all dynamic interaction with the game shows, serials, and news reports within whose
intervention,
the
Philippe's
had
been
Without
they
spheres of reference
conceived.
decision
have
but
been
nevertheless
the
programmes might well never
scheduling
aired,
left Godard bemused and angry, recognising that it effectively served to censor the
'
2
decision
He
A2's
justice,
that
was
scheduling
argued, with considerable
programmes.
functioning
deliberately
the
and
aims
of
a worst-case compromise arrived at to
sabotage
France tour. 'Ils ne savait pas si c'etait du cinema, de la television, ou quoi. Alors que
c'etait fait pour passer avant Aujourd'hui

Madame. [... ] L'heure de diffusion a ete

choisie sciemment pour esquinter mon travail. ""

As opposed to Six fois deux's complication of television's flow through a process

of 'amateurisation'and intertextual cross-referencing,the principal tactic of France tour

87

is the exaggeration and redoubling of familiar televisual codes, and especially the
magazine format of the journal

televise (or journal parle).

A clear example of such

redoubling is in Albert and Betty's heavily emphasised turn to look off-screen in the
'TELEVISION' sequences, which introduce 'story' sections in a parody of a practice
detournement
bulletins
This
the
characteristic of all news
process of
and programmes.
of pre-existant discourses is finely tuned in France tour. the series embraces many of
the codes of mainstream television, but never in the place we expect them, never quite
right, rendered strange, and radiating an unnerving dislocated (and dislocating) quality.
Looking back to the Groupe Dziga Vertov films, British Sounds engages most fully with
the forms of television, in the sequential rhythm of its conception and editing (which
evokes the flow of illustrative imagery of the news broadcast), but, above all, through
the centrality of the parodic direct address sequences. The substance and tone of the
fascistic 'news announcer' drifts in and out of convincing emulation, constantly slipping
into the downright offensive (fascistic/racist).

If Sonimage subvert direct address

through deadpan parody in this way, preferring to subject it to successive dislocations

(address is always directed off-screen), the parodic explosion of other televisual codes,
by
Dada
(exemplified
is
verging on simulated psychosis, characteristic of the avant-garde
and Surrealism), and lays the ground for its systematic implementation across France
tour.
A further interesting precedent in the Groupe Dziga Vertov work to tactics
systematised by Sonimage is a reflection on television's inherent tendency not only to
but
discourses
to reduce all
homogenised
level
to
televisual,
the
reduce all
single
of the
Gorin
Italia,
in
level
Lotte
At
and
to
the
the end of
serious criticism
of the soundbite.
Godard reflect (through Paula) on the paradoxes of making a film for Italian television
it
images
is
destined
be
by
flood
and
sounds
to
surrounded
which
of conventional
a
cannot hope to resist:
Aujourd'hui je parle- la RAI. Contre qui parier? Pour qui parley? Et d'abord,

En
ecran,
qui appartient
mot:
un
precede
qui m'a
sur cet
et qui va venir apres?
la television italienne? La television italienne appartient 1'Etat. (... ) Donc tous
les jours, un delegue d'Etat vient parler au peuple italien. (... ) Pour moi, faire un
petit pas en avant (pour pouvoir en faire deux ou trois demain), c'est par
exemple, aujourd'hui, parler la television italienne, quatre ou cinq minutes
d'une maniere differente.
Television relies on diversity (a constant change in images and programmes) and
88

familiarity (we always know in advance what can be seen when). The conventional
television serial, emulated in France tour, recurs at precisely the sametimes within the
programming schedule on the same day(s) each week, is predictable in terms of
14
in
formulaic
characters and setting, and varies a
each episode.
plot very slightly
France tour fulfils both criteria, insisting on them to the extent of rendering them not
only visible, but overly visible, their role as redundant codes made all too clear. This
view of the programmes' structure is supported by Godard's own description of his
method in planning the series:
Oui, j'ai fonctionne comme un directeur de chaine, c'est--dire en faisant une
grille de programmes. Et puis j'ai commence faire des suites de plans...
C'etait comme un code, dont on aurait certainsmots, mais dont il fallait retrouver
la logique."s
The radical difference of France tour, the formulation

in
its
charge
subversive
of

familiar televisual figures and codes, contrasts sharply with a subsequent television
adaption of G.Bruno's Le Tour de la France par Deux Enfants entitled Detours de
France (1996). Where Sonimage employ the book as a springboard into a critique of
broadcast television, invoking France via a dissection of two of its young subjects,
Detours de France constitutes a conventional translation of the book's geographical and
ideological voyage through French institutions into the familiar televisual format of a
interviews
(with diverse merchants, artisans and manufacturers)
series of reportage
1'
by
introduces
a presenter who
presided over
and summarises each encounter.

If television turns on the insertion of an assortment of arbitrary units into a

syntagmatic flow, a predictable mosaic in which questions of proportion
predominate over subject matter, then France tour mirrors
"'
process.

and mix

and exacerbates this

Television revolves around repetition in a dual sense: the scheduling of

hourly, daily, weekly and yearly

cycles of programming

(often punctuated with

advertisements), and repetition internal to the programmes (in the guise of repeated
phraseology and familiar figures). '"

A central figure of television is the recourse to the

personal ity/speaker(ine)s whose role is to situate and introduce, acting as anchors within
the planned flow.

In his classification

de
'figures
conditionnement',
of central

institutionalised ossified 'rhetorical figures' which he characterises as ideological nodal

points, Joel Farges identifies the speakerine (under the title 'la tierce solution') as
encapsulating the bourgeois logic of the juste milieu: 'mi-mere et mi-epouse, mi-soeur

89

19
'.
Such a status and function operates as a recurrent focus of parody to
et mi-fiance...
Sonimage, incorporated into France tour in the roles of Albert

and Betty, and

immediately subverted by the obliqueness of their exchanges, combined with their

consistent refusal of direct address. Where traditionally we might expect reverse angle
shots in the exchanges between Albert and Betty, we get an insistent medium 2-shot, or,
rather, just one side of the reverse angle; in a lampooning of television's segmentation
of spatial and temporal relations, the reverse comes the following

week.

In traversing a day in the life of school children, the cycle from home to school
and back, Sonimage equate this repetitious cycle with the repetitious programmed flow
of television.

Television figures the routine of daily life, simultaneously feeding into

it contiguously through the multiple connotations of chafne and programme: 'L'autre

logique etait celle de la journee... (... ) On commence la nuit, mais la nuit, c'est juste
avant que le jour se Jeve, et on avance au rythme du programme des deux enfants,
jusqu' la tombee du jour... '. 120 So dense and aleatory is much of the material that
France tour is simultaneously familiar and unnerving.

The achievement of the series

is to have turned television on its head by mimicing it. Thus, rather than providing a
counter-model, it functions in an intrinsically more radical way than Six fois deux within
the context of its transmission.

Its premise is thus very different from that of Six fois

deux: rather than extracts of mainstream television

France
its
through
surface,
erupting
tour simply reiterates its status as 'television' so as to cast in doubt the forms and
structures of television at every turn.

As Jean-Paul Fargier astutely observes, every

fois
la
is
'
toute
France
in
its
tour
episode contains and explodes television
entirety:
la television en une seule emission'. 12'

2.5

CONCLUSION

This chapter has revealed a principal facet of the Sonimage project as a

systematic critique of the forms, codes, and institution of television.

The Sonimage

work, taken as a whole, and especially the two series designed for television, constitutes
an ambitious attempt to confront

and rework television on its own territory:

the

programming grid. The two central supports underpinning this assault are, as has been
shown, video technology and information theory. Information theory constitutes a key

90

theoretical model, filtered through video, which is used by Godard/Mieville

to unravel

the forms of broadcast television and reinvent two distinct alternative counter-models.
As such, it is one of the key new 'theories' which enable Godard/Mieville
their way out of the logic of Marxist-Leninism,
imagery.

to both see

and cut through the surrounding media

As the next two chapters show, it remains a central pole of reference in the

Sonimage critique of journalism and communication passim.

91

Chapter 3
On journalism
3.1

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 2 demonstrated that the Sonimage work constitutes a sustained critique

discourse on television forms

of television. This chapter argues that Godard/Mieville's

part of a wider dissection and analysis of the media in general, and, particularly, of the
mainstream press. Their critique of journalism cuts through the entire Sonimage project,
and occupies the central terrain of Comment Ca va and Photos et cie, but, I suggest,
key
a
as
polemic throughout each of the works of the 1970s. Furthermore,
operates
is
the
that
press
a central focus of their concerns, it is important to acknowledge
given
Godard's estimation of the Sonimage work (especially Six fois deux and France tour)
as journalism of a tentative exploratory type that insists on treating fresh issues in an
unconventional way, beyond the confines of the received forms and structures of the
mainstream media. He thus refers to the Sonimage work as 'journalisme audiovisuel',
as 'proches du journalisme,

et d'un journalisme

different

de celui qui est fait

habituellement. "

It is important to situate this critique of the media, press,and journalism within

the context of Godard's involvement with the alternative radical press, an aspect of his
activities which has been almost entirely overlooked by commentators.
chapter with

an analysis of Godard's activity

within

I begin this

the radical presses, and a

consideration of the centrality of the figure of Robert Linhart, before exploring the
specificities of the relative emphases of Godard/Mieville's

its
that
arguing
polemic,

principal focus is the position and function of the journalist in objective' reporting, and
that the logic underpinning this critique can again be related to the communications
model provided

by information

theory.

Having

positioned

this often

violent

condemnation of journalists at the centre of the Sonimage attack, I will explore the
related polemics which surround it: the critique of the conventional interview format, the
use of the writing of a letter as a communications model parred down to its bare
essentials, the quest to identify and highlight the direction and flow of capital in relation
to information, and the concern for language in the press.

92

3.2

ON THE PRESS

3.2.1

Godard's involvement

'Presse: ne pas avaler'

in the alternative

press after May 68

(May 68 slogan)

Godard's ongoing political activities across the early 1970s, particularly before
the motorbike accident which led to an enforced period of inaction after June 1971, are
very rarely acknowledged, and, to, my knowledge, have never been seriously discussed.
The aim of this section is to elucidate one facet of Godard's ongoing political
engagement in a period when revolutionary fervour waned and was replaced by political,
social, and cultural paralysis (as figured in a return to a comparatively reactionary
Gaullist government): his central role in the development of the radical press.' Godard's
involvement with alternative publications of the early 1970s (such as J'accuse, L'Idiot
international, La Cause du Peuple-J'accuse, and Liberation), his major contribution to
the launch of J'accuse in January 1971, and his role at the heart of the-Agence de presse
Liberation, are of enormous importance since these journalistic experiments foreshadow
Sonimage's extensive critique of mainstream journalism, and their concurrent attempts
to construct viable counter-forms. An important strand of post-68 gauchiste activity was
channelled into these alternative- publications, all of which sought to challenge the
emphases of the mainstream press in terms of who reported what, how, and for whom.
(coSLON/Iskra
collectives such as
bulletins
Chris
Marker)
ordinated around
consciously set out to produce alternative news
In the audio-visual realm, radical filmmaking

of 'counter-information',

treating issues ignored by television in a way that constitutes

intellectual
forerunner
important
Sonimage
the
to
and
the
an
project, and provides
historical context in which it is best situated and understood. 3

In line with widespreadgauchiste refusal of the parties of the establishedLeft,

these radical publications countered not just the mainstream press, but the traditional
communist

press: caustic attacks on the repetition

representation in allegedly

revolutionary

publications

of

conventional

modes of

(such as the PCF's Revue

Feminine) had already be made in La Chinoise, and was developed via Patricia
Lumumba in Le Gai savoir:
A L'Humanite, dans les revues feminines de la CGT, ils passent les mimes
Moi, je trouve ca degoutant. Les
photos de lingerie que dans Le Figaro.
93

dessous d'une femme revolutionnaire, on doit pouvoir les photographier

autrement que dans la pressereactionnaire.
This critique feeds directly into the Sonimage work, especially Comment Ca va. The
brief former CFDT union delegate Odette sets herself in the film is to analyse the crossovers and divergences between the treatment and transmission of information within the
mainstream media in relation to the policies and procedures applied by the PCF and
lorsqu'il
brute
l'information
('montrer
fonctionnait
to
the
same
material
unions
comment
etait aux mains des communistes').

J'accuse, broadly guided by Andre Glucksmann and Robert Linhart, was

du
Cause
La
in
than
tone
conceived as a radical weekly paper, more popular
style and
Peuple (presided over primarily by Glucksmann and Sartre). The figure of Linhart is
especially

lost on a non-French

audience,

pay homage- to him via the name of 'Robert Linard'

(as it is

pertinent.

Godard/Mieville

In

a reference largely

phonetically transcribed in associated documents), the name given to Godard's off-screen

interviewer persona in France tour. Jerome Prieur, who commissioned France tour for
INA, is the sole commentator to have pointed out the centrality of this reference to
Linhart as constituting a key pseudonym to the series.' Linhart was a leading UJCml
theorist, one of the so-called'Bande des quatre' militants at Rue d'Ulm, and amongst the
first to be decisively influenced by Althusser.

He later continued his work as militant

and teacher at the experimental Vincennes university (Paris VIII) and the Ecole Normale
Superieure, work charted in the Collectif Rameau Rouge's film, Les Murs et la parole
(1982). ' Godard's first contact with Linhart would doubtless have been whilst attending
lectures at the Ecole Normale Superieure- in preparation for La Chinoise. The homage
in France tour acknowledges in part this shared Maoist heritage, but, I suggest, is above
J'accuse.
journalism
his
forms
in
for
at
of
recognition of
campaigning
all
alternative
Furthermore, we might point to his investigative book, L'Etabli,

detailing working

like
de
Choisy,
floor
Porte
Citroen
the
many
where,
the
shop
at
conditions on
works at
he
intellectuals
France,
in
factories
docks
throughout
was working
other radical
and
incognito following May 68 with the aim of promoting revolution. '
A refrain in Linhart's work is the perpetual quest for a viable and constructive
interchange between intellectuals and the proletariat, and so accords closely with the bias
to Godard's trajectory during and after May 68. Indeed, such concerns provide the basis
for the narrative of Tout va bien, a film that constitutes a barely veiled sideswipe at
94

Sartre, the intellectual force behind La Cause du Peuple and contributor (of both his
name and articles) to disparateradical journals following the events of May. Godard's
driving motivation was the quest to implement an alternative press on, for, and by the
proletariat; he was, therefore, inevitably exasperatedby Sartre'srefusal to face up to the
in
his
contradiction
underwriting the alternative press whilst continuing to publish more
traditional academic literary and cultural articles. A consistent concern of the radical
press, and one central to Linhart, is a quest to alter the form and substanceof 'news',
foregrounding
and treating as newsworthy the daily reality of working life.
above all
Following the dissolution of the UJCm1,J'accuse was principally produced by
the maoist Gauche Proletarienne (GP) which replaced it (headed by Benny Levy). The
aims and imminent appearance of the new journal are announced in the parallel leftist
'
International,
L'Idiot
in
According to
issue
(dated
1971).
February
paper,
a concurrent
the statement of intent published in the first edition, J'accuse aimed to draw on the
worker/intellectual

links forged during and after May 68, to focus on aspects of news

ignored by the mainstream press ('tourne vers une France que la grande presse))
meprisei8), and to insist on the inclusion of those habitually excluded from airing their
opinions both as interviewees, and, above all, as authors:
de croire ce que disent les

la
donner
refuser
parole
responsables officiels,
...
ceux qui se taisent ou sont reduits au silence, soit 90% des Francais, ouvriers,
Quelle place les
paysans, petits commercants, employes, instituteurs.
hebdomadaires d'elite leur accordent-ils? 9
Perhaps the single most important facet of Godard's involvement with the alternative
press was this desire to hand over the power of authorship or speech to those
traditionally marginalised in the media: 'A 1'epoque de J'accuse, avant Liberation, je me
suis souvent dispute pour faire passer les articles de gens qui sont de nulle part, et qui
etaient refuses: un type du metro qui ecrit des nouvelles... '. 1 If Sonimage's choice of
socially marginalised interviewees (apaysan, prostitute, immigrant, cleaning woman, and
so on) is a logical continuation of this inflection

to Godard's concerns, then the

transference of 'parole' to the young unemployed welder in Ya

personne is its

culmination: as part of his paid work in appearing as interviewee in Ya personne, the

is
encouraged to conceive and present his 'news' (in this case a personal call to
welder
combat unemployment and institutionalised rascism).

95

from intellectuals, but some corporate

Funding for J'accuse came primarily

funding was obtained from the fashion and food industries via Godard's close friend
Jean-Pierre Bamberger (who later appeared in Ici et ailleurs and accompanied Godard
and Mieville
"
nation).

to Mozambique during preparations for Naissance (de 1'image) dune

Godard wrote regularly for J'accuse throughout 1971, contributing a report

on a strike at the Vergeze Perrier factory for the first issue (based on a visit to the
factory and subsequent dialogue with the Paris-based factory manager), and a similar
article on the protests and marches around a strike at the Nantes Batignoles factory for
the second edition (work which undoubtedly doubled as primary research data for Tout
`Z
bien).
The most accomplished and interesting of Godard's articles for J'accuse is
va
a vitriolic

attack (under the pseudonym 'Michel Servet') on Jean-Pierre Melville's Le

Cercle rouge (1970) which had just been released. This article expresses Godard's fury
at the success of a mediocre reactionary- cinema which continued apparently entirely
by
dislocation
the
to cultural practice engendered by the events of May 68,
untouched
dual
incorporates
a
and
assault on Melville

and the new Ministre de l'Interieur of the

Gaullist
government, Raymond Marcellin (who represents for Godard across the
returned
early 1970s the spectre of bourgeois cultural and political platitude and mediocrity which
he saw as suffocating the brief ferment of gauchiste activity):
D'accord qu'on etait content au debut d'avoir paye mille banes pour jouir
individuellement devant des images excitantes de truands et de flics. Et puis
d'accord ensuite qu'on etait furieux de s'etre laisse baiser comme des lapins par
Melville-Marcellin. [... ] Et dans 1'ombre, Dreyfus-Renault et Marcellin-Nouvelle
Societe se marrent doucement: demain, l'usine, le pauvre type qui aura vu le
Cercle rouge sera demobilise. 13

Besides deriding

Le

Cercle

rouge

as emblematic

of

Gaullist

cultural

conservatism, this article also raises two questions in relation to mainstream and
journalism
forms
of
alternative

which are subsequently repeated and answered in

deux
in
Sonimage
fois
in
Six
the
terms
as paradigm and
work, and especially
practical
enactment of an alternative mode of treating information.

The first of these concerns

is the distance between lived experience and its reflection in the mainstream media:
Car tu sais bien que ces images sont fausses, ou plutt, qu'il en manque. Et qu'il
en manque meme un nombre incroyable. Justement, il manque toutes celles que
tu vois tous les jours. Les images de to vie quotidienne. "

96

A central desire driving Six fois deux is that of simply depicting everyday people and
objects outside the glare of the media, and, in particular, without the rapid cutting, harsh
lighting, and excessive colours of broadcast television.

Secondly, this article raises the

inflections
how
best
the
to
cadences and
of the
question of
convey speech, above all
in
instant
factory
formulating
the
to
concise
and
arguments
of
workers unused
voices
format demanded by the media. This, again, is a central concern of Six fois deux. As
Godard argues in this article, reported speech is at the dual mercy of interpretation and
mediation (in which the source/speaker is ascribed a secondary role), or announced (and
hence, figuratively,

'set-up') by the journalist (visibly, in print, via a colon).

Godard

by
fait,
'En
le mec dont tu parlais, tu l'as tue en procedant
that
suggesting
concludes
"'
comme Va.

Both issues can thus be shown to derive directly

from Godard's

involvement in the alternative press, and set in place laments returned to repeatedly
Sonimage
the
work.
across

Even more important than J'accusein Godard'songoing political activity was his
in
central role conceiving and instigating the alternative information network, the Agence
de presse Liberation (APL}.

Following the banning of La Cause du Peuple, the APL

aimed to draw progressive revolutionary journalists together into a loosely-grouped

agency, with the objective of countering mainstream press reports in both form and
substance. It existed as an agency from 1971 to 1973, subsequently spawning the
radical newspaper Liberation, which in turn foundered, and was replaced by the broadLeft daily newspaper of the same name published today. The two journalists seen with
Godard in Jean-Luc (extracts of which are re-used on the soundtrack of Comment ca va)
former
from
the
radical Liberation.
were
In January 1971, a hunger strike involving a dozen people at the chapelle Saint
Bernard (beneath Montparnasse station) was started in protest at the continuing
imprisonment of vendors of La Cause du Peuple (following a meeting organised by 'Les
Amis de La Cause du Peuple' presided over by Michel Leiris).
in Numero deut of Leo Ferre's song, 'L'inconditionnel

Godard/Mieville's

use

de variete', written in protest

against the banning of La Cause du Peuple, functions as an indirect reference to this

event; indeed Godard has claimed that he himself actually requested that Ferre write the
16
in
banning.
idea
Godard
initially
to
the
the
response
of a video press
song
proposed
agency to Linhart

and Jean-Claude Vernier, suggesting that it could function

in

conjunction with J'accuse and La Cause du Peuple. This audio-visual emphasis to the

97

project proved prohibitively

expensive, but out of this early proposal evolved the idea

for an alternative revolutionary press agency. Godard's role as catalyst in this process
launched
(in
be
The
the guise
subsequently
overstated.
cannot
resultant organisation was
"
APL)
18
June
1971.
the
on
of the

The agency took shape through contact between

backed
by
journalists
Sartre
to
the
subsequently
came
and
who
chapel,
was
sympathetic
distributed
by
bulletin
first
30
Maurice
Clavel.
June
The
was
on
news
and co-ordinated
1971, by which time Godard was in hospital, recovering from the injuries sustained in
his motorbike accident (on his way to meet financial investors for Tout va bien).

Given that Godard was instrumental in the original conception of the APL, it is
his
in
1970s
that
this
to
the
the
surprising
activities
more
central
strand
political
early
all
has been almost entirely neglected in discussions of the Groupe Dziga Vertov and
Sonimage, and in wider discussions of the impact of May 68. Thus, whilst the evidence
is
from
Godard's
the articles and photographs he published in the radical
clear
role
of
his
on
commentaries
role are confined to the testimonies of fellow travellers
press,
(Marin Karmitz, for instance, talks of both his and Godard's roles in his autobiography,
Bande a part. 18).

If Linhart constitutes an important pole of reference, then Bernard Lambert,

discussed
in episode 7 of France tour (in a dense series of reflections on
overtly
property, private ownership,

inheritance,

representation, and justice)

functions as

19
Lambert,
leader
a
another.
of the leftist Parti Socialiste Unifie (PSU) during the 1960s
and 1970s, argued that the majority of small and medium-sized farmers had effectively
been reduced to the status of outworkers- of 'agri-business', and so should adopt the
forms
and tactics of organised industrial labour. As such, the weight of
organisational
his ideas looms large over the presence and arguments of Louison in Louison, the latter
led
by
the
the
who,
vestiges of
post-68 movement of paysans-travailleurs,
exemplifying
Bernard Lambert,

strove to voice

the grievances of peasant farmers within

(justly)
movement
often
revolutionary
accused of giving precedence to the struggles of
20
in
factory
Lambert's
is
an extended
outlined
and
workers.
students
succinctly
position
interview published in J'accuse in February 1971, an interview extremely close in tone
2'
lies
in
his
impetus
Sonimage
Louison.
But
Lambert's
to
to
above all,
and
significance
work with the revolutionary press, and especially the APL: when the agency sacrificed
its regional dimension in favour of spawning the Paris-based Liberation newspaper in
late 1972, Lambert resisted the change and kept the spirit of the agency alive via his co-

98

ordination of the APL-Nantes.

He therefore embodies two key (and linked) concerns

implement
live
decentered
Sonimage:
desire
the
to
out
a
regional practice, and
and
of
a critique of information.

The APL's statement of intent, a'Communique' co-authored

by Sartre and Clavel (published in LIdiot

International),

foresees the emphasis on

journalism and information in Tout va bien in the guise of Susan's (Jane Fonda) work
as a radio journalist

and Jacques's (Yves Montand) role as a disillusioned

Nouvelle Vague filmmaker

and gauchiste working

in advertising.

former

Above all, it

announces in clear terms the overt project on the dissemination and consumption of
information

in industrialised capitalist societies which constitutes the focus of the

Sonimage work, and, as such, demands to be- cited at length:

Contre les faux, contre les fausses cartes de presses, les fausses temoignages, les
fausses informations on se bat. On se bat pour retablir la verite, pour renforcer
l'information libre, attaquer l'information aux ordres. Un collectif de journalistes
appartenant la presse revolutionnaire comme la presse traditionnelle engage
avec nous une nouvelle bataille sur le front de 1'information. Nous voulons, tous
ensemble, creer un nouvel instrument pour la defense de la verite. (... ) Nous
nous adressons tous, journalistes, lecteurs, auditeurs et telespectateurs, tous
ceux qui veulent parler, qui veulent que les faits soient connus, pour qu'ils
construisent avec nous l'APL, qu'ils nous envoient des informations, qu'ils
encouragent d'autres le faire. Il ne suffit pas de connaltre la verite, il faut la
faire entendre. Avec rigueur, en
diffusera
l'APL
dira,
tout
verifiant
ce qu'elle
regulierement les nouvelles qu'elle- recevra. Desormais, les redactions ne
pourront plus ignorer les faits, ce sont elles qui prendront la responsabilite de les
taire. (...) L'APL veut etre une nouvelle tribune qui donnera la parole aux
journalistes qui veulent tout dire, aux gens qui
donnera
Elle
tout
savoir:
veulent
la parole au peuple. 22
This 'Communique' foresees in precise terms- the call in Comment ca va (via a text
for
the
UNE IMPRIM$RIEET UNE INFORMATIONMODERNES,AU
on
screen)
superimposed
SERVICEDESFEMMESET DES HOMMESQUI LUTTENTPOURUNE D$MOCRATIEAVANCE.
More generally, this interest in alternative journalism serves as a crucial antecedent to
Godard/Mieville's theoretical analyses of the transmission of information and functioning
fois
Six
deux constitutes a virtual single-handed attempt to construct and
the
press:
of
put into practice a model of genuine information

transmission already extensively

involvement
in
this
explored
with J'accuse and the APL.

99

3.3

THE 'CRIME(S)'

3.3.1

Objective news reporting

IN INFORMATION
in question: the journalist

as 'criminal'

Pour parler des autres, il faut avoir la modestie et l'honnetete de parler de soimeme. (Godard,1972)23
The Sonimage work is infused with a vicious critique, not just of the press and
media generally, but, very specifically, of journalists.

This personalisation of their

journalists
(and
individual
the
media,
often
simply
on
as
are
violently)
personal
assault
turned on and harangued, constitutes the site of the most uncontained and vitriolic
polemic in the Sonimage discourse. Far from a measured academic critique of a unified
from
(a
texts
of
selection
a range of journals, for instance, whose incorporation
corpus
be
have
to
carefully vetted and explained), this polemic, as so often with the
would
Sonimage work, appears incoherent and unjustified. On the one hand, this is emblematic
discursive
heterogeneity,
deliberate
a
of
one-compounded by slippages into unsustainable
positions and contentions. On the other, we should be alert to the fact that such textual
discursive
excesses form an integral part of Godard/Mieville's
and

be
so
strategy, and

cautious not to summarily dismiss all contentions thrown up in the project's unfolding
on the grounds of unsustainability alone. Furthermore, a subsidiary aim of this section
demonstrate
be
to
that Sonimage's damning critique of journalists resides in a logic
will
that can be linked back to a rationale derived from information theory. The journalist
key
position in the circulation of news; to home in on the journalist is simply
occupies a
to isolate, and magnify, a very specific moment in an information circuit.
In the context of this critique of journalism, Godard's experience as a journalist
(for Arts and Les Cahiers du Cinema) should not be forgotten: he had extensive firsthand knowledge of manipulation in the press. Nowhere is this clearer than in the
in
Godard
late
by
'interviews'
fabricated
invented
the
Renoir
Rossellini
with
entirely
and
1950s.24 Similarly, in his role as press attache to Fox in Paris, Godard compiled press
films'
backgrounds
for
distribution
inventing
biographical
to
the
to
the
stars
media,
packs
with the aim of supplying the national and regional press with ready-made copy,
fait
bon
dossier
de
in
('Celui
the
un
qui
unquestioningly
regurgitated
material
media
25).
presse est sr qu'il passe partout'.
The Sonimage critique of the Groupe Dziga Vertov, and, notably, of the
projection

of revolutionary

latter's
'ailleurs',
the
role as
aspirations
rounded on
100

fit
in
their
to
their own project (rather than
the
manipulator of
possession
material
according primacy to its content, as embodied in the dialogue between the Feddayeen).
Sonimage are thus concerned to isolate and examine a single stage of the information
circuit: their own function as mediators.

The assault on journalists throughout the

Sonimage period derives from the same logic: 'objective' journalism

is revealed and

berated as a charade in which journalists position themselves at a safe distance from the
'stories' they report, talking in the third person of events of which they often have no
first-hand experience as if objectively proven, thus obscuring the constitutive role of
their editorial input. As Marot puts it simply in his commentary on Odette's project in
Comment fa va: 'Pour Odette,
etait
devenue
'
crime.
un
-l'objectivite

This critique of journalists ostensibly 'reporting' whilst, in fact, endlessly

reiterating and shoring up their position, is directly equated with the Groupe Dziga
Vertov's inscription of excessive'sound' over images, as well as with the strategy of the
parties of the establishedLeft during May 68. In Commentca va, for instance,the PCF
is criticised in a strike situation for attempting to manipulate eventsto fit its programme:
'En fait, sous couvert de celle des autres,
in
Journalists,
to
tu
-c'est parole que vendais'.
the same sequence, are berated for not transmitting the information they possess:
'Criminels, ceux qui etaient payes pour donner des nouvelles des autres sans parler
d'eux'. The two coincide in the critique of their joint'crime': 'Ton crime etait de garder
to place tout en t'installant celle des autres'.
Traces of the widespread critique of journalism
emerge across the work of the
Groupe Dziga Vertov, culminating in the portrayal of Susan De Witt's (Jane Fonda)
her
of
role as radio journalist in Tout va bien. Sonimage treat the habitual
examination
'information'
the
to denote the type of reporting familiar from the
of
word
use
mainstream press as a misnomer.

As early as Pravda, the Groupe Dziga Vertov had

dismissed such journalism as popular travel writing, quite divorced from true information
(Vladimir summarises conventional journalism as'Seulement des impressions de voyage,
des souvenirs comme Delacroix en Algerie, comme Chris Marker Rhodiaceta. C'est
ce que le New York Times et Le Monde appellent de l'information'. ). But in the course
of rethinking the implications of enacting revolution first and foremost in one's personal
life (Godard/Gorin's primary 'lesson' from the failure of May 68), De Witt abandons her
work for the (fictional)
broadcasting structures.

American Broadcasting System as impossible within existing

The critique of journalism

101

here
foresees
what will
enacted

(one
incidentally,
in
Sonimage
thematic
the
the
mirrored,
work
a
strand
of
constitute
film's
'Vieille
for
invitations
the
to
the
screening:
preview
salope
sent
press
provocative
26).
lack
la
inutile'.
Sonimage
Cher
treat
the
of work in
camarade - rayer
mention
ou
journalism, the failure of journalists to recognise and incorporate the implications of
their position in the cycle of information as mediators as, simply, the central crime in
the media: 'On parlera de-tout ca, on parlera peut-titre de tout ca, l'information, et oil se
commet le crime dans l'information'

(Godard in Numero deux).

Godard/Mieville's polemic not only rounds on journalism, but denounces

journalists as profoundly complicit in their tacit support for a repetitive cycle which
reinstates their own position as journalists and that of the reader/viewer as consumer.
Mainstream journalism, to Sonimage, simply mirrors the logic of advertising.

Rather

than the manufacture of desire to stimulate demand to sell goods, journalism is cast as
the stimulation of demand for the newspapers, magazines, or television programmes
themselves. Far from employing-the-means at their disposal to convey information on
Vietnam

(or the Palestinian or Portuguese revolutions),

journalists

exploit

such

is
handful
them
is
toWhat
situations, reducing
a
of cliches.
communicated, above all,
their own privileged position as journalists, and the distance of the viewer/reader from
the stylised renditions of 'ailleurs', a situation which, as Godard/Mieville
into the construction of journalists

as 'stars' (Don McCullin

logic
and
a
example)
of prizes, (the critique

show, feeds

in Photos et cie, for

in
the
Pulitzer
same
the
prize
of

programme).
The irreverence of their critique is- fuelled by anger; Don McCullin is brutally
set up in Photos et cie, and subjected to further caustic criticism by Mieville on the
doubtless
in
her
'interpretation'
McCullin
the
his
course
of
soundtrack
statements.
of
interview
As
the
as
constituting
photo-reportage.
part of a programme on
envisaged
logic
his
he
the
of
conventional
position as-'professional' expert within
assumes
such,
television, a position deliberately

in
here
(both
by
Sonimage
their
and
subverted

interview with Rene Thom in which Thom's discomfort is all too visible).

He is,

however, exploited as embodiment of a facile belief in the unmediated transparency of

in
the primacy
and
representation,

of 'talent' over political

and socio-economic

determinants. Thus, in the terms of Mieville's 'translation', 'Il pense que c'est une affaire
de don.

Il faut avoir le don'.

Similarly,

his responses as dubious opinions are

('il
by
into
by
Mieville
French
the
translation
twice
statement
a
of
single
underscored

102

trouve que c'est une mauvaise photo'/' son avis c'est une mauvaise photo'). In this role
as exemplary bourgeois journalist,

McCullin

is not only set up, but remorselessly

lampooned. A sense of real violence towards McCullin pervades the use and abuse of
his image.

It is this virulent dislike, so intense because personalised, that doubtless

fury
des
journalistes reporters-photographes
Association
the
the
of
stimulated
nationale
et cineastes (I'ANJRPC), who wrote a blistering response to Photos et cie in Le Monde,
decrying the 'verbiage confusionniste d'un revolutionnaire importe de Suisse'.27 As
Gilles Deleuze wryly observes, Sonimage succeeded in stimulating real anger via the
28
la
'Godard
haine'.
television:
most uniform of media,
a au moins ravive

Journalistsare,therefore,attackedpersonally aslazy for unquestioningly adopting

a position, and enacting the gestures required, whilst withholding genuine worked input.
Laziness is equated directly with pornography and fascism. In The Story, for instance,
both pornography and laziness are worked into the proposed narrative via the character
of Roberto ('bon photographe-mais extremement paresseux, il ceda la facilite et se

dans
le pornoi29). Where Barthes's critique of conventional cultural
peu
peu
specialisa
forms is filtered through metaphors of rape, prostitution,

sacrilege and corruption,

Sonimage employ the vocabulary of perversion and desire, their critique projected
through the terminology of fascism and pomography. 3o

This angry critique of journalism is not new in Godard'soeuvre, but constitutes,

rather, the culmination of a consistent thread in his prior work. The press conference
given by the fictional novelist, Parvelesco (Jean-Pierre Melville), at Orly airport in A
bout de souffle is characterised by formulaic

questions from the reporters which

anticipate, and allow, only soundbites as responses. Amongst the clamour of cliches,
Godard's distinctive voice can be heard in an altercation with another journalist, decrying
their 'questions idiotes'.

Indeed, the stirrings of Godard's discourse on the media is

films.
the
his
1960s
the
confines
of
generic games of all
art
visible within

The police

inspector's rhetorical question (in English) in Le Grand escroc serves to summarise this
insistent strand of Godard's oeuvre: 'I wish you'd explain what means the word,
"reporting"'. 31 This simple question contains the seeds of a near-obsessive quest on the
Godard,
of
worked through at length in Le Gai savoir what is reported, what is
part
communicated, and who stands to gain?

The answer repeatedly postulated in the

Sonimage work is that reporters' failure to do their job (to work) underpins and
maintains phatic circuits with serve to reproduce endless unworked repetitious cliches:

103

'Moi je dis simplement que les journalistes, quand ils travaillent, ne travaillent pas, c'est
pas vrai, c'est ceux qui regardent qui travaillent. ' (Jean-Luc)

Mieville

develops this

footage
in
Photos
televised
of a hurdle
critique
et cie: sports commentary accompanying
race at the Montreal Olympics is parodied as emblematic of an absence of work, the
him
by
back
'ouiiiii'
the
turned
cry
of
commentator
against
as proof of the selfextended
absorbed masturbatory position and role of the journalist, Mieville driving in the final
her
suggestion that 'c'est un professionel... peut-etre qu'il n'a pas grand chose
nail with
d'autre dire'. 32

A crucial sequencein Photos et cie visually underscoresSonimage'sscrutiny of

the functioning of the media, and its role as emblematic of the Sonimage project is
its
through
repetition in Avant et apres.
reinforced

In a packed conference hall,

Marchais 'performs' on stage, separated from the public by a mass of reporters

(photographers, camera operators, sound recordists). The Sonimage camera descends an
aisle towards Marchais (who is walking towards them), hesitates, and turns to reveal,
face,
the great physical barrier of the press with a long, confrontational look.
and
Whilst all the other cameras are trained obediently on Marchais, Sonimage situate
themselves precisely between Marchais and the people. The journalists' job definition
is
revealed as a sham: journalists en bloc are graphically presented as a
mediator
as
barrier which absorbs and blocks. In a similar vein, in Comment ca va, Odette locates
distortion in the media as a direct result of those in the position of mediators who fail
to do their job: 'Le pouvoir du journaliste, il est l! Il est pas ailleurs! Il nest ni au
Portugal, ni en France, mais entre les deux'.
This location of blockage-in an information circuit at a point where there should
be nothing but mediation, and the function of this blockage in distorting the resultant
information, is emphasised in Photos et cie through the video pen superscription of
'passage' across the journalists, their role as mediators repeatedly emphasised through
the use of the term 'pat' in a series of linguistic slippages: 'par ce' becomes 'par o', then
'par ce que', 'par ceux qui', 'ceux qui', 'ceux par qui', 'ceux par qui passe', 'passe' and
'passage' (see Appendix B(ii)).

Godard, extending the journalist/criminal

correlation

which runs through all the Sonimage texts (and related metadiscursive material),
identifies in Jean-Luc this lack of work on the part of the journalist as responsible for
the repetition of unworked reproductions and an ossified subject-object-representation

104

historique,
epoque
dans
le
historique
'Le
c'est le joumaliste
cette
circuit:
crime,
criminel
qui ne transmet pas l'information alors quelle est entre ses mains. '

So Sonimageunveil ostensible'objectivity' asthe principal site of the obfuscation

of who is speaking, and confusion of what is being said. Journalists are attacked and
dismissed as criminals: incompetent, lazy, and profoundly reactionary (the angry
is
de
journaliste!
Comment
It
'Ordure
'
the refusal
ca
va).
punctuates
provocative refrain
information,
input
in
the
or of thinking through
of a recognition of one'sown
relaying of
that information in the context of one'sown experience,that a crucial stageof reflection
in the information circuit is negated,the-passagevia the-intermediary, the journalist:
Je ne parle pas des endroits que je ne connais pas, ou, si j'en parle, je les fais
transiter par l'endroit o je suis. Quand je parle du Portugal, je n'oublie pas le
fait
la
toute
ce
que
je,
presse. Les articles disent: Je reviens du Portugal,
33
le
il
derriere
le
Je est completement mythique,
mais
ils.
s'efface
Rather than concealing ignorance behind a masquerade of objectivity (exemplified for
Sonimage in the recurrent use of the indirect pronoun), Godard proposes in Jean-Luc a
form of journalism which would take this- very ignorance as a point of departure for a
discussion of ailleurs (his example is Cambodia), a project which throws into question
the subjective slant (the Je!) effaced by the 'il' and proposes a depiction of ailleurs from
a reassessmentof ' partir de quels elements je fonctionne'. 34 This is not to suggest that
all journalism should always follow this format, but that to depart from an analysis of
the relevance of Cambodia to the individual journalist would at least break the cycle of
the unchallenged repetition of the-reproduction of depictions of ailleurs by someone far
immediate
its
from
concerns for equally distant consumption.
removed
Comment ca va seeks, precisely, to reinstate the 'je' behind the 'ils' in reporting
In
by
both
Communist
Portuguese
one of
press.
the mainstream and
revolution
on the
the multiple self-referential intertextual allusions characteristic of the Sonimage work,
in which the same images, sounds and arguments recur in diverse contexts, Godard
Liberation
criticises

in Jean-Luc for obscuring the multiple points of view of the

journalists collaborating on the newspaper behind a pretence at journalistic objectivity.

He delivers his critique in a particularly humorous and provocative form, maintaining
that the only genuine worked pages in Liberation were those containing the 'petites
annonces', the personal small ads in which the subjective nature of the 'articles' (looking

105

for a lover or travelling partner, for instance)was to the fore, and for which Liberation
"
infamous.
was
It is in this sense of departing from one's-own experience, 'where and when, one
finds oneself, that Godard can say of himself to the Liberation journalist in Jean-Luc
(only semi-humorously),

'je suis bon journaliste, c'est tout'.

Interestingly, Godard's

for
its
journalism
foregrounds
a
subjective
subjective manipulations
which
preference
his
be
to
traced
earliest work, defending, for instance, the much criticised confused
can
(and
its
depiction
Le
Petit
soldat
of
of the Algerian war) as a personal statement
politics
of how those events touched him in his position as a middle-class filmmaker in Paris
('Moi, j'ai pane des choses qui me concernaient, en tant que parisien de 1960, non
incorpore un parti. '36). It also feeds into the position staked out by Godard in Cameraoeil. As opposed to a portrayal of Vietnam, Godard inverts the film's focus and reflects
his
role and position as a middle-class French filmmaker in Paris, far removed from
on
the experience of the Vietnamese-people:

Moi je fail du cinema, donc ce que je peux faire de mieux pour le Vietnam, je
crois, c'est de... plutt que d'essayerd'envahir le Vietnam par une especede
generosite qui force forcement les choses, si au contraire j'essaie de laisser le
Vietnam nous envahir, et se rendre compte de la place qu'elle occupe, enfin,
dans notre vie de tous les jours, partout.37
Rather than employing images- of violence or resistance, Godard shows himself at the
American
Mitchell camera (as metonymy for American Imperialism).
an
of
view-finder
Furthermore, this location of the principal site of the perversion of information in the
distances
between producers, purveyors,
of
elision
confused

and consumers of

information has remained a constant. Godard developed this critique live on A2 in May
1982 (ironically, doubtless to a much wider audience than had seen the Sonimage work),
insisting that the presenter of the Journal Televise, Philippe Labro, state that he did not
depicted
in the preceding television reports, thereby casting
the
events
actually witness
in relief

the excessive ease with

which

television

promulgates

its illusion

of

38
'Dites:
d'Antenne
je
(sic),
2
Moi, chef
ne sais pas ce qui se passe'.
omniscience:
Before drawing this analysis of the Sonimage assault on journalists to a close,
we should acknowledge that television and film

technicians occupy an analogous

journalists,
to
that
of
position
and in this light Sonimage's insistence on collaboration
and input on each project can be read as a direct transposition of this reflection on
106

journalism to their own attempts to rethink a more healthy information circuit in their
practice. An unbroadcast out-take from Six fois deux (retained on the end of the BFI
U-matic copy of Avant et apres) not only incorporates the sound technician in the image,
but is used by Godard as a point of departure for a verbal attack on both the sound
recordist and camera operator; the extract ends with the camera operator blocking the
image entirely (standing in front of it), a succinct figure of Sonimage's critique of the
obliteration of imagery through the lack of work and input on the part of technicians.
Both technicians and journalists, on the whole-, are systematically condemned as going
through the motions (occupying the position and aping the gestures, as in pornography)
in
reality conforming to received assumptions regarding their job: 'Effectivement,
whilst
de
television, pour moi, c'est un collaborateur, comme les collaborateurs
technicien
un
qui collaboraient' (Godard- in- Changer d'image).
implications

What is more, the real practical

of Sonimage's position must be recognised: Godard so distrusted the

technicians in the Parisian- studio- who-transferred the 3/4" tapes of Six fois-deux to 2",
fearing that they would alter the various sound levels of the programmes to conform to
televisual standards, that he insisted on personally supervising the transfer. 39

The critique of journalists- and technicians in the Sonimage period pervades

Godard and Mieville's post-1979 fictions in the guise of the recurrent condemnation of
'professionals' of all description

involved

in image/sound production.

Indeed the

professional as charlatan across all domains characterises the pessimism of Godard's

post-political worldview,

and is perhaps most forcefully

in
the recurrent use of
caught

the angry condemnation (borrowed from Brecht) etched across the screen in Photos et
"
'ils
France
les
etre
le
ils
tour.
ne veulent pas
cie and
premiers'.
progres,
veulent

3.3.2

The explosion of the- conventional

interview

format

A parallel attack, and again one which refuses the traditional

conventional circuits of information,

relations of

is the interview, the site of extensive reworkings

and counter-models in the Sonimage work.

The subversion of the conventional

interview format constitutes a microcosm of the- radical reconception of information

in
relation to society played out by Godard's work with the radical presses, and
networks
projected across the Sonimage work:

107

Je reve des fois d'une societe, pour que des fois des gens, quand ils croisent un
ils
de
ils
lui
des
tele,
entreraient dans les details.
reporter
questions, et
poseraient
ca prendrait du temps, Its oseraient s'attarder. Et le reporter repondrait vile, je
veux dire sans tarder, car dans cette societe, la television aurait etudie les choses
un peu dej. Au lieu de questionner les travailleurs, ils auraient travaill4 les
questions, comme on dit. (Betty, off, in France tour 1)
The Sonimage interviews (in both Six-fois-deux and France tour) constitute a deliberate
in
face
form,
the
the
of
resistance
of
and set-up of the
assumptions, expectations,
act
interview.
TV
standard

The- centrality of the- interview to Sonimage is due to its

in
a single and visible circuit of a succession of assumptions regarding
presentation
identity and the role of the media: a subject, assumed as 'whole' (and thus 'containing'
meaning), is set up for questioning, and then expected simply to refute or verify prepackaged questions (a circuit- in- which the interviewee is clearly complicit, and which
reciprocally guarantees his/her sense of self-worth and self-coherence). Inversely, for
those with nothing to- gain from participation in such a contract, the interview is an
form
even
violent,
extreme,
of demand, closer to the interrogation of the accused man
in
Nous trois (later- enacted in- terms of actual physical violence on Godard
out
played
himself in Changer d'image). Reference to these
by
is
overtly made
relations as violent
way of the superscriptions-Lk VIOLENCEDESQUESTIONSand SOUSLA TORTUREin Nous
trois. Thus the television interview, aspiring to the creation of an image of dialogue,
but allowing for none- of the- pauses- or misunderstandings characteristic of genuine
dialogue (which would threaten the regularity of television's planned flow), constitutes
a paradigm of a rigid information- circuit.

Eve-Democracy (Anne Wiazemsky), in One

plus one, we recall, asked whether she feels exploited from the moment she enters into
flatly
interview,
'Yes=. In a deliberate-inversion of conventional relations, and
replies
an
archetypal instance of Sonimage's attempt to formulate the terms of a softer regional
'home TV, Marcel is asked at the-end of Marcel
is anything he would like
there
-whether
to add, anything that he would like to discuss that they have not covered. Likewise, this
quest to soften the relations-within which the-interviewee is held, is again articulated by
Dray in France tour 2:

Il faudrait une television qui interroge les gens doucement. C'est pas seulement
de
question
une
voix. 11faudrait pas que les questions soient comme la lumiere
d'un interrogatoire de police, pas de la lumiere dure, comme celle du Midi de la
France. Il faudrait des questions qui font une lumiere plus douce, comme il y
a en Bretagne.
109

The interview encapsulatesfor Godard/Mieville the chain of static relations they

identify in all phatic communication circuits, and functions as a distilled figure, for
convention passim across the Sonimage work. Furthermore, it is foreseen in the woman
interview:
lament
futility
in
Bien
Toutthe
television
the
angry
of
va
regarding
worker's
'C'est comme la tele: Il ya un journaliste qui pose des questions la con, le mec qui
interview
d'autres
Permutations
the
autour,
on
et
puis,
qui
n'osent
parle
pas-interrompre'.
form constitute a major focus of reflection and experimentation across Godard's oeuvre,
"
beyond
bounds
its
is
the
this
therein
assessment
of
of
study.
role
and an adequate
Sonimage's critiques are played out in variations- on, and inversions of, the relations
between interviewer, interviewee, and viewer: as suggested in Chapter 2, the interviews
in France tour and Six fois deux resist the form of the standard interview by displacing
the site of truth.

Rather than latent in the interviewee, it is sought in the process of

exchange, the attempts- at expression, in-the hesitant gestural vocabulary- on the part of
both interviewee and interviewer.

Sonimage's interviews function as paradigms of

process, of an exchange- much closer- to- psychoanalytic

transference- than to the

placement and interrogation of the subject in the television interview. This displacement
itself serves as a figure for the recurrent redirection of focus away from discrete subjects
and objects to the process of their interaction. Instead of being carefully introduced, and
subsequently explained and analysed, the Sonimage interviews start in mid-flight (JeanLuc, for instance), often mid-sentence, and are composed of a series of ellipses and
illusion
the
of spontaneity fostered within traditional television countered in
paradoxes,
both the structure and substance of the interviewing.

Rather than attempting to elaborate

a particular line of questioning, the-interviews resemble, as Constance Penley observes,

'Augustinian
dialogue, full of puns, tricks and seemingly nonsensical
a meandering
into
logical
turn
that
traps. i42
questions

3.3.3

A basic communications-model:

sending a letter

So Sonimage engage with successive information circuits (television, journalism,

the interview), Godard/Mieville

enacting a dual critique of, and intervention in, them.

Underlying each such critique is the insistencethat for 'information' to exist, there must
be movement, both within and of the circuit, and so ensuring exchange between

109

producers and consumers, journalists and viewers. Furthermore, this idea of movement
feeds into recurrent imagery of the-flow of traffic as dual metaphor for the traffic of
information,

in
the
at
work
genuine processes of
plus
movement and mediation

communication, and to which I will- return in my discussion of metaphor in the final

(see
Appendix
A(iii)).
chapter

Mieville

later succinctly distilled this line of thought:

Marie's mother tells Marie in Le Livre de Marie that when something stops moving, it's
dead. This dual theoretical and practical thrust to their project is figured in the sending
letter
functions
for
letter;
the
simpleact
of
conceiving,
a
sending, and receiving
of a
Godard/Mieville

as archetype of all communication (and one which has the evident

being
in
frequently
but
a
of
not
only
commonplace,
recurring
visible),
advantage
for
fictional
framework
Comment
The
their
of
guises
across
work.
ca
va,
succession
of
instance, is rationalised diegetically

as- a- letter -from- the male- character to his son,

detailing his relationship with a woman (Odette) with whom he has had'des rapports de
),
whilst the structural- support to--the fictional armature of the relationship
production'(!
between the son and his girlfriend

film
her
letter
he
the
turns
to
as
also
on a
writes

unfolds. This use of the-letter to- figure- communication can be traced in Godard's earlier
work to Montparnasse-Levallois,

a short made up entirely of the observation of the

trajectory of two muddled letters (and their impact on the lives of the recipients and
before
In
long
other
words,
a
succinct
sender).
visualisation of a communications model
Godard's conscious engagement-with suck-ideas, demonstrating once- again the- degree
to which his more political

work extended intuitions latent in his earlier work, and

illustrating how closely his- concerns--for- communication processes across his- oeuvre
foresee the concentrated work on information across the Sonimage years.

In interviews,-Godard often extends-this central letter analogy to the-conception

lettre
fois
deux
Six
be
that
'Ces
emissions
a'letter'
as
to
une
needed
comme
of
sont
sent:
Et
bien
c'est
a
envoye.
qu'elle soit envoye.
qu'on

Serait-elle ouverte? i43 But if the

functions
letter
for
Sonimage-as exemplary of a visible information circuit,
a
sending of
then in terms of images and sounds (the media generally, and cinema in particular), they
focus on the process of how a single image-is produced, relayed, and consumed. This
is particularly clear in the tracking of the press photograph in Comment ca va from
Portugal to France, from a specific local context to its insertion into the world's press.
Marot's description of his and Odette's project within the film refers reflexively

to

Comment ca va itself: 'Partir d'une" image, d'une seule, comme la science part des

110

atomes, pour voir comment ca bouge, comment ca tient tout ca.' Similarly, in Id et
ailleurs, cinematic defilement is dissected and reconstituted as nothing but a series of
isolated images that come-up behind one- another; tap each other on the- shoulder, and
oust those which precede them: the actors queue up, adopt their given position in the
file
chain,
and
past. As Godard/Mieville
cinematographic

focus on the transmission of

a single image in the media, so they enact an identical reflection on the cinema via the
reduction of the latter to a chain of photogrammes; a cinema, which, as Raymond
Bellour

has suggested, in the context of

multiplication

a world-space

circumscribed

by the

"
imagery,
defilement'.
'ne
faire
of media
peut plus
corps avec son

3.3.4 Information and-the flow of capital

A key yardstick againstwhich all the above circuits and flows of information are
measured is the flow of capital. Or, it might be-more-precise to say that the very lack
of information, the index of conventionality in its message, is repeatedly ascribed to the
presence and role of money. A distinctive facet of Godard/Mieville's

information
of
use

theory as a communications model is the location of the direction of the flow of money
in relation to the quantity (or lack) of information conveyed: '...il ya un troisieme t@rme
1'argent...
Et
1'activite
de Sonimage, avec Mieville, ca a ete de chercher ce
toute
est
qui
troisieme terme. i45 The logic to this tactic, with its emphasis on the primacy of
directly
derives
from a Marxist schema
divisions of
that
economics,
contends
-which
class, labour, and the sexes are reinforced and exacerbated through the regulated flow
of capital.

The Sonimage- analysis of the-press; media, and journalism turns on this

location of the flow of money, as in the virulent

forces
the
economic
critique of

determining the photograph of the Dacca- stadium- massacre in Photos et cie, and the
demonstration of the dependence of ostensibly

left-wing

journalism

(Le Nouvel

Observateur) on advertising which ends the same programme. Their critique is distilled
in dense form into Mieville's'poem'

on the role of journalists in reporting, transmitting,

or obscuring information in Photos et cie:

Profession reporter. Recevoir de 1'argent pour donner une information. Donner
une information et recevoir de I'argent. Les professionels de 1'information. La
radio, la presse, la television.
L'antenne, le telex, la flash. Donner des
111

des
evenements.
Dire ce qui se
Pour
Etre
rapporter
paye pour ca.
nouvelles.
de
de
des
Des
le

Donner
tout
nouvelles
qui,
quoi,
nouvelles.
monde
passe.
des
Traces.
Les
Enregistrer
traces.
qui.
contre
pour qui, pourquoi, contre quoi,
traces d'evenements auxquels -on -ne touche- pas. Etre paye pour ca. Etre un
professionel. Ni produire, ni consommer. Seulement enregistrer, seulement
d'autres
de
la
bruits
lumiere
Des
et consommes par
par
produits
et
stocker.
d'autres. Radio, presse, television. Courir aux quatre coins du monde. Coller
de
Etre
evenements.
etre-paye
Etre
professioncl
ca.
un
pour
paye-pour ca,
aux
la photo, de la radio, de la television. Etre un professionel. a6

Sonimage'saim is-to slow dawn-such exchanges,and to pin-point the moment

information
be
from
to
potentially meaningful to
can
seen
and
shown
mutate
at which
flow
theof money.
redundant vis-a-vis

Unsurprisingly,

is
in
this
respect
advertising.
prominence

an area accorded particular

As an unequivocal example of a circuit

designed to maximize demand on the simple basis- of financial return, advertising

from
(in
the
example
potent
of
and
convergence of money
constitutes a

the

is
desire--(for
Godard/Mieville,
For
the-object).
circuit
such a
advertisement) and
dissected
information,
to
with
any notion of genuine
and advertisements are
contrary
facets
of
presented-asrespect,
static
perverse
microcosms-of-the most numbing
minimal
"
information
in
Sonimage
flow
that
the
society.
of
money
suggest, ultimately,
capitalist
(such
as the writing
circuits

in
is
distributioncritical
andof a newspaper article)

determining the ultimate communicative power of any resultant 'message': weighing the
flow of capital against the -flow of information, they argue that at a given level in all
information
information,
direction
the
the
evacuates
quantity and
of capital
exchanges of
it
communicative
power,
genuine
all
renderingvacuous and meaningless.
of

3.3.5

Myth in the media

Sonimage'scritique of the-media operatessimultaneouslythrough their focus on

the repetition

of forms internal to the individual

in
the guise of cliche,
media

image/legende
(of
formal
layout
a newspaper page or
relations,
conventional
and
television programme, for instance). There is, in particular, a sustained critique of the
constitutive role of language in the-media

in constructing information,

a constant

Godard's
from
illustrated
in
his
the
through
of
preoccupation
early
succinctly
work,
inclusion of Jean Domarchi's radio commentary to a football match in Une Femme est

112

femme
(in which he describes a certain pass in typically excessive terms: 'L'est du
une
Sonimage take for granted that. the social, political,

Shakespeare!').

and economic

context to all institutions involved in information gathering and dissemination inflects

the- choice of what is reported and how.
sociolinguistic

Like Roger Fowler, who has argued from a

perspective (and so assuming a direct causal relationship between

cognition and semantic structure)- that news, in its use of language, does not simply
but
constructively patterns that of which it speaks, Godard/Mieville
reflect,

focus

primarily on the role -of language- less-irr representing events, than in producing them
through the imposition of partial and motivated values. 48

Sonimage'scritique of language-inthe media is conductedthrough an assaulton

hollow
of
embodiment
as
repetition, the antithesis of genuine communication and
cliche
of its assumed corollary, active-co-creation: In his- opening monologue to Numero deux,
Godard parodies the romanesque cliche of Paris Match in his description of Georges de
Beauregard's visit to-Grenoble--for- preparatory- discussions around the film's production,
mimicing the terms of such description. Jean-Luc develops the critique, suggesting that
language
ossifies-into-stock phrases-(slogans or 'legendes'), it loses communicative
once
power, whilst taking on an existence of its own in the collective psyche (the examples
given by Godard are the- phrases-'Il- se cache-derriereses lunettes- noires', Tromo4voir
le court-metrage', and 'une tragique erreur... en quoi ce serait tragique, une erreur? ').
Cliche is treated as omnipresent in blocked information
maintenance of phatic circuits.

flows, and central to the

As Godard laments, again in Jean-Luc, journalists

reproduce conventional orthodoxy in-terms of cliche. If journalists were to really Work,

he suggests, their first job would be an autocritique of the static chain in which they are
implicated: 'On fait meme pas-un-article-sur-le cliche! '
Language in the media constitutes one major locus of criticism.

Another is

image/language/sound
images
in
the
of
which
conventional
relations; especially
context
are rarely permitted to signify unaccompanied by linguistic interpretation (directives to
the images, as Walter Benjamin put it49). As Godard/Mieville

counter the voice-off

which asks 'Ben, ca va dire quelque chose, une photo sans texte?' in Comment ca va,
'Oui, il ya

rien de plus facile'.

simply to signify.

Images in the press, it is argued, are never allowed

On the contrary, they are situated and explained in a way that

inherently denigrates their potential to carry meaning visually, always underwritten by

legende
which circumscribes and motivates them.
a

113

A major strand of the multiple

arguments developed in Letter to Jane is that the legende accompanying Fopda's

photograph in Hanoi published in L'Express not only blocks off what is really visible
in the image (precisely what--Godard- and- Gorin- proceed to elaborate at length on the
50
but
it
lies:
listening,
is
interrogating.
Fonda
The opening
that
soundtrack),
not
sequence of Photos et cie operates-around-a partial- appropriation and 'rewiring' of the
legendes accompanying the successive camera advertisements. This short-circuiting of
discourses
through intellectual graffiti obliges them to signify in ways gften
pre-existent
totally opposed to that originally
detournement (familiar-from

intended.

Reminiscent of the tactics of derive and

Dada, Surrealism- and Situationism), such 'rewiring'

of

image-language relations constitutes a sustained tactic from Le Gai savoir to the end of
the Sonimage period, causing Raymond Durgnat (never Godard's greatest admirer) to
suggest that 'After Anonymous, Godard is surely one of the great graffiti writers of all
time. '5'

A prime example-of this- critique-of the-denigration of the power of the image

in the media is the special edition of Les Cahiers du Cinema edited by Godard in 1979.
Here, images are deliberately left unexplained, or subjected to a variety of altered
image/text relations. The conventional magazine format of texts illustrated by images
with legendes (or production stills-- and frame- enlargements in the case of film
journalism) is parodied in the sporadic insertion of blank boxes containing simply the
habituelle'.
'illustration
On-the other-hand,the-arbitrary choice and use of images
words
to illustrate news articles is also repeatedly dissected as a potent mecanism whereby
artificial relations are reproduced-as-natural:
Les photos de journaux me frappent beaucoup. Elles sont sans rapport avec le
texte. On en arrive -des-trucs-absolumentinvraisemblables comme d'illustrer
52
la
dun
dirigeant.
C'est
totalement
abstrait.
un article sur un pays par tete
Similarly, in 'documentary' news-items'on television, the image-is reducedto the
illustration
of an explicative authoritative text in the guise of the voice of the
of
status
reporter or presenter. Sonimage'swork, and France tour in particular, playfully subverts
and stretches such conventional image/sound relations, tirelessly questioning the
assumptionswhereby television news and documentaries formulate and express their
'information'. The obliqueness of Sonimage's voice-offs, for instance, set up an
image/sound dialectic, a process of questioning which challenges the illusion of
114

transparency repeated in 'natural' mainstream voice-overrmage relations. An exemplary

is
instance of the deliberate (and humorous)
of
such
apart
comfortable
relations
-prising
in France tour 8: Albert, reading off over an image of cars streaming along a motorway,
suddenly announces, 'Ah non, c'est pas ca, je me- trompe de texte', subsequently
embarking on a completely different (and no less cryptic) 'explanation'.

Amongst the 'crimes' in information, as formulated by Godard/Mieville, is the

in
those
the
all
media circuits of convention
who produce and consume
acquiesenceof
fixed
identical
forms,
the
through
a
ceaselessreproducerel4tion
production-of
which,
between ici and ailleurs, between that which is depicted and those who consumethose
is
identify
beneath
This
'chain'
Sonimage
the
theunderlying
which
representations.
successivecircuits oulined above, and the coordinates of which they relentlessly seek
to cast in relief, whilst simultaneously-counteringthe received relations implicit in- such
a contract in their own practice.

3.4

CONCLUSION

The direct context of the Sonimagework, which directly influences the project's
logic,
is the neglected field of Godard's involvement with the radical
motivation and
beginning
has
This-chapter
the
to
this
the-1970s.
at
retrieve
sought
press
of
gauchiste
in
his
being
intuitive
the
which
earlier
work
as
one
we
see many of
period
concerns of
in
As
directlyheralds,
Sonimage's
the
press.
a
way
whichof
analysis
systematised
in
light,
Sonimage
Six
fois
deux
this
the
entire
can,
work, and
especially,
suggested,
justifiably

be read as journalism: practical- attempts to reformulate the-very concept of

journalism, and the premises on which it rests, whilst simultaneously delivering actual
alternative news.

The critique of journalism, and especially the consistent damning of journalists,

constitutes the most virulent strand of Godard/Mieville's tour through communication
did
As
driving
facet
the
their
noted
above,
not pass
this
vitriolpolemic
processes.
of
level
The
journalism
the
critique
of
unnoticed.
of
contains real violence, mirroring at
the Sonimageproject much of the textual violence (disjunctions, fragmentation, and the
appropriation and manipulation of pre-existent discourses,for instance)through which
it is articulated. It is important to note that Godard/Mieville insist on reserving the right
115

to such violence at both textual and discursive levels. Godard/Mieville's entire project
is insistently intuitive and mercurial, as heterogeneousin appearanceand substanceas
it is violent and unpredictable. But, once-this impression of volatility has been
acknowledged,and the importance of anti-teleological thought and non-linear leaps in
Sonimage's arguments recognised, we- see-that unsustainableposturing and extremist
prises de position cannot simply be brushed aside as provocative whimsy. The fullfrontal assaulton journalists in this respectis exemplary: what appearsnothing less than
an obsessivegrudge, derives from an analysis of the position and activity (or absence
thereof) of journalists in the circuit of news production and consumption. The critique
is underscored,indeed perhapseven generated,by the location of journalists at a crucial
in
information:
the
circulation
of
point
mediators betweenreality and the public. On the
other hand, the very violence of Godard/Mieville's position in relation to journalists
tends to render it one of the-least-developedfacets of their critique of communication:
denunciation
tends to close off any further elaboration. Furthermore, their
repeated
journalism
of
remains-ata-basic-level, turning, as this chapterhas demonstrated,
critique
handful
of obsessiverefrains more than any sustainedor elaboratedargument. If
a
on
it numbers amongst the-most instantly amusing and, simultaneously,least developed,of
the Sonimageproject, it neverthelessexists, and constitutes a central componentof their
analysis of communication.

116

Chapter 4

On communication
4.1

INTRODUCTION

Je crois que la seule chose qui existe au monde, c'est la communication. Je ne

je
j'existe,
je
tu
crois que nous sommes
pas
que
ne
crois
existes,
crois
pas que
formes
de
de
qui passent entre nous.
moment
materialise
mouvements,
un
(Godard,1982)1
This thesis has argued that the Sonimage work

constitutes a project on

interrogating
'communication',
one
of
a
succession
aspects
of related
communication,
foremost amongst them being television and the press. As the final two chapters will
focus
is
the slippery terrain of human language.
show, another

This chapter will

demonstrate that, in addition to these concerns, the Sonimage work focuses on

in
processes
realms where the term 'communication' would traditionally
communication
be refused, and that the project is underwritten by a co-present theory of communication.
My aim, therefore, is to explore the logic on which this theory of communication
its
constituent terms and assumptions.
examining
resides,

Rather than beginning with an exposition of Godard/Mieville's theory, and then

tracing its implications from theory to practice, I propose to demonstrate through an
logical
Sonimage
dissection
theoretical
that
the
a
of communication processes
analysis of
by
identified
be
in
beneath
Working
shaped
texts.
a context
each of the
position may
Structuralist theory, Godard/Mieville
its
principal
appropriate

refuse the linguistic

basis of the model, but

be
life
read as
can
contention that all aspects of social

interpretation
broad
(and
Weaver's
Warren
of
so
converge
closely with
communication
discussed
in
Chapter
2). The Structuralist projection thus accompanies,
communication
isolate
Sonimage's
is
information
to
to,
theory
total
and
anathema
use of video and
yet
break down communication processes ('ralentir, se decomposer', as the introductory
refrain to each episode of France tour puts it).

This chapter begins, therefore, with an analysis of the use of video as

ethnological research tool in the Sonimage project, continues with an exploration of

117

Godard/Mieville's

concern for the exchanges between things and people, and proceeds

to chart the coordinates of a'Sonimage communication theory'. Finally, it will consider

how the sites of blockage identified

within information

flows are elided, thereby

constituting the principal thematic loci of the Sonimage work, all reflexively embodied
in the figure of the body.

'ENTREVOIR':

4.2

Entrevoir,

THE

puisqu'on

USE OF VIDEO

AS VISUAL

RESEARCH

TOOL

(Godard to the journalist in Pas d'histoire)

est entre.

The visual emphasisto the Sonimagework, so valued by Godard/Mieville, hinges

into
The
the
the
truth,
conjunction
of
video.
condensed
use
of video,
on
and
visual are
imagery repeated across France tour. the'R' of VERITErings either Camille's or Arnaud's
eye.

Philippe

Godard/Mieville's

Dubois's

notion

of

video-scalpel

(through

which

he invokes

use of video to carve up the cinema) could well be extended to

Sonimage's dissection of all processes of communication and exchange.' Video allows

Godard/Mieville to conduct visual research into phenomena which, as they demonstrate
demand
to be analysed visually.
eloquently,

In an era of unprecedented quantities of

images, they suggest that very little genuine audio-visual research is being conducted (on
for
instance).
dominant
On
by
Sonimage
the
the
that
television,
social
contrary,
argue
or
is
less
image
the
exploratory or revelatory, than one premised on political
use of
in
Jean-Luc
function
is
denunciation.
Godard
principal
suggests
and
whose
surveillance,
that nine-tenths of photographs in newspapers are simply head-and-shoulders shots of
derivative,
being
its
identified
denounced:
(and
those who are
principal
and
photography
television news) constitutes a means of manipulation

identify
(to
those
and control

from
been
State),
have
dangerous
to
the
that
removed
or
as
proof
opposed
agitators
killed).
(incarcerated
or
society

This thesis is illustrated in Photos et cie in a schematic

between
inherent
in
innocence
(figured
the
a postcard of
opposition
of photography
flowers)

and the ideological

abuse which results from its appropriation

by, and

d'une
fleur.
interests:
'La
to,
economic
celle
subordination
premiere photo prise, c'etait
La premiere photo publiee, c'etait celle des communards fusilles. i3
118

The primacy accordedthe image in the Sonimagework carries with it an inherent

distrust of language:
Je pense que c'est l que ca se gate dans la science parce que ce sont des gens
qui ont vu, qui ont pratique et ensuite qui disent et qui 1'expriment sous une
forme litteraire, et l'avance qu'ils ont prise ou la realite qu'ils ont vue avec leurs
ils
la
il
quand
redecrivent
apres,
ya quelque chose qui se passe et c'est
yeux,
"
completement change...

In the context of this insistence on the use of audio-visual technology to analyse

inherently visible and visual aspectsof experience,one should recall Godard'spolemical
de
Systeme
la
Barthes's
Mode,
its
dry
theoretical taxonomy
attacking
of
not
only
critique
(divorced from the vitality of fashion itself), but its conception as a linguistic critique
'
fashion
Indeed,
book
ignored
its
intrinsically
fashion,
about
nature.
a
which
visual
of
Godard's self-contained video short for fashion house Marithe et Francois Girbaud, On
image/sound
be
defile,
belated
Barthes;
to
tous
can read as a
an
audio-visual riposte
s'est
illustration of this critique. Video allows Godard/Mieville to conduct quasi-scientific
in
in
leave
to
that
the
traces
a
visual
medium,
visual terms.
and
project
of
work
Video is employed as both telescopeand microscope, as medium through which
to explore and break down the exchanges and interactions of daily life. Etymologically,
Virilio,
has
following
Paul
'I
We
an
unequivocal
meaning:
see'.
might,
video

coin the

term videoscopie to designate the dislocation to perceptual norms ushered in by video,

and expand the notion to cover its appropriation by Godard/Mieville

as 'scientific'

'
designate
Had
'camera-scope'
been
to
the
term
tool.
appropriated
not already
research
the video camcorder, it might have provided the perfect description of Godard/Mieville's
in
'skopeo':
Sonimage
Greek
(from
'scopium'
the
Latin
to
the
and
video
work
relation
to look at). This use of video as a visual research tool is a direct extension of Godard's
long-standing

view

(and practice)

of cinema as a privileged

Twentieth

Century

ethnological research tool via which to register and make visible emergent patterns of
social change:
Pour moi une image de film, c'est une carte de geographie, une boussole, une
ordonnance (mon pere etait medecin)... Du reste la majeure partie du benefice
de Kodak vient des plaques de radiographie. 7
119

Godard has repeatedly reiterated this view that cinema functions as a social X-ray
machine, and an understanding of what it implies is important if one is to appreciate
how video provided the ideal tool through which to consciously carry out audio-visual
'research' for television.

Godard set out his view of the capacity of cinema to register

traces of the imperceptible imminent social shifts in the second voyage of his Montreal
lectures:

J'ai toujours pense que le cinema represente aujourd'hui ce qu'etait un peu la

musique d'autrefois: ca imprime d'avance, ca imprime d'avance des grands
mouvements qui vont se faire. Et c'est en ce sens qu'il montre des maladies
avant. C'est un signe exterieur qui montre les choses, U. C'est un peu anormal.
C'est quelque chose qui va se passer, comme une irruption!

If Godard reads cinema as tracing in visual form the parameters of emergent social
change (a model we might well apply to Godard's own cinema), then the Sonimage
project consciously exploits this capacity for rendering such imperceptible shifts visible
to the human eye through video. Godard/Mieville appropriate video, therefore, as a
medium through which to project information theory onto the social realm so as to
render visible the relations and exchangesbetween people and things, precisely as
Godard summarisedin his short 'poem' on the Sonimageproject in Mozambique, 'Ce qui
"
'Comment
bien
bien/Comment
et mal', and
ca va
ca va mal'.
va

4.3

IMPERCEPTIBLE

FRONTIERS:

THE

FOCUS

ON

RELATIONS

AND

EXCHANGES BETWEEN THINGS AND PEOPLE

On n'a fait que parier de ca, pas de nous, pas de vous.

noun et vOUS. (Avant et apres)

Quelque chose entre

Over and again, both in and around the Sonimage work, Godard insists on the
role of video as that which renders visible, and gives form to, the processes of
interaction and exchangewhich constitute the communication on which daily life turns,
both in institutional terms (television) and personal ones: intimate dialogue and sex (see
Appendix B(iv)). The view of cinema as that which can, and should, materialise the

120

in
heritage
Godard's
between
has
lengthy
critical work and practice.
a
relation
people
In his review of Nicholas Ray's Bitter victory, he identifies the originality of the film in
its focus on the interspacesand relations between discrete objects:
On ne s'interesse plus aux objets, mais a ce qu'il ya entre les objets, et devient
son tour objet. Nicholas Ray nous force regarder comme reel ce que l'on ne
regardait meme pas comme irreel, que l'on ne regardait pas. Amere Victoire
dans
le
de

dessins
Fon
demande
trouver
chasseur
o
aux enfants
ressemble ces
"
de
lignes
de
prime abord sans aucune signification.
un amas
Une Femme est une femme provides a succinct early illustration of this emphasis. As
Angela and Emile argue, time is suspended, and the space between them frozen and
flow
The
between
by
(in
form
them.
the
of
the
unspoken words
of subtitles)
occupied
images is interrupted, and the movement between images spatially embodied.

In

Alphaville, as a voice-off insists on the role of the function '+' in the formula 'one plus
Natasha
back
to
(Eddie
Constantine),
left
Caution
Lemmy
to
and
one', the camera pans
(Anna Karina), a movement self-consciously repeated several times, demarcating the
fois
between
'Une
que
croyons
the
two
nous
them:
connaissons'un',
que
nous
of
relation
deux.
Nous
egale
oublions qu'auparavant,
connaissons'deux',
parce
que
un
plus
un
nous
il faut savoir ce qu'est'plus'. ' Similarly, in Le Gai savoir, reverse angle cutting between
the two characters is eschewed in favour of a self-conscious making of the relation
between them via a pan. A direct link can thus be drawn from Godard's position in the
'en
in
Rene(e)s
that
foregrounding
Sonimage's
Thom's
Rene
assertion
of
mid-1960s to
le
important,
les
de
1'algebre,
plus,
signe
c'est--dire
ce
sont
symboles
ce
qui
est
gros,
le signe egale.'

Talking of his 1964 experiment with cine-verite filmmaker and camera-operator

Albert Maysles in Montparnasse-Levallois,
visualising

Godard again invokes the concept of

through cinema the interspaces rather than the objects:

'Ce qui est

interessant, c'est cette espece de fluidite, c'est d'arriver sentir 1'existence comme une
"'
The
les
fair
importants,
eux.
qui est entre
gens qui sont
c'est
matiere; ce ne sont pas
following year, in Pierrot le fou, he reiterates his insistence on the centrality of this
function of cinema by having Pierrot quote Elie Faure's commentary on Velasquez at the
outset of

the film.

The

image

accompanying

121

Pierrot/Ferdinand's

reading

is,

figure
tennis,
that
a
of
a
of game
of exchange and dialogue repeatedly
appropriately,
returned to by Godard, the trajectory of the ball exemplifying the spaceof the relation
between the two people:
Velasquez apres 50 ans ne peignait plus jamais une chose defnie. Il errait
dans
1'ombre
la
des
fair
le
II
et
surprenait
objets avec
autour
et
crepuscule.
transparence des fonds les palpitations colorees dont il faisait le centre invisible
de sa symphonie silencieuse. Il ne saisissait plus dans le monde que les
echanges mysterieux qui font penetrer les uns dans les autres les formes et les
sons par un progres secret et continu, dont aucun heurt, aucun sursaut ne
denonce ou n'interrompt la marche. 12
This use of cinema to render visible the interspace ('entrevoir') can be traced to
is
key
What
essentially an aesthetic position in Godard's work of the 1960s,
source.
one
in
for
insistence
Sonimage(in
its
the
the
that
position
potential
and a political
work
in
lies
the sum of the imperceptible interspaces and frontier shifts revealed
change
through video), finds its heritage in an Existentialist philosophical worldview: Maurice
Merleau-Ponty's lecture at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques (IdHEC)
in 1945 entitled 'Le Cinema et la Nouvelle Psychologie', a lecture we know to have
impression
13
Godard.
Merleau-Ponty argues here, in terms adopted
an
enduring
on
made
by
Godard,
that the cinema offers the possibility of making visible the
applied
and
between
des
'
faire
du
le
du
lien
du
things,
autres,
voir
sujet
et
relations
monde,
sujet et
" Godard's recurrent reworkings of this principle are essentially
1'expliquer...
'.
de
lieu
au
following
the
of
all applications

passage:

L'aspectdu monde pour nous serait bouleversesi nous reussissions voir comme
les
intervalle$
les
les
1'espace
arbres sur
entre
entre
choses
choses,-par exemple
le boulevard, - et reciproquement comme fond les choses elles-memes,- les
"
boulevard.
du
arbres
In'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936), Walter Benjamin
for
case
cinema as uniquely suited to rendering visible exchanges
a
similar
makes
hitherto imperceptible, pointing specifically to the processes of enlargement and slow
motion. He argued that the cinema had effected a revolution in perception comparable
to Freud's Psychopathology of Everyday Life:

122

This book isolated and made analyzable things which had heretofore floated
in
broad
the
stream of perception. For the entire spectrum of
along unnoticed
optical, and now acoustical, perception the film has brought about a similar
deepeningof apperception. [...] The act of reaching for a lighter or a spoon is
familiar from routine, yet we hardly know what really goeson betweenhand and
metal, not to mention how this fluctuates with our moods. Here the camera
interveneswith the resourcesof its lowerings and liftings, its interpretations and
isolations, its extensionsand accelerations,its enlargementsand reductions. The
camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to
"
impulses.
unconscious
Merleau-Ponty and Benjamin thus identify serious scientific possibilities in cinema;
Godard's work should be seen in the context of this heritage, the Sonimage use of video
seeking to give visual plasticity to the interspaces: 'Moi je pense que ce qui existe c'est
"
entre'.

The embodiment of a movement or relation, the spatial formulation of that

in
Femme
is
Une
flow
images
in
discussed
the
to
elided
usually
of
above
relation
which
femme,
is
intrinsically
est une
slow motion.

easier in video, and underpins Godard/Mieville's

use of

The playground sequence of France tour 6, for example, achieves just

such a plasticity and painterly density in the image (one transposed onto the slow motion
Sauve
that
structure
qui pent (1a vie)).
sequences

Godard/Mieville view all aspectsof reality as processin constant movement, as

in the Post-Structuralist model of society as a fabric of contradiction, and identity as
18
flux
in
If
Post-Structuralism
as
and
process.
split and
presents all experience
interaction, then information theory, funnelled through video, posits reality as open to
deciphering as communication.

Godard's early intuitive desire to implement cinema in

increasingly
form
becomes
between
to
the
that
things
gave
space
a manner
people and
images
depict
it
Sonimage
Structuralist
The
this
converges
with
premise.
politicised as
in
but
transit;
objects,
embodied
and
moments
and
of process, caught
not subjects
dialogue, exchange, interaction, and the work and history that precedes, and is contained
forms
(artistic
of
representation
all
or political).
within,

In the political domain, the implications of this emphasison the boundaries and
between
is
subjects
of
cross-over
and
objects clear: the primacy of political theory
points
Dziga
Vertov
Groupe
is
identifies
in
favour
the
rejected
of a micro-politics which
within
the process of change not in clearly visible processes such as social revolution, but in
the barely perceptible shifts contained within the superficial habits of everyday life.

123

Gilles Deleuze has identified

the centrality of this 'micro-politics

of frontiers' to

Sonimage's project, arguing that the- novelty of this oeuvre is to work on and in these
frontiers in a unique and challenging way:
Je pense que c'est la force de Godard, de vivre et de penser, et de montrer le ET
d'une maniere tres nouvelle, et de le faire operer activement. Le ET, ce n'est ni
l'un ni 1'autre, c'est toujours entre les deux, c'est la frontiere, il ya toujours une
frontiere, une ligne de fuite ou de flux, seulement on ne la voit pas, parce quelle
fuite
les
de
ligne
le
Et
que
choses
c'est pourtant sur cette
est moins perceptible.
but
de
[...
]
Le
les
devenirs
font,
les
s'esquissent.
se
revolutions
se passent,
Godard: voir les frontieres, c'est--dire faire voir l'imperceptible. [... ] Toute
des
la
des
frontieres,
grands
macro-politique
contre
une micro-politique
la
frontiere

l
les
On
choses
se
passent,
sait
au
moins
que
c'est
que
ensembles.
des images et des sons, l o les images deviennent trop pleines et les sons trop
forts. C'est ce que-Godard a fait dans 6fois 2: 6 fois entre les deux, faire passer
19
la
ligne
faire
television.
voir cette
active et creatrice, entrainer avec eile
et
Godard/Mieville

use video to magnify and dissect relations and exchanges at

dissolving
into
in
the circuits of exchange
the
themselves,
social
realm,
via video,
work
in which they are implicated.

In the dialogues with the interviewees in Six fois deux,

for example, the process of exchange. itself is presented, a process in which they have
just as much at stake as their respondents.20 In the Six fois deux interviews, great care
is taken to visually emphasise the process of enunciation, as opposed to a positioned and
interrogated subject.

The interviews

are perhaps better termed conversations: the

interviewer is often partially present through interjections, hands, or even cigarette

hesitations
both
the
and
silences
on
sides of the conversation constitute an
smoke, and
integral component of each finished programme.

As suggested earlier, rather than

in
displaced
imminent
is
the
being
interviewee,
focus
circuit
onto
a
given
meaning
between interviewer, interviewee, and viewer.

The most clearly visible instance of Godard/Mieville's policy of focusing on,

interstices
down,
is
in
the
the three-dimensional embodiment
making
and
visible
slowing
in
Ici
'ET'
the
et ailleurs.
word
of

This same word recurs over and again across the

deux),
fois
Six
Sonimage
(especially
Id
texts
the
visually
et ailleurs and
surface of
Ici
interpreted
later
Godard
title
the
the
true
therein.
of
project
contained
underscoring
'...
le
'Et':
le
Et:
insistant
Ici
titre
as
on
a
vrai
pris
ce
mot
sur
ailleurs
et
et ailleurs en
titre du film c'est Et, ce n'est ni Ici ni Ailleurs, c'est Et, c'est Id et ailleurs c'est--dire
124

in
deux,
he
in
Numero
'21
Earlier,
1975,
to
certain
mouvement.
was already
un
reference
stressingthe centrality of the conjunction 'et' as a microcosm of their work, this time
directly evoking the notion of exchangeas constituting an information channel:
Tout notre travail, c'est d'amplifier le ET: toi ET moi, ici ET ailleurs. Ni
d'une
facon
de
emetteurs,
films
ce
visuelle
comptent
ni
nos
rendent
recepteurs
que peut etre le canal dans une information: Numero deux, c'est Numero un ET
Numero trois. Cest la fois la question du cinema de mon temps et celle du
22
de
demain.
deux
le
Numero
ET.
cinema
est
The relations identified and made visible range across all facets of experience.
In Ya personne, the pillar that cuts the images vertically, violently dividing interviewer
and interviewee, constitutes a particularly overt visual formulation of this interspace (or
information channel), but similar self-reflexive
texts (see Appendix B(i)).

imagery punctuates all the Sonimage

The entirety of Nous trois consists of the relationship

between the prisoner and his lover graphically formalised into the time/space of the
by
'3'
(the
'entre')
for
illusive
the
the
title
term
third
the
sought
of
standing
programme,
Godard/Mieville.

The script synopsis for Nous Irois again presents the problematic, this

time in the form of the literal space of the relationship between a man and a woman
depicted,
followed
by a series of potential readings of what could constitute
graphically
23
from
knowledge.
flow
term,
to a child or a piece of
this third
a current or

Speech is intrinsically cast by Godard/Mieville as working in this interspace

between people (linking

and separating).

Dialogue is used in the Six fois deux

interviews to map the process of communication taking place: 'Parler, c'est quelque
24
Godard/Mieville,
by
the
Similarly,
is
writing
accorded a privileged status
chose entre'.
'Ce
its
its
direct
body,
link
to
analysis:
to the
visual
emergence, and
open
process of
fait
dans
le
d'interessant
ecriture,
dans
la
c'est
que
c'est
cinema ou
qu'il ya
presse, ou en
la
de
de
les
je
traces
pensee, et qui
quelque chose qui est,
pour garder
sais pas, qui est
between
donne
du

the
'
(Jean-Luc)
In
the
relation
corps.
writing,
appartient un moment
Y'a
is
direct:
the
and
production
personne turns on this
action
of
physical
signification
level
Godard's
it
the
own
of the
whilst
video
reflexive
premise,
at
pen graffiti mirrors
works.

His insistence on showing the writing process throughout his earlier work

thereby finds its rationale as a privileged mode of representation in that it exemplifies,

125

in a single image, the emergenceof form together with the trajectory and conditions of
its production.
Many sections of the Sonimage texts can be shown to be made up of nothing but
the production history made concrete, but in a way less overt (and less clumsy) than the
incorporation of scenes of discussions surrounding a film's production into the body of
the film (as, for instance, in the group discussion sequences of Vent d'est). The entire
time/space of the Dacca photograph critique in Photos et cie serves to cast in relief
does
the
that
the
elements
all
photograph
precisely
not reveal or discuss. By insisting
image
the
the
of
on the screen, as Godard and the photographer discuss the
presence
on
political and technical conditions determining it, the sequence serves to embody the
by
brushed
injection
into
the
the media
this
over
unquestioning
of
photograph
relations
(and. so is the culmination of the critique of press reporting of the Portuguese revolution
in Comment ca va):

Ce qui m'interesse vraiment quand je vois cette photo-l, et que je sais qu'elle
a ete faite au Portugal, par quelqu'un qui etait au Portugal, j'aimerais bien qu'il
parle du moment o il 1'a faite, pourquoi il 1'a faite cette photo-l et pas, une
autre.
Similarly, Pas d'histoire is devoted to tracing the emergence of form (in the guise
of a magazine article).

Working backwards from the finished article, Godard asks the

journalist to discuss and demonstrate how he writes, and where the finished article
behind
from.
Again,
is
the
time/space
the
the
relations
of
comes
programme
made up of
finished
before
the
product.
or

Godard/Mieville's

just
is
to reveal
not
concern

inherently
artificial and motivated, but to insist, within their own work,
representation as
finished
by
('essais')
in
the
the
the
as
procedure
presenting
work
practice
on reversing
work.

In the case of Pas d'histoire, this insistence manifests itself very clearly in the

into
(that
is,
before
the
programme
sequential segments which start
zero
at
structure of
minus one) in the realm of pre-production habitually excluded from traditional televsion.
The 'minus one' section reveals the preparatory discussions to the programme, with
Godard's comment to the camera operator several minutes into the programme
humorously marking the time a 'normal' programme might start.

Godard/Mieville's concept of 'entre' straddlesall processesof exchange,bridging

126

the foregrounded pre-production history in their own television programmes, dialogue,

following
Shannon and Weaver, all human
In
other words,
writing, and sexual relations.
behaviour read as communication.

Video and information theory provide the twin tools

through which Sonimage's critique of the interspaces, the imperceptible processes of

communication, operates. If Post-Structuralism provides the backdrop, and video the
Godard/Mieville,
then
means,

besides merely locating channels of information in the

interstices of daily life, seek to home in on, and magnify, sites of blockage. Or, as the
it
Story
The
to
puts rather more obliquely, identify 'O est la pornographie quand
script
25
its
'entre',
Sonimage
isolate
If
the
the
to
pas'.
project
and
magnify
seeks
on ne voit
for
doing
is
identify
to
reason
so
principal

the sites of blockage in the flow of

information, to isolate the very process of their ossification, the process whereby the
history and work of production is obscured as natural. The pair of terms 'o' and 'quand'
desire
indicators
Sonimage
to
the
the
the
texts,
surface
of
of
precisely as
recur across
trace the where and when of blockage in information.

A comparison with the work of Barthes is instructive on this point, or, rather,
(the
in
Barthes's
'Le
Where
Barthes's
thinking.
the
shift
mythe, aujourd'hui'
seminal
with
his
intuitive
to
systematise
attempt

socio-cultural

counter the pervasive mythologising

in
Mythologies)
critiques

seeks to

tendency of bourgeois culture ('aveugler la

fabrication perpetuelle du monde, de le fixer en objet de possession infinie, d'inventorier

de
1'embaumer,
d'injecter
dans le reel quelque essence purifiante qui arretera
son avoir,
fuite
his
d'autres
formes
d'existencei26),
transformation,
sa
subsequent position
vers
sa
denunciation
'il
the
s'est cree une endoxa
of
repetitive
myth
as
counter-productive:
views
devenue
denonciation,
la
la
demystification
demythification)
(ou
elleest
mythologique:
27
intellectual
de
discours,
Barthes's
enonce
'.
corpus
phrases,
catechistique...
meme
Vertov
here
Dziga
Groupe
from
Godard
to
that
the
closely
very
trajectory mirrors
of
Sonimage. 28 Where the former rounds on, and repeatedly berates, received bourgeois
forms,
find
Barthes,
latter
to
the
move
representational
with
and
seeks,
as
we
social
denunciation
from
towards a practice which rationalises, explains, and
repetitive
away
its
information.
in
through
myth/blockage
contextualisation
circuit
of
a
counters

Godard/Mieville's adoption of information theory, and especially its provision of

a circuit through a receiver, sender,message,mode of communication, and interference,
locate
in
the
to
them
the circuit where genuine communication gives way
point(s)
allows
127

to (or collapses into) repetition. They can thus analyse and assesshow it could be
conceived and worked differently. It is the distance from the repeateddenunciation of
static representationby the Groupe Dziga Vertov to the contextualisation of blockage
(and attribution of culpability, as in the polemic againstjournalists) characteristicof the
Sonimage project, which most clearly indicates the gulf between the partisan political
project of the former, and the quest for a progressive route out of the creative and
political paralysis of France in the early 1970sof the latter. As Godard puts it, in terms
that embracea critique of the unproductive repetitive denunciation of 'bourgeois'norms
and representations:'Peu importe aujourd'hui qu'un film dise: Ca va bien ou: ca va
29
film
de
na
aucun
pouvoir, sinon
mal, un
montrer comment ca va.

4.3.1

Doxa doxa doxa

La circulation est bloquee: Il n'y a plus d'espoir. Tout le monde est impatient.
11 ya du bruit et des morts. (Godard, in the scenario to Sauve qui peut (!a vie))3o

If the question 'comment ca va?', how information flows and communication

occurs, provides the principal rationale to the Sonimage project, then the answer must
be 'plutt mal'.

Broadcast television is structured in such a way that it inherently

(see
Chapter 2), as well as simply purveying endless
communication
against
mitigates
froms
('La
tele est une masse amorphe, o rien ne circule, o tout se
conventional
bloquei31). Clearly the forms and codes of classical cinema, what Bresson termed
'caricature', Straub 'pornography', and Godard 'Hollywood-Mosfilm'

(in Made in USA),

function as microcosms of the model of blockage and stasis identified and equated
fascism,
Sonimage
the
project:
across
pornography,

between
the sexes,
relations

impotence, the CGT, PCF, CFDT, PS, the established Left-wing press (exemplified in
be
Observateur),
All
Nouvel
Le
the
might
seen
the
conventional press, and advertising.
'repetition
the
on
morte' identified
variations
as

at the core of all convention and

32
in
identify
doxa
Barthesian
'doxa'.
The
to
the
term
encapsulated
and
quest
orthodoxy,
drives Sonimage's visual dissection of communication processes, and in turn feeds into
the narratives in the guise of structurally interchangeable examples of blockage, all
figuring one another, and all posited as the logical result of endless passive consumption.
128

These equivalences are succinctly caught in Sandrine's (Sandrine Battistella) summary

which frames Numero deux, preparing the ground for the multiple correlations around
blocked flows and passages(of information, desire, and sex): 'Alors ce film qui s'appelle
Numero deux, il montre ca... des choses incroyables, de pres, ordinaires... ce qui fait
chier, et ce qui fait plaisir', or, more simply, the co-ordinates of what she later dubs 'une
folie normale'.

Numero deux is composed around a mire of blocked mediation in multiple

domains: sexual impotence, Sandrine's constipation, her position in society ('toute un
systeme sociale qui vous viole'), Pierre's union militancy (entirely divorced from home
life), his job which involves checking advertising copy for sound systems (1), the
blocked plumbing system, and the latent sexual and psychological conflict in their
relationship which erupts sporadically in physical and sexual violence.

One might

(dubbed
'enfer' in the scenario to Sauve qui peut (1a vie)) to be
such
paralysis
expect
irredeemably turgid.

On the contrary, the pessimism of the subject matter is offset by

the vitality and savagery of the unfolding of the narrative through the unfamiliar ellipses
jumps
of the experimental form.
and

All variations on blockage coalesce in the brutal

anal rape scene whose status oscillates uneasily between the exemplary (as figure) and
the specific (the horror of actual rape, here, now). 33

Doxa takes all these forms, but is figured in its simplest and most insistent
formulation

through the use of frames within

the Sonimage imagery (the severed

in
Photos et cie or Comment ca va, for example).
images
magazine

The rigidity of

is
in
the prison-like
and
extended
up
picked
via
as
recurrent
cadres
visual correlations,
brick
(echoed
by
background
in
Jean-Luc
the
Sonimage
the
evoked
quality
studio
of
journalists'
in
Comment
in
in
the
the
of
the
checks
ca
shirts
and
even
same programme)
in
Nous
denote
trois, and
the
the
to
of
compartmentalisation
screen
paper
squared
va,
even the plastic grill-like

cover to the U-matic VCR which opens each episode of Six

fois deux. So insistently do such grids and frames punctuate the imagery, indeed, that
they come to figure the notion of the 'conventional' in the abstract. Connotations of the
term 'encadre', ranging from 'cadres de vie' to framing, to senses of being hit, assaulted,
by
flanked
soldiers or policeman (under arrest) are consistently evoked to denote
or
blockage.
One such sequence depicting a young beatnik, flanked
and
violence,
rigidity,
by policemen, being arrested (seen, pointedly, via a window frame) in Deux ou trois
129

in
Photos
(through
d'elle
is
je
et
of
a
press
photograph)
use
sais
reenacted
choses que
in
functioning
Sonimage
innocent,
in
Godard's
Frames
the
work as
work are never
cie.

doxa.
interchangeable
the
of
models
structurally
a shorthand summary of all
The repetition in doxa is also figured through arrow imagery: arrows designate
'l,
in
Rene(e)s
Godard
When
that
says
contradiction, and so movement and process.
il y plein de sens l-dedans... on voit des fleches qui wont dans tous les sens...', he
overtly

correlates multiplicity

communicative power.

and difference

with

contradiction

and potential

On the other hand, single arrows denote the monologue, and

designate unidirection and repetition (with constant cross-overs activated via the dual
into
is
distilled
direction),
iconography
the
'sens'
that
succinctly
meaning
and
as
of
sense
French
the
the
public within the repetitious
of
envelopment
of
presentation
graphic
'FRY
in
'A2'
Rene(e)s.
'TF1',
television
are pitted opposite'les
grid
of
and
programming
Francais; the video pen etches a single great arrow towards and over 'les Francais',
finally obliterating them altogether, as Thom's voice on the soundtrack argues that 'il n'y
energie
d'une
degradation
emission
potentielle
sans plier quelque chose comme
a pas
3a
(see
Appendix
A(ii)).
preexistante'

4.4

POLITICAL

BLOCKAGE:

POLITICAL

REPRESENTATION

AS THEATRE

The Groupe Dziga Vertov and Sonimage work are both shot through with the
denote
to
'representation'
Post-Structuralist)
Structuralist (and
extension of the notion of
ideologically motivated representation in all spheres, including (especially) the political.
blocked,
the
democracy
is
and
The infrastructure of parliamentary
static
as
posited
(usually
by
Left
PCF)
complicit
dissent
and
the
the
mirroring,
on
embodied
of
passages
Gorin
Godard
Towards
Jane,
blockage.
Letter
offer
a
the
and
to
this
end
of
with,
succinct summary of this equation:
Il faudra poser par la meme occasion la question du delegue, la question de la
il
[...
]
Bref,
Qui
y en a qui
represente quoi, et comment?
representation.
35
les
des
Ce
des
d'autres
memes.
sont
aspirateurs, et
aspirations.
representent

130

One of the monitors in Numero deux framing Godard during his indirect monologue,that
of uninterrupted red visual noise, sets up this overbearing stasis on the Left as a major
film.
Such a use of the red screenas one in a seriesof elisions
to
the
pole of reference
is
its
blockage/stasis
in
its
to
particularly
of
poignant
self-consciousreference
use in the
Groupe Dziga Vertov work, where it embodiesthe correct line of political theory (as in
the red flag held aloft by Godard's arm at the-end of British sounds,or the red frames
that punctuate Ventd'est). Just asthe Sonimagework revisesthe Groupe Dziga Vertov's
blocked
of
mythical forms in terms of a contextualisation and
condemnation
how
demonstrate
it
the
to
of
where
and
such
perversion
occurs,
so
attempts
visualisation
stasis of political representation through the revelation of the political process as
image
directly
function
to
the
consumable
a
of the media.
spectacle,
analogous
In Ici et ailleurs, Godard/Mieville - turn a sequence from Jusqu'ir la victoire
(depicting a meeting of El Fatah) into a critique of what the image actually reveals in
the light of the September massacres: the distance separating the delegate from the
loin
As
Mieville
le
'Celui
tout
seul, et
comments,
people.
peuple parle
qui represente
du peuple.

Comme toujours, le theatre.

As opposed to a genuine process of

Sonimage
image
Just
the
theatre.
as
reveals
a structure of mechanical
representation,
foreground
in
blockage
in
information
the
to
to
they
relief
cast
seek
seek
circuits, so
mechanistics of this theatre, this charade of representation masquerading as mediation.
'Theatre' is appropriated and applied in extremely negative terms as a recurrent figure
36
in
formulated
Ici
is
Sonimage
It
throughout
the
et
communication
phatic
of
work.
in
instance,
for
Godard
terms
of
and Gorin's manipulation of the young
ailleurs,
Palestinian intellectual who has agreed to play a pregnant woman in Jusqu' la victoire,
bombed-out
in
Mahmoud
Darwish
the
the
the
child's recitation of
poem amongst
and
first
interests
is
Mieville
in
that
the
to
argues
such theatre was
step
reveal
whose
ruins.
de
forme
(the
'Elle
innocente,
theatre
girl) est
set up and operates:
mais peut-etre cette
1'est moins'.
Photos et cie returns to the same critique, emphasising the theatre inherent in
halls
layout
the
the
emphasis
a
visual
on
and auditoriums used
via
of
conference
politics
for political meetings, on the use of podiums, and the notion of 'performance' on the part
of the political or union representative. Crucially, political representation is posited not
only as inherently theatrical, but complicit with the blockage exemplified in the media.
131,

When the Sonimage camera turns to confront the press 'barrier', Marchais is in the
process of addressing both the media and a packed partisan conference hall on the
how
in
bias
PCF,
television
to
the
and
relation
and censorship
subject of press
exaccerbates the divorce of the public from the realities of their everyday lives. What
Sonimage reveal, rather, is a complicity between Marchais and the media. As Godard
relates in Jean-Luc, the text of Marchais's speech had already been written

and

published, rendering his performance on the podium a re-enactment or charade, and so

dismissals
the
recurrent
of political representation throughout the Sonimage
sanctioning
work as 'repetition':

a repetitive theatrical rehearsal, entirely opposed to genuine

communication. Godard summarised this dual assault on (and equation of) the PCF and
the mainstream media in a 1975 interview, 'L'exemple type pour moi, c'est le P.C. dans
le cinema ou la television', an ossified form of representation going through the motions
in and for a blocked information circuit (broadcast television). "

Marchais's address is

38
by
Mieville's
il
'Il
trompe'.
punctuated and countered
urgent voice-off of
se trompe, se
This same event is again criticised in Pas d'histoire,

incorporates
television
which

footage of elements of Marchais's speech denouncing the media, his words turned back
against him on this occasion by the presence of subtitles (underscoring once again what
he is saying as sheer repetition).

The notion of theatre is also,applied to the artifice of the pro-filmic itself, reality
determinants.
held
in
by
constructed,
semiotically
and
as
place
economic and political
Such notions permeate Godard's films of the- 1960s: '11n'y a qua le theatre dans la vie',
formulation
in
has
in
Paul
Comolli
Vivre
Jean-Louis
an
early
pointed out
says
as
sa vie.
that the term 'pro-filmic'

itself requires- careful handling, suggesting as it does a pre-

existant natural reality waiting to be captured by the technology of the camera and sound
least
inherently
than
at
partially
coded, mediated via technology, and
recording, rather
"
by
filming
itself.
the
In the Sonimage work, the notion of reality as
act of
constituted
is
developed
in
demonstrate
direction,
that the pro-filmic
to
a
edifice
particular
semiotic
is often actively staged for

the media, a direct result of the proliferation

demand
for, the media.
accompanying

of, and

Already in Letter to Jane, Jane Fonda is

repeatedly referred to as 'directed' (mise en scene) by the North Vietnamese for the
cameras of the world's press. Sonimage's concern for emphasising the 'distances' (or
mediations) washed over in mainstream representation take them a step beyond this
132

is
'reality'
demonstrate
that
to
only
not
a coded artifice, but one
semiotic position
frequently constructed and set up for the media: it is, with no trace of metaphor, theatre.
The Dacca stadium massacre photograph is potently exploited to make the point that the
events depicted were played out first

and foremost for the media.

The mass

demonstration celebrating the retreat of the Indian army into Pakistan at the end of the
Bangladesh war, an event which served as pretext to atrial'

(which, in turn, deteriorated

into the beating and execution of Bahari collaborators), was deliberately orchestrated as
a media event to be played out in front of representatives of the world's press.
Godard/Mieville's

choice of photograph is poignant and emotive, since the role of the

press is literally fatal (although it also doubtless reflects the photograph's enormous
40
commercial success). The photograph was staged for circulation throughout the world,
both
dramatic
by
lengthy
temporal
underscored
the
scene
en
and
mise
undermined
a
and
by
Sonimage on the photograph.
en
scene
mise
enacted
spatial
and

4.4.1

The political

demonstration- as paradigm

of phatic communication

She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all
occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image
of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting
identical syllables in unison. (Milan Kundera,The UnbearableLightnessof Being)41

Une manif? Combien il y en a eu depuis Chicago et Potemkin? (Albert Dray in

France tour 11)

Godard/Mieville view phatic circuits- as omnipresent and central to received

fixed,
the subject as whole and discrete, and representation as
reality
as
of
conceptions
'natural'.

As such, their position brushes aside objections that phatic communication

(saying 'hello' in the street, for instance) serves a useful function in strengthening social
relationships and reaffirming

social cohesion. Their critique of phatic communication

feeds into, and is figured by, the political march or demonstration as unequivocal form
of political 'theatre'. The repetitive gestures and chants of participants, and the visual
evidence of the unidirectional

channel of the march, are directly equated with its

flow
the
corollary,
repetitive
structural
of television, and other equivalent models of

133

blockage (the PCF, the print media, and so on).

In appearing to communicate

everything easily, all such phatic forms are deemed to communicate nothing, and clearly
lie at the opposite end of the information spectrum from the entropic forms favoured by
Godard/Mieville.

Correlations between phatic forms, and the inter-discursive slippages

they allow, are clearly established on the multiple monitors at the beginning of Numero
deux. The disparate, but structurally interchangeable, models all function along the lines
of the 'defile traditionel du 1er mai' (led by representatives of the CGT, CFDT, PS and
PCF): 'Des gens qui passent. Quelque chose qui ne passe pas', as Dray expresses it in
France tour 11). The march and television stand accused by Sonimage of failing to
information
form
is
nothing
changes,
no
communicate:
new
created, and no genuine new
is transmitted or communicated.
Underpinning Sonimage's position is a principle: when the desire to communicate

form
to
transform
and content, it can no longer be described as communication.
ceases
It is, rather, simply cliche-or stereotype,repetition which simply reinstatesthe subject
in a position divorced from the processof communication. As Colin MacCabesuggests,
'The lessonsof the television programmes are unequivocal: once meaning has become
fully social it ceases to be communication but becomes a repetition that binds us
42
in
our solitude'. The logical conclusion of this position, as MacCabe
unknowingly
is
observes, the profoundly pessimistic recognition that nobody would have anything to
communicate to one another other than the constant statementof the limitations of the
forms via which we articulate them.
Sonimage return repeatedly to a critique of the demonstration, but it is first
de
in
in
Lecons
choses
a vision-mixed reflection on the protest of the sailors
elaborated
Sonimage
battleship
Potemkin.
This
is
texts;
the
the
to
of
sequence
central
a
reading
of
for
6
11,
it,
(in
France
demonstration
tour
the
and
repeated analyses of the
without
instance) as archetypal stasis would be ungrounded. What is more, the degree to which
it continues as a constant throughout Godard and Mieville's

work of the 1980s is

illustrated by its reappearance in Soft and hard (1985) in virtually

unaltered form.

Godard/Mieville's point is that the sailors' decision to enter Odessa in 1905 to bury one
dead
their
comrades was the embodiment of a desire for genuine communication, not
of
the reenactment of a mere social form, the protest demonstration.
'They were communicating.

As Godard puts it:

They were trying to put something into something else.

134

Which may be the real method for revolution but they did not think of themselves in the
demonstrating,
v43
Or,
They
MacCabe
they
represented.
as
suggests,
were
were
not
way
done,
had
demonstration.
'44
They
to
they
communicate
needed
and in
what
going on a
the process invented the form of the demonstration, a process quite different from
in
a recognised and socially sanctioned ritual of dissent.
participating
Sonimage trace the divergence of sound emanating from apparently similar
in
by
lips
is
in
the
this
the
out
case
shape
made
of
crying
pain
a woman who
gestures,
having been shot, and the repetitious chant of political

slogans in the organised

demonstration. Beneath the proximity of gesture lies a divergence of desire and intent;
the distance between the urgent need to express and communicate an event and the
labour
of
power. This tracing of facial and gestural correlations, which
show
calculated
divergences
in
is
behind
the central
the
the
such
wide
realities
representations,
obscure
tactic employed in Comment ca va in the comparison of two press photographs, one
from the Portuguese revolution, the other a political demonstration. The anguish on the
face of the Portuguese protester encapsulates the urgency of genuine communication,
that on the face of the French militant is merely its echo, an attempt to mimic such
desire. In the Potemkin manifestation, as Godard puts it in voice-off in Lecons de
ils
'ils
de
envie...
avaient
avaient
enviecommuniquer'.
choses,

They were attempting,

had
importance
Gorin
do
justice
bien,
Tout
Jean-Pierre
to
the
to
of their
said
of
va
as
des

invention
forms
('faire
the
through
contenus
correspondre
of new
subject matter
formes
des
nouvelles qui expriment la nouveaute de ces contenusi41)
nouveaux

It should be noted that Sonimage'sposition is not politically blinkered vis--vis

the essentialrole of the demonstration in protest and dissent. Indeed, underlying each
is
invisibility
literal
the
of those
the
critique
a
reflection
on marginality,
reworking of
from
those
of
the
mainstream
representation,
marginalisation
and
redoubled
excluded
for
in
demonstration,
(via
the
example)
creating
and
articulating a voice
who succeed
by the way such forms are picked up by, and couched within, televisual terms.
Raymond Williams notes that those who seekto become real, that is visible, by gaining
demonstration,
inevitably
forms
being
face
of
a
the
such
of
problem
media coverage
depicted as chaotic and potentially threatening:
But there is then an obvious contrast, of a structural kind, betweenthe apparently
135

discussion
the
arranged
studio
and the apparently
reasoned responses of
unreasoned,merely demonstrative,responsesof the arrangedand marginal visual
event. This is in its turn often mediated as a contrast between serious informed
46
responsesand emotional simplifying responses.
In a similar vein, Godard has long insisted that broadcast television simply reiterates and
reinstates the voice of those already represented ('La television appuie toujours le
'),
formulated
in
Gai
il
l
i
Le
savoir to the sounds of
already
o
est.
a
view
pouvoir
in
(Jean-Pierre
Leaud)
demonstration,
Rousseau
Emile
radio reports of a
crowds chanting
donc,
'Dis
on comprend pas tres bien', to which Patricia Lumumba
says
'Evidemment.

replies

Its, ils parlent en desordre'. If Sonimage reject the demonstration in

theory, and indeed exploit it repeatedly as a figure of phatic convention, it must be

function
its
is
that
above all exemplary, a model of socialised representation
recognised
far removed from true communication.

It thus embodies the antithesis of an ideal form

but
nevertheless- allows that, given the socio-political
of communication,

context in

demonstration
it
is
the
operates,
often the only option open to those groups
which
into
entry-point
an
representation/television.
requiring

Communication requires a processof exchangeand transformation, a prerequisite

for which is a desire to express something to someone else.

The letter, already

discussed as Sonimage's blueprint of an overall communications circuit, figures the

investment of desire in the communication process, a missive envisaged for (addressed
"'
to) someone. This thesis, enacted in Nous trois, is later openly formulated by Godard
by
(the
here
'art'
d'image.
Changer
in
All
Mieville
true communication, represented
and
love:
desire,
is
is
of
the embodiment of a specific expression of
writing)
example given
Effectivement, il y avait cette-We de-...enfin, tout texte... c'est--dire, tout texte
la
bien-aimee
la

Revolution,
ca soit une
texte
ca
soit
un
quelque
que
est
part...
femme, un homme, tout texte- peut etre considere comme... comme un texte a la
bien-aimee... que ca soit saint Therese Davila, ou que ca soit... Marx et Engels...
49

la
bien-aimee...
texte
un
c'est

Sonimage's position vis--vis the political demonstration has been widely

(the
for
ignoring
the
of
communication
positive
aspects of phatic circuits
criticised
belonging),
identity
the
stereotype,
and
of
and
and
conferring of a senseof
pleasures
denying
potential access to a political voice by those marginalised or
apparently
136

excluded from established channels of representation, notably

television.

Colin

MacCabe's extended reflections on Sonimage's critique of the political demonstration

forms
this
that
on
point,
such
as stereotypical risks
arguing
rejecting
appears ambivalent
wholesale rejection of political

50
It is noteworthy, however, that he later
struggle.

modifies his opinion of Sonimage's critique

of the Potemkin demonstration (and

demonstrations generally), preferring to view Godard's position in terms of a 'truly

radical aesthetic' rather than political pessimisms'

Sonimage'sposition is provocative and seductive: real communication involves

the transformation and revolution of sender,form/content, and receiver. Such a view,
taken to its logical conclusion, runs the risk of overly indulging the indecipherable
idiolect
(in which any formulation is unique, but comprehensibleonly to
the
garble of
its originator). One of the Liberation journalists, exasperated,points this out in JeanLuc ('tu as toujours un projet qui me parait tout--fait impossible'), a criticism entirely
ignored by Godard. What one must recognise,however, is the exploitation of this model
as a provocative position from which to criticise conventional communication. If
impracticable as a generalrule-in a media-circumscribedconsumer-capitalistsociety, the
idealised communications model insisted on by Godard/Mieville establishesa potent
paradigm of what real communication might be.

This is quite different from a

is,
demonstration.
It
television,
the
rejection
of
rather,
wholesale
politics, or
political
deliberately
overstatedposition, one which clearsthe way for the analysesand virulent
a
critiques of phatic communication which grow from it.

4.4.2

Pornography/anality:

the body-as-figure

Pour moi, pour moi, la sexualite c'est d'abord la peau. (...) Je crois qu'il peut y
de...
qu'il ne peut y avoir de contacte entre deux personnessi... il faut... le
avoir
fait
la
in Masculinfeminin)
se
par
peau d'abord, il me semble... (Catherine
contacte
One might trace a longstanding use of the body in Godard's work to reflect on
its function as thoroughfare for mediated desire. This is habitually tied to a reflexive
desire
is
cinema:
of
as
critique
mediated through the body, so meaning in the cinema
body
image.
the
through
The work of all mediation is figured in Godard's
the
of
passes
137

work through a recurrent use of the body to represent the material base of cinema, and
the materiality of discourse: all meaning has, and passes through, a body. Furthermore,
the face as privileged

site of the passage of meaning feeds into a recurrent visual

paradigm of mediation/blockage, both in Godard's earlier films and the Sonimage work:
two heads (or faces) are depicted simultaneously, one partially or wholly obscuring the
other, movement within the frame often altering the degree to which the furthest face
is visible.

In Vivre sa vie (Nana and Raoul in the cafe), it is clearly used as a playful

direct
to
and easy access to what is signified via Karina's face. The technique
challenge
hiding
face
another later recurs as a visual refrain in Une Femme mariee, La
of one
Chinoise, Le Gai savoir, Lotte in Italia, and Vladimir et Rosa. What it figures, above
"Z
is
between
image.
bodies,
the
of
the
process
mediation,
all,
via technology, and via
Its clearest and most insistent use in the- Sonimage work is in Jean-Luc: Godard's face
is literally obscured by that of the two journalists in an economical image of the role
of the journalist as mediator, and of the perversion of information in the journalistic
process.

Similar scenes in Vivre sa vie and Detective exemplify the distance travelled
from the carefree playfulness of the post-Nouvelle Vague films of the 1960s to the
detour
following
human
through
the
malaise
of
cinema,
society,
and
relations
pervasive
failed politics, and the obliteration of cinema by television in the 1980s. Indeed the two
scenes are so close that we might postulate that the latter scene consciously reworks the
former in terms of the body (of the image, cinema, and society). In Vivre sa vie, Nana
(Anna Karina) performs a 'mating dance' around a billiard table in her courtship of the
homme'
(Peter
jeune
Kasovitz);
the vitality
unnamed

of her movements, and erotic

in
in
the exuberant circular
their
exchange
contained
of glances, are mirrored
charge
in
frames),
In
Detective
(shot
a sequence
the
track of
camera.
entirely within motionless
(Nathalie
Francoise's
billiard
ignores
Jim
Fox
Warner
(Johnny
Halliday)
table,
again at a
Baye) advances altogether: 'J'ai envie d'etre seul, et vous me faites pas bander'. What
accounts for the apparently unbridgeable gap between the two is the exploration of the
body in relation to sexual politics in the Sonimage work, and its direct correlation with
in
deux.
in
feuve
Numero
body
the
as
the
made
explicit
as
representation,
positing of
The stylised repetition of pornography as a mode of representation (what Godard
has termed 'boucherie'53) is a space in which conventional bodily relations are repeated
138

forms.
terms
the
conventional
representational
and
codes
of
ad nauseam within

The

homologies of stasis which coalesce- in- anal rape usher in the wider discourse, of
in
Sonimage
the
work.
as
a
major
pole
of
reference
pornography

Such equations and

in
One
in
bizarre-fascistic
the
plus one, with
shop
pornography
elisions are prefigured
its array of magazines with titles such as I gave my body to Hitler.
figure;
Sonimage
discourse
the
above- all as a
enters

Pornography thus

the figure par excellence of

bouge,
in
form:
'La
quand
c'est
ce
qui
stasis
content
and
communication,
unequivocal
54
la
'duel'
Sonimage's
their
bouge
pornography,
with
pas,
c'est
pornographie'.
ne
ca
home,
the
to
and within social and
nudity
contextualise
and
sexuality
within
attempt
familial relations, is part of a deliberate attempt to counter the exploitation of human
images
les
(ces
de
'j'ai
the
apolitical context of pornography:
essaye
sexuality within
famille,
de
histoires
doucement,
dans
des
parce que
et
pornographiques) placer mais plus
le cut ca fait partie de la famillei55. Robert Stam has dubbed 'feminist pornography' this
in
the
irrecuperable
feminization
evidenced
as
genre,
an
and
of
apparently
politicization
"
image.
into
inviting
by
the
films
barring
from
X-rated
them
of children
reversal of the
If pornography functions as a paradigm of reflexive stasis in and of
due
is
its
in
the
Sonimage
to
context within
the
also
works
omnipresence
representation,
in
the production of pornography,
the
they
escalation
operate:
unprecedented
which
film
French
liberalisation.
banner
films,
of
under the
particularly pornographic
dominated
increasingly
1975
(including
from
1973
to
was
co-productions)
production
half
for
films.
French-only
almost
by pornographic
pornographic productions accounted
devoted
to
in
France
in
L'Organe,
1974
1975.57
film
review
a
and
production
of all
August
that
in
in
1974,
(particularly
first
of
year
the
and
cinema)
appeared
pornography
58
devoted
Following
festival
to
pornographic
cinema.
entire
saw an

Godard's indirect

film
beginning
television
deux,
extracts
Numero
the
and
near
of
numerous
monologue
are set in circulation with one another on the video monitors.

Amongst them, the title

film
is
for
Les
de
Devorouses
Sexe
entitled
a
run twice, and thereby equated
sequence
defile
('Paris,
the
other extracts: conventional communication
with the subject matter of
in
du
1
demonstration,
the guise
traditionel
er mai', an anti-war
and mainstream cinema
(in
Sautet's
Vincent,
Francois,
les
the
Claude
Paul
violence
ritualised
et
autres),
of
Bruce Lee kung fu film, La Fureur du Dragon), politics (in the PCF and CGT) and
domestic politics (Bergman's Scenesfrom a Marriage). 59 As often, themes obsessively
139

in
the Sonimage period recur in particularly potent imagery in the post-1979
reworked
work.

Thus blocked male/female relations, the all-determining

flow of capital in

rationalising the dehumanising effects of socio-economic injustice, the degradation of

work and separation of pleasure from labour, the cinematic cha?ne itself, and the
pornographic Taylorisation of desire are embodied in the parody of pornography in the
60
in
Sauve
(Ja
office
patron's
qui peat
vie).
A single scene recurs twice in Numero deux, and again in Lecon de choses, so
it
exemplary of Sonimage's use of physical and sexual violence as both end
rendering
result, and figure, of the array of blocked forms of communication analysed in the
is
listening
Sandrine
to music on headphones; Pierre approaches and attempts
works.
to talk to her, disrupting and replacing the sound to which she is relaxing by that of his
(he
wants to talk about the breakdown of their sexual and familial relations). The
voice
into
escalates
quickly
a succession of frantic attempts to attack Pierre physically.
scene
Not only is this imagery reused, but it functions as the blueprint for numerous reworked
variations on the same concept after 1979: all the stop-start sequences of Sauve qui peat
(la vie), for instance, revolve around friction and violence between the sexes figured in
very physical terms, accompanied by the recurrent observation that 'la passion, c'est pas
ca'.

The most startling example of this physical conflict

echoing the pervasive

male/female tensions in the film (and their use to figure all conflict, not least that
between cinema and television) is the scene in which Paul (Jacques Dutronc) says that
he has an idea. Denise (Nathalie Baye) sneers derisively, following which Paul hurls
himself across the table onto her in a dual assault/embrace, which succinctly illustrates
Paul's observation that 'on n'arrrive se toucher qu'en se donnant des beignes'.61
Mieville reworked multiple variations on this sequence into a particularly potent image
in
blockage
the traffic between the sexes in Mon cher sujet, whose structure,
the
of
deut.
In
Numero
the
the
three
relations
around
of
conceived
generations, closely echoes
scene between Agnes (Anny Romand) and Hans (Hans Zischler) in the woods, the slow
motion and violence of the gestures invokes the use of slow motion in sport, and the
battle between the sexes is presented as a literal boxing match (shot in a manner
fight
the
of
scenes in Raging Bull).
reminicent
Non-mediation, figured in bodily conflict and sexual violence, is also manifested
in Godard/Mieville's

obsessive return to anality and, more broadly, shit.

140

In Numero

deux, Sandrine clearly articulates this relationship: Tai 1'impression que tout ce que je
dis, c'est de la merde... tout ce queje fais tout ce qui devrait passer dans le cul se passe
62
dans
le
ailleurs... et
cul, ca passe plus'. James Roy MacBean, identifying this leitmotif
(and expressing his disappointment with Godard's post-Groupe Dziga Vertov work),
63
'Bugger
Anality
Sauve
(la
title
to
all'.
suggests an alternative
qui peut
vie):

is

employed above all to figure non-mediation in a literal sense: whilst constituting a form
of sexual liaison, it leads nowhere (there is no potential for the creation of a third term,
"
a child).

Anal sex, or the threat of anal sex, carries multiple, often irreconcilable,

connotations: a male sexuality based on the suppression of homosexuality,

or the

fulfilment of a perverse resolution of the battle of the sexes which entails the effacement
difference.
of sexual

Above all, however, it simply denotes stasis:

Quand il s'agit de payer, quand l'heure arrive de faire le total des defaites et des
victoires, on 1'a dans le cul tres souvent, et on 1'a dans le cul parce qu'on (par ce
con), je n'ai pas voulu voir, toi non plus, et lui non plus n'a pas voulu voir que
tous ses reves sont representes... (Godard,off, in Id et Ailleurs)
Pornography,

anality,

highly

rape: all

Godard/Mievilleskim
connotations

sensitive

terms, some of

whose

identify
blockage
they
to
the
off and apply
pervasive

in political, social, personal, and sexual 'communication'.

The use of such metaphors,

insistently
is
bound
for
instance),
(television
is
applied
when
so
especially
pornography,
to raise objections: the critique, it might be argued, is excessively heavy-handed, the use
literal
equivalences blurring
of such
Godard/Mieville's

the complexities of the issues in hand.

But

discourse operates precisely through such posturing, provocation,

assault on received perceptions, and approaches to problems through the multiple

literalized
of
such
metaphors.
articulation

An exploration of the functioning of this

discourse will occur in the final chapter, but it must be approached through an analysis
in
Post-Structuralist
Sonimage
to
the
the
relation to the
context
of
work, particularly
linguistic construction of identity.

The subject, according to Sonimage, is above all

language',
'under
focus
the
as
understood
of Chapter 5.

141

4.3

CONCLUSION

In terms of Sonimag&s exploration of communication, the institutionalised media

examined in Chapters 2 and 3 constitute a mere subset of wider communication
identified
by Godard/Mieville-at
processes
a range of socio-cultural

spheres.

exploration of communication

work (or, more to the point, blocked) across

This chapter has unravelled Godard/Mieville's

in a very wide- sense: appropriating video, and with

information theory in mind, their work actively seeks to identify the 'communication' in
the imperceptible shifts between objects and people, the micro-politics

of shifting

frontiers of which Deleuze spoke eloquently. Within the heterogeneous concerns of the
Sonimage texts, a sustained project'on communciation' can be identified.

What is more,

this project is underscored by a theoretical communications model, which provides the

rationale for, and generates the substance-of, the texts and narratives. As this chapter
has shown, this communications model may well posit an unsustainable position, but it
is nevertheless coherent. Furthermore, Godard himself (as discussed above in relation
to the critique put forward by the Liberation journalist in Jean-Luc) is demonstrably
aware of the excesses of the- Sonimage position.

This extreme communications theory

is a tool, not an immutable model. It may be overstated, unrealistic, and unrealisable,

but it affords Godard/Mieville

a theoretical vantage point from which to view social

communication processes clearly, and to analyse how much communication they allow.
Through Godard/Mieville's

theory and practice of communication,

the apparently

haphazard assemblage of the Sonimage themes and subject matter tie up, especially
through key opposites: mediation,

hand,
the
and
one
on
movement, and process

blockages and stasis on the other. The 'findings' of the project, the successive sites of
blockage, are all elided as interchangeable models of doxa in the kaleidoscopic
Sonimage discourse. Thus the omnipresence of pornography and anality have a logic:
their function may be, partially, designed to provoke, but, essentially, they figure the
endpoint and reflexive

embodiment of Godard/Mieville's

discourse on blockage in

Similarly,
images
communication.
of mediation all figure one another, and feed into the
central tactic around which the texts are conceived and structured: metaphor.
the focus of the final two chapters.

142

This is

Chapter 5
Under and on language
5.1

INTRODUCTION

I have argued so far that the Sonimage work constitutes a sustained discourse on
in
living
human
'under'
experience
communication, and presents a view of
a society
terms of (and as) communication.

What I have omitted hitherto is a key component of

such 'communications': language, the one on which the focus of their research settles
is,
insistently
It
Godard's
the
of
all.
of
course,
of
also
entirety
most
one visible across
prior work, and one that underpins Godard and Mieville's

polemic against language

Godard
himself
1980s.
the
certainly viewed the Sonimage work, and especially
across
France tour, as on language:

Six fois deux avait surpris, Le Gai savoir etait un peu infantile, provocant, mail,
ca, je suis etonne qu'on ne fait pas recu comme un travail serieux, qu'on ait
la
cherche provocation o elle n'etait pas. Un travail sur ]a langue francaise, oui,
comme un recueil de chansons d'autrefois: pas le tour de la langue francaise,
'
le
des
tour
expressions.
mais
This chapter argues that the human subject for Sonimage, in a formulation familiar from
Lacan and Post-Structuralism,
through language.

is conceived not just as process, but as constructed

It begins, therefore, with an analysis of the implications of this

theoretical formulation as a key pole of reference to the Sonimage work, and argues that,
backdrop,
Godard/Mieville
this
against

focus on the specific metaphors through which

1970s France is perceived and inhabited: 'metaphors we live by'.

5.2

UNDER LANGUAGE

5.2.1

The theoretical
LE LANGAGE,

backdrop:

from Structuralism

C'EST L'ENDROIT

UN AUTRE BOURREAU

(Intertitle

OU LE BOURREAU
in Comment ca va)

143

to Post-Structuralism
TRANSFORME

LE VICTIMS

EN

Godard's work of the 1960s is broadly coterminous with the widespread influence
of Structuralism, that of the Groupe Dziga Vertov and Sonimage with Post-Structuralism.
In terms of the Structuralist projection, language is treated less as an exterior means of
it:
to
than
our
relation
reality
and
as a system which patterns and constructs
expression
language does not reflect reality so much as produce it.

The idealist belief in an

head-on
in
the
challenged
eternally settled meaning accessible via contemplation was
Structuralist insistence that meaning was a product of shared semiotic systems. Terry
Eagleton summarises the implications of this position very succinctly: 'Reality was not
language
by
but
by
it:
it
produced
was a particular way of carving up the
reflected
had
deeply
dependent
the
we
at our command, or
was
on
sign-systems
world which
had
which
us at theirs. o2 Different
more precisely,
divergent social priorities

languages carry and reproduce

and experiences: languages of different cultures are the

for
the ways of rationalising the material world specific to those cultures.
repositories
Rather than a tool at our disposal to aid communication, language produces us. We find
implications
the
of this position echoed in sociolinguistics: a close correlation
many of
language,
between
Structuralism's
through
the
assertion of
exists
production of reality
from
the minutiae of
assumption
channel
sociolinguistics'
of
a
causal
predictable
and
linguistic

and semantic relations to cognition.

Indeed, much of Godard/Mieville's

language
to
could equally be situated in a sociolinguistic perspective, which
approach
treats the codings of experience engrained in the language of a given period as paradigm
its
discourse
to
that
time
contextual
of
and place,
relating systematically
and microcosm
circumstances.

As we have noted, languageoccupies a central position in the Godardian schema

from the earliest days, even in his critical work.

The Nouvelle Vague's attacks on the

'Tradition de la Qualite/cinema de papa' was marked by their intolerance of the reliance

on the script and scriptwriter,

their polemics often targetting the perceived stilted

dialogue produced by specific writers (the writing team of Jean Aurenche and Pierre
Bost are repeatedly attacked). The Nouvelle Vague argued that the primacy accorded
the scriptwriter within French film production reduced the role of director to that of
dismissed
illustrator,
the dialogue of the psychological realist French cinema
and
mere
heavy-handed
late
1950s
the
as
of
and mannered, divorced from the vitality of daily
conversation.

As Godard told Andre S.Labarthe in interview in 1964, amongst the

taboos A bout de souffle intentionally

set out to transgress was the theatricality of such

144

dialogue: 'C'etait contre la maniere des gens de parler.

Quand les gens sortaient d'une

je
disais,
dune
ils
disaient
ce
que
quand
je
m'en
vais,
alors
on
sort
piece, on
piece,
dit jamais je m'en vais, on dit je reviens. i3 The diversity, tones, rhythms, and
Godard's
language
thus
earliest concerns, and constitute a
were
amongst
accents of
his
across
oeuvre.
consistent strand

Likewise, his critical desire for innovation, for

traces of the type of cinema he craved to make, lead him to defend seemingly unlikely
"
dialogue.
freshness
films
the
the
the
of
grounds of
purely on
mundane
slippages, and colloquialisms

The puns,

that tumble one after the other throughout the rapid

by
d'eau
delivered
Godard
Une
Histoire
Charlotte
(both
Jules
and
et son
monologues of
himself) announce the preoccupation with language, and in particular the language of
the everyday, that marks his 1960s art cinema, and provides a major focus of the
Sonimage work.

Inflections of a broadly Structuralist view of language pervade all of Godard's

is
language
but
functions
never
neutral,
early work:
distortion.

As early as 1963, Le Mepris

as site of manipulation,

and

portrays the extended breakdown of a

relationship against the backdrop of misunderstanding schematised by a multiplicity

of

languages (French, English, German, and Italian) mediated via Francesca Vanini
In Une Femme mariee (1964), the characters' speech has been
(Georgia Moll).
impoverished by its infiltration

by advertising slogans.' In Alphaville (1965), language

in
framework
fiction
turns:
the
the
the
conceit
narrative
on
which
of
provides
science
this nightmarish vision of a contemporary Paris presided over by the tortuous dictates
by
is
(Alpha
inhabitants
60),
the
the
computer
a rigorous
central
ensured
of
control of
doctoring of the language at their disposal. Poetry and philosophy have been abolished,
day
for
Every
imaginative
the
them
thought.
capacity
abstract, emotional, or
and with
is
fairydictionary
the
circulated
arch-romantic
with yet more words suppressed,
a new
tale ending turning on the capacity of Natasha (Anna Karina) to reinvent the language
her
'humanity'.
love
the
through
strength
of
of
Recognition of the overwhelming power of language, particularly in terms of its
for
control
and
appropriation
commercially
cynical

exploitative

ends, continues to

from
Godard's
1966-68. In Made in USA, the Larousse dictionary quite
work
punctuate
literally conceals a gun: Paula (Anna Karina) enters the dentist's surgery with a gun in
dictionary
in
hand
the other. This equation is again made in 1968 in Le Gai
a
and
one
but
without
savoir,

the cushioning

provided

145

by the comic-book

fiction
science

framework: the State which abuses and perverts language is no longer a metaphorical
one, but Gaullist France. Reworking the dictionary principle from Alphaville, Emile
(Jean-Pierre Leaud) provides a devastating indictment of the Gaullist alphabet distributed
throughout schools in France:
Lettre A, ii ya Acheter, mais
pas Art. Lettre S, il ya Sage et Savon, mais pas
Sexe ni Syndicat. Lettre P,
ni Police ni Psychanalyse. Lettre C, ni Culture, ni
Capitalisme, ni Classe ni Combat. Lettre R, il
bien
Revolution
ni
ni
sr
ya
Repression. Lettre F, il n'y
a pas Fascisme, mais Famille et Fromage.
So Godard's view of language as a-discriminating
grid which defines our relation to the
world has a long and consistent history in his oeuvre, and is well illustrated by the
following extract from Godard's whispered voice-off in Deux ou Irois choses queje sais
delle:

bien
la
les
Mais
terre,
Dieu
ou commencequoi?
Ou commence?
cieux et
crea
les
dire
facile,
doit
faire
lache
que
mieux,
et
on
pouvoir
sr, mais c'est un peu
langage
de
les
limites
du
sont
mon
monde, que
limites du langage sont celles
le
je
le
je
limite
termine,
que
et
monde,
de
parlant
qu'en
et
mon monde,
celles
limite,
et qu'il n'y
la mort, un jour logique-et mysterieux, viendra abolir cette
flou...
tout
sera
aura ni question ni reponse,
language
the
categories at our
Developing this view of reality as representation of
ideological
the
increasingly
on
focuses
disposal, Godard's work of the late 1960s
it.
to
resist
implications of language manipulation, and the urgent political necessity
de
in
Bruijn)
(Lex
Kirilov
by
This politicised critique of language is clearly articulated
C'est
langage.
le
au contraire
dans
La Chinoise ('Ce n'est pas nous qui nous informons
'),
le
soft.
and
qui
langage
plus pauvre
noire societe qui est hermetique et enferme dans le
dialogues
in
the
of
'pre-monstres'
underpins the linguistic dissections enacted on living
France tour. Where a word is unknown to the child, so the concept to which it relates

is absent: Camille, in France tour 7, knows 'une exception, l'ordre, la beaute, le luxe,
le calme' but not la volupte'.
The urgency of countering the ideological bias ingrained in languageis concisely
formulated in one of the aphoristic rallying calls articulated by Patricia (Juliet Berto) in
Le Gai savoir. 'Moi apprendre, leur apprendre, et moi, retourner contre 1'ennemi
l'arme avec laquelle dans le fond des choses il noun attaque: le langage.' This call is
emblematic of a widespread scepticism regarding the inherently oppressive distortions
encoded in language as perceived through the politicised gauze of Structuralist theory
146

around May 68, figured, of course, in the fight for the right to political 'parole'.

As

Althusser argued (in an interview published in France in April 1968), language was not
'explosives',
knowledge,
but
to
tool
through
of
an
armory
simply a
access
which
'tranquillizers', and 'poisons': 'Toute la lutte des classes peut parfois se resumer dans la
lutte pour un mot, contre un autre mot. 6
When it comes to the 'mythical' language of the media and advertising, and its
less
is
into
obvious.
consciousness, an object of analysis
absorption via everyday speech
In the Sonimage work, the object of analysis is substituted for a subject: the exploration
is
language
transposed onto what is revealed in an exploration of the
categories
of
interviews.
desires
lengthy
in
the
video
preconceptions and
of adults and children
shift to a concern for how language determines subjectivity

This

coincides with the

displacement of Structuralism by Post-Structuralism, especially under the impetus of

Lacan's formulation of a split subject immersed in language. Godard's work, particularly
in the late 1960s, closely accompanies- the- central logic of Post-Structuralism: the
demolition of any common-sense notion of 'self, the dissolution of identity into process,
and, above all, Lacan's model of identity as dependent on language acquisition.

The

be
language
is
it
grasped via
of
a
reality
outside
only
can
concept
senseless, since
language (see Appendix C). If this logic is announced in Godard's pre-Sonimage work,
there is abundant evidence of its continuing centrality to Godard and Mieville's later
work.

In a preparatory document for Je vows salue, Marie, for instance, a succinct

formula asserts language as determining reality, underpinning the Symbolic order: 'Marie
le
'7

langage,
du
de
l'univers
Debut
contraire.
ou
commence parler avec son enfant.
Post-Structuralism positions language at the heart of all discourse. Experience
is language.

Our relation to reality and to others is mediated by language and, so

inherently metaphoric.

As Terry Eagleton argues, any notion of full unmediated

language,
outside
communion
even with oneself, is untenable:
Not only can I never be fully present to you, but I can never be fully present to
into
look
I
I
my mind or search my
to
myself either.
still need
use signs when
"full
I
communion" with
this
any
that
means
soul, and
will never experience
intention
is
It
have
I
meaning,
or
myself.
not that
a pure, unblemished
can
flawed
by
the
distorted
medium of
experience which then gets
and refracted
language: because language is the very air I breathe, I can never have a pure,
unblemished meaning or experience at all!

147

Therefore all thought, behaviour, action, and communication pass through, and are
inflected by, the sign systems at our disposal, notably language.

The passages and

interspaces in information circuits graphically presented by Sonimage, especially in Six

fois deux, whilst depicting actual sites of passage, also figure this insistence on the
mediated nature of experience.
A related facet of Lacanian theory, linked to his model of the linguistic induction
of the 'hommelette' into the Symbolic, is an insistence on a radical anti-ego model of the
in
subject which,
refusing the integrity and stability of the ego, contests the central
'
idealist
ideology.
of
all
premise

For an infant to pronounce the term 'I' designates

recognition of autonomy, acceptance of its position in the Symbolic order, and a selfdefinition in relation to the other) Post-Structuralism thus interrogates formulations of
the self implicit

in language, especially in the use of pronouns.

The primacy of

language, and insistence on a decentered subject, are-central to the Sonimage project,

in
Mot
je,
first
Sonimage
the
title
the
and
project,
of
abandoned
as encapsulated
dictum,
'Je
Godard's
later
frequent
Rimbaud's
through
the
work
projected across
use of
(as
intertitle
in
Nouvelle
for
instance).
Vague,
autre'
un
est

The implications of this break-infuse,the Sonimagework in the consistentrefusal

(on
in
identity
'wholeness'
the part of the
the
of
of any unproblematic self-confidence
interviewees, for instance), and in the recurrent emphasis of the imagery. The capacity
in
from
to
employed
reproduce a given subject
multiple angles simultaneously,
of video
the opening monologue of Numero deux and throughout Nous trois, provides the
decentered
for
Sonimage
the
to
of
notion
articulate, and visually explore
opportunity
je'
'moi'
in
hitherto
impossible:
are presented
technically
and
a unique way,
subjectivity
in conjunction, conflict, and interaction. " Many of the images in Nous trois are, in fact,
layering)
(exploiting
images
insertion,
of a single subject
and
graphic mixing,
composite
for
The
from
less
distinct
man,
than three
perspectives.
no
viewed simultaneously
instance, is depicted from one angle and distance, then another, but the silhouette into
image
'clipped'
image
is
keyed
third
the
is
of
than
the
a
second
nothing
other
which
same man.

This threefold depiction of the- same movements from a succession of

fractured
is
This
the
translation
of
challenging and visually mesmerizing.
perspectives
into
is
terms
visual
accompanied by a multiplicity
subject

of overt statements couched

in and around the texts. As Godard puts it in Jean-Luc, 'Les gens se croient pour des

148

nombres entiers, ils pensentqu'ils sont libres, ils pensentqu'ils savent parler', a position
repeatedly reiterated in interviews:
Chacun se considere comme entierement lui... (... ) il se considere comme un
...
nombre entier. (... ) Je crois qu'il ya effectivement un gros probleme de sens
qui fait qu'on fait marcher les gens et qu'ils sont d'accord parce qu'ils n'arrivent
pas se penser autrement, Pun que comme un entier totalement existant et lautre
comme un autre entier. Alors, ca fait beaucoup trop. Et il n'y a plus jamais
fraction, il n'y a que des frictions... 12
Language, therefore, as theorised by Lacan and dissected by Godard/Mieville,
constitutes the fabric of subjectivity, a position from which to speak. The subject is
literally, in the terms of Sonimage's economical formula, 'sous la communication'.

This

insistence on language as a web in which we are caught is played out in the recurrent
emphasis on positioning prepositions-ire the Sonimage work. Godard/Linhard repeatedly
questions the spontaneous and 'natural' way in which the children in France tour
reiterate culturally-defined positions regarding property, ownership, and the sense of self
inscribed in terms such as 'to', 'from', 'on', 'in' or 'at' (elided in possessive pronouns such
as 'my' and 'mine') in relation to self-definition

and social placement, particularly as

familiar
their
regards
objects. Such 'preposition/metaphors' are shown to be symptomatic
ideological
imbrication
the
of

of language, at the front line of the mutual linguistic

positioning of subjects and objects. 13

Sonimage seek, therefore; to reveal- and challenge the power carried by linguistic
classifications. Godard notes the popular scepticism vis--vis a view of language which
intrinsically disempowers the-individual: 'Mais les gens font comme si le langage c'etait

eux et qui dominait, et il ya tres peu de gens qui croient qu'ils ne

chose
quelque
14
'.
It is, however, in the context of a view of language as a power
savent pas penser...
structure that radical texts (from Surrealism to Joyce, from the Nouveau Roman to Lacan
and Deleuze/Guattarri) have sought not exploit language as a conduit for subversive
ideas, whilst complicating language in a way that disrupts its ready consumption. Much
of the difficulty

and interest of such texts lies as much in the humour and obliqueness

of the language in which they are couched as in any ostensible 'subject matter'.
Jacqueline et Ludovic must be seen in the light of an assumption of language not
just

supporting,

Deleuze/Guattari

but constituting

the Symbolic

posit the schizophrenic

Order.

In the same way that

importance
the
of
so
as social radical,

Sonimage's dialogue with Jacqueline and Ludovic turns on their exclusion from the
149

itself.
language
This
disrupted
in
figured
to
Symbolic
their
aim
the
relation
norms of
is confirmed by the brief Sonimage set themselves before the programme was made (and
thus before Jacqueline and Ludovic were chosen as interviewees): 'Conversation avec
1'a
1'a
1'a
langage,
de
pas
qui
ne
ou
oublie,
plus, ou qui
un ou une qui n'a pas
ou qui ne
'autiste',
un
torturee,
un
un animal,
appris, ou qui ne veut pas parler: un moribund, une
Godard's
i15
Similarly,
work
the
all
nouveau ne, un absent.
wordplay characteristic of
assumes a potent rationale in this context: whilst clearly often whimsical and throwaway,
at stake in the pun is the individual's relation to the Symbolic. Within a psychoanalytic
framework, where the work of the signifier in and on the body is treated very seriously,
Godard's reminder to the viewer of the serious slant to wordplay in his monologue near
the beginning of Numero deux is less an aside than the defense of a central textual
tactic:
Tu vois, dans les democracies, il ya un truc qui m'a... enfin, ca m'etonne plus
ils
les
jeux
de
d'une
sont
maniere,
maintenant, c'est que
certaine
mots sont...
interdits de sejour. Enfin, on les accepte, mais dans des trucs mondains.
Comme ca, on dit que c'est pas serieux. Pourtant, les jeux de mots, c'est un mot
qui glisse sur un truc, tu sais, c'est du langage, et le langage, c'est... c'est un peu
l'amour qui nous a appris le langage. Alors ca glisse, ca indique que c'est... des
court-circuits, des inteferences, des-trucs. On s'en seit des fois pour guerir des
maladies, non, c'est serieux.
The programmed automatons of Alphaville are an early fictional translation of
the 'monsters' of France tour.
entombed

in

homogenised

Similarly,
commercial

demonstration of the sociolinguistic

the characters of Une Femme mariee,

language,

foresee

Godard/Mieville's

Sonimage
the
the
subject across
construction of

interviews
in
in
language
the
the
with
culminates
critique--of
work which
conducted
Camille and Arnaud. Like machines, Sonimage imply, we are programmed by language.
It was suggested in Chapter 1 that the children are dissected as docile bodies onto which
are grafted the normalizing
Similarly,

frames of socially and culturally

acceptable behaviour.

reading is posited as a form of self-subjugation to dominant dictates, set

A
'APPRENDRE
intertitle
(an
in
VOIR
the
seeing
opposition exemplified
against genuine
PAS A LIRE' in Ici et ailleurs).

In short, the process of language acquisition is explored

as a prime instance of the nefarious reproduction of dominant ideological paradigms.

Sonimage's critique of the subjugation of the human body within the logic of capitalism
is echoed sharply in, and reinforced by, the socializing function of language. Just as all

150

the grids, maps, frameworks, and stacks of severed framed imagery denote ossified
representational forms, and the inscription of conventional modes of categorising and
inhabiting reality within perception, so too they denote specifically language as the
fundamental grid which figures all the others. Such frames represent, ultimately, this
critique of language acquisition, as Godard/Mieville

trace its logic from the infant's cry

for food to the teaching of reading and writing in school. The interconnections between
these multiple connotations of grids and maps, from the-socializing violence of the ISAs,
to reified linguistic gestalts and literal street plans, are caught succinctly in the following
exchange between Godard/Linhard and Camille in France tour 7:

Godard/Linhard:
Camille:

Ton cahier, il est quadrille?

Oui.

Godard/Linhard:
Camille:
Godard/Linhard:
Camille:
Godard/Linhard:

Dehors, dans.la rue, tu trouves que c'est pareil que ton

cahier?

Non.
Tu habites-dans une ville?
Oui.
Et la ville, tu trouves pas que c'est quadrillee, toutes ces

rues qu'il y a, ca fait pas des carrees?

Camille:

Un petit peu.

As with the reflection on the dulling of critical vision in the context of the
explosion of the media, the critique-o language repeatedly returns to sight. Language,
in Nous trois, is correlated with both prison and, the police. The man's eye is targeted
(and often ringed) as the nodal point of conditioning.
(linguistically)
figuratively
and

He is both literally (physically)

incarcerated, the words 'on m'alchange/de prison' etched

his
identity
face
his
is
isolated,
the
as
eyearound
and
across
multiple connotations
language caught in the accompanying formula (an isolated extract from his letter): 'en
face de la police, je'. 16 Perception, for Godard/Mieville

is literally

at the mercy of

language, one infused with the glib homogeneous terms of journalism and advertising:
'Ma tete est vide, et mon corps est trop plein.

Mes yeux sont aveugles ou aveugles.

Tout ca parce que mes mains sont mortes, mortes ecrire des pages et des pages.
Mortes a l'oppression de 1'ecriture.'"

When Odette/Mieville

in
Comment
asserts
pa va

that we are labouring within tainted sight ('pourri'), that we are all infected with the
insidious invisible

'cancer'-effect of the spiralling

degradation of media-consumer

is
it
is
that
capitalism,
cancer operates
understood that a principal mode through which
language.

151

The immersion and paralysis of sight in language is figured on many occasions

through a correlation of the movement of the fingers and hands in a tightly defined
space (particularly

on the typewriter keyboard) with the repetitive orchestration and

formulae
in
As
Odette
formulates
the
thesis
this
principal
construction of vision.
one of
foreclosed
is
look
in
Comment
hands
directing
the
twice
the
repeated
eyes,
ca va, the
are
fait
language:
des
'C'est
font
tes
pour
pas
c'est
via
mes mains qui
mains,
comme
yeux, et
voir, donc c'est un travail d'aveugle. '

This verbal critique is visually underscored

throughout Comment Ca va by images of Odette demonstrating the movement of the

hands as they type in relation to the horizontal appearance of the words on the paper,
and by her theatrical reenactment of the repetitious left/right horizontal movements of
the eyes and head when reading, her outstretched arm sweeping to and fro in front of
her, movements set against the erratic shifting movements of the human eye:
T'as rien vu en Mai 68, t'as rien vu Hiroshima, parce que tes mains ont fini par
diriger tes yeux; tu vois Tien, parce que c'est ecrit d'avance, tu vois pas le
Vietnam, tu lis le Vietnam; tu ne vois pas le chmage, tu vois pas les femmes,
tes yeux font ce que- devraient faire tes mains. Ben le tragique, c'est que c'est
meme pas du travail manuel.
Comment ca va, had already
This opposition, which, as we have seen, is
to
-central
figured in Made in USA, and finds its most powerful formulation in Scenario video de
Sauve qui pent (Ia vie). Whilst Godard, off, discusses the radical difference between the
linear appearance of text on the page and the 'surgissement vertical' of the image, the
image powerfully literalizes the circumscription of sight via language: as Godard types
back and forth, pieces of paper carrying images of Isabelle Huppert are carried upwards
into the frame and into the typewriter.

What are obliterated by the dual movement of

the bar of the typewriter and emergence of the text are Isabelle's eyes.

This imprinting of language 'in' the individual is further figured in the recurrent
imagery of children with words visibly etched across their faces and bodies: children
have language stamped all over them, a position also verbally formulated in a variety
of contexts within the works.

As the unnamed son's girlfriend

says of language in

Comment ca va, a major focus of Marot and Odette's project within the fiction of the
film

(as of Godard/Mieville

language:
'Comment
Sonimage)
is
to
ca
explore
as

le
dans
diriger
dans
la
toujours
to
vie,
s'imprime
memoire, et comment ca va... ca va
meme sens.' The phatic function of mythical language is once again conveyed through

152

repetition. The ideological effects of the teaching and acquisition of language as a

major site of social domination and control is expressedthrough the provocatively blunt
image of the child as blackboard, a receptor for directives.
Again and again in both Six fois deux (Pas d'histoire in particular) and France
tour, images of children reading are focused on as exemplary of the inscription of
received linguistic categories in the human psyche, literally 'fed' into the body, whilst
images of children writing are employed to illustrate the learning process as copying
(exemplified in the notion of'dictee').

Drawing, on the other hand, is idealised as a less

18
rigid mode of expression. The impression of language governs the sphere of operation
of any subsequent expression. This equation is succinctly made in the transposition of
the image and concept of 'machine ecrire' onto the human body and the movement of
the hand across the page (the son writing a letter to his girlfriend in a cafe) in Comment
ca va: the human subject is, quite literally, a 'machine a ecrire'. Particular prominence
is given to the violence implicit in the insertion of children into the pre-defined roles
and categories allotted by language in France tour 5. The movement is presided over
by the presence of intertitles presenting the two concepts IMPRESSION
and DICT$E. There
is an insistence throughout Six fois deux and France tour on children learning to read
and write as exemplary sites of the process of linguistic programming.

The process is

isolated and shown as a form of visual proof, as in Arnaud in the reading class in
France tour 5, and Camille in detention in France tour 7, her punishment being to copy
from
her reading book; the sequence is pointedly punctuated by
ten
times
a paragraph
the commentary

of the intertitles,

VIOLENCE and GR

IRE, underscored by

Godard/Linhard's rhetorical question, 'tu pourrais dire que to vie, c'est un peu comme
faire de la copie? '.

Sonimage'-s central contention regarding the construction of the

is
language
in
that such a process operates around copying rather than invention,
subject
the foreclosing of potential as opposed to- any assumption of language as a tool for free
expression.

Godard equates reading with subjugation to the received categorisations

ingrained in all aspects of language in this way in the fifth voyage of his Montreal
lectures: 'Et du reste, on apprend lire de plus en plus tot pour etre sr que les enfants
jour
un
ne vont pas renverser les choses.:.'. 19
The reverse side of the'impression'
the principal
television

thematic of France

'emission',

delineates
EXPRESSION,
the
resultant
equation,

tour 6, the term suggesting all modes of expression (a

for instance)

and specifically

153

linguistic

expressions.

Where the

impression of the previous mouvement focused on language teaching, Sonimage now

focus on what is emitted at the other end of the-'machine' in terms of expressions and
The movement begins with an astonishing stop-start sequence following

cliches.
Camille

at play with her friends in the playground,

bodies
image
of
under
an

confinement, momentarily released. The sheer noise of the children evokes a sense of
release, the explosion of simmering pent-up tension evoked by the oblique unidentified
male voice-off:

'Vivre

mouvement du corps.'

sous pression (... ), un cri du coeur, la prison, ralentir, un

This is succeeded by one of the most provocative

and

challenging sequences on language in all the Sonimage work, a condensation and

refinement of the extraordinary exchange-between the- children, Nicholas and Vanessa,
in Numero deux.

It is entitled FRANrAis, so eliding the double sense of 'French

language' and 'French people', and focuses on the language of love. The young lovers
hellish
vision of Camille and Arnaud as teenagers, playing out social roles
present a
mid-way between characters in a soap opera and in advertisements. If Camille and
Arnaud are prototype mini-monstres, then these lovers represent a post-pubescent staging
post on the route to total social subjugation. They attempt to express their feelings for
but
another,
succeed only in exchanging mundane platitudes, in trading adjectives;
one
the language of love has been infiltrated and tainted by its appropriation, denigration,
in
20
telefilms
This 'exchange' operates on a dual
overuse
and
and advertisements.
reflexive

level, simultaneously

straddling metonymy

it
focuses
on
and metaphor:

language, but a language tainted by the impact of television and the media (metonymy),
but figuring ultimately

(via metaphor) the phatic function of television.

It is also

noteworthy that the sequence-is linked by Sonimage to the form of the political march
in this programme.

In a comment in 1980, Godard invokes this image of lovers

in
language
terms
the
of
a
entrapped
of passion mediated by telefilms and soap operas,
is
description
It
function
the
the
nature
television.
a
static
of
to
the
exchange
relating
of
in
tone and momentum to this Fwwx Ais extract, serving as a succinct
close
very
clearly
encapsulation of, and commentary on, it:

Aujourd'hui, il ya plus de dispute qu'au Moyen Age parce que les amoureux ne
cherchent pas voir, puis c'est la drame et la souffrance. C'est une emission de
television entre eux, its peuvent plus parler pour faire la lumiere. Its parlent, il
ya des tonnes de sens qui se court-circuitent, et its se separent, il n'y a rien eu.21

154

Gilles Deleuze perceptively outlined Godard/Mieville's

provocative critique of

linguistic conditioning in his 1976 interview with Les Cahiers du Cinema:

Or il est douteux que-la maitresse-d'ecole, quand eile explique une operation ou
quand eile enseigne l'orthographe, transmette des informations. Elle commande,
eile donne plutt des mots d'ordre. Et 1'on fournit de la syntaxe aux enfants
comme on donne des instruments aux ouvriers, pour produire des enonces
conformes aux significations- dominantes. C'est bien litteralement qu'il faut
comprendre la formule de Godard, les enfants sont des prisonniers politiques.
Le langage est un systeme de commandements, pas un moyen d'information. 22
The presentation of children as prisoners, ensnared in language, is suggested via an
image of children behind wire netting in Lecon de choses, reiterated in the visual
presentation of the school in France tour, from the institutionalised school buildings and
layout
of the classrooms to the confined space of the playground.
regimented

The

dimension
be
language
to
this
traced to
treatment
political
of
as a series of orders can
Althusser's ISA article.

Althusser questions the unshaken belief in the innocence and

language-teaching
in schools, positing it as a mechanism whereby received
of
worth
relations and conventions are reinforced and reproduced via the very teaching of
language itself: 'On y apprend aussi bien parler le francais, bien rediger, c'est-dire en fait (pour les futurs capitalistes et leurs serviteurs) bien commander c'est-dire (solution ideale) bien parler aux ouvriers, etc.i23

Language as a set of orders equipping the individual for a pre-allotted social

is
not simply a provocative
position

Sonimage.
the
of
part
conceit on

Raymond

Williams has it that, historically, the implementation of literacy as a political strategy

beginning
industrial
the
the
of
at
revolution was driven by a need to educate the
"'
Only
the middle and
to
to
so
read
as
understand and carry out orders.
proletariat
had
any call to write, that is to issue commands. Recognising that such
upper classes
intention
had
(literacy
immediate
the
meant
ability
an
controlled
effect
a
uncontrolled
to read the radical press as much as orders and directives), Williams argues that the
deliberately
training
aimed to
construction of education as a prolonged period of social
blending
by
literacy
threat
the
and confusing taught
subversive
offset
of widespread
values and norms with literacy itself. In a similar vein, Richard Hoggart's thesis in The
uses of literacy that society deliberately generates, exploits and thrives on a basic
literacy as a mode of social control (a demand fed by an ever increasing number of
semi-literate magazines and newspapers), converges closely with Godard/Mieville's
155

25
He argues that the potential for manipulation and abuse within this scenario
polemic.
of closely controlled semi-literacy was considerably more damaging than illiteracy.
the light of Hoggart's thesis, and Sonimage's profound

In

scepticism regarding the

logic,
however
ideology
language,
the
through
reproduction of
we can understand
overstated or deliberately contentious, to Godard's denunciations of any notion of
literacy as inherently beneficial. As often with such apparently outlandish assertions by
Godard, they are formulated and pitched in so provocative a manner as to often appear
absurd, and yet derive, as here, from sound rational positions: '...si des pays comme
Cuba avaient ete un peu malins ou un autre pays du tiers monde, ils auraient pense qu'il
fallait surtout rien apprendre ni lire ni ecrire. i26

So language, for Godard/Mieville, conditions and orchestrates identity,

behaviour.
In this sense, to name is to denounce: 'En nommant, on dit
perception, and
tellement de choses aujourd'hui que-je- pense qu'on ne- nomme- pas. Qu'on d6nonce
"
plutt.

In opposition to language, they posit the image.

The visual slant to the

Sonimage project, its reliance on the image to penetrate and convey shifts and relations
imperceptible to normal vision, can thus be seen as a way of contesting the power of
language. The Sonimage work constructs an idealised model of perception and vision
'outside' or 'before' language: 'Peut-etre que dans un monde parfait, les choses ne
les
'
(Avant
idyll
Apres)
This
pas...
on
vivra.
of unmediated
et
oft evoked
s'appelleront
is
reality
set in sharp contrast with the linguistic socializing process,
communion with
infant
is
held
the
pre-linguistic
and
up as open system which experiences a transitory
interaction
extra-linguistic
of
with reality which Godard equates with socialism,
period
(thereby giving the term one of its more unusual interpretations): 'L'enfant qui nalt, je
de
il
besoin
de
de
d'abord
toucher
ce qu'il voit et
voir
pense qu'il est socialiste; a
voir
et
'.
28
language
is
direct
Against
'socialist'
touche...
this
communion,
ce qu'il
utopia of
figured in terms of repression, violence, and torture, concepts often conveyed by the
frames
discussed
above.
rigid grids and

Godard/Mieville's critique-of language,variously articulated as 'text', 'the word',

'writing', the 'Law', or 'naming', remains a central structuring refrain of Godard's work
29
in
'ennemi
Whilst a number
it
famously
1980s,
his
becomes
the
royal'.
across
which
of critics have identified in the sentiments of this statement a crucial strand of Godard's
later work, it has not been related to the theoretical context outlined above, although this
in
3
its
language
Godard/Mieville's
provides
culminates
underlying rationale.
politics of

156

the Heideggerian concept of 'Bedingnis': 'The word makes the thing into a thing - it
'bethings' the thing. We should like to call this rule of the word 'bethinging' (die
Bedingnis). '3'

Godard has frequently acknowledged the importance of Heidegger's

reflection on language to his work (particularly in interviews after 1980), and variations
on the central thesis of Heidegger's On the way to language recur not only in interviews,
but throughout Godard and Mieville's work of the 1980s.32 Language is not a neutral
medium of expression, a reflection of reality, but a tool which fashions that reality and
33
in
it.
our position

In his opening addressto Scenario du film Passion, Godard setsthe democracy

of the image in unequivocal opposition to language as Law: 'Est-ce qu'on peut voir la
loi? Est-ce que la Loi a d'abord ete ecrite ou est-ce qu'elle a d'abord ete vue et puis
34
1'a
ecrite
Moise
'.
In a practical sense, therefore, the video
table?
sur sa
ensuite
Sauve
(la
(la
(Scenario
de
Passion
Sauve
of
qui
pent
vie)
vie)),
pent
scenarios
video
qui
(both Passion, le travail et l'amour: introduction un scenario and its later embodiment,
Scenario du film Passion), and Je vous salue, Marie (Petites notes propos du film Je
vous salue, Marie) can be read as a desire to resist the production confines of a written
in
favour
du
film
in
it
Scenario
'voir
(as
Godard
the
tactic
of
script
of
puts
un scenario'
Passion). 35 In his Montreal lectures, Godard claims that the financing and production
of a film without a written script has become virtually inconceivable.

In real terms,

therefore, language has penetrated to the core of the cinematic apparatus, so that nine
tenths of films are 'des copies de scenarios, les scenarios etant eux-memes des copies
de livres'. 36 In a humorous evocation of the making of the Keystone Cops films in
Scenario du film

Passion, Godard contrasts this situation with the approach to

filmmaking in the exploratory days of silent cinema:

On ne faisait pas de scenario, on ne les ecrivait pas. On partait et on retournait.

Mac Sennett dans son petit studio Hollywood, qui s'appellait pas encore
Hollywood, il partait avec une voiture, un copain deguise en flic, une fille
deguiseeen baigneuse,et puis un jeune homme qui faisait 1'amoureux.
Godard's video scenarios thus articulate the quest to resist the confines of language as
ritualised in the written

script.

He even refuses to foreclose scope for visual

in
letter
by
Passion
the
pre-production
a
experimentation
pre-defining
subject matter of
to Hanna Schygulla ('il est trop tot pour le dire avec de 1'ecriture, il faut voir comme on
habitual
His
dit
dans
les
de
fart
ne
pas
milieux autorises
cinematographiquei37).
157

improvisation
in
favour
1960s
the
throughout
of
with the
rejection of a shooting script
before
just
(a
last-minute
dialogue
focusing,
the
scenes
were
shot
actors,
of
and
writing
process summarised in his homage to Jean Renoir on the 'bande annonce' to Une Femme
est une femme38) has tended to be romanticised as an index of creative genius.

It

infiltration
disrupt
indicator
the
to
of rigid
constitutes, rather, an
of a more serious aim:
l'ecrit
demands
(time;
into
final
film:
'si
the
par
marquez
production
vous
money; script)
39
ecrit'.
on vous coince simplement parce que c'est

Godard had already describedhis function in thesevideo scenariosas that of 'un

scenariste sans papier ni stylo' in an intertitle

to Passion, le travail

et 1'amour:

introduction un scenario40, but in Scenario du film Passion, the use of video to

j'aimerais
fait,
is
formally
'Parler...
the
script
as
prerequisite
en
circumvent
schematised:
bien pouvoir me taire, et avant de parler, voir. Et ce film, c'est ce qu'il a eu d'original,
j'ai
j'ai
le
ecrire

le...
je
scenario,
cherche... voir
n'ai pas voulu
c'est qu'on a cherche,
'
Whilst
le
the video- scenarios revolve in large part around a variety of roles
voir.
voulu
by
Godard,
Mieville's off-screen presence carries enormous weight, sometimes
assumed
incorporated via a voice-off.

Indeed, the implementation of the whole concept of a

have
film
indication
future
to
the
appears
of
possible co-ordinates of a
visual scenario as
been first experimented with by Mieville. 4' As early as 1963, Godard had worked a
in
between
into
film
the screening
the
the
conflict
on
sequence
and script
reflection
in
berates
in
Fritz
Mepris
(Jack
Palance)
Le
Prokosch
Jeremiah
the
which
producer
room
Lang (playing himself) for diverging from the script ('You cheated me Fritz. That's not
directly
drawn
in
').
is
Lang
for
his
images
L'Odyssee
the
that
are
script.
counters
what
from the script, arguing that all depends-on the multifarious transmutations implicit in
is
it
from
language
image
in
('Because
to
the
written, and on the
translation
the
script
it
is
pictures.
screen

Motion picture, it's called. ').

What is more, and even more

in
later
Le
in
this
sequence
a
simmering reflection on the script recurs
pertinently,
Mepris in a way which directly foresees the notion of a 'visual' script so central to
Godard and Mieville's post-1979 art cinema: Prokosch gives Paul (Michel Piccoli) a
book of erotic images drawn from Roman art as guidance for re-writing the script for
L'Odyssee. 42

Tracesof the heritage of Vertov as a major point of referencefor Sonimage are

again visible here in his consistent rejection of the hegemony of the written script, and
his championing of cinema as a primarily visual researchtool:

158

Any student of Pavlovs, any scientist or writer, generally has the right to engage
in observation, but I am not. I am told that everything must be indicated in a
scenario, that a scenario - is the primary thing.
However, what I consider primary is matter, nature, documentary material
One proceeds from observations to their graphic
accumulated on film.
organization. But one is forced to submit to the reverse order, the standard order
for producing the usual actor's film: from the scenario (of the bookish, closet
variety) to nature, with the obligation of forcing nature to meet the "scenario's"
"'
requirements.

For Godard/Mieville, however, their adoption of this stanceis supportedby their distrust
of language,and feeds into a central refrain in Godard'sview of cinematic history, that
the talkies (the introduction of sound, and 'imposition' of language on the image)
irrevocably damagedthe promise of silent film:
Le role du parlant avec-1'appluie de 1'imprimerie et des mauvais ecrivains a ete
d'empecher les gens de voir, ce que le montage permettait de voir. Il fallait
immediatement en reprendre le-contrle, Et du reste, la television est cela. Une
"4
lutte
grande
perdue.
What starts life in a broadly Post-Structuralist critique of the politics of language in the
Sonimage work thus culminates in the widespread attack which marks Godard and
Mieville's subsequent work, and derives directly from the view that language constructs
(and so is) experience. Language is, ultimately, therefore, the principal condition 'under'
live.
we
which

The next section of this chapter will focus on the specificities of

Godard/Mieville's dissection of the networks of expressions within language: Sonimage

on language, and especially on the metaphors through which Camille and Amaud view
and articulate the world.

5.3

ON LANGUAGE

5.3.1

Metaphors we live by

Sonimage's critique of language (text; script; name; word) operates in conjunction

with a view of mediation as the single constantof human experience. However, Godard
and Mieville move beyond the vagaries of a general theoretical position to an
exploration and critique of the specificities of contemporary French via the interviews
with Camille and Arnaud in France tour. In the context of a neo-Lacanianmodel of the
159

linguistic basis to the Symbolic order, they move within the actual terms and expressions
Sonimage
language
late
Within
in
1970s.
France
the
the
work,
of
at a given moment,
France tour marks, therefore, a decisive shift towards a systematic exploration of
subjectivity (sight; perception; behaviour), as circumscribed by an interrelated series of
broad
in
detail
develops
In
France
the
this
tour
critique
metaphorical concepts.
respect,
familiar
language
from the antecedent Sonimage work within the framework of an
of
elaborate theory of metaphor.

In France tour, therefore, earlier assumptionsand generalisationsare refined and

applied to the actual terms and expressions of language. Since this project is played out
by successive returns to Camille and Arnaud in the course of their daily routine, with
the aim of dissecting their inventive ability, cognitive capacity, and, above all, the
habitual recourse to cliche and received wisdom in their responses, we might say that
the Sonimage project takes a personal turn. The visual aspect of the interviews shows
the viewer, with extreme simplicity, the children's responses; their misunderstandings,
hesitations, and often tortuous thought processes which lie at the conjunction of verbal
into
lapse
the
children sporadically
curious,

expression and physical gesture. Initially

boredom and indifference, withdrawing into evasion: Camille becomes silent; Arnaud
becomes monosyllabic

and distracted:

But Godard/Linhard

is largely successful in

intervening in conventional thought processes, derailing received cognitive mechanisms,

and forcing the children to be-intellectually inventive.

Whenever they think they have

the measure of his line of questioning, a broadside is delivered from an unexpected

he
is
he
failsWhere
(as
to
suggest),
ostensibly
quick
angle.
many commentators were
highly successful in depicting their solitude, isolation, and boredom.
The impetus

for

the- interviews

was undoubtedly

partially

inspired

by

Francoise
Dolto's celebrated (and hugely successful) regular radio
psychoanalyst
broadcastson the subject of children on France-Inter from October 1976.45The 'truths'
articulated by children, couchedin what Nietzschetermed'a mobile army of metaphors',
16
in
focus
Sonimage's
terms?
whose
of
are the
analysis: what truths, and
Godard/Mieville attempt to extricate themselves temporarily from language, and so
evaluate a language at once familiar and profoundly alien to them. As Deleuze
observes, in his desire to approach and unpick language, Godard enacts the role of
foreigner in his own language:

160

On ne peut etre un etranger generalementque dans une autre langue. Ici au

contraire, il s'agit d'etre, dans sa propre langue, un etranger. Proust disait que
les beaux livres sont forcement ecrits dans une sorte de langue etrangere. C'est
la meme chosepour les emissionsde Godard; il a meme perfectionne son accent
"

suisse cet effet.

The interviews of France tour revolve around an exploration of metaphor from
the point of departure of two children as innocent 'containers' of a cross-section of learnt
terms and expressions. Rather than tease out and assessthe implications of the ideology
encoded in the language of a contemporary book or newspaper (which, to an extent, is
a parallel facet of Sonimage's voyage through metaphor), Godard/Linhard enacts the
delicate balancing act of conducting such a critique on living subjects. In this respect,
is
language
inscribed
in
the
the
complicating
and
consciousness
children's
unpicking
directly analogous to the archetypal Godardian technique of wordplay; the visual and
'rewiring',
isolation
in
the
and
of
words
within
words,
quotation,
and,
particular,
aural
detournement of pre-existent discourses via the inscription of graffiti.

Much of the

beauty of the interviews with the children derives from a fluctuating position accorded
the viewer:

from

that of observer outside the dialogue to identification

Godard/Linhard's position as he simultaneously sustains, and implicitly

with

criticises, the

dialogue.
the
results of

Sonimageemphasize-andexplore-the-active constitutive function of metaphor in

perception, cognition, and expression. When conducted within the terms of television,
the incontrovertible

novelty of such a project resides in the radical difference and

be
This
the
subject
their
of
matter.
situated
must
complexity
central aspect of
project
in the context of metaphor theory, and especially the explosion of interest in (and studies
Sonimage
1970s,
the
throughout
the
metaphor
of)
some of which closely ressemble
48
Before exploring these overlaps, however, a brief contextualisation of this
work.
in
is-required.
interest
metaphor
renewed

Taxonomies of classical rhetoric treat metaphor as an interesting trope through

Aristotle's
is
language'.
flourish
'normal
to
view
an
adornment
append
or
which
onto
double-edged, casting metaphor as a rhetorical tool for argument and persuasion, whilst
('not
it
it
from
tropes
a thing whose use
according
a specificity which sets apart
other
can be taught by one man to anotheri4).

In either case, metaphor is theorised as a

device external to 'normal' language, detachable from it, and, as such, profoundly idealist
in conception; a figure whose principal

better
is
to
express an
or
elucidate
role

161

unchanging external reality.

Such a position is, of course, in total opposition to the

Post-Structuralist conception of the causative interpenetration of language, identity, and

reality.

References to metaphor here (or in the following chapter) are therefore not to

be confused with studies of metaphor within classical rhetoric in which metaphor is

treated as appendage to literal language, or a gauge of artistic individuality.

In the

context of a view of metaphor as the central principle to language, Godard/Mieville view

whole areas of experience as constructed through clusters of the metaphors which pattern
human perception and thought.

The Sonimageproject is, therefore, best viewed as anti-metaphorical, not in the

sense of refusing metaphor (impossible, given the assumption of language as inherently
but
in
the sense of relentlessly questioning the ideological bias ingrained
metaphorical),
in what appear to be the least motivated of everyday expressions: a dissection of
metaphor as the basic model of the-construction of meaning. The works are, therefore,
steeped in the ornamental metaphor of classical rhetoric, not to innocently reproduce it,
but to dissect and challenge- it.

Godard acknowledges the centrality of metaphor in

daily
life
in
his
by
interview
in
if
1982,
argument
an
complicating
even
constructing
using the term 'metaphor' simultaneously to denote the ingrained linguistic metaphors
etched in consciousness, and the concept of any artwork or genuine representation as
fulfilling

a metaphorical function vis-a-vis- co-creation on the part of the individual: 'Il

faut des metaphores pour accomplir

des distances, sans metaphore, les gens ne

leurs
is
le
i5
le
in this
It
pas
maisons
soir.
matin et n'y rentreraient pas
quitteraient
context that Godard/Mieville

approach language in France tour, and set out to unravel

the metaphorical concepts circumscribing experience.

Similarly, the profound shift in critical positions vis--vis language figured in
Structuralism is echoed in sociolinguistic

and psycholinguistic

interest in metaphor.

Whilst often resisting a Lacanian view of the ego as constructed in language, widespread
interest from psycholinguistics and cognitive psychologists in metaphor in the 1970s, and
derived
directly
increase
in
from
books
the
the
articles
subject,
a resultant
and
on
by
if
language
fuelled
that
metaphor, then those
recognition
was
and permeated
metaphors were not incidental or peripheral to identity, but central. The collection of
papers edited by Andrew Ortony under the title Metaphor and Thought is in this respect
s'
The anthology's guiding logic is that language is not merely an external
exemplary.
means of expressing thought, but its very internal framework, one which in turn

162

decisively models that thought.

Far from an appendage to language, metaphor's

importance derives from its seminal role in relation to cognition.

categorising reality revolves around the culturally-embedded

Our way of

concepts and gestalts

ingrained in the networks of 'dead' or 'hidden' metaphors that constitute language, and
the principal manner in which such categories change is through the impact of new
metaphors as language evolves. Transposed back onto a Post-Structuralist model of the
subject as existing only in language, to explore and unpick the metaphorical gestalts and
gauzes through which Arnaud and Camille inhabit their worlds, is to question the root
of their existence. Much of the provocation of the Sonimage television work, doubtless
accounting for many of the highly unfavourable reviews by critics, derives, therefore,
from Godard/Mieville's application, within the confines of television, of a sophisticated
degree of theory to daily life.
The figure of Levi-Strauss looms large over social and anthropological critiques
of metaphor.

Where the broad strokes of Post-Structuralist theory draw on Lacan's

interpenetration
the
model of
of language- and subjectivity, a critique of the internal
intricacies of language and metaphor, of human beings as intrinsically

and primarily

is
best situated within the context of Claude Levi-Strauss's
animals,
metaphorical
bricolage.
of
concept

In The Savage Mind, he argues that the 'savage mind' responds

to the surrounding physical world through a 'science of the concrete' which, through
bricolage, orders and classifies the minutiae of the physical world into myths and
structures which allow reality to be comprehended and inhabited: nature and culture are
made to mirror one another via homologies in which all cultural participants are
implicated. For Levi-Strauss, the--savage-mind 'builds mental structures which facilitate
an understanding of the world in as much as they ressemble it'SZ,and he concludes that
savage thought is first and foremost analogical
position for metaphor are profound.

thought.

The implications

of this

In the context of any given society, the function

of all bricolage is as a basis for making metaphors. A seminal critique of the valueladen hierarchies and anthropomorphisms ingrained in the humanistic metaphors of
French (or Western) language was conducted by Alain Robbe-Grillet in 1958, where he
asserts, quite simply, that'Tout est contamine'. 53 Analogical relations between the social
hierarchy and natural phenomena constitute the point of departure for metaphors which
mutate over time (God-sun-King, for instance). Robbe-Grillet's concern is to point up
the compartmentalisation of reality, and our position in it, through language, and to

163

highlight the assumptionsand presuppositionsunquestioningly reproducedin language,

in
his
here
in
broadside,
he
to
theoretical
and
elsewhere
counter
own
a
seeks
which
practice as a writer.
In this profound mistrust of metaphor, borne-of a recognition of the referential
social

and cultural

Godard/Mieville's)

grid

it

assumes and reinforces,

Robbe-Grillet's

(and then

critique of metaphor was foreseen by the attempt, doomed a priori,

`
in
Kafka.
the
work of
to circumvent metaphor

Language is the site and storehouse of

inherited network of relative- orderings of nature vis-a-vis culture

thought,
an
previous
in
Where
Baudelaire
the
to
which
culture
such
orderings
established.
were
specific
invokes Nature as a forest of symbols, symbols 'qui 1'observent avec des regards
familiersiSS, Robbe-Grillet (in what is quite possibly a direct response to Baudelaire)
le monde, et le monde ne lui rend pas son regard'. 56 The
regarde
that'L'homme
counters
degree
freedom
Robbe-Grillet's
to
polemic,
a
plea
restore
a
of
extra-metaphorical
core of
interact
the
inanimate
to
of
objects
material
world,
see
and
with such objects
the
to
language,
in
the
the
weight
of
predetermining
metaphorical
expressions
etched
without
Sonimage's
language:
to
close
critique
of
is clearly very
Le monde autour de nous- redevient une surface lisse, sans signification, sans
me, sans valeurs, sur laquelle nous n'avons plus aucune prise. Comme l'ouvrier
le
dont
il
depose
besoin,
marteau
n'a
a
plus
qui
nous nous retrouvons une fois
de plus en face des choses.s'
For the anthropologist-sociolinguist-historian,

to understand the culture/nature

homologies in a given culture, and the resultant metaphors which constitute the language
fundamental
is
insight
to
into
behaviour
a
gain
that
the
gives
culture,
society
that
and
of
Within
this
Godard/Linhard's interviews with the children
context,
the
system.
to
rise
language
in
thelinguistic
they
relief
the
through
to
cast
employ,
piercing
aim
tentative outline of the type of society which produced that
trace
to
a
expressions
language.

It is noteworthy in this respect that both children are from comfortable

backgrounds, reproducing the assumptions ingrained in the language of that

middle-class
dominant social language, as both Barthes and Sonimage would agree). The
(the
class
by
lives
its
at
any
given
moment,
culture
arrangement of metaphorical
metaphors a
just
its
X-ray
language,
but
not
the
of
an
that
of
provide
very
of
premises
expressions,
is in this sense that France tour can be said to be not only on language, but,
it
culture;
first and foremost, on metaphor.
164

Of the numerous studies of metaphor to have emerged from the renewed interest
in the subject over the past three- decades, one in particular, co-authored by linguist
George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, is particularly
illuminating when viewed in conjunction-with the Sonimage work. Its thesis provides
a logic into which to key Godard/Mieville's exploration of metaphor in the France tour
interviews. S" Lakoff and Johnson argue, and demonstrate through meticulously presented
examples, that metaphor pervades everyday language, determining thought, experience,
and actions at every moment of our lives.

From the point of departure of a modest

demonstration of the manifold ways in which language applies inherently metaphorical

terms to abstract notions, situating them concretely and spatially, Lakoff and Johnson
in
a way that articulates Sonimage's position concisely, that all thought and
contend,
determined
is
via metaphor: 'Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which
action
we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.i59

Godard/Mieville, like Lakoff/Johnson- and Levi-Strauss, assume a direct

between
is
dead
in
language
the
saturated and the
correlation
metaphors
which
structuring values and principles of the-society to which they relate.

The principal

dynamic of their thesis is that not only are concepts saturated in metaphor (and so
human
is
the
through
them),
orchestrated
conceptual system
experience
and not only
metaphorically structured and defined, but that series of concepts and areas of experience
are structured through sprawling clusters of conventional dead metaphors embalmed in
everyday language. Lakoff/Johnson demonstrate, for instance, how our entire vocabulary
for discussing theories and arguments- is structured via metaphors of building

and

how
how
ideas
food,
figured
physical or
and
are
construction,
via metaphors of
6
body.
Depending
figured
human
inside
through
the
to
emotional states are
reference
differing
in
direction
(x
in
terms
the
x),
a
the
of
terms of y rather than y
of
projection
on
inflections
and
attributes
array of
will be revealed or concealed, a model of metaphor
6'
Barthes's
'myth'.
which converges closely with
model of

SusanSontag,writing in 1979, observedthat the saturationof our vocabulary for

discussing illness, and cancer in particular, through military metaphors of siege and
invasion, servedto profoundly falsify the reality of cancer,and confer a false and brutal
62
ill
stigma on the person. Like Robbe-Grillet, but in a radically different context, she
pleads for an approach to illness which eschews the imposition of a language of
punishment or embarrassment:'Without "meaning"'.63 The novelty of Lakoff/Johnson's

165

approach is to systematically

apply this principle

to all language: concepts are

understood in terms of other concepts, themselves metaphorically structured. A single

in
infuse
those
power get to
concept can generate and
an entire area of experience;
impose their metaphors, with metaphorical activity most intense in power struggles, at
into
in
interest
has
difference,
event
a
assimilating an
a vested
sites of
where each side
"
ideological
discursive
and
particular
order.

Where Robbe-Grillet proposesa refusal of analogical vocabulary ('refus enfin de

tout ordre preetablii65),Sonimage'sresponseto the immersion of the subject in metaphor
is more down to earth. Godard/Linhard's tactic in the dialogues with Camille and
Arnaud is three-fold. In discussing a topic, he deliberately leads the child on a voyage
through the multifarious associations implicit in the latent structuring of disparate
in
in
Arnaud
In
terms
experience
of a single metaphor.
conversation with
spheresof
France tour 2, for instance,he-takes the-concept of 'light' as his point of departure and
literal
its
from
trace
to
the
and
out
metaphorical applications,
most concrete
proceeds
to the most tenuous: to light up, shedlight on, 'enlighten' in relation to objects and ideas
(the discussion is mirrored visually by the shifting sunlight on the moving vehicles
"
language,
is
Arnaud
filmed).
history
In
to
the
this
tracing
everyday
against which
of
Godard/Linhard implements Lakoff/Johnson's brief to the letter, demonstrating how a
single concept underscoresmultiple spheresof experience.
Godard/Linhard's second principal mode-of interviewing is to follow the same
is
but
in
isolate
Just
down
Sonimage
to
reverse.
at
what
as
gestures
principle,
slow
information
in
down
the
circuits
most
routine
of
corporeal
stake
movements, and slow
to force into relief the presence and function of capital, so their critique of language can
be viewed in terms of slowing down the exchanges in dialogue to the point of putting
them in reverse, working back through the suppositions on which everyday speech is
grounded.

Taking a metaphorical

departure,
his
of
point
term or expression as

Godard/Linhard works backwards, relating it suddenly (and categorically) to a concrete

linking
The
insistence,
of an ostensibly
this
this
effect
sudden
of
object or situation.
of
innocent expression to the object that originally gave it its logic (but from which it has
become long since severed), is a startling disruption both to the children (who have no
real idea of any logic to the vagueries of Godard/Linhard's questioning) and the viewer
(for whom the response is both emotional and intellectual).

This rapprochement of an

aspect of the child's speech with its material origin, the etymological logic of its original

166

bricolage, is both challenging and provocative: from an apparently inexistent relation,

one which has become lost or obscured, an ostensibly absurd link is postulated and, in
a sudden process of intransigent insistence, a gulf from nonsensical absurdity to a direct
literal relation is rapidly bridged.
process familiar

metaphorical

from

Godard/Linhard

thereby enacts a radical anti-

Surrealism. "'

The essentialism endemic to

metaphoric constructions, the supposition of an underlying unity guaranteed through the

omnipresence of metaphor (a reciprocal ordering of nature and culture via bricolage),
is subverted through this reduction of the abstract to the literal.

Thus Godard/Linhard,

departing from an intrinsically metaphorical expression, at first appears to be establishing

Through
the rapid process described above, however, a kaleidoscope
metaphor.
new
a
associations are evoked in the interstice

of possible metaphorical and metonymic

between the original expression and its concrete source, and quashed in the process of
insistence.
literal
sudden

Linda Williams makes a similar observation in relation to Bunuel's Un Chien

immediate
is
that
by
arguing
a
subversive
the
andalou,
charge
carried
postulation, and
images,
puncturing, of ostensible metaphors. -A
sequence of apparently unrelated
archetypal of Surrealism in their self-presentation as a flight of wildly unrelated dreamlike metaphors interlocked via formal similarity, demand a rapid series of interpretative
logic
discursive
in
the
the
to
trace
on
thread
part
of
viewer
adjustments
of
an attempt
a
or coherence.

More than this, the- enforced detour through disparate perplexing

in
culminates
a 'surprise metonymy' and the unsettling revelation of spatial
metaphors
68
diegetic
This literalisation is a central tactic employed by
contiguity.
and
Godard/Linhard in these dialogues, a process echoed elsewhere in the Sonimage work
in an analogous literal insistence on direct equivalence that eschews and destroys
metaphor.

Jean-Pierre Bamberger

Godard/Mieville's

notes a recurrent

refusal

of

metaphor

in

i69),
(Trendre
la
la
lettre,

tout
a point
metaphore.
work
refuser

Sonimage
by
(cited
Gilles
Deleuze
the
in
his
on
above)
echoed
subsequently
comments
work as exploring the literal
relatively

conventional

truths ('litteralement,

metaphors

(bankers

in
contained
sans metaphorei70)

as killers,

schools

as prisons,

or

photographers as con-men), linking this assault on metaphor to Robbe-Grillet's earlier

"
in
'Nature,
humanisme,
tragedie'.
polemic
Godard/Linhard makes no pretence at being a linguist, or, indeed, in having any
particular

interest in following

through an etymological

167

project on contemporary

'metaphors we live by' to its conclusion. From the point of departure of everyday
language, he is far more interested in demonstrating a series of principles, principles
hand,
he
On
Lakoff/Johnson.
the
the
other
argumentsof
which correlate closely with
in
language
in
the processof
to
the
whilst
right as mercurial poet/artist revel
reserves
dissecting it.

If his aim is serious, his methods allow him to eschew academic

false
leap
laterally
language,
to
to
through
etymological
orthodoxy,
and postulateentirely
relations.
Godard/Linhard's third principal tactic is to enact the role of metaphor-maker:
he conducts a conscious Levi-Straussian bricolage, using the children as semi-willing
sounding boards. A central tactic of the 'interviews' is to demonstrate the functioning
by
language
taking an expression, and projecting it onto another sphere of experience.
of
Just as Lakoff/Johnson argue that successive realms of experience are patterned in terms
of the underlying concepts through which we see them, so Godard/Linhard

forces

diverse contemporary expressions to conform to this same process. Whilst occasionally

flat, and leading nowhere, this practice is largely successful in highlighting the history
language
by redoubling it, simultaneously generating new correlations
and artificiality of
through the postulation of wave after wave of new metaphors. Just as the tactic of the
assertion of literal equivalence-of one-object with an ostensibly unrelated second object
sets in motion a whole series of semantic short-circuits and metaphoric-metonymic
oscillations,

so this procedure of actively

generating new metaphorical

linkages

fluctuates from the production of self-evident truths to assertions of direct equivalence

between outlandishly different (even opposed) concepts and realms. In this way, the
is
both
poetically ambitious and politically
procedure

fruitful.

Whilst many of the

jettisoned,
many others
and
analogies
posited are skidded rapidly across and
correlations
demonstrate,
As
the next chapter will
remain as questions or possibilities.
Godard/Linhard's dialogues constitute a slow-motion reflection within the texts of the
very functioning of the texts.

In this process of the redoubling of the mechanism

in
Godard/Linhard
the
relief
process
casts
are
made,
metaphors
economically
whereby
identity
for
ideological
implications
the
and society steeped
of metaphor-making, and
in, and circumscribed by, the ways of seeing and behaving inscribed in those metaphors.

168

5.4

CONCLUSION

The Sonimage work, particularly as it culminates in France tour, assumes and

language.
This
determined
by
identity
Post-Structuralist
model
a
as
applies
model of
is at the heart of a succession of related polemics, both in the Sonimage work, and in
Godard and Mieville's subsequent work which evolves out of it.

More than this, the

for
the
the operation of metaphor, constitutes the single
of
mediation,
paradigm
process
be
of
we
can
sure.
which
reality
through language is illusory.

Contact with reality unblemished by its passage

Within this theoretical context, Godard/Mieville

conduct

interviews,
dissection
in
Sonimage
'metaphors
live
by'
the
the
of
a practical
we
dissections which function, ultimately, as explorations of the social order.
The rage against language in Godard and Mieville's work of the 1980s, and the

it
language
is
directly
function
takes,
traceable
the
to
this
of
guises
multiple
critique of
in the Sonimage work. If this body of work has been generally overlooked, then this
has
been
the most acutely neglected. The exploration and critique of
central aspect
language in the Sonimage work, distinct from the other modes of communication
discussed in earlier chapters, constitutes the- most sustained and enduring facet of
Godard/Mieville's project and its principal legacy; the Sonimage work is, primarily, a
body of work on language whose texts, as the final chapter will argue, draw on
language as their principal pole of reference.

169

Chapter 6
Texts in motion: generative metaphor
6.1

INTRODUCTION

Godard and Mieville conceive-the subject as constructed in language, positioned

(with
humanistic
in
inherited
their
a
conceptual
system
within
saturated
metaphors
in
long-since defunct feudal or monarchichal bricolage systems). It
etymological roots
in
the previous chapter that an engagement with this model informs
was argued
Godard/Linhard's interviews with the children in France tour, through which he unpicks
and complicates the metaphors and associated concepts we live by. This chapter will
is
it
logic
that
the
themselves,
to
the
the
and
also provides
show
conception of
works
exploited as a method to construct texts which operate through the interpenetration of
multiple metaphors; the aim and function of such metaphorical clusters being to resist
in
language,
boundaries
the
the
through
and
motion
set
and
of
categories reproduced
be
Symbolic
As
Sonimage
the
the
viewed as a
underpin
order.
can
which
such,
work
sustained discourse on and against metaphor, quite distinct

from

the work

of

theoreticians who have attempted to delineate models for the functioning of metaphor
in the cinema. '

This chapter begins with an outlining of a theory of 'generative' metaphor, and

it
to the Sonimage texts, arguing that it provides a useful model of
to
apply
proceed
internal
ferment
demonstrate
the
that
It
their operation as a
of questions.
will also
is
itself
in
'ways
that
terms
of one another,
of projecting
processof metaphor,
of seeing'
played out, notably via video enchafnementand superimposition, and that the many
in
discussed
preceding chapters
reflexive embodiments of processes of mediation
function, ultimately, as visualisations of the process of metaphor itself: metaphors of
metaphor.

170

6.2

GENERATIVE

6.2.1

Generative metaphor:

METAPHOR
outline of a theory

Il y avait une fois deux images. (Numerodeux)

Godard/Mieville's

project responds to the following

is
if
language
question:

saturated with the significations inscribed in inherited metaphors, then how can one
create 'outside', or resist, its effects? If all communion with reality, with others, and
with ourselves, is filtered through the terms of an acquired language, then all attempts
to analyse and reformulate our perceptions are doomed to remain ensnared in the
laconic
language.
Apres,
In
Avant
that
the
to
of
same
amongst
et
assumptions
scenario
life
'after
the revolution', Godard/Mieville
on
musings

how
to
this
of
question
raise

light
its
language
in
in
the
of
question
and
employ
a constructive, progressive manner
omnipresence:

Pour se poser cette question, il faut etre doue de langage, et peut-etre bien que
d'etre lie par une laisse notre bon maitre le langage, c'est ca qui s'appelle une
de
chien.
vie
Alors comment renverser ce maitre a penser notre existence?
In a similar vein, Jacques Derrida has argued that the permeation of all texts with
is
ignored,
becomes
itself
discussion
thereof
generally
quickly
metaphor
whilst any
3
is
in
Sonimage's
to
the
metaphor
on
metaphor.
ensnared
response
omnipresence of
fois
deux
Six
(in
fronts:
free
the
the
to
giving
of
reign
expansive speech
several
interviews), the dissection of metaphors we live by, and the attempt to construct vibrant
responses to an aleatory present through video.

There is a real sense in which the

Sonimage texts, echoing the Levi-Straussian model of 'bricolage', attempt to formulate

tentative images of contemporary life, and so play out the function of metaphor at the
between
life
fault-line
bridge,
between
life
its
the
and
gateway, or
and
representation, on
"
in
interlocuters
A
the scenario of
the
two
comment on
opposed strategies of the
art.
Lefon

de choses captures this notion of Six fois

deux as successive waves of

formulations of how real representations/metaphors of contemporary existence might

look:

171

L'un part plutt d'un systeme d'explication du monde qu'il demontre l'aide
d'images et de sons assemblesdans un ordre certain.
L'autre part plutt d'images et de sons qu'il assembledans un certain ordre pour
'
faire
We
du
se
une
monde.
It is in this sense that Stuart Cunningham and Ross Harley observe that Godard and
Mieville's

work is 'a project which invents and reinvents languages of the social,

imagining
into
'various
the realm of the
the
of
real',
metaphors
or
acts of research
"
possible'.

But the responseto the challenge of how, and what, to create in the context of
the structuring of thought and perception through metaphor, is a project best typified as
against metaphor. Sonimage's strategy recalls traditional uses and studies of metaphor
(notably its conception in classical rhetorical as a trope through which to persuade and
is
and
yet profoundly radical. Beneath the appearance of an embracing of
embellish),
de
in
Lecon
linguistic
(the
the evocative power of poetic metaphor
categories
play on
'
Where
instance),
for
lies
classical
project.
an
emphatically
anti-metaphorical
choses,
interrogate
Godard/Mieville
figure's
the
expressive potency,
views of metaphor marvel at
this power relentlessly. Furthermore, the Post-Structuralist backdrop to their project not
linguistic
basic
but
Symbolic,
the
to
the
refuses any assumption of creative
only assumes
its
intertextual
dissolution
into
through
text,
moments;
of author,
and reader
autonomy
Godard/Mieville,

as joint authors, thus problematise the work of metaphor rather than

it
unknowingly.
employing
As mentioned in Chapter 2, a critique of Eisenstein informs both the work of
Sonimage and the Groupe Dziga Vertov, and, as suggested in Chapter 4, Battleship
Potemkin comes to function

as a shorthand figure

for the absence of genuine

importance
The
of Eisenstein, however, is increasingly reinstated across
communication.
the Sonimage work, and comes about, I suggest, precisely through a recognition of
Eisenstein's work on (and with) metaphor in film. 8 This is not to suggest that the two
linkage
Eisenstein's
in
On
the
visual
the contrary,
practices employ metaphor
same way.
is
distinct
quite
through
enchainement
of plastic and semiotic elements
metaphorical
from Sonimage's structuring of the texts in relation to a multiplicity
is, however, a rapprochement of the two practices.

of metaphors. There

Just as Sonimage work against

its
live
by
(with
insidious
metaphor, against the
reproduction of the metaphors we

172

accompanying ideological implications), so Eisenstein insists on the use of metaphor to

counter any semblance of his arch-enemy, realism: the process and activity of metaphor
is set to work against the draw of realism?

As Marie-Claire

Ropars-Wuilleumier

suggests in her analysis of the function of metaphor in October, its use insists reflexively
on its own status as construct:
La saisie du reel passe par son elaboration textuelle c'est ce dont temoigne ici
la fonction devolue de la metaphore; eile confirme en cela le mouvement general
de la recherche eisensteinienne, qui trouve l'elimination du realisme et de sa
charge ideologique - dans le retour a une realite concue comme produit et non
comme donne: produit d'une histoire, mais aussi et d'abord produit d'un discours.
Sonimage seek to reveal the ideology in metaphor, Eisenstein to foreground the
manipulations of metaphor as paradigm of the artifice of all human semiotic systems.
Metaphor functions for both as a slow-motion model of the process of the construction
of meaning itself, a notion insisted on by Jacques Aumont in his perceptive discussion
in
relation to Eisenstein's montage theory:
of metaphor
Eisenstein discusses metaphor or synecdoche, it is never in the context
when
...
of copying or adapting figures of rhetoric for the cinema, but more in the sense
1
for
the
of models
production of meaning.
Furthermore, Aumont goes on to argue in a passage uncannily applicable to the
Sonimage work, that the logic informing Eisenstein's use of metaphor is an exploration
dynamic
the
process of transference at the core of signification.
of

Like Sonimage,

Eisenstein 'comes around to questioning the nature of metaphor itself ", exploring
'2
'as
fundamental
figures
thought'.
metaphor and metonymy
of the very processes of

An analogousdebateis visible in relation to the Nouveau Roman in the wake of

Robbe-Grillet's assault on the unifying tendency underlying all metaphor discussedin
the previous chapter. Pierre and Madelaine Caminadepoint to a contradiction between
Robbe-Grillet's theoretical position and his use of a form of metaphor in his creative
"
writing. Indeed, they overtly chastisehim for contradicting his position14,to which he
respondsthat his use of metaphor as a structural dynamic is distinct from the repetition
of the humanistic metaphors he had dismissed so categorically in 'Nature, humanisme,
tragedie': 'Mais le mot metaphore, par sa constitution, n'a aucun caracterequi le fasse
173

definitivement appartenir au premier groupe, celui de la metaphorehumaniste,on peut

tres bien 1'employerdansle second."' Robbe-Grillet's 'second'categoryis the productive
role of 'metaphore structurale' in the counter-narrativesof the Nouveau Roman, what
Jean Ricardou terms 'metaphore generatrice'.16 Ricardou posits the work of such
structural/generativemetaphor as not a mere use of traditional metaphorical forms, but
a profound questioning thereof ('subversion d'une metaphore expressive'").
Rather than resisting the work of metaphor by refusing it, Godard/Mieville
its use in their work in a manner that accentuates and reflects on its

multiply

functioning.

Rather than circumventing

the ideological

charge of metaphor, they

therefore engage with it head-on by magnifying its operations. Their use of metaphor
thus focuses less on persuasive power than on the internal functioning of the metaphors;
where traditional rhetoric employs metaphor to achieve a desired expressive or poetic
frame
focus
Sonimage
frame
(visually
the
on metaphor as gauze or
equated with
end,
image),
the mechanism whereby objects and subjects are constructed and
the
of
language.
through
positioned

Sonimage's critique of language is, therefore, less an

Surrealist
than
of
a
politics
of metaphor, and mirrors a central characteristic
aesthetics
like
identified
by
Dali,
in
Linda
Bufiuel
Williams
Un
and
metaphor as
chien andalou.
Godard/Mieville, are less interested in using metaphor than scrutinising, and drawing the
draw
Dali
by
'...
Bunuel
to,
the
their
operation
attention
and
enacted
metaphor:
viewer's
in
eye
such a way that, by blinding us to the possibility of seeing
our
across
razor
18
itself.
figure,
force
figure
look
they
through the
us to
at the work of the

The textual strategy through which this interrogation of metaphoris achieved is

A
Jean
Ricardou,
following
'generative
I,
term
usefully schematic
metaphor'.
will
what
Schn,
by
Donald
delineated
who
model of generative metaphor was subsequently
Godard/Mieville's
in
term
that
the
a
manner
with
accords closely
employs

textual

19
Schn's use of the concept is within a tightly prescribed practical context,
practice.
its
(he
initially
limited
use as a tool
suggests
appears unacceptably
and so
and prosaic
to generate innovative approaches to social policy within the framework of group
discussions).

As such, it is inadequate as an overall account of the poetic and

political/ideological
founded.

disembowelling

Sonimage
the
texts are
which
of metaphor on

On the other hand, Schn's central thesis, in skeletal form, provides a

suggestive model through which to discuss those texts. In the context of a view of
174

metaphor as embodying a set of perspectives on reality ('how we think about things,

make sense of reality, and set the problems we later try to solve'20), Schn proposes a
dynamic model in which two or more metaphors, and their associated realms of
reference, are forced into contact.

Schn's model provides a simple means through which to cast the work of
in
into
if
forces
In
terms
to
terms,
crisis.
see
a
metaphor
schematic
us
a given metaphor
of b, and a second metaphor to see c in terms of d, then to force a rapprochement via
which d is mapped onto b (the Greek meta eherein = to 'carry over') is to set in motion
a series of questions about the assumptions of the original

metaphor, and to

his
ignores
Schn
this
of
model
generate
new rapprochements.
radicality
simultaneously
in favour of more pragmatic

gains, but the potential

of such a procedure to

Godard/Mieville's dissection of the French language is clear: by methodically structuring

their work around multiple metaphors, the-metaphoricity of each concept is cast in relief
The
host
limks
by
signifying
the
of
potential
whilst a
are postulated
new metaphor(s).
chains activated through the projection of metaphors in terms of each other serves to
unravel the partiality

of each primary metaphor, whilst simultaneously generating a

from
familiar
the classical
the
of
paradoxes,
succession
non-sequiturs, and provocations
By
metaphor.
poetic
redoubling (or multiplying)
of
use

the work of metaphor, focus is

inherent
in
the
process
all metaphor: the work of mediation.
on
cast

The power of

in
two ways: as the dead structuring metaphors which permeate all
thus
works
metaphor
language, and as the principal agent of language change, capable of forcing new ways
dual
Sonimage
inhabiting
to
movement, simultaneously
reality.
seek enact a complex
of
destructive and creative: to resist and interrogate the received connotations carried in any
As
by
associations.
to
such parasitic
generate new meaning unfettered
metaphor, and
21
its
Bunuel,
Barthes suggested of
suspension.
they seek to examine meaning through

Godard's work generally operates through suggestion and ellipsis, through

successivewaves of formulation and dissolution. The Godard text signifies through a
fluid processof discoursing around and between the object, and the structuring of the
texts around metaphorical poles formalises this insistence on process. Jonathan
Rosenbaum and Rod Stoneman have come close to capturing the density of the
signifying processin Godard'swork through the setting of metaphorsin tension with one
another. Stoneman argues, with reference to Passion, that 'The complexity of these
175

from
intersections
metaphoric
a multi-dimensional
stems
articulated together'',
deux, identified

interplay when meanings are

and Rosenbaum, in an extremely perceptive review of Numero

the 'shifting co-ordinates' of 'an unsteady composite image whose

"meanings" are in a state of perpetual flux'. 23 To frame the text with generative
metaphors, and to project the cross-fertilized metaphorical gestalts across the narratives,
provides a powerful model of the aleatory textual slippages of all of Godard's work.

The structuring of the Sonimagetexts through generativemetaphor is prefigured

by a familiar Godardian textual strategy, that of the play between languageand image:
C'est de l'homeopathie, c'est du vaccin. Les serums sont pris dans les tissus
C'est
injecte
des

d'autres,
fabriquent
aussi
qu'on
etc.
malades,
anticorps,
qui
la contradiction teile que 1'a expliquee Mao ze Dong de maniere tres simple, et
dont on peut se servir, comme d'un outil. 24
If generative metaphor constitutes the culmination of a tactic often experimented with
by Godard, then it also casts his prior practice in a different light.

The intertitles in

Vivre sa vie, for example, habitually read as Brechtian distanciation devices to disrupt
identification,
unmediated

could, therefore, be read in equal measure as generating the

25
Similarly, the language/image relations established in many of the
ensuing narrative.
'bandes annonces' for Godard's early films foresee the word/image interplay systematised
in the Sonimage critique of metaphor. The trailers of A bout de souffle and Vivre sa vie,
for instance, contain an already exemplary series of word-to-image transpositions. 26
What is more, in both these trailers, as in the one announcing Deux ou trois choses que
je sais d'elle (which sets up the multiple connotations of 'eile'), a way of reading is
instigated.

In a manner which prefigures Sonimage's use of generative metaphor,

especially the graphic inscription of isolated words onto the screen, these mini selfboxfilms
to
the
draw
are not merely commercial tools to
contained
potential viewers
do
(although
they
this unashamedly), but a reflexive metadiscourse on the
often
office
works themselves.
In Jean-Luc, Godard talks of the works as conceived around structuring 'jalons'.
Similarly,

in an interview

about Numero deux, he invokes a textual strategy less

be
found
in
dominant
to
than
that
either
vis--vis
viewer
circumscribed
engagement
cinema or his prior work:

176

Si partir de l'image tu pensesa ton mec, c'est tres bien comme boulot. Mais
le film to laisse pensercomme tu veux; il to donne eventuellementdes schemas
de pensee- beaucoupplus souples que ce que je faisais avant d'ailleurs -, mais
ce n'est pas ce que j'appelle du boulot. C'est tout fait normal, ca, comme
boulot. Mais tu nest pas force de penser le film, de faire exister le film. "'
The notion of generative metaphor is simply a way of rationalising these 'schemas de
pensee' or 'jalons' which pepper the texts, and tying it to the broader context of the
Sonimage project on communication, language, -metaphor, and identity.

If the use of structuring metaphorical poles is Sonimage'sprimary aim, it is the

locus of a possible criticism.
great strengths.

The- open-endedness of the texts is clearly one of their

With extreme simplicity,

and minimal

authorial manipulation, the

framing of the texts through generative poles allows for, indeed encourages, constant
connotative slippage: the generative metaphors set up, and set in motion, the texts.
Authorship

is problematised

not merely through

collaborative

but,
more
work,

profoundly, through the construction of texts made up of multiple 'seeings as'. The
downside to this freedom is an inherent confusion about what is being said due to the
is
of
what
profusion
articulated simultaneously, allowing the avoidance of any
very
specific political

or moral stance- by the filmmakers

de
to
prise
any
position at all.
premises
tactic, therefore, where multidirectional

beyond a questioning of the

The danger inherent in Sonimage's textual

is
that
meanings are activated simultaneously,

is
insisting
by
the
on constant
sacrificed
at
expense of connotational richness:
specificity
is
being said is always opaque. So if Sonimage question all
what
slippage, precisely
fixed positions, they sail dangerously close to refusing the very possibility of adopting
any position.

The elisions and correlations in the 'Marchais' sequence discussed in

Chapter 2, for instance, are very rich, but the force of the argument (that reality is
it
for
is
dissipated
by
the
associations
media)
the network of extraneous
constructed
evokes, and which contain the force of the specificity

of the argument that the

Communist critique of the bourgeois press panders to, and reinforces, the position and
power of that same media infrastructure.

Godard/Mieville's position is dissolved behind the barrage of questions that

constitute the texts, providing them with the constantopportunity to evadeor relinquish
responsibility for any particular provocation, tautology, or paradox invoked through the
clash of metaphors. The challenging of any controversial position, or request for
177

elucidation, can be simply dismissed by a quick shift of ground across the metaphor(s)
in question (and examples of such evasion can be found in virtually any interview with
Godard of this period).

6.2.2

Generative metaphor at work 1: Numero deux

The first film to be conceived in terms of generative metaphor is Numero deut.

The paysagelusine opposition that infuses the film is established at the outset (before,
introductory
bewildering
Godard's
Vanessa's
Nicholas's
through
even,
and
monologue)
deadpan description of a factory in a landscape:
Nicholas:
Vanessa:

Godard/Mieville

II y avait ca, un paysage, et dedans on a mis une usine.

11 y avait ca, il y avait une usine, et tout autour on a mis un
paysage.
often state such 'facts', neutered of all expression, to achieve a quasi-

direct address to the viewer: more than simply dialogue, such condensed expressions
dynamic
the
charge- of formulae.
carry

The tension of this initial

transposed, in turn, onto each major thematic focus of the film.

is
opposition

Furthermore, the title

deux,
film,
Numero
in
functions
this generative manner, evoking two
the
alsoof
in
film
film,
the
(and
to
the
themes
position
of
also serving
women and shit
principal
its
From
bout
de
A
Numero
Jean
Eustache's
opening
to
zero).
souffle and
relation
moments, therefore, Numero deux is presided over by a perplexing combination of
metaphors, or, to use Gerard Genette's term, bi-directional
women/shit/landscape/factory,

'reciprocal metaphors'28:

invoke
in
a sliding scale of
turn,
metaphors which,

associated sub-metaphors.

Rather than prosaically taking a single metaphor (that of the female body as
factory, for instance) and unravelling

the ideological

in
obscured
such a
charge

from
(the
her
'woman'
culture),
exclusion
projection
construction of
as nature and
Sonimage set two metaphors in tension with one another in a dynamic process which
challenges the assumptions of each as premise, generating a host of related questions
when set in tension with the heterogeneous material with which it comes into contact

178

(the snatches of the everyday in Numero deux, the advertising imagery of Photos et cie,
or the disparate material incorporated into each episode of France tour). The notion of
'factory' in Numero deux, transposed in the course of the film's unfolding onto the
female body, the home, school, the rigid repetitions of daily life, programmatic bodily
movements, and the gestures-of pornography, itself contains and spawns related subsets
bisect
in
turn
and
reproduction,
notions
which
of metaphors around pollution, repetition,
the connotations arising from-the term paysage. If metaphors construct the female body
in terms of factory and landscape, and the home for the woman is a factory, then we see
how Godard can state quite literally that for Sandrine the reality of sexual relations is
'pointer au lit'. 29 The female body as spectacle and object of desire within culture and
is
(what
intrinsic'to-be-looked-at-nessi30),
dubbed
Laura
Mulvey
shortrepresentation
an
female
body
in
Godard/Mieville's
the
the-depiction
sport:
of women's
circuited
work via
have
in
for
terms
factory/landscape
of
no
the
metaphors
a pursuit
engaged
which
6,
in
France
(exemplified
in
female
images
tour
and echoed
the
the
athletes
reference
of
in the women's football depicted in Sauve qui peut (la vie)).
The Sonimage texts are presided over by overt generative poles, and poetic
formulae encapsulate much of the fundamental question raised by the metaphor(s) in
irregular
intervals.
motion at

The blocked flows revealed in information

circuits

discussed in earlier chapters, in conjunction with other structural homologies, function

In
from
from
to
a similar way,
to
metaphor.
as cross-over points
realm
metaphor
realm,
Barthes observes that circular imagery serves as basis of the metaphorical slippage in
Bataille's LHistoire

de 1'oeil, arguing that-the metaphor is endlessly reinvoked through

formal similarity. "

The casting of school as prison or factory, for instance, is asserted

directly (Arnaud going to school in France tour 2 is described, for instance, as 'partir
a l'usine'), but also emphasised visually in the layout of the desks in the classroom (like
soldiers on parade, as Godard/Linhard

in
Arnaud),
the wire netting
to
points out

before
Even
detention.
in
disciplinary
the
the
the
school, and
surrounding
process of
dynamos of the generative metaphors are in place, Godard/Mieville's

discourse is,

therefore, inherently punctuated with cross-over points.

In a discussion of the Surrealist image, Anna Balakian has identified a similar
process of multiple metaphor which, she argues, characterises the difference of Surrealist
poetry from that of preceding generations: metaphors are not the endpoint of a poem,
179

but the point of departure for ensuing spirals of sub-metaphors in an ongoing dynamic
process. Balakian uses the suggestive notion of the'square' of metaphor to denote such
series of metaphorical slippages, a concept directly applicable to Godard/Mieville's
32
As
questioning of meaning construction through their use of generative metaphor.
suggested above, Godard/Mieville are less interested in what a single metaphor contains,
than in an analysis of the process whereby meaning is constructed and metaphors are
'squared', and in the resultant raising of questions.

Since the Sonimage texts function through multiple metaphors,a more precise
understanding of the mechanistics of metaphor is required.

Godard's comment on

Numero deux that 'C'est un film pour penser la maison plutt en termes d'usine, c'est
juste ca.' introduces the key notion of 'seeing as'.33 To 'see as', to project a in terms of
b, summarises the premise of all metaphor. 34 As Paul Ricoeur argues in his survey of
the concept of 'seeing as' within

is
to
'To
metaphor
explicate a
metaphor theory,

is
'seen as' the tenor.
in
the
the
all
appropriate
enumerate
senses
vehicle
which

The

'seeing as' is the intuitive relationship that makes the sense and image hold together '35
.
Metaphor is a gauze or projection; 'seeing as', its core process, simultaneously act (in
"
Multiple
is
(to
metaphor
which one participates) and experience
which one subjected).
is a series of superimposed 'seeings as' seen in terms of one another, and, as Godard's
it
is
suggest,
a process consciously applied in the film.
comments

Philip Wheelwright has- made a useful distinction between two forms of

by
between
brought
(synthesis
tenor
similarity),
about
and vehicle: epiphor
relationship
37
is
(the
diaphor
If
to
juxtaposition).
central
through
metaphor
creation
of
meaning
and
the Sonimage project, it is visible

in a recurrent discursive tactic: that of the

literal
(or
even
superimposition)
rapprochement

in
images
that
selfa
way
two
of

in
in
terms
another
one
of
the
projection of tenor and vehicle
consciously enacts
in
is
imagery
in
the
This
difference
clear
very
to
trace
quest
similarity and
metaphor.
(at
home
in
Marcel,
in
factory)
or the superimposition of
the
of
gesture
and
correlation
in
Photos
facial
in
Potemkin
et cie.
the
expression
sequence
gesture and

Similarly,

Godard/Mieville's written manipulation of such imagery, particularly through use of the

formal
fois
deux,
in
Six
interconnections
or semiotic
to
via
often serves
video pen
map
similarity.

This process is clearest in the extended superimposition

of the two

photographs in Comment ca va (one taken during the Portuguese revolution, the other
180

during

a strike demonstration

in France). 38

In a sequence that embodies the

simultaneous play of epiphoric and diaphoric activity in metaphor, of contrast and

similarity, disparity and identity, the two photos are mapped onto one another and
shifted manually in relation to each another (see Appendix D(iii)).

A more exact visual

enactment of the metaphorical process is difficult to imagine, and its status is reinforced
through Marot's commentary:
je commencais voir pourquoi eile tenait
deux

absolument
rapprocher
ces
...
photos... simplement pour penser. Simplement rapprocher deux images, simples,
simples, parce qu'elles montrent des gens simples, mais qui, parce qu'ils osent
se revolter, mettent en route quelque chose de complexe.
The epiphoric and diaphoric thrust to metaphor explored in the Sonimage work
in this use of video feeds into Godard and Mieville's later video scenarios. In particular,
video superimposition becomes the principal method of tracing potential correlations as
basis for shot linkage and narrative progression.

Scenario du film Passion revolves

entirely around the tracing of such correlations between disparate imagery, links which
recur visibly in Passion itself (the link between the Tintoretto painting and Isabel's
hunched position at her factory machine, for instance). As Godard summarises his aim
on the soundtrack of the video scenario, 'Voir un scenario, voir des mouvements et des
gestes qui se cherchent. i39 Godard, in a breathtaking sequence that plays out in slow
motion the metaphorical postulation of identity and difference on which the film turns,
stands in front of the video screen, and traces with his hands the correlation of gesture
and motion between the painting and the rushes of Isabel in the factory. Marc Chevrie,
in an astute passing comment, links the movements of Godard's body in this
metadiscursive reflection on the quest for interconnections to the process of metaphor
('le geste de J.L., qui est celui de la metaphorer40).

One might object that the use of the metaphorical process by Godard and
Mieville to trace correlations between disparaterealms servesa fundamentally unifying
brief which would appear to feed into the essentialismcharacteristicof the humanistic
metaphorical structures they are at pains to resist. But such an objection interprets the
role of metaphor as always drawing together and interconnecting disparate areas. On
the contrary, as in Comment fa va, the rapprochement of the two images departs from
ostensible similarity (an extreme closeness of posture, expression, and gesture) to point

181

up the difference obscured by such apparent similarity.

Barthes's contention that

metaphor can, and does, function as a tool of rupture, transgression, and the separation
of worlds ('un puissant instrument de disjonction'),

constitutes a valuable pole of

reference in this respect.41 Sonimage exploit the process of metaphorical rapprochement

as a base from which to radically invert the habitual unifying momentum of metaphor,
and use it as a point of departure from which to enumerate points of contrast, difference,
conflict,

and disparity;

similarity

is used as false premise to be resisted and

systematically overturned.
If the texts are made up of slippage across multiple
metaphors, movement
coalesces from time to time around the shifting intertitles that punctuate Numero deux.
The viewer is presented with disparate transmutations,
always entirely unforeseeable,
from MARCHANDISEto MUSIQUE, from LE TRAVAIL to
LA MERDE, from CIN]MA to
POSSIBLE,and from usINE to SOLITUDE. This process had already been experimented
with, with a distinctly political gloss, in Ici et ailleurs, in the shift from ISRAEL to
PALSRAELto PALESTELto PALESTINE,the harsh electronic glare of the (sometimes
flashing) conveying a sense of volatility
and flux. These often perplexing intertitles
constitute a further distilled

reflexive

paradigm of the process of metaphor: the

transformation of one concept into another before our very eyes plays out in startling
fashion the metaphorical process. These very physical linguistic transmutations present
the two halves of metaphor, the 'tenor' and 'vehicle', as well as the space and connotative
interpenetration
(including a series of suggestive intermediate stages).
their
richness of
Furthermore, as suggested above, they also function as secondary generative metaphors:
if the film is initially

projected along a paysagelusine axis, the course of this initial

is
impact
modified
on
movement
with each such intertitle.

It might be objected that these recurrent verbal transformations should be

On
do
label
'metaphor'.
the contrary,
and
the
as
wordplay,
categorised
not merit
wordplay constitutes an unequivocal model of the application of one set of attributes
onto anotherthat characterisesall metaphor. As Umberto Eco argues,the pun, in which
tenor and vehicle are co-present,is simply 'a particular form of metaphori42,
one founded
on a latent subjacentchain of metonymies: 'All the terms present stand in a relationship
of mutual substitution. (...) Each term is at the same time the vehicle and tenor, while
the entire pun is a multiple metaphor.r43 It is in this sensethat wordplay is employed
182

in the Sonimage work as paradigm and mirror of the process of metaphor. Furthermore,
Godard's view of wordplay echoes Eco's position directly: 'Je trouve que les jeux de
ils
de
des
biais;
de
glissement,
vous
choses en
par une sorte
mots nous permettent
voir
in
double
image
i44
the pun,
Metaphor,
tres
revelatrice.
as exemplified
offrent une
refracts received ways of seeing, introduces semantic instability, and generates new
perspectives.

It was suggested in the previous chapter that metonymy is at work in

Godard/Linhard's puncturing of metaphor through literalisation.

In this context, Linda

Williams has made an interesting case for the insistent use of metonymy in Resnais's
L'annee derniere eiMarienbad as a radical anti-metaphorical tactic, to counter and break
down the unifying lure of metaphor. 45 In the process of slippage set in motion through
(from
this
metaphor, through metonymy,
metaphor,
exactly
signifying
route
generative
is
literal
is
Deleuze
that
metaphor
to the assertion of
observes
equivalence)
activated.
is
held
Observateur
Nouvel
Le
by
inside
it;
illustration
that
the
turned
out
concretising
falls
to
by
(if
the
torn
magazine
the
out,
together
are
advertising
all
advertisements
46
demonstration'.
destroys
'ce
the
metaphor:
n'est plus une metaphore, mais une
pieces)
As a staging post on the way to literalisation of metaphor, metonymy in the Sonimage
from
beginning
fulfils
the apparently unconnected
a radical anti-metaphorical role:
work
tenor and vehicle of a metaphor, the detour via (or reduction to) metonymy reveals and
insists on sudden actual spatial or social contiguity. 47

Most often, the process of generative metaphor sets off

a spiral of

(through
first
relation
a metaphorical
metaphor/metonymy oscillations. What appears at
based
is
on
a
one,
metonymic
a
as
are
explored)
correlations
revealed
which
demonstrable contiguity, fuelled by a causal (usually socio-economic/political) link.
by
(as
is
in
factory
asserted
This process visible
the equation of
work with pornography
Paulo in Lecon de choses): the two are metaphorically

interrelated through the

but
this
terms
In
are
operative,
Ici
the
same
predictable repetition of gesture.
et ailleurs,
lit
du
jeune
link:
'un
porno pour
mec qui
time via a causal socio-economic metonymic
oublier l'usine. ' In a similar way, the correlation of political and media representation
in Marchais's speech on media representation and the Left in Photos et cie, establishes
not only a metaphorical relation between the two, but a metonymic (causal) one. This
slippage from the metonymic to the metaphorical (and back) characterises the Sonimage
183

texts. Just where a metaphor appears at its most ludicrous, it is punctured, and revealed
as a metonymy (and so logically justifiable through fairly rational and prosaic political
explanation).

By insisting on the metaphor literally, it is displaced into a metonymy.

But as the discourse threatens to solidify into a prosaic repetition of statement of fact,
the metonymy is exploded by, for example, the introduction of anomalous characteristics
Contiguous links are thus

which render the metonymy unsustainable and ridiculous.

severed, once again displacing the metonymic relation back in the direction of metaphor.
The texts function repeatedly through this process. It is not just one slippage followed
by another, but an unpredictable oscillation between the two, one which converges
in
for
Roman
Jakobson's
the superinduction
the
ambiguity
closely with
criteria
poetry,
48
of similarity onto contiguity.

6.2.3

Generative metaphor at work 2: France tour

The same generative role of metaphor is again identifiable in France tour, now
rigorously
structuring

metaphorical

poles of Numero deux circumscribe

experimental

film,

tour in a far more linear

the syntagmatic

the discursive

they frame the subject-matter

and insistently

presided over by two or more generative

(interviews

of television.

schematised

self-contained
France

flow

to within

formulaic

metaphors.

with the children, a cryptic'story',

the

terrain of a

of each movement

manner.

of

Each episode is

The disparate jumble

and reflections

Where

of material

on the nature of television)

is linked through concepts generated by the initial framing metaphors: 1: OBSCUR/CHIME,

2: LUMI$RE/PHYSIQUE,

3: CONNU/GEOMETRIE,

5: IMPRESSION/DICT$E,

6: EXPRESSION/FRANQAIS,

4: INCONNU/TECHNIQUE,
7: VIOLENCE/GRAMMAIRE,

8: D$SORDRE/CALCUL, 9: POUVOIR/MUSIQUE, 10: ROMAN/$CONOMIE, 11: R$ALIT$/LOGIQUE,

and 12: REVE/MORALE (see Appendix

D(i)).

In a written postscript to France tour, Godard argues that such a structure was
already latent in G. Bruno's Le Tour de la France par Deux Enfants. Furthermore, he
suggests that such a structure announces, and is highly suited to, the image/text/sound
relations of television, so making it 'une serie de television avant la lettre' (the original

184

book is indeed packed with engravings and legendes, with an epilogue devoted to the
cinema added in 1904): 49

Mais heureusement pour nous que G.Bruno avait des yeux pour voir, peut-titre
dej entrouverts par les essais de Niepce, Daguerre, Cros, Lumiere et Cie, d'o
son livre constelle d'images qui eclairent un texte de facon necessaire et
suffisante... (... ) Nul doute qu' 1'epoque o fut publie l'ouvrage, cette facon
d'etablir un triple rapport entre une gravure (dej photo), sa legende, et la realite
du texte, nul doute qu'elle est la cle de son immense succes populaire, et nul
doute pour nous que sera l notre principale fidelite a l'ouvrage et a sa
so
methode.
So Godard appears to suggest that the image/text relations he and Mieville insist on in
the guise of generative metaphor, exist in nascent form in Bruno's book itself, he and
Mieville

appropriate the strategy, translating it into tightly structured language/image

relations within television.

They thus take the process they have experimented with in

Numero deux, strip it to its essentials, and insist on it as the basis to the repetitive
structure around which France tour is conceived. The procedure is so unapologetically
direct that the blandness of the deadpan presentation of the words/concepts carries a selfconsciously humorous charge. These words, and their conjunction, are so perplexing
that they operate first and foremost as a question.

As Lacan suggested of the

provocation in the sudden rapprochement of opposing concepts in metaphor, the

automatic reaction on the part of the metaphor-maker/viewer

is confusion ('L'effet

immediat est de scandale et de non-sensi51). All metaphor carries an element of such

(b)
invoke
(a)
through
difference
between
to
tenor
vehicle
similarity
and
scandal:
and
humour
is
b
is,
Much
in
the
that
of
this crucial respect, patently absurd.
an assertion
a
of the Sonimage work derives from this literal insistence on the absolute equation of a
factory
is
b:
like
home
factory,
just
but
is
are prisons.
and
school
not
and
a
as
one,
Sometimes provoking a wry smile, sometimes startling the viewer into laughter, the
source of humour is the provocation inherent in the distance between tenor and vehicle
in metaphor, and the puncturing of metaphor through literal insistence. 52

185

6.2.4

Circularity,

multiple

images and reflexivity:

metaphors of metaphor

Godard has long recognised the function of polarities in his work, particularly
vis--vis textual and interpretative movement. For Numero deux, Godard outlines the
series of 'couples' amongst which the film's meaning is to be generated:
On peut enfin rendre compte d'une difficulte dans un couple non parce qu'on
montre une femme et un homme - comme dans tous les films classiques,
pornographiques ou pas - mais parce que le couple vit en symbiose avec d'autres
couples tout aussi fondamentaux: le couple parent-enfants, petits-grands, jeune
femme-vieille femme, usine-maison. S3
Crucial to generative metaphor is less the existence of framing/structuring

poles, than

their function in generating exchange and displacement: 'Polarities have a central role
in my work. The flow of life is caused by polarities - north, south, man, woman, hot,
'sa
it's
Polarities
move.
movies
my
what makes everything run.
cold are what make
As suggested in relation to Godard/Mieville's view of communication, life, dialogue, and
genuine 'Communication'
move.

it
live,
For
to
text
the
must
are a question of movement.

If metaphor can be summarised, it is as instability and flux. The trans-position

in
Sonimage
is
the
work as exemplary
qualities
set
of
onto
of one
another
emphasised
of all meaning-making.

As Beda Allemann points out, the basic meaning of the Greek

inherent
in
(meta-phora)
is
the
to trans-late, carry across, or carry over;
meta phorein
itself
is
(to
translates the
'translate'
is
in
'bersetzen'
German
which
process movement
Greek'meta phorein'). SSMetaphor encapsulates both motion (phora) and change (meta).
Barthes, in an observation directly applicable to Sonimage, claims that of overriding
importance to the metaphorical process is less any specific localised 'image' than the

du
d'apologue
toute
its
'Que
science
constant process of slippage at
core:
ceci serve
deplacement: peu importe le sens transporte, peu importent les termes du trajet: seul
light,
if
fonde
In
la
i56
lui-meme.
this
le
and
we
transport
metaphore compte - et
'vehicle',
diverse
the
Richards's
the
to
of
emphasise
everyday associations related
notion
modes of transport in Godard/Mieville's

figures
as
simply
of
work are exploited not

movement and communication generally, but as avatars of the process of metaphor

active in the texts.
movement.

Modes of transport enact the central principle

Imagery of cars flowing

of metaphor:

dark
in
(imagery
dusk
the
or
along roads at

186

discussed in Chapter 3 in relation to the 'traffic'

Sonimage work and Godard/Mieville's

of information),

punctuates the

art cinema of the 1980s (see Appendix A(iii)).

All the cars, bicycles, lorries, and boats in motion within the imagery of the Sonimage
work (and reaching a self-reflexive crescendo in Sauve qui peut (la vie)), mirror, engage
thematically with, and play out, the metaphorical process."

To take this argumenta step further, if modesof transport play out the movement
inherent in metaphor,then a visual refrain of the Sonimagework (particularly of Sixfois
deux and France tour), that of the pregnant female body, also figures the idea of the
'birth' of ideas in the metaphorical process. Indeed, it has been suggestedthat the Latin
and Greek etymological roots of 'metaphor' reveal not just notions of transposition or
translation, but 'the idea of being born, of how thoughts, like children, come out of
58
into
here'.
The birth of a child, as in the powerful superimposition of the
the
nowhere
image of a baby onto the pregnant female body in France tour 1) representsnot only
in
birth,
but
birth
ideas,
metaphor.
the
the process of change active
of
physical
Metaphor 'gives birth', and so might be read as providing the rationale to Godard's
images
beneath
birth
in
Active
Virgin
the
Je
Marie.
of
exploration of the
vous salue,
(and
birth
in
is,
to
Sonimage
attempt
the
therefore,
on
a
reflection
pregnancy and
work
form
function
to)
the
give
of metaphor.
But the metaphorical process is figured elsewhere,indeed almost everywhere.
Thus the disparate examples of blockage and perversion discussed in Chapter 3 operate
not just as cross-over points, but as metaphors of the metaphorical process.

In this

is
that
the
textual
which constantly sought
respect, metaphor constitutes
rationalisation of
in Godard/Mieville's

survey and critique of communication:

mediation.

Metaphor

embodies the blockage and stasis of phatic communication, and the movement and
body
figures
human
the
If
I
that
exuberance of genuine communication.
argued earlier
Where
it
is
it
the
figures
metaphor.
that
the
of
clear
all mediation, so
work
reflexively
flights
body
body
denotes
blockage
the
of
the
then
euphoric
calibrated
and repetition,
(the skater in Marcel, the dancing girl at the end of Rene(e)s) figure the power to release
the imagination, to create new realities, to renegotiate our relation to the world around
us (see Appendix B(iii)).

In this respect, the Sonimage work is profoundly reflexive.

Not only do the texts function through the use of metaphor, but the subject matter

187

figures
the process of metaphor as primary unit of the production of
reflects and
meaning.
Jacques Derrida has argued that all metaphor is intrinsically reflexive, and that
below the surface of metaphor lies an omnipresent paradigm of the metaphorical process:
'chaque metaphore puisse (sic) toujours se dechiffrer la fois comme figure particuliere
59
du
de
la
Similarly, in the
processus meme
et comme paradigme
metaphorisation'.
context of a remarkable discussion of metaphors of metaphor, Richard Klein argues that
all metaphor is inherently reflexive, a reflexivity

he relates directly to circularity:

By its bizarre self-reflexiveness, metaphor of metaphor provokes a peculiar

vertigo as one proceedsto trace its movement. But not at first, for within the
texts we are considering, metaphor of metaphor never appearsinitially as such.
In fact such figures are at first indistinguishable from metaphor. Only at the end
of their tortuous movement,only when the figure has been elaborately extended,
doesit circle round and point obliquely to its own development. Which suggests
that metaphor of metaphor is not, finally, a special sub-category but that all
metaphor, if sufficiently extended,tends constantly to displace its center and to
lose itself in the self-generating play of its spinning periphery.60
Klein's argument is highly applicable to the iconography of the Sonimage work. If the
Sonimage imagery is characterised by gauzes, frames, and grids, it is also punctuated
by circles and spirals: tangible arcs (the amphitheatre in which Marchais speaks in
Photos et cie) and circles (the circular frame used to isolate individuals in both Ici et
ailleurs and France tour, or the rotating film reels of Numero deux) in the image,
circular movement traced within the image (the camera pan operated by the children at
the outset of each mouvement of France tour), and pro-filmic

imagery itself rotated, as

in the rotation through a full circle by Godard's hands of the photograph of a couple
beach
image
('un
love
3600
the
the
angle
on
making
pour retomber sur ses pieds'), or of
de
1'espace'). On one level, circularity clearly figures both
foetus
('le
pieton
premier
of a
reflexivity

and viewer engagement, and so does not just figure the specific reflexivity

of metaphors of metaphors.

Nevertheless, the emphasis on circularity

illustrated by

these examples can also be accounted for through its use to figure this metaphorical
reflexivity.

In the final analysis, all the spheres, circular movements, arcs, and spirals

that pepper the surface of the Sonimage texts constitute a reflexive postscript to the
6'
therein.
of
metaphor
analysis and use
188

The Sonimage texts are, therefore, profoundly

conception and operation.

reflexive

in terms of their

But another reflexive layer is operative in the use of the

multiple monitors that puncture the cinematic frame of the three Sonimage films.

The

presentation of multiple images adrift in the surrounding black of the cinematic frame
visually crystallizes the structuring of the texts around generative metaphor: tenor and
just
present as terms, but represented through the rapprochement of video
vehicle are not
imagery. The two or more co-present images therefore reflexively play out at a plastic
level the films' pervasive discursive process, the oscillation and play of identity and
difference at work in metaphor. Like many who discuss metaphor through intrinsically
visual terminology (as a viewpoint, perspective, or angle), Paul Ricoeur identifies in
metaphor an insistence on a form of 'stereoscopic vision' to hold tenor and vehicle in
62
interact.
The Sonimage texts present and demand precisely this
they
place as
stereoscopic vision both visually (in the multiple imagery) and within the internal
dynamics of generative metaphor (see Appendix D(ii)).

In the context of this attempt to relate the textual spaceof the three films to a
reflexive enactmentof the metaphoricalprocess,one should note that the radically novel
look of Numero deux, (and notably the internal montageof television monitors), was the
result of a technical compromise. Sonimage'soriginal desire was to transfer all the
35mm
Technicolor, as had been done for Tati's Parade. Director of
to
material
video
photography William Lubtchansky has related how this proved too expensive, and
involved too long a delay, leading Godard to attempt his own transfer by filming the
('Il
in
m'a dit: ((On va essayer de le faire nous-memesi63).Their
close-up
monitor
final
image
of such poor quality that Godard decided, rather than
experiment gave a
image,
fill
they would show the monitors as televisions:
the
to
attempt
Godard a dit: ((On ne va pas faire ca, on va montrer que c'est un poste de
television, on ne vajamais s'approcher trop pres de la television. Et partir du
il
We
dans le champ, il a dit: pourquoi on n'en mettrait
o
a
mis
une
moment
pas deux, trois? . Et le film s'est refait completement differemment partir de
l. '6'

If, as I suggest,this format echoesthe processof metaphor, we should be alert to the

fact that it was not an aestheticbuilt into the project from the outset, although Godard
in
his use of multiple imagery having seen Nicholas Ray's
encouraged
perhaps
was
189

collaborative experimental film We can't go home again at Cannes in 1973 (where a

"
by
loaned
Nam
June
Using
Paik, and
working print was shown).
video equipment
disparate other media (35mm, 16mm, 8mm, and Super 8) processed via a colour video
fresco
finally
film
is
35mm,
transferred
the
to
of multiple
a
crowded
synthesizer and
imagery unfolding simultaneously (with up to eight images run concurrently at any one
66
moment)
If the depiction of multiple images was not integral to Numero deux's conception,
it is clearly its most striking visual feature, and succinctly embodies the metaphorical
black
interspaces
less
in
'hang'
the
than the
the
suggest
nothing
process:
which
monitors
interaction,
the
the transference of meaning.
of
metaphors'
space

The suspended

linguistic
level
therefore
the
the
re-enact
on-screen
at a visual
same process of
monitors
transmutations from one word to another discussed above, including the richness of the
interchange itself.

If Numero deux can be schematised as the superimposition of

('seeings
layered
its
top
then
as')
signifying power comes
metaphors
on
of one another,
from the intersection of these 'grounds'; the time and space of the film is constituted
from the overlapping grounds between the series of metaphors. The black interspace,
insistently

presented in both Numero deux and Ici

et ailleurs,

embodies these

overlapping grounds, and the shifting instability of their interpenetration, so echoing the
notion of interaction ('entre') discussed in Chapter 3 within the process of metaphor
itself.
The notion of metaphor as a 'way of seeing' is also carried over in cinematic
terms onto the predetermination of the image, and explored in the Sonimage work
image,
discourse
the
the
The
on point of view.
through a reflexive
predetermination of
reciprocal positioning of subject and object across the image, the repetition of this
hermetically-sealed
in
the
placement

logical
and
space of the reverse-angle shot,

interchangeable
in
film
the
closure
as
spatial
of
classical
all
recur
narrative,
conclusion
figures of Godard's ethical position across his oeuvre. In this context, metaphor; by
definition a 'viewpoint' or 'way of seeing', is equated with the image in the Sonimage
from
it
distance
the object
and
enforces
assumes
a
viewpoint and perspective, a
work:
be
must
either accepted or challenged. The predetermination of the
which
represented
image succinctly figures metaphor for Godard/Mieville,

the use of two or three video

images in the cinema frame therefore denoting the work of multiple

190

metaphor.

Furthermore, this reflexive discourse on point of view feeds directly into the film's
subject matter, and reemerges both in terms of the division of labour and the sexes, and
of sexual relations.

During intercourse, Pierre prefers to see Sandrine's back, whilst

Sandrine, accompanied by a vision-mixed

home
image
Sandrine
of
asleep at
video

beneath an image of Pierre walking away (seen from the window), complains that she
for
his
back
from
he
leaves
the
their
work.
ever
sees
window
of
apartment
only
when
The huge force of the Sonimage work comes from this series of reflexive correlations
from figure to text to subject matter: all reflect on and play out one another (see
Appendix D(iv)).

The critique of language,the resistanceof metaphor, and structuring of the texts

through generative metaphor, is echoed in Godard/Mieville's

refusal of the plenitude of

the image. Seldom does a single image occupy the entire frame; more often than not,
as in Cubism, the representational plane is fractured.

The status of any image as

is
undermined through its juxtaposition
premise

is
of
view
with others, and point

splintered in a realisation of 'stereoscopic vision'.

Video's capacity to present a single

by
from
different
immediately
distances
simultaneously
exploited
object
angles and
was
Godard/Mieville.

Over and again, the unity of the image is punctured through the

simultaneous presentation of the object or subject from two, or even three, separate
is
The
in
texts
the
assault
on
repeated through video
metaphor
perspectives.
contained
in the complication of the unity and predetermination of the image, and, above all, in
the refusal and explosion of the reverse angle shot (see Appendix D(iv)).

The

in
is
the
the
reverse angle shot
radically undermined
reciprocity and spatial unity of
Nicholas/Vanessa dialogue sequences in Numero deux, for instance, through the
image
the
of
presence
and its reverse in a single vision-mixed
simultaneous

shot (a

du
in
Grandeur
later
decadence
d'un
cinema).
played out
et
petit commerce
procedure
The structuring of the texts in relation to generative metaphors is thus transposed onto
images
image,
the
to
the
and sounds;
explode
use of video
an ethical reflection on
especially through the complication of the reverse angle shot as paradigm of artifice and
discourse
the
through the terms of cinema.
closure, projects
In conceptual terms, the work of generative metaphor can be translated into a
distances
different
angles
and
of
around the object. From the point of view of the
spiral
insists
in
form
'stereoscopic
In
metaphor
generative
on a
a comment
vision'.
of
viewer,
191

a pre-production letter for Sauve qui peut (la vie), Godard evokes an image of textual
inherent
in
the
conceptual
generative
which
encapsulates
creative
work
operation
justement,
Tiens,
metaphor:

aujourd'hui

je voudrais

en refaire

des fondus qui

je
faire
des
Je
crois
que
saurais
champs et contre-champs, mais pas
enfin:
s'enchainent.
Such
dans
le
i6'
temps.
a model of reciprocity and exchange of conceptual
seulement
film
demanded
'reframing'
the
succinctly
stereoscopic
across
a
captures
reverse-angles
by the structuring of the texts through metaphor. The most economical illustration of
is
the return in France tour I1 to the paysagelusine opposition that
such a process
frames Numero deux. In a simple and dense sequence, the camera zooms slowly from
landscape
hand,
factory
belching
long
If
to
the
a
a
shot
of
smoke.
one
close-up
of
on
a
this sequence contains a moderately clever visual joke,
importantly,

it provides, much more

a succinct visual reflection on the process of metaphor.

The gradual

insisted
figures
'reframing'
the
the
on
conceptual
as
zoom
proceeds
precisely
reframing
by the generative metaphor: a landscape at one end of the zoom, a factory at the other.
This sequence therefore resumes Numero deux in a single image: the film is the space
and process of reframing between the terms of the metaphor.

To summarise:the Sonimagework is against metaphor through texts conceived

around multiple metaphors, texts which are simultaneously infused with multiple
functioning:
the
their
this
on,
evocations
of
own
process
of
conception
and
reflexive
be
Two
to
remain
and
permeated
with,
metaphor.
of
concerns
sets
principal
against,
implications
in
the
the
to
role of generative metaphor relation
narrative, and
explored:
in
the
of
multiple
omnipresence
metaphors
relation to the role of the viewer.
of

6.2.5

The generation of narrative

histoire? ' (Passion)

via metaphor:

'Qu'est-ce que c'est que cette

A striking characteristic of generative metaphor as used by Sonimage is the

disturbance of traditional figure-narrative relations.

Any notion of a 'story' in

in
layers
terms,
classical
of meaning to
which
metaphor
offers
additional
recognisable
those instantly and literally available, is inverted. Rather than a story peppered with
Sonimage
foregrounds
the
the action of metaphor as the processwith
work
metaphors,
first
into
is
directed
Attention
the
comes
viewer
contact.
onto the action and
which
192

process of the metaphors themselves, and their role in the production of meaning, as
opposed to any subservient relation to a story. Once again, a close convergence with
Bunuelian use of metaphor is identifiable here. It is intriguing that in his Montreal
lectures, Godard claims not to have seen Bufluel's late work, whilst his films of the early
1980s (especially Sauve qui peut (la vie)) are highly reminiscent of this body of work. 68
In her analysis of metaphor in Bunuel's work, Linda Williams

identifies the radical

redistribution of metaphor/narrative relations. She argues that, contrary to the classical

subservience of figure to diegesis, Bufluel's work provides myriad examples of 'a
diegesis that serves the metaphor'. 69 In this way, Williams goes on to suggest, in terms
directly

applicable

to Sonimage, that this fundamental

inversion

of traditional

is
tightly allied to the redirection of viewer engagement onto
relations
metaphor/narrative
in
first
is
itself:
does
'not
the
the
part of this
at
stake
process
of
metaphor
only
what
figure seem to create the diegesis, it also becomes a self-reflecting comment on the very
process of making metaphors. i7

In a very real sense,metaphor generatesthe narratives of the Sonimage works:

without the generative metaphors, the texts are mere assemblages of loosely connected
fragments of everyday life.

The metaphors postulate narrative routes across the

heterogeneous material, thereby leaving one with open-ended narratives, presided over
by the jalons and schemas de pensee outlined above, and which chart a tentative route
back towards narrative fiction, albeit quite opposed to the norms of classical narrative.
A useful aspect of Schn's model of generative metaphor, and one highly applicable to
interpretation
his
is
Sonimage
the
to
the
relation of metaphor
work vis--vis
narrative,
'story'.
he
terms
a
of what
'problem-setting'

Schn is at pains to stress the difference of this type of

or 'explanatory' story from all criteria associated with traditional

narrative:
Here, I shall simply note that in my usage, "story" does not necessarily connote
a narrative of the "once upon a time... " variety. (... ) Explanatory stories are
those in which the author, seeking to account for some puzzling phenomenon,
narrates a sequence of temporal events wherein, starting from some set of initial
conditions, events unfold in such a way as to lead up to and produce the
phenomenon in question. (... ) These "stories" are "framed" by pairs of
"
(in
frames).
health/disease
this
generative metaphors
case
and nature/artifice

193

Schn's model provides an astonishingly precise blueprint

in
relation to narrative.
generative metaphor

for Sonimage's use of

Just as Schn views his theory as a

in
in
device,
'stories'
Sonimage
the
the
pose,
and
set
so
work
at work
problem-solving
motion, problems.

By far the most provocative and startling example of the use of

is
by
in
France
detailed
Schn
tour.
the
precisely
manner
metaphor
generative

The

framing metaphors cut a swathe through the deliberately cryptic, often near-impenetrable,
histoires
that conclude each episode.
the
of
material

The term HISTOIRE recurs

insistently (always invoking the dual notions of 'story' and 'history'), announcing a very
different kind of story from that to which we are accustomed (see Appendix D(v)).

As

(relating
in
Godard/Mieville's
these
sequences are simultaneously specific
work,
so often
to a localised set of concerns) and exemplary: the schematic repetition of the 'story'
but
framing
'story'
the
the
the
through
metaphors,
generation of
sequences announces
by
figured
for
fiction
back
the entire
towards
the
a route
narrative and
wider search
also
Sonimage period.

Betty and Albert's refrain that announces each 'story' denotes both

levels of Godard/Mieville's

concerns in equal measure:

Et maintenant, je crois qu'il faudrait une histoire. Pas une histoire qui vient
d'elle/de lui, mais elle/lui qui viendrait d'une histoire. Ou les deux. Elle/lui
dessous.
l'histoire
Dessus
L'histoire
et
avant, et
apres.
avant, et elle/lui apres.
L'histoire de....
These oblique 'stories' figure and play out this quest for alternative narrative forms,
less
metaphor,
generative
as assertions than as a sliding scale of questions:
via
operating,
insistently
faced
is
in
Passion,
the
with
the
characters repeat over and again
viewer
as
the following question: 'Qu'est-ce que c'est que cette histoire? '

6.2.6

Generative metaphor and viewer co-operation

Perhaps the project closest to Sonimage is not that of theorists of metaphor,

have
in
filmmakers,
those
so
much
who
as
other
otherwise,
particular
and
visual or
in
film
as a component of political
metaphor
explored

As
already suggested,
projects.

Sonimage
is
in
Eisenstein
this
of
exemplary.
with
the re-convergence
respect

An

filmmaking
the
metaphor
of
within
parameters of a socially-engaged
analogous use
194

in
Engage
USA.
in
Cinema
is
Yves
the
the
theory
the
collective
and practice of
practice
de Laurot and his co-workers from the collective, active in the early 1970s, elaborate a
is
theory
the
of
seeing
a
given
way
of
use of visual metaphor whereby
systematic
lighting,
(via
into,
different
transposed
camera angle,
and
onto, a
realm
condensed
sound, rhythm, and framing). De Laurot's concern is to employ the metaphorical process
to activate viewer co-creation whilst circumventing any form of overtly prescriptive
manipulation: 'The miracle of the "wishful viewer" happens: that is to say, the viewer
he
is
like
him
(sic),
himself.
"This
Nobody
this";
the
tells
co-creates,
metaphor
creates,
arrives at the conclusion himself. '''

This desire to stimulate, but not foreclose, interpretation, is equally central to

Sonimage: generative metaphor interpellates the viewer, and galvanizes an endless
interpretation.
borrow
To
N. Roy Clifton's image, if tenor and vehicle are the
of
process
figure's gravel and cement, the viewer makes the metaphor ('they must mix the
74
73,
This
by
Trevor
Whittock
it,
becomes
the
proxy'.
concrete') or, as
a'poet
puts
viewer
notion of metaphor as a mini poem or narrative, a dynamic opposition which sets off a
displacements
from
familiar
is
metaphor
of
across overlapping chains of signifiers,
series
theory. Implicit in metaphor is open-endedness: to paraphrase a metaphor is impossible,
in that any such attempt immediately reduces connotative richness. Donald Davidson,
interested
in the seemingly endless signifying
theorist
a

power of the simplest of

has
argued that 'understanding a metaphor is as much a creative endeavor as
metaphors
making a metaphor, and as little guided by rulesi7', linking this transference of creativity
inherent
'When
to
the
the
we try to say
reader/viewer
open-endedness
onto
of metaphor:
"means",
to
is
to
we
want
there
we
soon
what
a
metaphor
realize
end
no
what
""
dual
is
It
this
edge to metaphor, its insistence on co-creation and associated
mention.
limitless signifying potential that makes it so attractive to Sonimage, with all its inherent
'scandalous' charge. Metaphor is provocative and limitless in the Sonimage work, or
literal.

The staking out of metaphorical jalons' across the texts makes way for a
demanding series of oblique metaphorical formulations.

Metaphor constitutes an

demand,
form
Wayne
has
Booth
of
and,
as
shown, presents the reader/viewer
extreme
be
'To
opinion
which
must
understand a metaphor
motivated
rejected:
accepted
or
a
with
is by its very nature to decide whether to join the metaphorist or reject him (sic), and
195

that is simultaneously to decide either to be shaped in the shape his (sic) metaphor
requires or to resist.'"

To 'negociate' a metaphor is to establish this complicity and

intimacy between speaker and reader/viewer.

When applied by Sonimage, where

distance between tenor and vehicle introduces an entropic relation which threatens to
lapse into nonsense, this demand on the viewer is acutely exacerbated. Rather than a
series of readily digestible aesthetic metaphors, easily assimilable into everyday life,
Sonimage construct texts as metaphor-making machines whose point of departure is to
question and challenge the dominant 'metaphors we live by' by setting them in motion.
Godard/Mieville's

ultimate aim might be seen, therefore, as constructing works which

function as the tenor that will displace the vehicle constituted by the viewer's lived
experience.

The 'puzzle' here provides a succinct model of the Sonimagetexts, and it comes
has
been proposed as model of the interpretative work
that
the
surprise
no
rebus
as
involved in metaphor. 78 From the opening terms of the generative metaphor, the viewer
is faced with a puzzle, and challenged to engage with the displacements latent in that
founding metaphor, with those into which it is brought into contact, and with those it
in turn spawns. Long before the systematic use of metaphor in the Sonimage period,
the puzzle provided a useful model of the Godard text. Indeed, the use of a puzzle-type
have
inspired the conception of non-narrative sequences in his work,
to
appears
model
films,
in
pre-1968
and was actively employed as a discursive tactic as early as
even
1966.79 The structuring poles of generative metaphor constitute the logical endpoint of
this impetus to Godard's work, distilling the puzzle form from the arrangement of formal
and semiotic textual elements to within the figural dynamic of the texts.

The quest for viewer activity is a defining characteristicof all of Godard'swork,

both in his 1960s art cinema and as perhaps the overriding guiding principle to the
Groupe Dziga Vertov's attempts to overturn the perceived reinstatement of the viewer
in
dupe
film.
classical
passive
as

In a programmatic statement from the end of the

1960s that summarizes of this long-running impetus to Godard's work, viewer activity
is high on the agenda: 'Pour tout dire, je fais participer le spectateur l'arbitraire de mes
des
lois
la

choix
generales qui pourraient justifier
et
choix

un choix particulier. '8o

Such a statement foresees Comment ca va's self-presentation (via an intertitle) as uN

FILM ENTREL'ACTIF ET LE PASSIF,and Godard's contention that Numero deux seeks a
196

form of viewer participation free from the demands of classical narrative and from
subservience to political dogma: 'La participation du spectateur, ca me semble la
des
choses. Les autres films aussi demandentune participation intense, mais
moindre
les gens ne se rendent pas compte, alors ils ne regrettent pas leurs quinze balles.i8' In
the Sonimagework, viewer participation operatesthrough the demandsof metaphor,the
detours, paradoxes, and non-sequiturs thrown up by the metaphors and their
interpenetration. The path of the viewer through the films is that of metaphor-maker,
trying out correlations and rapprochementsthrough the rebus-like network of potential
associations.

6.3

CONCLUSION

Chapters 2,3,
Sonimage works

and 4 demonstrated that the apparent chaos of the successive

contained

and obscured a sustained project.

This ostensible

heterogeneity is in part due to the inherent (and deliberate) instability

and abrasive

Sonimage
the
texts, and is compounded by the critical reception of the works
of
quality
as haphazard, messy, or simply annoying. As suggested earlier, this confused reception
in
due
least
jumbled
distribution of the works (with Icf et Ailleurs first
to
the
part
at
was
being released in 1976, Comment ca va not distributed until 1978, and France tour
from
broadcast
by
A2
for
two years), so detracting from a sense of coherence
withheld
or evolution.

Nevertheless, it is principally

in terms of 'confusion' that references to

Sonimage are habitually couched, as regards the form and structure of the texts as much
in
Sonimage
is
time
the
the
which
matter:
or
subject
as a project
period
glossed over as
Godard 'lost the plot' after 1968 before a return to his senses and to cinema in 1979.
Having reinstated a sense of coherence and development to the concerns of the
Sonimage work, retrieving the parameters of a project, I have argued in this chapter that
the radically different look, structure, and functioning of the texts are also underscored
by a sustained rationale, as fascinating as it is ambitious.
Structuralist view of human experience as intrinsically
Godard/Mieville

In the context of a Post-

mediated through language,

structure the texts through multiple metaphors in tension with one

have
I
'generative'
discursive
in
termed
to
their
metaphors
work,
relation
another,
197

narrative, and viewer co-operation: they construct a'story' (radical anti-narratives which
insist
traditional
on active viewer co-operation
narrative/metaphor
relations),
and
reverse
of the components of the metaphor(s), whilst simultaneously problematising the question
of authorship.

Given that, within such a framework, avoidance of metaphor is impossible,

Godard/Mieville's

by
is
isolate,
to
the
metaphorical
process
response
and magnify,

schematically multiplying

its use and accentuating the mechanisms through which it

operates; a paradoxical assault on metaphor through its multiplication,

self-consciously casts in relief the role of metaphor as 'frame'.
metaphor as a surface embellishment,

Godard/Mieville

and one which

Rather than exploit

stretch and explode the

assumptions contained in conventional tenor/vehicle relations, simultaneously evoking

inventive
of
evocations of the structure and process of metaphor.
series
a
multiplication

If the

of metaphor is set to work as the generative dynamic to the texts, it is

drawing
literalisation,
into
to
so
concretisation, and slippage
metonymy,
also subjected
the Sonimage work close to the radical aesthetic of Surrealism.
Far from being characterised by an absence of order, I suggest that the Sonimage
texts are extremely tightly structured, but along lines which bear no relation to classical
film

'language' or the televisual

convention.

If

the Sonimage project

its
hub
focus
is
central
metaphor.
and principal
communication,

is on

The Sonimage work

is, above all, an ambitious exploration and dissection of metaphor: a project on, with,
and against metaphor.

If Sonimage accord such primacy to the visual, their project

in
language.
ironically,
(if
to
relation
almost
entirely
against),
operates,

198

Conclusion
In the context of a critical retrieval and reassessment of Sonimage, this thesis
set out to demonstrate that the Sonimage work is shot through with an evolving project
'on' a civilisation living 'under' communication.

I have attempted to demonstrate that,

far from being a bizarre or negligible aberration in Godard's trajectory,

Sonimage

should be repositioned as perhaps the seminal period in Godard's overall oeuvre. What
is more, the research-based 'atelier' premise to Sonimage is something that Godard tried
in vein to recreate in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the guise of a government'
'laboratory'
in
In
FEMIS.
sponsored experimental audio-visual
collaboration with the
for
the Sonimage work, the much-overrated importance of the
such
a
position
claiming
Groupe Dziga Vertov has been implicitly

reassessed (although such a task would of

further
important
Sonimage
the
the
through
require
work),
course
and
work promoted
it
Godard
ferment
frames
the
and
contains,
and
as
site
of
project
of
creative
all
which
Mieville's subsequent work: Sonimage is the space in which a recognition of the new
logic
is
backdrop
the
through,
and
media-circumscribed world order
worked
providing
to the forms and concerns of their subsequent practice(s).
repositioning,

the virtually

unknown Id

et ailleurs

In the context of this

occupies an absolutely central

distilled
Sonimage
the
the
the
entirety
of
concerns of all
work are
position:
subsequent
into this dense and extremely powerful initial work. Similarly, a recasting of the relative
importance of the successive phases of Godard's work would doubtless recognise France
tour and Histoire(s) du cinema as amongst his most important and beautiful work,
thereby (rightly) emphasising Godard's role as a video artist.

Tracing the outline of the Sonimageproject has involved uncovering information

how this underpins successive facets of

theory at its heart, and demonstrating

Godard/Mieville's concerns: the conception of the audience, the contextualisation of flow

in
blockage
information,
circuits
of
and

and the identification of entropy as a central

theoretical pole of reference behind the Sonimage texts. But, as the wholehearted lack
in
interest
working through the finer theoretical implications of the tools they are
of
indicates
(the
difficulties
clearly
employing
theory

into

inherent in the extension of information

the realm of language, for

instance, remains wholly

unexplored),

methodological precision and scientific rigour are anathema to Sonimage. As Serge

Daney observed so rightly of Godard, 'Si noun etions au Moyen Age, il serait, entre l'art

199

'
la
homme
de
la
Renaissance'.
science, un
et

Stealing freely from the discourse of

science, Godard/Mieville happily juggle multiple contradictory methodologies, weaving

an inimitable, dense discourse shot through with paradox, contradiction, and logical
lacunae; what we are left with is poetry infused with the blurred traces of scientific
methodologies.
Godard/Mieville's project is underpinned by a radical communications model, one
insists
dismisses
phatic
representation
as
which
repetition, and
on a simultaneous
form
of
and content to affect genuine communication.
mutation

If such a model is

in
its
importance lies in its provision of an overstated position, so
practice,
unrealisable
allowing Godard/Mieville

a platform from which to assessthe disparate communication

processes on which their gaze settles; less a sacred unassailable model, this extreme
communications theory is, therefore, a tool serving a specific function.

More than just

however,
it
their
project,
also decisively informs the entropic forms of the
underwriting
Sonimage texts themselves (an argument we might well wish to extend to much of
Godard's other work).

Furthermore, it is not a model flirted with fleetingly

and

forgotten; I have demonstrated elsewhere that it can again be seen at work underscoring
Godard's critical logic in his monumental Histoire(s) du cinema. 3

Any researchproject of this scope inevitably throws up a wealth of routes for

further related work.

Besides a re-reading of the Groupe Dziga Vertov work, key

future
for
such
reflection would include an exploration of the self-reflexive use
avenues
of the body throughout Godard'swork, the link between the useof video as audio-visual
in
(actualite)
'journalism'
the
treatment
tool
the
and
of
cinema
research
as visionary
Godardian discourse (especially in Histoire(s) du cinema), the source of the long'death
Godardian
of cinema' discourse in the critique of the construction of
standing
(with
detailed
further
Comment
to
exploration
particular
reference
ca va), and
perception
of Godard's role within the alternative press.
The entirety of Godard's work from Sauve qui peut (la vie) to the present is
in
Sonimage
in
is
form.
Nowhere
less
the
this
work
announced
more or
embryonic
in
damning
his
language
in
than
the
recurrent
work across the
clearer
of
and around
1980s: the treatment of language as 'original sin', the source of countlessevils, derives
directly from the Post-Structuralist positions discussedin Chapter 5.4 What is more, as
in
Chapter 6, the insistance on the visual in the Sonimage work is
suggested
by
the presenceof language as inescapablepole of reference. The works
contradicted

200

in
into
therefore,
they
caught
a paradox:
complicate, cast
crisis, and challenge the
are,
received orthodoxies inscribed in language,but they never escapeit.
So the Sonimage period is, in a sense, a transitional space, one which bridges the
creative stasis of the aftermath of the Groupe Dziga Vertov and the renegotiation of a
displaced art cinema in the 1980s and 1990s. This view of the bridge-like 'convalescent'
is
by
in
Godard
Sonimage
by
the
conversation
period
reinforced
nature of
comments
interview
(in
Freddy
Buache
an
used to preface Buache's survey of French cinema
with
in the 1970s), employing the image of'film-annonce'

to capture the role of the Sonimage

era vis--vis his and Mieville's subsequent work:

De l'endroit o je me trouve maintenant, je suis en desaccord. Mais je travaille.

Tandis que pendant le temps qu'illustre ton livre, ce fut 1'eloignement, le vide
voulu. De l, nous avons amorce, avec Anne-Marie Mieville, le retour au pays
natal, avec le detour par Grenoble et la video, detour qui fut le film-annonce de
notre installation en Suisse. Et ce fut, pour moi, tres facile de penser, dix ans
plus Lard, ce qui m'aurait paru fondamentalement impensable avant 68. Nous
avons gagne le point commun de notre double solitude et d'une relation nouvelle
au monde, nous-memes, notre metier, un peu mieux assumee ici, doubles
s
nationaux que nous sommes.

If the Sonimagework is, therefore, a site of transit, this should not obscurethe fact that
it leaves the contours of a self-contained project in its wake. It is this project that I
have sought to unravel and clarify here by separating out the principal types of
'communication' scrutinised by Godard/Mieville, focusing on each one in turn, and
discourse.
logic
(or
Sonimage
the
the
thereof)
critical
absence
revealing
underscoring
In doing this, I have sought to recast their analysesthrough a rather more conventional
format than the aleatory and often confrontational one in which it comes packaged,
thereby rendering its scope,ambitions, and findings available for critical evaluation. The
difficulty
Sonimage
difference
heterogeneity
the
the
project
and
of
of
uninhibited
very
incomprehensible
texts,
often
provoking
so
accusations of a meaningless and
and
'charabia',raise the question of whether the value of any traces of a coherent project is
impenetrability
by
is
On
it
the
the
the
terms
through
of
articulated.
swamped
which
hand
difficulty
I
be
forms
that
the
the
to
suggest
one
on
ascribed
of such
contrary,
can
the hesitant, exploratory nature of Godard/Mieville's enquiry, and, on the other, to their
demarcationand exploration of a critical position which vehemently refuses the norms

201

of academic orthodoxy, either in the methodical appropriation of a single theoretical

gauze,or the sustainedapplication thereof.
Taking the tentative nature of the Sonimage project first of all, we should be
fully alert to its near-visionary nature: this work was completed before (or, at the very
least in tandem with) early attempts to theorise and account for the rapidly mutating
media world. Godard/Mieville's analysis of the forms and structures of communication
took place at a time when such a focus was neither fashionable nor well-established; the
explosion of academic interest in communication and media studies (and accompanying
focusing
of
courses
proliferation
on these new disciplines) was far from an inevitable
development seen from the viewpoint of the early 1970s. In this respect, Sonimage's
is
not only extraordinarily
project

ambitious, but uncannily prescient, tracing and

demarcating what was arguably to become the key site of intellectual activity across the
1980s and 1990s. The Sonimage work constitutes, therefore, a seminal and important
early critique of the media age, and one which not only identifies the key problems, but
invents
a practice through which to problematise and counter them. As
simultaneously
in
Godard's oeuvre, the bleak pessimism of thesis or subject matter is undermined
often
through the vitality of the terms of the practice in which it is couched.

Turning to the second possible criticism of the Sonimage project, that of the
absence of sustained or linear logic, I prefer to invert the accusation and reclaim it as
important
the
most
achievements of the Sonimage work, indeed of Godard's
amongst
work and discourse in its entirety. The refusal to play by orthodox discursive rules, one
irritated
has
I
itself
Godard,
suggest,
countless
so
numbers,
commentators
on
which
important
Godard's
the
of
most
amongst
contributions to the cultural environment of the
Western world over the past forty years. My quest to enter into and reformulate the
Sonimage project in more accessible terms inevitably

runs contrary to one of the

importance
indeed
the
the
of
of the
charms
work,
and
overriding
enduring attraction
Godardian discourse: to insist on, and apply, the right to a voice that constantly blurs,
logic
homogeneities
boundaries
the
short-circuits
received
of
and
confuses, and
and
common sense.

Rene Thom's response to Godard's suggestion in Rene(e)s that

delimit
by
illustrated
to
the
the
seeks
a visual
parameters of
possible,
mathematics
sequence of extraordinary spontaneity and vitality (a naked girl dancing to music), that
is
daring
inscribed
in
homogeneities
imagine
beyond
to
question
of
the
a
maths
perception, thought, and representation, thus functions as a succinct postscript to the

202

Sonimageproject: '...pour definir les limiter du possible, il faut en quelque sorte rever
l'impossible...'.6
If, as I propose here, the obliquenessof the Sonimage discourseconstitutes one
interests
have
its
key
I
that
then
the
and
strengths,
metaphor
model
of
generative
of
formulated as an account of textual structure provides a useful schematicmodel of the
functioning of the Godardiandiscourse(in his work, metadiscursivecommentaries,press
conference'performances',and interviews): wave after wave of imagesgeneratedthrough
rapprochementsof disparate ideas, all 'framed' by the terms of the key issues around
cinema, images, representation,narrative, and history that have fascinated Godard from
his early critical articles to the present.
The logic of the structure of this thesis, moving from contextual, acrosscontent,
and onto textual, analysis, was premised on a recognition of the self-reflexivity
Sonimage texts.
expected.

of the

What it has discovered, however, is a far tighter reflexivity

than

Rather than a practice that exploits its subject matter as the basis for a

reflection on its own functioning, this thesis, in moving inexorably towards an analysis
has
identified
heart
texts,
discourse
the
the
of
a conscious use of, and
on, metaphor at
of the project. Metaphor as smallest divisible representational unit, as paradigm of the
process of all representation, is analyzed, visualised, and positioned as endpoint of the
Sonimage voyage through communication processes. Metaphor frames the texts, forces
them to move and signify, constitutes the final locus of Godard/Mieville's reflection, and
literally

embodies all

the figures

of

mediation,

blockage,

representation,

and

invoked
within the texts, and, indeed, the representational processes of
communication
the texts themselves. The iconography of the circle and spiral thus acquires a further
final

inflection:

image of

metaphor,

image of

movement

in a subject-object-

image
denotes
a reflection on,
the
of
circuit,
reflexivity,
circle
ultimately
representation
figure
from
to
text,
to
the
content, and
of,
endless
spiralling
movement
visualisation
and
back again.

Each type of representation analyzed by Sonimage is echoed in the

inherent
in
intrinsically
metaphor,
all
process
since
mediating

function as reflexive

figures of the metaphorical process, and so nourish an intensely reflexive cycle in which
discourse
feed
into,
from,
the
the structure and process
of
out
and radiate
all elements
itself.
of metaphor

203

Appendix A: Information
i) Information

theory

theory

. "fi

r
C

..

h'-

Ott;

1i

Rene(e)s

Rene(e)s

J
ew

'

too

J
[

Rene(e)s

Rene(e)s

ii) Communication circuits

10

Rene(e)s

204

Rene(e)s

Rene(e)s

Photos ei cie

--]

[]

Rene(e)s

[Photos

ei cie

FE"Ok-END

Toutes les histoires

205

Toutes les histoires

iii) The traffic of information

France tour I

France tour I

4.

,h

i1

France tour 1

Prrenom Carmen

France tour 8

Prenom Carmen
206

Prenom Cann en

Je vous salue, Marie

Je vous salue, Marie

11

207

11Je
vous salue, Marie

Appendix B: Mediation and blockage

i) Self-reflexive

imagery of information

..

Ya personne

channels

--]

FY
a personne

Ya personne

Ya personne

Ya personne

Ya personne
208

ii) Journalism as site of blockage

Photos ei cie

Photos ei cie

Photos ei cie

Photos et cie

"

Photos et cie

209

Photos et cie

iii) The body as self-reflexive figure of all representational processes

Marcel

Rene(e)s

Farce

tour 3

Rene(e)s

Numero

deux

r.

210

France tour 5

iv) Entre les choses

Jacqueline

et Ludovic

Pas d'histoire

211

Lecons de chosen

Pas d'histoire

C,

Pas d'histoire

Lecons de choses

Ici et ailleurs

212

Pas d'histoire

Lecons de choses

Ici et ailleurs

Appendix C: Language and the split subject

F1

Comment

ca va

Marcel

Y4

Marcel

Numero deux

213

Marcel

Numero deux

Appendix D: Metaphor
1) Generative

jalons'

BS

France tour 1

Fr

ce tour 1

AAA
.!

France tour 2

Fiance tour 2

'AlE

France lour 3

214

France tour 3

Ol-'
I
France tour 3

215

France tour 4

RE

France tour 7

France tour 7

ui

France tour 7Q

France tour 8

France tour 9

---------------

216

France tour 9

ii) The process of metaphor visualised:

interaction

multiple

imagery

and space of metaphorical

Ici et ailleurs

Ici et ailleurs

217

Ici et ailleurs

Ici et ailleurs

Ici et ailleurs

Numero deux

NumM) deux

11

218

11Ici
et ailleurs

Numero

deux

Numero deux

iii) The play of identity

Comment ca va

Comment

and difference

in the process of metaphor

Q
qa va

219

Comment (a va

Comment

ca va

Comment

a va

Comment

Ca va

Comment

ca va

Comment

ca va

iv) Metaphor,

the image, point of view, and the explosion

Numero deux

-11][

of the reverse-angle

Numero deux

220

shot

France tour 9

France tour 10

France lour 10

France tour 11

France tour 12

France tour 12

221

v) Generative

'histoii

France tour I

s'

France tour 1

HI

France tour 2

222

France tour 3

1i

France tour 4

France lour-)

FF

11

France tour 6

223

France tour 7

H ;'ICIUCHc rfroi

tssat
il s'etait
atipm-avan,
Vivaldi sur la chaine

France lour 10

France tour 11

France tour 11

France tour 12

224

NOTES

INTRODUCTION
1. This early use of the Sonimage title is noted in Louis Marcorelles, 'v6jbis
Voyage en France de lean-Luc Godard', Le Monde, 18-19 juillet 1976, p. 14.

2)): Le

2. Jean-Luc Godard, Introduction une veritable histoire du cinema (Paris, Albatros:

1980), p. 269. Henceforth, Introduction.
3. These storyboard extracts illustrate one of the fullest interviews with Godard from the
early 1970s, characterised by a marked optimism at the outset of the video experiment:
Philippe Durand, 'Juin 1973: Jean-Luc Godard fait le point... ', Cinema Pratique, 124,
No. 60, juillet-aot 1973, pp. 156-60.
4. See Jill Forbes, 'How INA became an institution', in Jill Forbes (ed.), INA - French
for Innovation: the Work of the Institut National de la Communication Audiovisuelle in
Cinema and Television (London: British Film Institute [BFI Dossier No. 22], 1984), pp. 610. Further useful information regarding the impact of the breakup of the ORTF on the
cinema is given in the introduction to Jill Forbes, The Cinema in France: After the New
Wave (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 8-9.
5. Marc Cerisuelo, Jean-Luc Godard (Paris: Lherminier/Quatre Vents, 1989), p. 197.
6. Odette/Mieville's comments at the beginning of Comment ca va that 'il faut inventer
quelque chose' closely echo the call for stars, money, and a story that opens Tout va
bien. Likewise, a dialogue between the films (and so between the Sonimage work and
Godard's partisan political work) is filtered through the imagery: the images of the son
his
in
in
Comment ca va repeat and respond to virtually
to
a
cafe
girlfriend
writing
identical imagery in Tout va bien (imagery which, in a further intertextual slippage, drew
itself
Camarades).
in
Karmitz's
Marin
against
sequences
positioned
and
on
7. Godard in Colin MacCabe, with Laura Mulvey and Mick Eaton, Godard. " Images,
Sounds, Politics (London: Macmillan/British Film Institute, 1980), p. 26.

8. Godard in Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images: paroles...',

Telecine,202, septembre-octobre1975 (special Godard), pp. 11-13,p. 11. Godard situates
and elaboratesmany of the premises and challengesof the Grenoble Sonimage project
in this important interview.
9. Godard in Monique Annaud, 'Jean-Luc Godard: l'important c'est les producteurs', Le
Film Francais, 1571,14 mars 1975, p. 13. Further details of the foundation of Sonimage
in Grenoble are given by Richard Roud following a visit to the laboratoire in 1975. See
Richard Roud, 'Godard image', Manchester Guardian Weekly, 16 August 1975, p. 19.
10. As stated by Godard in Alain Bergala, 'Z'art partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec
225

Jean-Luc Godard par Alain Bergala', in Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Luc Godard par JeanLuc Godard, edited by Alain Bergala (Paris: Cahiers du Cinema/Editions de l'Etoile,
1985), pp. 9-24, p. 23. (Henceforth Godard par Godard. ) Godard has regularly invested
his
into
film
budgets
the acquisition of technology, citing
overall
a percentage of
Rossellini as precursor in this practice. Co-producers with a financial stake in Godard's
demanded
increasingly
inevitably
stringent guarantees and proof of precisely how
work
be
the
to
money
was
apportioned, wary of simply contributing to the
and where
technology stockpiled by Sonimage and, later, JLG Films. Such concerns are lampooned
in Passion as the anguished Italian co-producer is given a guided tour of the set
item.
by
detailed
breakdown
the
a
simultaneous
cost
of
each
of
precise
accompanied

11. Godard in Annaud.

12. Beauviala has maintained that he and the Aton technicians respondedto Godard's
in
form
the
of alterations and adjustments to their nascent innovations:
critiques
'...pendantles deux ans o Jean-Luc Godard habitait Grenoble, il venait tres souvent au
labo, et c'est du fait de discussionsavec lui que nous avons change pas mal de choses
dans la chaine video paluche.' Beauviala in Alain Bergala, Jean-JacquesHenry and
Serge Toubiana, 'La Sortie des Usines Aton: Entretien avec Jean-PierreBeauviala.2.',
Les Cahiers du Cinema, 286, mars 1978, pp.5-14, p. 12.
13. Godard in Bergala, 'Z'art a partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard
par Alain Bergala', p. 23.
14. See 'Les Etats Generaux du Cinema', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 203, aot 1968, pp. 2346. See especially 'Projets de nouvelles structures' in this dossier on the EGC on pages
29-38. Project 4 is outlined and discussed on page 34.
15. Godard in Herve Delilia and Roger Dosse, 'Les aventures de Kodak et de Polaroid:
Un entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard', Politique Hebdo, 189,18-24 septembre 1975,
pp. 28-9, p.28.
16. Rene Predal, Le cinema francais contemporain (Paris: Cerf, 1984), p.238. Predal
had previously developed an argument along similar lines in a discussion of Sonimage,
based
backward-looking
the
on the
nature of regional cultural policy,
criticising
been
important
had
the
that
created, and
already
works
across all spheres
assumption
de
in
'La
See
Rene
Predal,
troisieme
epoque
museums.
now require preservation
Jean-Luc Godard', Jeune Cinema, 101, mars 1977, pp. 23-6, especially p. 23.

17. Godardin Anon., 'Jean-LucGodard,television-cinema-video-images:paroles...', p. 12.

18. Godard in Jean-Luc Douin and Alain R6mond, 'Godard dit tout 6: "C'est toujours les
les
Ironically,
Telerama,
58-60,
60.
1491,1978,
cendriers"',
p.
pp.
memes qui vident
Godard had already lucidly portrayed this residual penetration of pre-existent hierarchies
into
labour
in
Chinoise.
The
Yvonne
La
divisions
collective
character
of
of
practice
and
(Juliet Berto) exemplifies this tendency both in relation to her own assumptions and
depicted.
Provincial and comparatively uneducated, Yvonne
the
militants
those of
other
domestic
for
the
to
the group of nascent activists.
out
menial
carry
chores
continues
19. Whilst none of the 5 'emissions TV-cinema' envisaged by Sonimage were completed,
226

extensive documentation on the failed collaborative venture is available as Jean-Luc

Godard, 'Le Dernier reve d'un producteur: Nord contre sud, ou Naissance (de l'image)
d'une nation', in Les Cahiers du Cinema, 300, mai 1979, edited by Jean-Luc Godard,
pp. 70-129. The theoretical portion of a document produced by Sonimage regarding
television in relation to the Mozambique project is reproduced in MacCabe, Godard:
Images, Sounds, Politics, pp. 138-40.
20. Godard, Introduction, p. 54.
21. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Propos Rompus', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 316, octobre 1980. In
Godard par Godard, pp.458-71, p 464.
22. Godard in Alain Bergala, Serge Daney and Serge Toubiana, 'Le chemin vers la
parole', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 336, mai 1982, pp. 8-14 & 57-66, p. 11.
23. Godard in Gerard Leblanc and J.-P. Cassagnac, 'un cineaste comme les autres' (sic),
Cinethique, 1,20 janvier 1969, pp. 8-12, p. 8.
24. Godard in Marlene Belilos, Michel Boujut, Jean-Claude Deschamps and Pierre-Henri
Zoller, 'Pourquoi Tout Va Bien? Entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard et Jean-Pierre Gorin',
Politique Hebdo, 26,27 avril 1972, in Godard par Godard, pp. 367-75, p.367.
25. Gorin in Ken Mate, Russell Cambell, Louis Alvarez, and Maureen Turim, 'Let's see
where we are: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin', The Velvet Light Trap Review of
Cinema, 9, Summer 1973, pp. 30-6, p. 34. C.f. Godard: 'The notion of an author, of
independent imagination, is just a fake. ' In Kent. E Carroll, 'Film and Revolution:
Interview with the Dziga-Vertov Group', in Royal S.Brown (ed.), Focus on Godard
(Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp. 50-64, p. 51. Previously published in
a shorter version as Kent. E Carroll, 'Film and Revolution: Interview with the DzigaVertov Group', Evergreen Review, 14, No. 83, October 1970.
26. Patrick Sey, 'Les films du groupe Dziga Vertov', Le Monde, 8 avril 1971, p. 21.
Similarly, a letter from Godard to the publisher of the script of Tout va bien in English,
insisting on the inclusion of Gorin's name as co-author (now held in the BFI archives),
exemplifies this concern.

27. Further research is required into the relative input of those mentioned here, in
Assaf
Philippe
deux
Numero
Milka
Rony
to
technical
and
on
as
collaborators
addition
and France tour respectively. Jean-PierreRuh, whose specific contribution as sound
deux
is
innovative
Numero
the
unclear,
most
and
numbers amongst
engineer on
influential post-Nouvelle Vague sound engineersin France (particularly in his use of
direct sound). Apart from his work with Sonimage, he has worked with directors as
diverse asTruffaut, Polanski, Rohmer, Schroeder,Barjol, Eustache,Resnais,and Sautet.
28. See, for instance, John Gianvito, 'Biographical sketch and filmography of AnneMarie Mieville', in Maryel Locke and Charles Warren (eds.), Jean-Luc Godard's Hail
Mary: women and the sacred in film (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1993), p. 125,
Dixon,
Winston
The Films ofJean-Luc Godard (New York: SUNY, 1997).
Wheeler
and
29. Throughout the Rolle Sonimage period, Godard and Mieville lived and worked in
227

their split-level factory/laboratory duplex.

30. Godard in Catherine David, 'Travail-Amour-Cinema',
octobre 1980, pp. 65-70, pp. 67 & 70.

Le Nouvel Observateur, 20

31. Michel Vianey, En attendant Godard (Paris: Grasset, 1966), pp. 211-12. Godard's
has
in
He
1978, attributing the
this
remained
a
constant.
reiterated
position
evaluation
breakdown of their relationship (from his point of view) to the fact thatje ne pouvais
pas parler de films avec elle'. See Godard, Introduction, p. 67.
32. Janet Bergstom, Elisabeth Lyon and Constance Penley, 'Introduction',
Obscura, 8-9-10, Fall 1982, p. 5.

Camera

33. Gorin had long been treated in the press as a political dogmatist who had corrupted
the purity of an art cinema auteur, and many journalistic commentaries of this period
rounded personally on Gorin as the focus of their disillusionment at Godard's
politicisation. Andrew Sarris, writing in The Village Voice in 1970 refers to Gorin as
'his assistant Jean-Pierre something or other', continuing with an outright personal attack:
'I didn't like his assistant at all and fought my dislike because the last thing I wanted to
be guilty of was a Sardi's snub to someone I thought was getting a free ride on someone
else's reputation... '. Andrew Sarris, 'films in focus' (sic), The Village Voice, 30 April
1970, pp. 53,61,63, & 64, p. 53. Given such prejudice, Mieville's desire to evade similar
compartmentalisation is understandable, albeit through a near-total silence that has left
from
in
hole
Gorin's
Sonimage.
the midto
research
career
secondary
material relating
a
1970s to the present has been plagued by the heritage of his work with Godard and the
Groupe Dziga Vertov. Since his work is too often ignored, I offer here a brief retrieval
his
Cabengo
(shot
Dziga
Vertov
he
Poto
the
post-Groupe
and
of
work:
superb
made
during 1977/78, and released in 1979, and so correlating very closely in terms of dates
(1991),
France
Routine
Pleasures
life
(sic)
Letter
(1985),
Crasy
My
tour),
to
and
with
Peter (1992). Like Godard and Mieville, Gorin turned from generalised theory to smallscale local issues. Marked similarities can be traced between the concerns of Polo and
Cabengo and the Sonimage work, especially France tour. an emphasis on the press,
language
acquisition and the linguistic underpining of the Symbolic order, the
children,
in
images
the
text,
the
children
and, above all,
of
use of stop-motion
use of on-screen
several sequences. An ongoing 'dialogue' with Gorin is visible across Godard/Mieville's
he
did
S.
U.
for
the
translations
the
the
release print of
subtitles of
subsequent work:
Sauve qui peut (la vie) with Paul Bukowski and Barbet Schroeder, is evoked and
(Godard
in
Story
in
The
Diana
the
to
the
par
character of
script
obliquely criticised
Godard, p.427), and his presence is clearly felt beneath the 'characters' of both Godard's
de
favouring
in
Gorin's
Lecons
For
Paulo
choses.
role
and
a
argument
provocative
voice
Vertov
Godard,
Groupe
Dziga
importance
both
that
the
and to
of
over
within
and
Raymond
Crucifixion
in
Durgnat,
Godard:
'Jean-Luc
His
see
general,
and
cinema
Resurrection', Monthly Film Bulletin, 52, No. 620, September 1985, pp. 268-71, p.270.
For a survey of Gorin's work in America, see Marie-Christine Questerbert, 'Gorin, suite
11,
Ete
1994,
Trafic,
105-20.
Steven
Seidenberg,
See
'Jean-Pierre
too
pp.
americaine',
Gorin', in Steven Seidenberg, In search of the feature documentary (London: BBC,
1992), pp. 44-7, and Jacques Deniel (ed. ), Jean-Pierre Gorin (Dunkerque: Studio 43,
1993).
34. Godard, Introduction, p. 285.
228

35. Mathilde La Bardonnie, 'Un Debat de l'I. N. A.: Godard au Bistrot des images',Le
Monde, 21 aot 1976, pp.1 & 14.
36. Godard in Bergala, 'Z'art a partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard
par Alain Bergala', p. 23. This interview is a particularly rich source of biographical
information from Godard in relation to successive periods of his work, conceived
deliberately as such by Bergala to preface the enlarged edition of Godard par Godard
in
1985.
published
37. See Jean de Baroncelli, 'La sortie de Numero Deux: La galaxie Godard', Le
Monde, 25 septembre 1975, p. 1, and the dossier of articles on Numero deux by Serge
Le Peron, Serge Toubiana, Therese Giraud, Louis Skorecki and Serge Daney in Les
Cahiers du Cinema, 262-263, janvier 1976, pp. 9-40.
38. John Coleman, '2 or 3 Things', New Statesman, 28 January 1977, pp. 132-3, pp. 132
& 133.

39. Guy Hennebelle, 'Un charabia indigeste', Ecran, 51, octobre 1976, pp.57-8.
40. Gorin in Christian Braad Thomsen, 'Filmmaking and History: Jean-Pierre Gorin',
Jump Cut, 3, September-October 1974, pp. 17-19, p. 17. Already in 1962, Godard had
France
fois
deux
for
film
immense
both
la
'un
(foreseeing
Six
France'
and
sur
ambitions
tour) lasting two or three days, distributed into episodes, which would be shown weekly
Andre
Fieschi,
See
Godard
in
Jean-Andre
Collet,
Delahaye,
Jean
Michel
at a cinema.
S.Labarthe and Bertrand Tavernier, 'Jean-Luc Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 138
(Special Nouvelle Vague), decembre 1962, pp. 20-39, p. 34.
41. Harvey, in her 'retrieval' of Brecht in relation to cinematic practice and film theory,
identified a central strand of Brechtian theory and practice as insisting on the materiality
from
become
discourse,
the activity of
this
to
allowing
never
severed
yet
recognition
of
for
Eighties',
itself.
Sylvia
beyond
Memories
Harvey,
'Whose
Brecht?
the
referring
Screen, 23, May-June 1982, pp. 45-59. The notion of 'political modernism' is advanced
function
had
Similarly,
&
53.
48
the
that
of
or
she
question
previously argued
on pp.
formal
'formalist
trap
to
the
an artwork circumvented
which proposes
purpose
innovations as in and of themselves radical'. See Sylvia Harvey, May 68 and Film
Culture (London: British Film Institute, 1978), p. 76.
42. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated by Alan
Sheridan (Harmondsworth: Peregrine, 1979); Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, L AntiOedipe: Capitalisme et Schizophrenie (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972).
43. Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964); Raymond Williams, Television: Technology
(London:
Fontana,
Form
1974).
Cultural
and
44. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 'Le Cinema et la Nouvelle Psychologie', in Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, Sens etNon-Sens (Paris: Nagel [Coll. Pensees], 1966), pp. 85-106; Walter
Benjamin, Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt (London: Fontana, 1973); Roman
Jakobson, 'Closing Statement: linguistics and poetics', in Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Style
in Language (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachussets Institute of Technology, 1960), pp-350229

77, p. 355.
45. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago & London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1980); Donald Schn, 'Generative Metaphor: A Perspective
on Problem-Setting in Social Policy', in Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 19-41; Linda Williams, Figures of
Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film (Berkeley: Los Angeles & Oxford:
University of California Press, 1981).
46. See obstacle seven (p. 201) in Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Eight obstacles to the
appreciation of Godard in the United States', in Raymond Bellour and Mary Lea Bandy
(eds.), Jean-Luc Godard. Son + Image, 1974-1991 (New York: The Museum of Modern
Art, 1992), pp. 197-203.
47. This quotation is from Colin MacCabe, 'Betaville', American Film, 10, No. 10,
September 1985, pp. 61-3, p.61. The other observations, taken in order, are from
MacCabe, Godard. Images, Sounds, Politics, p. 149; Colin MacCabe, 'Slow Motion',
Screen, 21, No. 3,1980, pp. 111-14, p. 112; Colin MacCabe, "'Taking the long way
home", The Times Profile: Jean-Luc Godard', The Times, 14 January 1984, p. 8.

48. In the course of a talk on late Godard at the Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, on
the 15 February 1991.
49. Jill Forbes, 'Jean-Luc Godard: 2 into 3', Sight and Sound, 50, No. 1, Winter 1980,
pp.40-5, p.45.
50. Dixon, pp.129-176. Pages129-141offer a descriptive survey of the Sonimagework.
51. Camera Obscura: A Journal of Feminism and Film Theory, 8-9-10, Fall 1982,
(pp.
in
See
211-15
Jacques
Aumont,
Sounds,
Politics'
33-58.
'Godard:
Images,
too
pp.
this volume), which contains criticisms of MacCabe's book not dissimilar to my own.
52. Jean Collet, 'Le crime dans l'information', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 171-172, juilletla
de
Collet,
'Godard
bon
3-4;
Jean
Du
1976,
television',
usage
pp.
aujourd'hui:
sept
Etudes, 345, novembre 1976, pp. 507-18, reprinted in Video Doc'. Communication
Audiovisuelle pp. 12-17, translated by Dana Polon as 'A Good Use of TV', Jump Cut,
,
27, July 1982, pp. 61-3; Serge Daney, 'Le therrorise (pedagogie godardienne), Les
Cahiers du Cinema, 262-263, janvier 1976, pp. 32-9, reprinted in Serge Daney, La
Rampe (Paris: Gallimard/Cahiers du Cinema, 1982), pp. 77-84; Colin MacCabe, 'Le
travail de Jean-Luc Godard en video et television', La Revue Beige du Cinema, 16,
from
in
La
du
57-60,
Revue
Beige
Cinema,
22-23,
57-60,
translated
the
pp.
reprinted
pp.
Los Angeles 1985 National Video Festival catalogue, and published in English in a
in
Gilles
'Betaville'
American
(see
Deleuze,
"Trois
48);
Film
as
note
shorter version
fois
deux',
Cahiers
Six
Les
du
1976,
Cinema,
5-12,
271,
novembre
pp.
sur
questions
in
Gilles
Deleuze,
Pourparlers
55-66,
(Paris:
1990),
Minuit
pp.
published
anthologised
in English as 'Three questions on Six fois deux: an interview with Gilles Deleuze',
translated by Diana Matias, Afterimage, 7, Summer 1978, pp. 112-19, republished in a
Gilles
Deleuze,
'On
"Sur
la
Three
translation
as
questions
et
communication":
sous
new
deux",
by
fois
),
35Rachel
(eds.
in
"Six
Bandy
Bowlby,
Bellour
translated
pp.
and
about
41; Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Numero deux', Sight and Sound, 45, No. 2, Spring 1976,
230

pp.124-5.
53. Godard, Introduction, p. 24.

CHAPTER

1. Jean-Francois Lyotard, La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (Paris:

Editions de Minuit, 1979). Exceptions to the criticism that critics generally failed to
recognise the gulf separating the Groupe Dziga Vertov work from that of Sonimage
stand out all the more clearly. Joel Magny, writing on Comment ca va in terms relevant
to all the Sonimage work, emphasised the central logic of the film as the refusal of allembracing dogmas, whilst using this very crisis of dogma as the point of departure for
the construction of inherently open-ended texts: 'Les bribes de savoir qui parcourent le
film ne sont l que comme traces d'un travail anterieur'. Joel Magny, 'Le dogme et la
crise', Cinema 78,234, juin 1978, pp. 75-6, p.75.
2. See the assault launched by Guy Hennebelle, contributing editor to Ecran and director
of CinemAction. Having retained a sceptical distance from the Groupe Dziga Vertov
films, he dismissed the Sonimage work as 'Un charabia indigeste'. Hennebelle, Ecran.
3. Godard was confined to hospital for several months with severe injuries to his hips,
head.
Physiotherapy and physical reeducation continued for two years.
pelvis, chest, and
Godard in David, p. 68. Cf. similar comments by Godard in 1985 (in Bergala, 'Z'art a
de
la
):
Nouvel
'Ca
22.
Godard
Alain
Bergala',
Jean-Luc
vie:
entretien
p.
avec
partir
par
fait
bien,
du
c'etait une periode necessaire et que je souhaitais, srement. Etre pris
m'a
he
'
Also,
in
Godard
Don
Ranvaud
Jon
Jost's
1980,
Wollen
Peter
told
as
charge.
en
and
'I'm very glad that the end of it was a big physical accident for me'. In Godard 1980,
filmed and edited by Jon Jost (Copyright: Framework, 1980). The dialogue between
Godard, Ranvaud, and Wollen that constitutes the soundtrack of the film is transcribed
Godard
Godard...
8-9.
Jean-Luc
for
himself,
13,1980,
'An
Interview:
Framework,
pp.
as
his
during
Montreal
benefits
the
comments
regarding
similar
rest
of enforced
also made
lectures (Godard, Introduction, p. 268. ).
4. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Pravda'. Text distributed at 1ARC (le musee d'Art Moderne de
Paris) in February 1970 accompanying the projection of the film. In Godard par
Godard, pp. 338-40, p. 340. At the same time, the Groupe Dziga Vertov films sought to
'sound'
imperialism
in
the
the cinema which, as the soundtrack of
of
counter
and
reveal
British sounds put it in characteristic terms, 'caresses and beats into submission'. These
films all functioned on a double register of the political and the cinematic, with frequent
is
Here,
for
between
the
spheres.
example, sound use equated with political
slippages
theory, both as regards the underlying ideological motivation of bourgeois cinema and
image
the
to the soundtrack in traditional documentary practice (in
the subservience of
latent
the
thereby
situates
voice
circumscribing
authoritative
and
an
explains,
which
image).
between
Equally,
the
of
power
are
effected
constant cross-overs
communicative
just
is
'representation',
the
term
the
term
readings
of
cinematic
as
sujet
and
political
deliberately
in
dual
the
a
manner
charged
connotations of socio-political
with
employed
individual and subject matter.

231

5. Daney, 'Le therrorise (pedagogie godardienne), especially p.36.

6. Godard in Durand, p. 157.

7. The poignancy of the direct socio-political implications of her argument are emotively
insertion
image
distraught
Vietnamese
through
the
the
woman,
a
of
of
underlined
helpless in the face of American bombs: 'Oui, je vois un peu... je vois un peu ce qui
s'est vraiment passe. Le Che etait un homme politique, et en tant qu'homme politique,
il se croyait oblige d'ecrire... de faire des phrases avec du sens, de faire de la theorie.
Sa longue theorie, c'etait qu'il fallait creer un, deux, trois Vietnams. Mais il n'a pas vu
quelque chose... pas vu que si tu crees un, deux, trois Vietnams, tu crees aussi une,
deux, trois Ameriques. Plutt que d'ecrire, s'il avait simplement parle, ecoute surtout...
le
luttait
d'abord
des
il
Vietnam
Vietnamienne
par
exemple...
contre
aurait
vu
que
cette
avions, et que si on cree trois Vietnams, il y aurait trois fois plus d'avions americains... '.
Mieville's reference is to Che Guevara's last known article, 'Message to the
Tricontinental: "Create two, three... many Vietnams", in which he called for all who hate
freedom
to rise up and commit themselves to the struggle against
and
cherish
oppression
the only real imperialist power, the United States. Her comments also evoke and
for
Godard's
in
his
(in
Camera-oeil,
to
this
prior references
article
work
criticise
instance). See Che Guevara, Venceremos! The speeches and writings of Ernesto Che
Guevara, edited and translated by John Gerassi (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968),
pp. 413-24.
8. Godard in Claude-Jean Philippe, 'La chance de repartir pour un tour', Les Nouvelles
Litteraires, 30 mai 1980. In Godard par Godard, pp. 407-12, p. 410. Cf. Albert Dray,
je
'Contrairement
in
imagine,
1:
a
France
tour
ne pense pas qu'il veut
ce
qu'on
off,
il
d'elle,
image
il
fait
et
attend voir
ni un son, simplement
partir un signal,
obtenir une
ce qui se passe quand ce signal la traverse, eile, quand eile reflechit ce signal, souvent
la
'.
traverse
pas...
9a ne
9. Jacques Aumont, L'Oeil Interminable:
p.240.

Cinema et Peinture (Toulouse: Seguier, 1989),

10. This autocritique was foreshadowed in Mieville's castigation of Godard in Nanas,

fruitful
to
him
to
speak
women
allow
squandering
a
potentially
of
opportunity
accusing
for themselves on television, circumscribing their replies within the parameters of his
dis
'Ben,
his
forcing
to
to
them
expectations:
conform
own project, and so effectively
donc, ton emission sur les nanas, c'etait un peu faible comme figure. Tu les encadres,
tu les questionnes, tu diriges leurs reponses, et apres tu t'etonnes qu'il n'y a personne.
Elles ont peut-etre pas envie d'avoir leur place, ici, comme ca. En tout cas, moi, j'ai pas
envie. '
11. Godard in "The Economics of Film Criticism: A Debate [Jean-Luc Godard and
Pauline Kaell', Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 163-84, p. 198.
12. Godard, Introduction, p. 264.
13. Alain Bergala, 'Comment ca va', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 290-291, juillet/aot
33.
32-4,
p.
pp.

232

1978,

14. Godard, Introduction, p. 309.

15. See Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, translated by Michael
Henry Heim (London: Faber & Faber, 1982), pp. 196-7. The passage here is spoken by
Denise in the film. The importance of Kundera's work, and specifically of this passage
in
defining
Godard
text
as a central
and Mieville's charting of a new working space
(reworked
be
from
Godard's
this
can
gauged
same
story
politics,
re-use of
outside
and
given a different inflection) in the opening and closing poetic monologues to Meetin' WA
in which he refers to himself as 'le merle des champs' and to Woody Allen as 'le merle
des villes'. Interestingly, Godard refused to deny or relinquish the political dimension
to his work across the 1980s. As late as 1986, in a statement characteristic in its
rationale vis--vis the evaporation of the political in his work, he claimed his films to
be so profoundly political as to elude the narrow partisan overtones of the epithet
altogether: 'For a time they were too obviously political. Now they seem to be nonbut
they are political in so large a way that you don't even need to say they
political,
are political. ' Godard in Nigel Matheson, 'The Creator', New Musical Express, 2 October
1986, pp. 6,7 & 61, p.7.
16. Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, pp. 196-7. For a comparable use of
humour to deride former political work, see Chris Marker's evocative short film, SLON
Tango, in which he lampoons the ponderous aspects of SLON's work by using this title
to frame his setting of the movements of an elephant to a Stravinsky tango.
17. Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p.460.

18. Godard in Colin MacCabe, 'Politics is only a movie made in Russia: interview with
Jean-Luc Godard', in Law Wai Ming (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard After 68 (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong International Film Festival, 1986), pp.48-51, p.49.
19. Philippe Dubois, for example, who approaches Godard's work as an aesthetician,
brackets
fois
Six
deux
in
Godard's
militant sectarian political
with
unproblematically
phase of work. He thereby obscures the extensive reworking of political theory and
didacticism at the heart of Sonimage's work, as well as the deliberate conception of the
texts as dense open-ended series of approximations and formulations, in total opposition
to didactic closure. Dubois made his comments in a talk entitled 'Godard: Cinema et
Peinture', part of the Godard retrospective at the Cinema le Wies and the Musee d Art
Moderne at Saint-Etienne in April 1991. Other talks on Godard were given by JeanPaul Fargier, Alain Bergala, and Roland Amstutz. The retrospective was conceived
interpenetrations
framework
the
the
theme
the
of
conference
of
a
cycle around
within
fois
deux
Six
is
In
form,
Dubois's
vis--vis
painting.
written
position
of cinema and
dubbing
both
it
'an
in
the
tempered,
the
sense
of
end point
analytical/critical
rather more
fois
field
Six
deux
[...
]
In
the
this
and
mediums
sense
of
communication.
sociopolitical
last
like
films,
film:
it's
be
Godard's
the
the
political
essay
only
still
video-scalpel,
would
inside TV. And France/Tour/Detour would be the first lyrical, densely artistic film of
the Godard of the eighties, already tending towards Sauve qui pent (la vie), but at the
heart of a televisual apparatus'. See Philippe Dubois, 'Video thinks what cinema creates:
Notes on lean-Luc Godard's Work in Video and Television', in Bellour and Bandy
(eds.), pp. 174-7.
20. The sense of loss evoked in the writings of James Roy MacBean, a commentator on
233

the Groupe Dziga Vertov practice, amounts to a virtual accusation of personal betrayal.
MacBean's book Film and Revolution constitutes an enthusiastic fellow-traveller
commentary on the Groupe Dziga Vertov work. This enthusiasm turns to hostility in
the face of Godard's increasingly virulent revision of partisan politics across the
Sonimage work. MacBean's review of the Camera Obscura triple edition on Godard
and Mieville's work pivots around a challenge to the assumption that Godard'ought still
to be considered central to our preoccupations'. See James Roy MacBean, 'Godard, Seen
Through a Camera Obscura, Darkly: A Review of the Special Godard Issue, Camera
Obscura, No. 8-9-10', Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 9, No. 4, Fall 1984, pp. 341-5,
p. 341. Similarly, his lengthy open letter to Godard berates him for abandoning politics
in favour of a voguish cynicism, accusing him of 'almost outdoing the pop-porno people
at their own game', and making a film (Sauve qui peut (Ia vie)) that 'fits in all too well
latest
the
media zeitgeist. See James Roy MacBean, 'An Open Letter to Godard',
with
Jump Cut, 31, March 1986, pp. 8-12, p. 11.
21. From Chapter 3 ('La Bureaucratie Stalinienne') of Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit:
Le gauchisme, remede la maladie senile du communisme (Paris: Seuil, 1968), p. 186.
22. Khursheed Wadia has detailed the sexism of the CGT during May 1968, quoting
CGT leader Benoit Frachon's declaration in March 1968 that an ideal society was one
in which the family man earned enough to keep his wife at home. See Keith Reader
with Khursheed Wadia, The May 1968 Events in France: Reproductions and
Interpretations (London: Macmillan, 1993), p. 150.
23. See, for instance, MacCabe, Godard. Images, Sounds, Politics.
24. This flirtation with spontaneisme is exemplified in the sequence in Tout va bien in
which a group of gauchistes, fleeing from the police, opportunistically beat up a lone
policeman when they realise he has become separated his colleagues. The logical
is
terrorism: it is a short step from random opportunistic
of
spontaneisme
conclusion
violence against representatives of the state to the orchestration of terror. Godard
frequently pointed out that the terrorist groupings were the veritable inheritors of the
legacy of May 68. This is not to suggest in any way that Godard condoned terrorism,
but rather to demonstrate that he identified the absence of an effective infrastructure of
Left-wing dissent as inevitably feeding into spontaneisme. The Groupe Dziga Vertov
between
for
Left,
'anti-cegetiste'
the
the
traced
an
crisis
caught
revolutionary
work
had
hand,
PCF
the
the
on
one
which
other,
on
anarchic spontaneisme
and an ossified
failed to react effectively to events which had outpaced their response; the work
inhabits
discussion
fascinating
A
this
problematic.
and
around violence
radio
embodies
key
legacy
May
between
July
Jean
Serge
Daniel
68
terrorism
took
as
a
of
and
and
place
(entitled 'Sur la violence') on France Culture on the 11.12.79. For details, see
bibliography.
25. Pravda was also shot in collaboration with Paul Burron. Roger later co-directed
Neige (1981) with Juliet Berto. He subsequently became vice chancellor of I'Universite
de Saint-Denis. See Elisabeth Salvaresi, Mai en heritage (Paris: Syros/Alternatives,
1988), p. 199. Godard acknowledged that the theoretical underpining of both British
sounds and Pravda owed much to discussions with Gorin, although they had not at this
formed
a recognisable working relationship. Godard edited Pravda during the
stage
Vent
d'est in Italy in 1969. The Groupe Dziga Vertov work can be
of
arduous shooting
234

broken down into four principle stages: Godard alone, Godard/RogerBurron,

Godard/Gorin/Armand Marco/Gerard Martin, and Godard/Gorin. Following May 68,
Godard was still working alone: he edited Le Gal savoir, shot the Cine-tracts, worked
in
les
One
American
One
Britain
Un
Film
the
and
shot
one
comme
Gutres,
plus
on
movie
in the United States. Vent d'est, Lotte in Italia, the aborted Jusqu' la victoire, and
Vladimir et Rosa, were all collaborative works made primarily by Godard and Gorin.
A lucid overview of the shift in the politics of the Groupe Dziga Vertov is given in Julia
Lesage, 'Godard and Gorin's Left Politics, 1967-72', Jump Cut, 28,1983, pp. 51-8.
26. Furthermore, reference is explicitly made to Althusser in La Chinoise through
Guillaume (Jean-Pierre Leaud), who refers to Althusser's essay on a Brecht play. This
in
is
'Le
Louis Althusser, Pour
Brecht',
Bertolazzi
Piccolo,
et
essay almost certainly
Marx (Paris: Francois Maspero, 1965), pp. 129-52. Pour Marx is subsequently quoted
directly by Omar Diop in his address to the group.
27. Jean-Paul Fargier, Ici et l-bas: Entretien avec Jean-Pierre Gorin', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 388, octobre 1986, pp. 37-42, p. 37. Fargier recounts here his discovery with
Gerard Leblanc of the group's reliance on this draft text whilst Lotte in Italia was in its
inception stage: 'Un jour dans un cafe, Gorin nous livra ses clefs. Comme on abat un
cane d'as, il nous montra les feuillets froisses, soulignes en rouge, en noir, en vert, d'un
texte inedit d'Althusser, qui devait paraitre sous le titre fameux d'Appareil ideologique
d'Etat. Nous emes le droit de lire le texte, au cafe, mais pas de 1'emporter.'
28. Mao Tse-Tung, 'On Contradiction', in Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Works of Mao TseTung, Vol. I, edited and translated by the Committee for the Publication of the Selected
Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, (Peking:
Foreign Language Press, 1965), pp. 311-47, p. 321. It should be noted how inherently
into
his
by
Godard
is.
Mao's
hence
It
terminology
easily assimilated
cinematic
was
from
heavily
linguistic
the sociocross-overs
cinematic
project
which
relied
on
reflexive
frames,
to
the
cinematic:
angle, viewpoint, and so on.
political
29. Julia Kristeva in 'Why the United States? Discussion with Marcelin Pleynet and
Philippe Sollers', in Julia Kristeva, The Kristeva Reader, edited by Toril Moi (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. 272-91, p. 273. The liberating open-ended
'poet-philosopher(as
figured
himself
Mao's
in
Mao
the
teachings
as
promise of
is
light
icon
inevitably
in
the
of the widespread
of
a
generation)
grotesque
politician',
in
Mao's name.
carried
out
atrocities
subsequent

30. Louis Althusser, 'Ideologie et appareilsideologiquesd'Etat',Positions (Paris: Editions

67-125.
The
is
dated
April 1970.
1976),
article
pp.
sociales,
31. Ibid., pp. 72-3.
32. Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983),
from
influence
is
is
Althusser
from
direct
Althusser
The
The
116.
173.
of
quote
p.
p.
in
less
Lotte
film
in
Italia,
than an
the
nothing
visible
constituting
most unequivocally
his
in
AIE
then
relation to a specific
article,
unpublished
audio-visual mise-en-scene of
individual militant, Paola. In the course of the film, Paola is shown to revise her
line
in
dual
the
thrust of Althusser's argument, relating to the
with
assumptions
imaginary nature of the individual's interpellation and 1'assujetissement 1'ideologie
235

dominante, and to the reproduction of the terms of that ideology, through the functioning
of the ostensibly unmotivated institutions: the family, school, university, and television.
The widespread influence of Althusser's essay on English-speaking cultural theory was
due in large part to Stuart Hall's essay 'Culture, the media and the ideological effect', in
James Curran, Michael Gurevitch and Janet Woolacot (eds.), Mass Communication and
Society (London: Edward Arnold, 1977), pp. 315-48. Amongst the numerous critiques
of a post-Althusserian position, particularly in relation to its implementation in the
course of the development of film theory in the pages of Screen during the 1970s, see
Nicholas Gamham, Capitalism and Communication: Global Culture and the Economics
by
Fred Inglis (London: Sage Publications, 1990), pp. 56-63.
Information,
edited
of
33. Godard's whispered voice-off identifies that 'le pouvoir gaulliste prend le masque
d'un reformateur et d'un modernisateur, alors qu'il ne veut qu'enregistrer et regulariser
les tendances du grand capitalisme'. Masculin feminin makes the link between the
division of time and demands of work in an unattributed voice-off ('les verificatrices de
Simca,
Nanterre,
le
faire
de
l'amour parce qu'elles sont abimees
temps
qui
n'ont
chez
pas
par le travail'). It is not until Deux ou trois choses queje sais d'elle, shot later that year
(1966) that the critique is fully formulated.

34. School and prison are also related by Foucault to successiveinstitutions such as
barracks, hospitals and factories 'which all resemble prisons'. See Foucault, p.228.
35. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (London: Calder & Boyars, 1971), p. 38. We know
Godard to have been familiar with Illich's work, and might postulate his influence on
the development of this aspect of Sonimage's position. Godard referred to Illich in the
his
lectures.
Montreal
259-60.
The
See
Godard,
Introduction,
of
pp.
voyage
sixth
is
Illich's
different
'speed'
to
the
countries, work which
work
on
average
of
reference
feeds
into
Godard/Mieville's
differing
'speeds'
Africa
the
of
clearly
visual critiques of
differing
in
de
Lefons
France
Illich's
the
gestures and
choses.
on
reflections
and
rhythms of men and women, determined by their social status and the division of labour
illuminating
the
an
sexes,
provides
companion to Godard/Mieville's explorations of
and
in
Sonimage
deux,
in
Numero
the
work,
particularly
reminiscent of comparable
gender
du
Gange,
in
films
by
both
Femme
(such
La
Marguerite
Duras
this
period
as
of
concerns
1974) and Chantal Akerman (such as Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce 1080
Bruxelles, 1975). See Ivan Illich, Gender (London: Marion Boyars, 1983), especially
page 107, n. 79.

36. Illich, Deschooling Society, p. 11.

37. Godard in Philippe, p.410.
38. This impression/expression opposition is elaborated at some length in Godard,
Introduction, pp. 46-7.
39. Foucault, p. 149.
40. From the scenario to Y'a personne, in Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Mieville,
'6fois 2: Sur et sous la communication', Godard par Godard, pp. 387-99, p. 388.
41. As Mieville puts in in an exemplary sequence in Ici et aflleurs (referring to the
23 6

taking of hostages by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich): 'la
force de l'Imperialisme, c'etait la television, et deux millions de spectateurs qui veulent
Cf. France Tour 4, in which Godard/Linhard, insisting on this
un programme'.
distribution
the
complication
equivalence and
of
of time in capitalist society, and the
repetitious time/space relations characteristic of broadcast television, draws an overt
correlation between the cycles of the children's daily routine and television: Toi, dans
to journee, est-ce que t'as un programme? '.
42. Guy Scarpetta, 'sur plusieurs plans' (sic), art press (sic), hors serie No. 4, decembre
1984 - janvier/fevrier 1985, pp. 42-50, p. 44. The italics are Scarpetta's.

43. Foucault, p.26.

44. See in particular Part 3, Section 1, 'Docile bodies' (Ibid., pp.135-69): 'A body is
docile that may be subjected,used, transformed and improved.' (p. 136).
45. Le Nouveau monde, Alphaville, and Anticipation all evoke nightmarish dehumanised
scenarios of manufactured desire, hellish societies peopled by automatons very literally
'going through the motions', recalling Rick Rylance's evocation (writing of Barthes) of
'a global village in which everyone has been bitten by the vampires of myth' (Rick
Rylance, Roland Barthes (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), p. 51.). In
Anticipation, the separation of the language from the gestures of desire is literally played
out (later reworked in the guise of the graded'seductrices' in Alphaville). Dick (Jacques
Charrier) arrives from outer space and is greeted by Marlene (Marilii Tolo) who is
for
but
sex,
not conversation. When he objects, she is replaced by Natacha
programmed
(Anna Karina), who is programmed for sentimental love and so talks ceaselessly. The
bridging
body,
divorce
language
from
traces
the
the
the
the reintroduction
of
of
narrative
of desire into the harmonious conjugation of the body and language in the invention of
the kiss. As the narrator puts it, they end up making love, conversation, and progress
simultaneously. Taylorism proper, the maximising of efficiency through the division of
labour and rationalisation of gesture is criticised (and equated with Soviet revisionism)
in Pravda.

46. Godard went on to arguethat the 'galaxies' of potential in Camille's movementswere

far greater and less predictable than in Arnaud, thus suggesting the boy to be more
thoroughly programmed than the girl. Godard, 'Propos Rompus', pp.461-2.
47. Ibid., p.467. This notion can be traced to early in Godard's work. In 1958, Godard
in
itself
Alexandre
Astruc's
Une
Vie
the
that
sequence
scene
was not
wrote of a
inherently compelling, but rather fascinating through 'cette soudainete des gestes qui font
demarrer le suspens toutes les trois minutes, cette discontinuite latente dans la
Godard,
'Ailleurs',
Cinema,
du
89, novembre 1958.
Jean-Luc
Les
Cahiers
continuite'.
In Godard par Godard, pp. 146-9, p. 149.
48. For a useful discussion of the body in Godard and Mieville's subsequent work, with
direct relevance to the issues under discussion here, see Berenice Reynaud's discussion
Marie:
'Godard's
is
has
been
Je
that
there
to
concern
an element
vous
salue,
stress
of
that resists the geometry of contradictory texts and delineated spaces: the body. The
body is this opaque substance that stops light; the body is what emits and receives
discourse; the body of a woman is what escapes man's questions about it; the body is
237

that mysterious object, endlessly questioned by philosophers ("One does not know what
the body can," wrote Spinoza in the seventeenth century), castigated by some as the
by
others as the ultimate source of pleasure. The
of
sin,
overevaluated
source
ultimate
body, whose presence is tamed in traditional narrative cinema by the policed training of
in
by
the
the
to
well-meaning
voice-over
addition of
silence
actors, or reduced
documentaries - the body is what resists becoming a pure signifier. It is thus both the
"'Impure
Reynaud,
its
impure
'
Berenice
cinema
and
more
elements.
real object of
Cinema": adaption and quotation at the 1985 New York Film Festival', Afterimage, 13,
No. 6, January 1986, pp. 9-11, p. 11.
49. Aumont continues thus: Teile est, par excellence, 1'idee qui circulera ensuite dans
Sauve qui pent (avec 1'experimentation sur le gel des mouvements), dans Je vous
dans
etats),
evidemment
dans
(le
de
Roussel
Marie
Myriam
tous
ces
corps
salue,
Passion, et jusque dans Detective. ' Aumont, L'Oeil Interminable: Cinema et Peinture,
pp. 241-2.

50. 'Au lieu de dire les titres humains,j'ai dit: les monstres. Si j'avais dit: les titres
humains, on n'y aurait pas fait attention. Ce sont des gentils monstres...oui, ils sont
in
'
Godard
Philippe, p.410.
un peu monstreux.
51. From Foucault's preface to Deleuze & Guattari, pp. xi-xiv, p.xiv.
52. Ibid., p.xiii.
53. Godard, Introduction, p. 303.

54. Ralph Thanhauser'sfilm Godard in America (1970) documentsGodard and Gorin's

Universities
la
Jusqu'
the
to
the
at
of
audiences
victoire storyboard
elaboration of
Cambridge (Mass.) and California at Berkeley.
55. Michel Garin, 'Godard chez les Feddayin', L'Express, 994,27 juillet -2 aot 1970,
is
information
is
introductory
in
Garin's
This
44.
44-5,
and
paragraph,
contained
p.
pp.
340-2.
in
Godard,
from
Godard
the
pp.
anthologised
par
version
omitted
56. Daney, 'Le therrorise (pedagogie godardienne)', p. 39. Daney wrote elsewhere of the
(projected
he
his
first
Ici
et ailleurs
experienced on
viewing of
overpowering emotion
by Godard on a wall in the Grenoble Sonimage studio). Afterwards, he vomited, 'tant
1'emotion etait grande'. See Serge Daney, L'Exercice a ete profitable, Monsieur (Paris:
P. O.L, 1993), p.252.
57. Serge Daney, 'Le Faussaire', in Cine journal: 1981-1986 (Paris: Cahiers du Cinema,
1986), pp. 42-4, p.44. In similar terms, Jean Rouch, expert at fielding criticisms of his
in
his
in
had
1973
Africa,
foreseen
review of the
of
such a critique
own representations
he
films
1930s,
in
the
caustically
where
commentaries on ethnographic
after
shift
image-track
distorting
the
to an
the
tendency
to
misplaced and
subject
attacked
'ideological discourse through which the film maker exports notions of revolution that
he has not been able to act upon in his own country', comments which echo one of Id
(Extract),
Man'
Camera
'The
Jean
Rouch,
theses
and
very
closely.
central
et ailleurs's
The Films of Jean Rouch (London:
in Mick Eaton (ed.), Anthropology-Reality-Cinema:
British Film Institute, 1979), pp. 54-63, p. 59.
23 8

58. A useful discussion and critique of Godard/Mieville's project in Mozambique can be

found in Manthia Diawara, African cinema: politics and culture (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1992), pp. 93-103.
59. Gorin later maintained that they eventually planned to redistribute the material into
had
'We've
impossibility
film
this
the
the
on
of
editing
material:
of
reflections
a series
five
four
One
it
has
for
backs
through
two
cutting.
of
or
stages
and
passed
years,
our
on
it,
but
I
is
impossibility
film
interesting
think we've
to
the
things
the
edit
about
our
of
found some kind of creative possibility to reflect on the material. We plan to make four
hours
lasting
hours,
films,
five
ten
the
of material we
one and one-half
out of
each
or
have.' Gorin in Thomsen, p. 19.
60. Gorin in Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise, 'Raymond Chandler, Mao Tse-Tung
& Tout va bien', Take One, 3, No. 6, July-August 1971, pp. 22-4, p.24.
61. See Mieville in Daniele Heymann, Un entretien avec la realisatrice: Il faut parler
de ce que l'on connait, Le Monde, 18 janvier 1989, p. 13.
62. Elias Sanbar, 'Vingt et un ans apres', Trafic, 1, Hiver 1991, pp. 109-19, p. 116.
Sanbar is currently editor of 'L'Etude Palestinienne' and author of Palestine, le pays
venir (Paris: L'Olivier, 1996). Mieville's original brief and role was to translate all these
interviews from Arabic and English so as to arrive at a new point of departure. See
Mieville in Jean-Luc Macia, 'Les trois ages de la femme', La Croix-L'Evenement, 19
janvier 1989, p.20.
63. See the postscript to Guy Braucourt, 'Ici et ailleurs et Six fois deux', Ecran, 51,
'14
Juillet'
Ici
56-7.
1976,
the
cinema.
at
pp.
et ailleurs remained programmed
octobre
The quote here is taken from a contemporaneous report on the bomb (and its effect on
the programming of Id et ailleurs) in Henry Chapier, 'Le film de Godard moitie retire
de l'affiche... Un fascisme chasse l'autre', Le Quotidien de Paris, 20 septembre 1976.
Marin Karmitz, in his account of the film's distribution, curiously omits any reference
to the attempted bombing of the Quintette, concentrating on a separate incident at the
14 Juillet Bastille cinema: groups of externe Right-wing Jews apparently ran riot,
in
locking
the
the
terrorising
the
the
cinema-goers
cinema,
elderly cashier,
smashing up
Karmitz
been
had
(into
Israeli
released).
which mice and
army gas
projection room
irony,
laden
incident
In
the
the
with
comments
attackers were caught.
and
reported
Karmitz notes that 'Le juge d'instruction specialise dans les groupes gauchistes a classe
1'affaire'. See Marin Karmitz, Bande a part (Paris: Grasset, 1994), p. 124.
64. Godard in Bergala, Daney and Toubiana, p. 12.
65. An almost identical logic is identifiable in the publicity poster for Ici et ailleurs.
No images from Ici et ailleurs are directly reproduced, but associated imagery of the
Palestinian revolution drawn from the covers of two magazines (subsequently re-used
in Photos et cie) are set side by side: a near-naked woman with a Palestinian scarf
Confide
feature
Palestinian
the
guerillas
magazine,
woman
cover of
whilst armed
adorns
Overlaps,
PLO's
Palestine.
contradictions, and
the
official
news
magazine,
cover of
on
in
dynamic
format,
between
the
tension with
use,
set
up
and
are
aims of each
similarities
letters
'Ici
is
daubed
hand-written
in
et
ailleurs'
across the
cryptically
one another, and
top of the poster. The problematic of Ici et ailleurs, focussing on the means of

239

representation of ailleurs and the distribution context ici of such representations, is

distilled into a single dense image. As Godard asks as these photos emerge in Photos
et cie, 'comment ca s'enchaine tout ca?'. The poster is reproduced in Francois Albera
(ed.), Jean-Luc Godard (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag [Reihe Film 19], 1979), p. 192.
The recognition of all images as levelled, part of a morass of ever-circulating media
imagery, remains a constant throughout Godard and Mieville's post-Sonimage art
cinema, fundamentally informing both the types of films and manner in which they were
Godard
his
reinvoked
made.
early discovery of the passing of the potency of the
individual image in a media-saturated society in Changer dimage: 'C'est d'ailleurs vrai
que tonte la vie de cet imbecile n'avait ete qu'un pauvre va-et-vient entre l'image de la
la
des
images. Tres tot, il avait demontre qu'il n'y a pas d'images, mais
vie et
vie
des
chalnes d'images, et que la facon dont on assemble ces chaines, depuis
seulement
le code genetique, jusqu' l'assemblage des RS chez Renault, que cette facon meme etait
une image, etait d'une certaine facon une image de la fawn que nous avons de nous
inscrire, ou de nous faire inscrire, au centre ou la peripherie de l'univers. '

66. One could trace the emergenceof this same discourse across Godard's previous
work. In particular, I suggestthat with hindsight, and stripped of its overbearing (and
often obnoxious) political posturing, the unconsciousof the Groupe Dziga Vertov films
already announcesGodard's 'death of cinema' discourse in profound ways.
67. On the advice of Francois Truffaut, Godard bought a television for the first time in
1965 during the making of Masculin feminin. See Godard, Introduction, p. 168. The film
is punctuated with television screens which dominate a whole succession of social
launderettes.
Even the streets themselves are circumscribed by
such
as
cafes
and
spaces
the imminent explosion of television: in one image, a whole bank of monitors in a shop
window dominate the city street at night.
68. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Avant-propos', in Francois Truffaut, Correspondance, edited by
Gilles Jacob and Claude de Givray (Renens: Hatier, 1988), pp. 7-8, p. 7. Wenders's
subsequent explorations of contemporary imagery and its implications for the future of
cinema in Notebook on cities and clothes and Tokyo-Ga echo Godard and Mieville's
position very closely.
69. Such self-cannibalisation is emblematic of Godard's work for television in this
period, constituting a process of self-examination and criticism, whilst simultaneously
dismissed
imagery
been
(having
as
valuable
such
and rich with connotation
reclaiming
in
during
1969-1971).
The
the second
the
crescendo
years
a
outright
practice reaches
du
from
Histoire(s)
Une
Week-end
(where
Histoire
this
cinema,
of
extract
seule
episode
is again keyed into the flow). A comparable crucial extract, employed in Six fois deux
is
biers
from
Tout
France
the
tour,
taken
the
sequence
va
of
where the
end
and
by
the police. The repeated reworked use of a small
away
marched
are
protesters
imagery
(taken
from
Godard's own work, the press, and
resonant
of
particularly
selection
is
for
Godard/Mieville's
television, and
characteristic
particularly
of
work
advertising)
demonstrates one of the principal uses for which they employ video.
70. Godard in Sylvie Steinebach, 'Les signes du mal vivre: entretien avec Jean-Luc
Godard', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 323-324, mars 1984, pp. 4-11, p. 7.
71. Godard in Claire Devarrieux, 'Se vivre, se voir', Le Monde Dimanche, 30 mars 1980,

240

p.IX.

In Godard par Godard, pp. 404-7, p.404.

72. Cf. Godard's comment to a bemused Philippe Gildas at Cannes, maintaining that, as
a result of the images dominating televisual speakers from behind, the world is going
backwards: 'A force de mettre les images derriere, le monde va en arriere'. Godard was
interviewed live at Cannes by Gildas on the programme Direct for an hour and a half,
transmitted on Canal Plus in May 1987.
73. 'Le spectacle est la fois l'image et la cause quotidienne de I'alienation fondamentale
dans
que noun subissons
une societe capitaliste. ' Guy Debord, La Societe du Spectacle
(Paris: Champ Libre, 1971), pp. 97-8. I am aware that this rapprochement contravenes
traditional separations of the two opposing tendencies in cultural theory during May
1968, semiotics (where we would, broadly, position the Groupe Dziga Vertov), and
Situationism (to whom Godard represented 'un Suisse de Lausanne qui a envie le chic
des Suisses de Geneve, et de l les Champs-Elysees', or, more brutally 'le Club
Mediterranee de la pensee moderne': in the Internationale situationnist, quoted in Herve
Hamon and Patrick Rotman, Generation 1: Les annees de reve (Paris: Seuil, 1987),
pp. 396-7). The convergence of Sonimage and Debord, I suggest, illustrates succinctly
the conceptual distance travelled from the practice of the Groupe Dziga Vertov.
74. Roland Barthes, 'Rhetorique de l'image', Communications, 4,1964, pp. 40-51, p. 47.
Barthel' position vis-a-vis the image shifted noticeably from a fairly conventional realist
position in 'Le message photographique' (Communications, 1,1961) to a semiotic
critique of the image as coded and motivated ('Rhetorique de l'image') wherein the
index
its
is
longer
to
the
closeness
of
pro-filmic event
photograph's
no
viewed as an
but,
rather, a measure of its potential for manipulation and abuse. Both
realistic charge,
essays are reproduced in Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text, essays selected and
translated by Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977).
75. See Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, especially p. 59, and Susan
Sontag, "The Image-World', in On Photography (London: Allen Lane (Penguin) 1978),
freedom
in
images.
The
is
'Social
by
179:
151-80,
to
change
replaced
p.
a change
pp.
images
itself.
The
is
freedom
narrowing
and
plurality
of
goods equated with
consume a
free
free
to
economic consumption requires the unlimited production
choice
political
of
images.
'
of
consumption
and
76. Godard in Antoine Dulaure and Claire Parnet, 'Dans Marie il ya aimer', LAutre
Journal, 2, janvier 1985. In Godard par Godard, pp. 597-608, p. 603.
77. Rene Predal, 'Godard: la television dans le cinema', CinemAction 44, juin 1987,
(L'influence de la television sur le cinema))), edited by Guy Hennebelle and Rene
Predal (Paris: Cerf, 1987), pp. 149-53, p. 153. Predal regrettably omits reference to
Mieville's contribution to defining the parameters of the concerns central to Sonimage,
particularly the engagement with television.
78. Baudrillard in Anon., 'Entretien: Jean Baudrillard', Cinema 84,301, janvier 1984,
pp. 16-18, pp. 17-18.
79. Jean Baudrillard, 'The Implosion of Meaning in the Media and The Implosion of the
Social in the Masses', in The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial
241

Culture, edited by Kathleen Woodward (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980),
pp. 137-48, p. 137.
80. Ibid.
81. Jean Baudrillard, 'The Ecstasy of Communication', in The Anti Aesthetic: Essays on
Post-modern Culture, edited by Hal Foster (Port Townsend, Wa.: Bay Press, 1983),
lui-meme
in
(Paris:
French
Jean
Baudrillard,
LAutre
Published
126-34.
par
as
pp.
Galilee, 1987).
82. Jean-Luc Godard, 'The Story: Extraits du scenario', 1979, in Godard par Godard,
pp. 418-41, p.440.

83. This quotation is the sum of the words inscribed on a series of cards in this short
film, made by Godard and Mieville for UNICEF in 1991. For details, see filmography.
84. Michel Servet (pseudonym for Godard), 'Le Cercle rouge', J'accuse, 1,15 janvier
1971, p. 24.
85. The impetus and terms of the critique, however, can be traced back to Gorin, an
influence often acknowledged by Godard (See, for instance, Godard in Jacques Richard,
'Entretien avec J-L Godard le 12 avril 1978', Cinequanone, 1,10-16 mai 1978, pp. 25-9,
p.26, and Jean-Luc Godard, 'Godard A Venise' (Press conference for Prenom Carmen,
1983), Cinematographe, 95, pp. 3-7, p.6.). Gorin argued throughout the Groupe Dziga
Vertov period that a major problem facing the contemporary political filmmaker is the
mainstream audience's loss of the capacity to simply look at and see the contents of
images and films outside the norms and homogeneities inscribed both semiotically in the
image and cognitively within subjectivity: 'On ne voit plus les films, on les lit. ' Godard,
in turn, schematised this thesis by relating it to the underlying material dictates of the
medium ('On voit bien pourquoi la television a amene ca, puisque physiquement, eile
lit les images, le mouvement du scanner lit 1'image dans le mouvement, alors que l'image
d'un
in
Toubiana,
Daney
(Godard
Bergala,
'
and
Beul
est
enregistree
coup.
chimique
imagery
'subterranean'
).
Rather
60.
thus
than
pre-determined
seeing,
we
read
along
p.
images
'In
the
routes:
and sounds, people
spite of
civilization of
semiotic and perceptual
don't see films, they read them, because they are marked by books. ' (Gorin in Thomsen,
).
19.
p.
86. Jean-Paul Fargier, 'L'homme incruste', Les Cahiers du Cinema (Numero Special:
Television), Automne 1981, pp. 60-1, p. 61.
87. Mireille Latil-Le Dantec, 'Jean-Luc Godard ou l'innocence perdue', in Michel Esteve
(ed.), Jean-Luc Godard: au-del du recit, (Paris: Lettres Modernes/Editions Minard
[etudes cinematographiques 57-61], 1967), pp. 49-70, p. 56.

CHAPTER

1. See Yvonne Baby, 'Faire les films possibles l o on est', Le Monde, 25 septembre

242

1975, p. 15.
2. Godard in Martin Even, 'Jean-Luc Godard: Ma seconde vie', Le Point, 349,24 mars
1980, pp. 126-8, p. 128.
3. Godard in Bergala, 'Z'art a partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard
par Alain Bergala', p.22.
4. This group, composed largely of technicians and directors politicised by the events
having
film
(the
in
Flins 68-69
May
1968
EGC),
the
the
majority
made
of
participated
factory.
filmed
They
Flins
Renault
the
the
then
ongoing revolutionary movement at
on
the discussions and editing stages of their work on video so as to then present this
record to the workers concerned, subsequently incorporating their autocritique into the
final form of the film. For a discussion with members of Les cineastes revolutionnaires
proletariens, details of this film, and their use of video, see Marcel Martin and Guy
Hennebelle, 'Les cineastes revolutionnaires proletariens', Cinema 70,151, decembre
1970, pp. 100-4. Similarly, the film Critique/autocritique was made by SLON members
Chris Marker and Mario Marret from video recordings of discussions with the militant
workers at the Besancon Rhodiaceta factory (who had been the subject of their film 'A
bientt j'espere" in 1967), in response to their criticisms that the film presented too sad
and romantic a view of industrial struggle. See Harvey, May 68 and Film Culture, p. 31.
The collective instigated by Chris Marker, initially known as SLON (Service pour le
Lancement des Oeuvres Nouvelles), before changing its name to 'Medvedkine', and
finally to 'Iskra' ('star' in Russian, the title of Lenin's first journal) under which it is still
active, constitutes an important source of production and distribution of alternative
cinema and video.
5. See Robert Phillip Kolker, 'Angle and Reality: Godard and Gorin in America', Sight
and Sound, 42, No. 3, Summer 1973, pp. 130-3, p. 132.
6. Ibid., p. 133. In the course of this trip, they also had contact with an Ann Arbor video
Alvarez,
Cambell,
See
Mate,
and Turim, p. 30.
group.
7. See Godard in Marcel Martin, 'Le Groupe "Dziga Vertov". Jean-Luc Godard parle
du
Nathalie
Billard
de
Jean-Pierre
Gorin,
Gerard
Martin,
groupe:
camarades
ses
au nom
Godard
In
Cinema
70,151,
decembre
82-8,
87.
Marco',
Armand
1970,
par
p.
pp.
and
Godard, pp. 342 & 346-50.
8. Alfred Willener, Guy Milliard, and Alex Ganty, Videology and Utopia: explorations
in a new medium, translated and edited by Diana Burfield (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1976), p. 1. The co-authors of this book, all based at the Institut de sociologie des
de
Universite
de
Lausanne,
the
masse
at
were themselves responsible
communications
for the exploratory video practices detailed in the book.

9. Ibid.
10. Godard in Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images:
11. Godard in Belilos, Boujut, Deschamps and Zoller, p. 369.

243

paroles... ', p. 12.

12. Godard and Gorin reiterated this insistence on the overriding primacy of production
throughout their collaboration within, and after the existence of, the Groupe Dziga
Vertov, a policy still intact at the heart of Sonimage's working premises. Godard
stressed this position in 1972, emphasising how such a stance differentiated himself and
Gorin from other militant groups of filmmakers: 'Pour diffuser bien, il faut produire
mieux. Pour diffuser beaucoup, il faut produire beaucoup. La est l'effort et la difficulte,
Or, la plupart des cineastes militants, eux,
c'est de ne pas s'arreter de produire.
produisent tres peu - dans 1'attente fantasmatique du moment o ils pourront produire
beaucoup parce que la lutte des classes viendra au grand jour.
Nous avions des
discussions tres violentes avec eux. ' In Belilos, Boujut, Deschamps and Zoller, p.369.

13. Sanbar, 'Vingt et un ans apres', pp.117-18. Jawad had hitherto been filming his
companions on Super 8, recording images of them in training and in combat to show
back to them at times of defeat and despair.
14. Godard in Bergala, 'Z'art partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard
par Alain Bergala', p.23.
15. Gorin has claimed that Godard himself shot other 16mm footage following the
completion of Week-end in 1967, before May 1968, but, dissatisfied with the results,
threw the material away. See Gorin in Thomsen, p. 17. This is the only reference to
such an early use of 16mm by Godard himself that I am aware of.
16. See Serge Le Peron, 'Numero Deux: Entre le zero et 1'infini', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 262-263, janvier 1976, pp. 11-13, p. 12, and Martin Even, 'Le remake d'A bout
de soufe: Rencontre avec Godard sur un ilot de socialisme', Le Monde, 8 mai 1975,
p. 13.
17. Godard, Introduction, p. 277. The large number of image/text collages produced by
Godard with the use of this photocopier testify to its centrality as a creative tool in
future
for
scenarios. Godard's construction of dense image/text
elements
combining
important
his
from
the mid-1970s onwards.
constitutes
an
strand
of
practice
collages
See particularly the entirety of the special double edition of Les Cahiers du Cinema
du
fois
Cahiers
Cinema,
by
Godard
(Les
Six
In
300).
the
script
of
see
addition,
edited
deux, '6 fois 2: Sur et sous la communication', in Godard par Godard, pp. 387-99, 'The
Story: Extraits du scenario', in Godard par Godard, pp.418-441, the opening page to the
documents
Sauve
(1a
Godard,
446,
in
Godard
qui
peut
p.
of
vie),
par
original scenario
for
history
in
his
its
(before
to
the
a
realisation
project
visual
partial
of
cinema
relating
Histoire(s) du cinema), published in Albera (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard, p. 59, his cryptic
defence of his right to turn away from former loyalties in 'L o c'etait, je serai. L oil
je serai, j'ai dej ete. L o ca ira, on sera mieux', Les Cahiers du Cinema (Numero
du
Cinema
58-9,
'Passion:
Francais
1981,
1),
Situation
323-324,
pp.
mai
special:
Introduction un scenario', in Godard par Godard, pp. 486-97, his lament to the failure
in
Godard
Godard,
Prenom
Carmen, 'i
35/8
538,
to
the
the
par
project,
script
p.
and
of
film
CARMEN:
de
du
des
etudes
PRENOM
musique et de
morceaux
sur
propos
le
la
de
in
Godard,
557-73.
Godard
corps
et
melodie',
pp.
chair,
par
morceaux

18. Godard in Delilia and Dosse, p.29. Godard's subsequentconversion of a grocer's

his
film
function
figures
in
Rolle
to
this enduring
as
and
video
studio
amusingly
shop
Godard's
'Un
See
Freddy
Buache,
the
to
artisanal
on
post-1968 practice.
emphasis
244

cineaste vaudois', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 323-324, March 1984, pp. 67-8, p.68.
19. Godard in Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images: paroles... ', p. 11.
The Sonimage project, as with the Groupe Dziga Vertov's exploitation of the bankability
of Godard's name in the logic of the star hagiography that guarantees commercial
viability in the commercial cinema, turns on a paradox that makes the Sonimage model
difficult to emulate. Godard's presence guaranteed a certain audience, albeit very small,
so that these collaborative projects remain inevitably atypical: most groups would not
have a'Godard' to culturally and economically underwrite their experiments. See Gerard
Leblanc's excellent 'godard: valeur d'usage ou valeur d'echange' (sic), Cinethique, 5,
septembre-octobre 1969, p. 22. Godard himself often deflected such potential criticism
in interviews by acknowledging it himself at the outset as one the central contradictions
of their work. He thereby ostensibly concedes to the interviewer, whilst obscuring that
such collaborative practices would be unrealistic for other groups. See too perceptive
comments by Colin MacCabe: 'It is because of his fame, constructed by the traditional
relations of production and consumption, that Sonimage's work is possible. ' In
MacCabe, Images, Sounds, Politics, p. 147.
20. Godard, Introduction, p. 35.

21. 'This is why we may have to work just in a suburb or in a certain factory with the
video tape.' Godard in Carroll, p.59.
22. Dziga Vertov, Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov, edited by Annette
Michelson, translated by Kevin O'Brien (London: Pluto, 1984), p. 201.
23. Youssef Ishaghpour argues that Vertov at this time had been pigeon-holed'en maitre
du documentaire poetique', his work stripped of its political dynamic. See Youssef
Ishaghpour, Dune image 1'autre: La representation daps le cinema d'aujourd'hui
(Paris: Denoel/Gonthier, 1982), p. 76. Vertov's cinematic responses to immediate
ongoing events, seeking to engage with the process of history in the making, accords far
long-standing
Godard's
conception of the cinema as evoking a vital
more closely with
image of the present rather than enshrining an event or period in the past. Such is
Battleship
levelled
by
Godard
Eisenstein's
the
accusation
repeatedly
at
precisely
Potemkin. Godard argues that the Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin articulates a dual
lost.
in
the
the
the
was
course
of
which
representation
potential power of
manipulation
The first of these was Eisenstein's failure to attempt to represent the traces of the
drawing,
Godard
him,
image.
Secondly,
for
the
rather, on
an
past
struggle around
du
direct
it
'un
film
Russia
the
that
the
classique
censorship
of
made
outside
argues
le
dans
souvenir' rather than as a result of its distribution and popularity.
cinema, mais
See Godard, Introduction, p. 222.
24. Gorin explicitly acknowledges the influence of Vertov's writings as informing their
Vertov
Eisenstein,
Vertov's
that
their
over
of
use
name was
of
maintaining
privileging
due to 'the incredible power of the aesthetic and political writing of Vertov. It was a
Eisenstein's
his
had
been
to
the
glory,
oppose
and
way
glory
especially
way
loose
into
See
in
bourgeois
Gorin
Thomsen,
the
category
of
aesthetics'.
reconstituted
be
It
17.
noted that a reversal of this preferential acknowledgement of Vertov
should
p.
interviews
late
Eisenstein
during
1970s and 1980s.
Godard
the
pervades
with
over
Increasing references to Eisenstein and his work are, I suggest, largely due to the

245

centrality of questionsof metaphor to Eisenstein'swork. This is discussedin the final

chapter.
25. Godard, Introduction, pp. 181-2. The application of these inherent dislocations to
hierarchies
technical
remained a constant throughout the Sonimage work. These
existing
identical
by
Godard
during
mirror
a
comments
virtually
position
articulated
comments
the making of Numero deux in 1975, pointing to the dissolution of 'une hierachie
technique', maintaining that a direct consequence of the ability to see and discuss the
image immediately was an improvement in working relations: 'Les rapports de travail
etaient plus doux, moins agressifs'. Godard in Anon., 'Penser la maison en termes
d'usine', Liberation, 2,15 septembre 1975, in Godard par Godard, pp. 380-2, p. 380.
26. Serge Daney, 'Petit bagage pour Passion', in Daney, Cine Journal, p. 96. Daney's
in
in
is
he
1976
an
elaboration
relation to Numero
observation
of a similar point
made
deux: 'Gauchisme de Godard: ne tenir aucun compte de ce qui cloisonne. Entre vie
privee et vie publique, temps de travail et temps de loisir, scene de 1'Histoire et coulisses
de la vie quotidienne. Mais gauchisme triste, surmoique, moral... '. See note in Serge
Daney, 'Le therrorise (pedagogie godardienne)', p.36. Traces of this position emerge
Sonimage
the
across
repeatedly
work, perhaps most fully formulated in Avant et aprPs:
'Nous avons essaye de montrer que peut-titre il faut travailler 1'amour et aimer le travail,
et que comme on ne peut plus maintenant, dans notre societe, aimer le travail, 1'amour,
en retour, ne se travaille plus'.

27. Godard in Delilia and Dosse, p.28. Furthermore, polaroid images constituted a
Pimage)
(de
Naissance
Mozambique
the
of
multi-media
researchproject,
central element
d'une nation.
28. Goupil in Alain Bergala, 'Genese d'une camera: deuxieme episode', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 350, aot 1983, in Godard par Godard, pp. 539-57, pp. 545-6. Caroline
Champetier has confirmed that Godard's attitude to video's capacity to produce an image
for immediate criticism continued through the 1980s, commenting that Godard
image
Grandeur
during
the.
the
the
criticised
on
shooting
of
et
monitor
vigorously
decadence d'un petit commerce de cinema. See Champetier in Thierry Jousse, 'Entretien
du
Cahiers
Les
Cahiers
Les
Champetier',
du
(supplement
Caroline
Cinema,
to
avec
Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, 'pp. 54-7, pp. 55-6.
29. Godard in Bergala, 'Genese dune camera: deuxieme episode', pp. 551-2.
30. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Montage, mon beau souci', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 65, decembre
1956, in Godard par Godard, pp. 92-3, p. 93. Godard argues (p. 92) against Bazin's
'realism',
to
montage-based
redefining mise en scene
expressionistic
cinema
of
opposition
divested
implications:
'Si
mettre en scene est un
equally
of
as
ethical
and montage
des
deux;
battement
de
le
Prevoir
mais ce que
coeur.
propre
est
regard, monter est un
Fun cherche prevoir dans l'espace, 1'autre le cherche dans le temps.'
31. Bergala, 'Z'art partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard par Alain
Bergala', p.24. Godard elaborated this reinvestment of the discoveries of the video years
back into a realigned art cinema practice on numerous occasions in his Montreal
lectures. See, for example, Godard, Introduction, p. 109.

246

32. Godard in Devarrieux.

33. Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p.471.
in Anon., 'Interview: Alain Bergala', Video Doc'. - communication
audiovisuelle (Dossier Godard), 85, avril 1986, pp. 10-11, p. 10.
34. Bergala

35. Godard in Katherine Dieckmann, 'Godard in His "Fifth Period": An Interview', Film
Quarterly, 39, No. 2, Winter 1985-86, pp. 2-6, p. 6.

36. Godard in Even, 'Jean-Luc Godard: Ma secondevie', p. 127.

37. Lubtchansky reported that even a few days before shooting began on Sauve qui peut
(la vie) a decision as to which medium to use had still not been arrived at: 'Pour Sauve
il
des
la
faits
ete
transferer
y
eu
essais
peut,
qui
ont
video sur film et qui ont
qui
pour
ete envoyes dans 3 ou 4 labos dans le monde. On a compare les resultats, c'etait pas
mal mais pas superbe. Ce n'est d'ailleurs ce qui a arrete Godard. Quand je suis arrive
en Suisse on ne savait pas encore, pratiquement huit jours avant le tournage, si on allait
le tourner en video ou en 35. Il ya eu un vote de 1'equipe pour savoir si on voulait
tourner en video ou en 35 et il y eu un pari sur le resultat du vote. Tai gagne beaucoup
d'argent dans ce pari: j'avais vote pour une solution et pane pour lautre. Le resultat du
favorable
la
in
etait

dit:
film.
Jean-Luc
'
Lubtchansky
tourne
video
et
a
en
On
vote
Alain Bergala and Serge le Peron, 'Entretien avec William Lubtchansky', Les Cahiers
du Cinema, 325, juin 1981, pp. 82-9, p. 89. Despite the eventual choice of film, video
laid the ground for the film's preparation in the guise of Scenario video de Sauve qui
peut (la vie), envisaged (at least ostensibly) to raise money at the Avance sur recettes.
38. As early as 1971, Frank Zappa's 200 motels (co-directed by Tony Palmer) was shot
film
for
by
England,
Technicolor,
transferred
to
and
cinema release, a
on videotape
improved
dramatically
late
during
1970s. 200 motels was the
the
quality
process whose
first full-scale commercial feature to experiment with this process, taking advantage of
the possibilities of vision mixing (especially to effect simple superimpositions), chroma
key, 'clipping', and colour effects through use of a colour box inherent in the video
technology prior to transfer to celluloid, foreseeing the use of such techniques by
Sonimage (the benefits of vision-mixing are thoroughly exploited, and image 'clipping'
is employed throughout Nous trois and the rape sequences of Numero deux. ). The
techniques of 200 motels are commonplace for those familiar with MTV and the pop
film
'kinescope'
(which
Zappa/Palmer's
foresees).
Hitherto,
the
process of
video genre
filming live television shows directly from the monitor had given extremely poor quality
images. Nicholas Ray's multi-media We can't go home again, shot between 1971 and
1973, was conceived around the processing of myriad formats processed through a video
back
film
film.
influence
The
this
transferred
to
of
on the
possible
synthesizer and
Sonimage work, and in particular the multiple monitors in the cinema screen of Ici et
deux,
is
discussed
Numero
in the final chapter.
ailleurs and
39. Carax in Alain Bergala and Leos Carax, 'Jean-Luc Godard: Sauve qui peut (la vie):
Une Journee de Tournage 1', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 306, decembre 1979, pp. 32-7,
Bergala
Alain
34.
makes similar observations in his accompanying article to Carax's
p.
(published with it under the same title). Analogous uses of the instantaneity of video
in relation to cinema took place in the course of the shooting of John Huston's The Dead
247

and Bunuel's Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie. Huston, due to ill health, directed
the majority of the film via a video monitor situated in a different room altogether.
Bufluel claims to have barely left his armchair whilst directing Le Charme discret de la
bourgeoisie (1972). See Luis Bunuel, My Last Breath, translated by Abigail Israel
(London: Flamingo, 1985), p.248.
40. Colin MacCabe, 'Godard comes out fighting', Guardian, 1 October 1980, p. 10.
41. Ibid. Mieville summed up this loss of visibility in her repeated declarations of 'I
hate the cinema. I hate the cinema.' This quote has frequently been taken out of
context and used misleadingly. See, for instance, Claire Pajaczkowska, 'Liberte! Egalite!
Paternite!: Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Mieville's Sauve quipeut (la vie)', in Susan
Hayward and Ginette Vincendeau, French Film: Texts and Contents (London: Routledge,
1990), pp. 241-55, p. 241.
42. Pascal Bonitzer, 'Les images, le cinema, l'audiovisuel', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 404,
fevrier 1988, pp. 17-21, p. 17.
43. Godard in Annaud.
44. The failure to identify the pivotal role of information theory is doubtless partially
the result of a lack of familiarity with the terms and applications of the theory; for the
most part such commentators are made up of film critics rather than media theorists who
likely
have
to
more
a knowledge of information theory due to its centrality
are perhaps
to communications studies. Godard/Mieville's use of information theory has not,
films
Hal
Hartley,
gone
entirely
unrecognised.
are shot through with
perhaps,
whose
references and homages to Godard's late work, incorporates an extended oblique
Sonimage
information
film,
his
in
1991
Trust. Matthew
to
the
theory
use
of
reference
Slaughter's (Martin Donovan) job as a television repair man is fundamentally at odds
with his contention that televisions are not worth repairing. He shuffles through the
film's decor clutching a single black tome like a bible, its title clearly visible:
Information Theory.
45. Essays anthologised as Claude Shannon, 'The
Communication', in Shannon and Weaver, pp, 29-125.

Mathematical

Theory

of

46. Cambell suggests that information theory had 'perhaps ballooned to an importance
Jeremy Campbell, Grammatical Man
beyond its actual accomplishments'.
(Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1984), p. 17. Cambell usefully charts the subsequent
information
demonstrates
it
disappointment,
theory
that
against
and
as a
overreaction
by
it
1970s
during
in
those,
the
that
taken
way
measured
was
more
again
a
up
was only
like Godard and Mieville, intrigued by its potential as a methodological gauze through
'information'
in
by
to
a
a rapid proliferation of the
world
rationalise
characterised
which
media.
47. Warren Weaver, 'Recent Contributions
to the
Communication', in Shannon and Weaver, pp. 1-28, p. 3.
48. Ibid., p. 8.

248

Mathematical

Theory

of

49. Godard, Introduction, p. 121.

50. Godard has frequently equatedhis work with that of a scientist, laying claim to a
degreeof scientific knowledge: 'en tant que scientifique, connaissantcertainestheories...'.
Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p.462.
51. Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond in Rene Predal, 'Science et cinema, ou le mystere du
27-33.
52,
Jean-Marc
CinemAction
Entretien
Levy-Leblond',
137:
pp.
avec
nombre
52. Rene Thom, Structural Stability and Morphogenesis: An outline of a general theory
between
Thom
(Reading,
Mass.:
W.
325.
The
A.
Benjamin,
1975),
encounter
p.
of models
and Godard in Rene(e)s is shot through with mutual distrust. Thom studiously refuses
loose use of scientific terminology, and is visibly unsettled by Godard's line and mode
of questioning. Godard, in turn, is clearly antagonised by Thom's refusal to engage with
his suggestive allusions. Godard subsequently complained of Thom as having been
des
jai
filme
'Tavais
ete
le
disant:
catastrophes,
envie
que
voir
en
je
ne
condescending:
de vous parlen>. Mais il me croyait pas une seconde. Moi j'avais plaisir a parler avec
lui, mais lui etait un peu condescendant.' Godard in Dulaure and Parnet, p. 607. These
in
in
interviews
Godard
in
1980s,
the
virtually
reiterated
early
with
sentiments recur
identical terms in Guy Scarpetta and Dominique Paini's lengthy 1984 interview with
Godard, 'Jean-Luc Godard: la curiosite du sujet', art press (sic), 'Special Godard', hors
('Bon,
janvier/fevrier
13
decembre
4-18,
No.
4,
1984
1985,
ce
que
c'est
ca,
p.
pp.
serie
j'appelle un technicien. '). Thom in turn expressed his unease at his treatment at the
hands of Sonimage, but went on to acknowledge that Rene(e)s succeeded in
in
his
terms:
the
thrust
unconventional
albeit
principle
of
argument,
communicating
'Quand Jean-Luc Godard est venu me filmer mon Institut, je m'attendais titre traite
de
la
des
l'egard

l'hagiographie
traditionnellement
science.
celebrites
en usage
selon
Il n'en fut rien, et je fus fort deconcerte; les questions posees etaient dune grande
je
lui-meme,
film

developpement.
Quant
n'en pris
au
aucun
platitude et ne pretaient
leur
des
le
de
m'avouerent
apres,
amis, qui
virent aussitt
suite connaissance;
pas tout
j'eus
l'occasion
de
leur
deconvenue.
Environ
tard,
quinze mois plus
surprise, voire
irreverencieux
decouvrir,
habillage
fut
Ce
Rene.
et souvent
pour
sous un
visionner
etonnant, une sorte de fidelite profonde ce qui aurait pu titre mon message.' Thom in
Carole Desbarats and Jean-Pierre Gorce (eds.), L'Effet Godard (Toulouse: Editions
by
Rene(e)s
having
later
Thom,
Godard
127.
that
seen
Milan, 1989), p.
stated much
between
his
the
him,
the
to
proximity
at
expressing
astonishment
chance, wrote
Jean-Luc
'Entretien
See
his
Godard
in
Jousse,
Thierry
avec
thought.
programme and
Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 472, octobre 1993, pp. 76-85, p. 80.

7.
Roman
Weaver,
in
Shannon
p.
Shannon's
See
53.
and
communications model
heavily
drew
itself
highly
influential
linguistic
on
Jakobson'svery similar and
schema
information theory, insisting on the roles of what he termed 'addresser', 'context'
(understood by both parties and which allows the messageto make sense),'message',
'contact' (the channel), 'code' and 'addressee'in all processesof communication. See
Jakobson'sdiagram for his communications model in Jakobson,p.353.
54. Godard in Belilos, Boujut, Deschampsand Zoller, p.372.
life
impact
from
North
Vietnam
discusses
the
Godard
the'social
on
55.
of
noise' coming
in America in Kolker, p. 132. Gorin, for his part, suggested the self-description of the
249

de
1'information'.
'des
Vertov
Gorin in Martin
Dziga
travailleurs
artistiques
as
groupe
Even, 'Des travailleurs artistiques de l'information', Le Monde, 27 avril 1972, p. 17.
56. See Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images: paroles... ', pp. 11-13,
de
in
d'<A
bout
Rencontre
Even,
'Le
Also
11.
to
soufe:
remake
referred
avec
p.
Godard sur un ilot de socialisme'. Sonimage's address was 2 rue de Belgrade, Grenoble.

57. Godard in Baby, 'Faire les films possiblesl o on est'.

58. See Roland Barthes, S/Z (Paris: Seuil, 1970), p. 15.
59. For a discussion of the importance of information theory (and particularly of
his
Barthes,
to
especially
view of the centrality of originality to modernity, see
entropy)
Annette Lavers, Roland Barthes: Structuralism and after (London: Methuen, 1982),
pp. 224-5.
60. Robert Stam, 'Television News and its Spectator', in E. Ann Kaplan (ed.), Regarding
Television, (Los Angeles: University Publications of America/American Film Institute,
1983), pp. 23-43, p. 42, n. 10.
61. Godard in La Bardonnie, p. 14. I suggest that references to notions such as temps
Shannon's
lay
terminology
the
temps
translations
of
vivant
constitute
clear
of
mors and
theory.
62. Godard in Walter S.Ross, 'Splicing together Jean-Luc Godard', Esquire, July 1969,
&
142,
75.
72,74,75,
p.
pp.
63. Monique Wittig, 'Lacunary Films', New Statesman, 15 July 1966, p. 102. Straub had
in
his
description
Vershnt.
See
Richard
film,
Nicht
his
1965
term
the
of
used
originally
Roud, Jean-Marie Straub (London: Secker & Warburg/British Film Institute, 1971),
p.41.

64. Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, p.25.

Williams's.

The italics are

65. Godard in Devarrieux.

66. Godard in Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images: paroles... ',
institution
Vi
is
Godard's
This
13.
television
11-13,
thesis
to
as
central
critique of
p.
pp.
l'on fabrique des programmes et des telespectateurs'. See Godard in David, p. 67.
67. Godard, Introduction, p. 180.
68. The document is reproduced in MacCabe, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics, pp. 13840, p. 139.

69. He claims only eighteenpeople attended:'Comment peut-on pensera douze millions

de spectateurs7 See Godard, Introduction, p.83. 'Raymond Bellour has observed that
Charlotte et son Jules foresees the structure of the uninterrupted direct address of
its
Jean's
(Jean-Paul
in
Belmondo) monologue, thus suggesting
of
enactment
television
250

from
his
Godard
television
earliest work, a fascinating idea
a rapprochement of
with
which requires further research. Bellour made these observations during his talk at the
Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, on the 15 February 1991. Much of the substance of
Bellour's talk has subsequently been worked into '(Not) just an other filmmaker', in
Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp. 215-31. For his comments on Charlotte et son Jules
and/as television, see pp. 217-18.

70. Godard in Dulaure and Pamet, p.604.

71. Godard, Introduction, p. 93.
72. It is ironic that Shannon's original model did not allow for feedback. His theory did
form
from
into
for
the
take
the
the
a
altering
and
receiver
account
potential
response
not
his
developments
future
of
model within
messages sent, although subsequent
content of
See
incorporated
John Fiske's
a
such
possibility.
communications studies soon
discussion of adaptions of Shannon's model to incorporate feedback in Chapter 2 ('Other
Models') in John Fiske, Introduction to Communication Studies (London: Methuen,
1982), pp. 24-38. Useful diagrams of elaborations of Shannon's model are given in Denis
McQuail and Steve Windahl, Communications Models for the study of mass
communications (New York: Longman, 1981), pp. 12-13.
73. Bertolt Brecht, 'The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication' (1932), in Brecht on
Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, edited and translated by John Willett (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1964), pp. 51-3, p. 52.

74. Hans Magnus Enzensberger, 'Constituents of a theory of the media', New Left
Review, 64, November-December 1970, pp.13-36, p. 13.
75. Ibid., p. 33.
76. Ibid., p. 15.
77. Ibid., p. 26.
78. The correlation of advertising with fascism pervades the Groupe Dziga Vertov and
Sonimage work, and is foreseen in Paula's declaration in Made in USA that 'Pour moi,
la publicite est une forme de fascisme', and subsequently echoed in a graffitied equation
in Cine-tract 10: 'Publicite + sexe = fascisme'.
79. Godard, Introduction, p. 158.
80. John Ellis, Visible Fictions - Cinema: television: video (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1982), p. 162. In support of this argument, he points to the 'canned laughter'
integrated
jumps
into
broadcast
television,
the
of
and
volume
characteristic
Baudrillard,
by
identifies
See
too
pattern
characterised
a
viewing
who
advertisements.
'la vision systematique et non selective'. Jean Baudrillard, Pour une critique de
P' conomie politique du signe (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), p.47.
81. Such animal imagery to designate a fixed and complacent viewer position evokes
Georges Rey's humorous assault on cinematic platitudes in his 1982 film, La Yche qui
251

rumine. The single static shot of a cow, implacably chewing the cud, oblivious to the
camera, evokes both the dire state of cinema, and the passive position and attitude of
the audience.
82. See Jill Forbes, Two Interviews with Manette Bertin', in Forbes (ed.), INA - French
for Innovation: the work of the Institut National de la Communication in cinema and
television, p. 14.
83. The expression ('boucher les trous' in the original)
Marcorelles.

is Godard's, quoted in

84. Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p. 460.

85. Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, p. 86. The concept of 'planned
flow' is central to Williams's critique of broadcast television, a critique (published in
1974) extremely close to Sonimage's engagement with television from within.
Sonimage's assessment of the inevitable threat of the technological and cultural debt
involved in Mozambique's quest for an autonomous indigenous broadcasting system, for
instance, wherein technological debt implies automatic cultural debt through the dumping
of backlogs of cheap programmes, is identical to Williams's thesis (p. 42). Sonimage talk
document,
'like
delayed
See
Sonimage's
the
effects
as
a
of
action mine or virus'.
reproduced in MacCabe, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics, pp. 138-40, p. 139.

86. See Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, p.93. Williams's
discussion
incorporates
perceptive
an analysis of how the packaging of cinema-going
(accompanyingfilm, breaksfor advertisementsand refreshments)foresaw sucha planned
flow.
87. From Godard's commentary to an image accompanying the text of Serge Daney,
'Godard fait des histoires', Liberation, 26 decembre 1988, pp. 24-7, p. 24. Baudrillard,
in similar terms, describes television simply as 'un lieu de disparition de l'image, au sens
des
images
indifferenciee
la
dans
la
est
succession est totale... '.
o chacune
mesure o
Baudrillard in Anon., 'Entretien: Jean Baudrillard', p. 17.
88. Godard, Introduction, p. 66. See too p. 138. Cf. Jean-Paul Fargier's argument that
Godard 'n'a jamais cesse de faire de la television' in 'Le theatre de l'instant', Les Cahiers
du Cinema, (supplement to Les Cahiers du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 78-80,
p.78.
89. '...that home appliance called television which articulates nothing but rather
implodes, carrying its flattened image surface within itself... '. Fredric Jameson,
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London/New York: Verso,
1991), p. 37.
90. Cf. The section entitled 'Pratique objective et pratique rituelle: l'objet-TV', pages 4450 of Jean Baudrillard, 'Fonction-signe et logique de classe' in Baudrillard, Pour une
du
de
I'economie
politique
signe, pp. 7-58.
critique
91. From Sonimage's document in MacCabe, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics, pp. 13840, p. 139. This position returns as an immutable refrain in interviews with Godard
252

famille,
la
'Quand
1980s:
te1e,
the
meme
on
regarde
en
on est isole. La tele est
across
faite pour diviser. Pour regner. Et pour regner, il faut diviser, on apprend ca la
in
'
Godard
'Le
le
Daniele
Heymann,
cinema
meurt,
cinema!', Le
vive
matemelle.
Monde, 30 decembre 1987, pp.1 & 10, p. 1.
92. Roland Barthes, 'En sortant du cinema', Communications, 23, (Psychanalyse et
Cinema>>) 1975, pp. 104-7, p. 105. Anthologised in Roland Barthes, Le bruissement de
la langue (Paris: Seuil, 1984), pp. 383-7. The fascination and lure of the dark, and
by
Godard
from
family
to
the
the
site
of
escape
expressed
confines of
are
cinema as
Woody Allen (in Meetin' WA) in terms virtually identical to those used here by Barthes:
Je crois que d'aller entrer au cinema, c'est se liberer de la permission de papa et maman.
Tandis que la television, papa et maman d'abord les trois quarts du temps ils sont dans
dans la piece d' cote or in the same city with the same TV set, so it's very different
from going to the theatre. I mean the liberty to enter the dark room. ' The eroticism of
the cinema as social space, quite distinct from a sexuality confined to the family and
domestic space of the home, is succinctly illustrated by an anecdote from Truffaut as a
boy, spellbound on learning from a friend's mother that at least sixty pairs of panties
Gaumontbe
found
4,500-seat
Sunday
the
the
at
under
cinema
seats
every
night
would
Palace in Paris. See Annette Insdorf, Francois Truffaut (London: Macmillan 1981),
p. 15.
93. Or, as Godard put it in an interview in 1980, 'A la television, personne ne fait rien,
fabrique
les
le
(...
)
la
A
television, rien ne se cree, rien ne se
qui
ouvriers
poste.
sauf
perd, rien ne se transforme. ' Godard in Devarrieux. Cf. Serge Daney, who argued that
television absorbed all criticism, never reflecting or returning it: '...on peut ecrire ce
la
fait
jamais
debat,
nest
jamais,
tele,
9a
ca
ne
revient
ca
sur
ca se perd,
ne
qu'on veut
jamais repris, jamais cite,. ca n'existe pas. C'est 1'anti-boomerang, l'objet intransitif par
le
l'echec
du
'Et
See
Serge
Daney,
cinema va', Liberation,
patent
passeur'.
excellence,
13-14 juin 1992, pp. 30-2, p. 31.
94. Jean-Luc Godard, Tout Seul: Francois Truffaut', Les Cahiers du Cinema, decembre
1984 (Special Francois Truffaut). In Godard par Godard, pp. 612-13, p. 612.
95. Godard's projet/projection thesis ('la television ne projette plus, en meme temps que
les gens n'ont quasiment plus de projet') is developed at length in Dulaure and Parnet,
p. 604.
96. Godard in Douin and Remond, 'Godard dit tout 6: "C'est toujours les memes qui
be
involved
in
f.
C.
Albert
in
60.
6
France
Dray's
les
to
tour
p.
claim
cendriers"',
vident
de
'television
quartier' as opposed to national television.
a
97. See Sonimage's document, reproduced in MacCabe, Godard: Images, Sounds,
Politics, pp. 138-40, p. 139.
98. Godard in Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images:
See
12.
too chapter 1, n. 40.
11-13,
p.
pp.

paroles... ',

99. Godard in Bergala, Daney and Toubiana, p. 12. This formula also embraces the
diverse
facets
of
association
of representation (political, union, televisual,
complex
journalistic) in both Ici et ailleurs and the subsequent Sonimage work.
253

100. Godard in Collet, Delahaye, Fieschi, Labarthe and Tavernier, p.34.

101. '...les effets de cinema de Godard m'ont toujours semble annoncer, et 6 combien,
la souplesse, l'impertinence de la television'. Sollers in Anon., 'Entretien: Philippe
Sollers', Cinema 84,301, janvier 1984, pp. 26-8, p.27.
102. Sollers, quoted in Catherine Jadzewski, 'Aimez-vous Godard? ', Cinematographe,
95, decembre 1983, pp. 1-33, p. 25. Sollers's admiration for Godard's work grew across
the 1980s, dubbing him 'tout simplement, un des plus grands artistes de notre temps'.
See Philippe Sollers, 'La Bonne Nouvelle de Godard', Le Nouvel Observateur, 17 mai
1985, p. 58.
103. See MacCabe, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics, pp. 143-7.
104. Quoted in Raymond Lefevre, Jean-Luc Godard (Paris: Edilig, 1983), p. 107.
105. Collet dubbed Godard le maitre de chant' in Collet, 'Godard aujourd'hui: Du bon
la
de
television', p. 517.
usage
106. See Marie Cardinal, Cet ete-l (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1980), p. 123.

107. Godard in Ross, p. 142. The interviews were to be with Eldridge Cleaver, a white
woman executive, a hippy, a yippy and a black girl. Godard then planned to get actors
to act out what the interviewees had said (foreseeing the procedure applied
by
Jean Eustachein Une Sale histoire).
systematically
108. As Eustache said of his film, 'c'etait l'histoire de la pellicule, du debut sa fin'.
Quoted in Alain Philippon, Jean Eustache (Paris: Cahiers du Cinema, 1986), p. 26.
Numero zero has never been released. A shortened version (54 min) was broadcast as
Odette Robert in the series 'Grand-meres' on TF1 on the 21 July 1981.
109. 'Je doutais fort que ce ft un film, 1'epoque, en fevrier 71, faute de rien voir
j'ai
decouvert

Depuis,
des choses y ressemblant un peu, ce sont les
ca.
ressemblant
emissions video de Godard, qui ont ete quelques annees plus tard les seules chores qu'on
de
'
Ibid.,
27.
ca.
p.
rapprocher
puisse
110. Reported in Pierre Bruneau, Un drle de "tour" avec Godard', Minute, 2-8 avril
1980, p.28.

111. See Maurice Achard, 'Vous reprendrez bien du godard?' (sic), Les Nouvelles
Litteraires, 10 juin 1979, p. 11.
112. The suggestion that Philippe 'saved' the series is made in Bruneau, p. 28. Godard
in
Godard
Francois
See
Jouffa,
they
that
were'completement
perdu'
anyway.
maintained
'Jean-Luc Godard: La pellicule, c'est completement chiant! ', Tele-Cine-Video,
decembre 1980, pp. 34-5, p.34. Similarly, Godard caustically dubbed France tour an
'emission d'actualite, depuis classee classique de cinema'. Godard quoted in the
introduction to Devarrieux (and not reproduced in the version anthologised in Godard
404-7).
Godard,
pp.
par

254

113. Ibid., pp. 34-5. The credits to each episode of France tour announce it as'librement
inspire par' G.Bruno's Le Tour de la France par Deux Enfants: Devoir et Patrie (Paris:
Firmin Didot, 1975), first published by Eugene Belin in 1884.
114. The notions of diversity and familiarity
serial in Ellis, p. 169.

are discussed in relation to the television

115. Godard in Philippe, p. 410.

116. For details, see filmography.

117. For a discussion of how the compartmentalization of television's linear flow

logic
layout
the
the
of
of the
spatial
constitutes a syntagmatic rationalisation of
Cultural
Form,
Technology
Williams,
Television:
and
newspaperand magazinepage,see
pp.44-9.
118. Raymond Williams analysed repetition in this second sense, concluding that it
functions primarily to sustain emphasiswithin flow. Ibid., p. 116.
119. '...la figure bourgeoise par excellence: celle du compromis, du juste milieu
'
figures
du
5,1969,
les
Joel
Farges,
'Les
Cinethique,
extremes.
conditionnement',
entre
pp. 41-4, p. 43.

120. Ibid. The emphasison 'programme' is Godard's.

121. Jean-Paul Fargier, 'Le grand mechant Loup', Les Nouvelles Lilteraires, 30 mai 1980,
p.36.

CHAPTER

1. Godard, Introduction, p. 109.

2. Godard's little known political activities during 1971 included involvement in Andre
Glucksmann's Groupe Secours Rouge (a support group to ongoing leftist militant
Giles
for
his
(with
Jean-Paul
Sartre)
the
to
the
of
release
campaign
support
activity), and
Guiot, a lyceen condemned to six months in prison for violence to police.
3. SLON's profile of publisher Francois Maspero, for instance, Les Mots ont un sens
(1970), was overtly presented as a'Magazine de contre-information'. Shot at Maspero's
bookshop, Le Joie de Lire, in the rue Saint-Severin, Paris, this film is number 5 in a
it
SLON/Iskra,
'magazines'.
Groups
as
such
should
cinematic
series of such alternative
be noted, were working primarily in 16mm rather than video, thereby capitalising on the
then widespread ownership of 16mm projectors by student, youth, and community
France.
throughout
groups
4. Jerome Prieur, 'Premieres Impressions', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 301, June 1979,
Curiously,
from
27.
is
this
this
25-7,
the
of
reworked
version
observation
p.
omitted
pp.
impressions
blanches:
d'un
Nuits
in
Prieur,
'Premieres
Jerome
nouveau monde',
article,
255

essai sur le cinema (Paris: Gallimard, 1980), pp.367-77.

5. The film's primary focus is the political motivation underlying the demolition of a
interview
includes
Paris
VIII
28.8.80.
It
the
the
of
campus
on
extensive
extracts
wing
including
incorporation
invocation
Sonimage's
Linhart,
of
of Linhart's work in
with
Godard's investigative persona, Robert Linhard. For full details, see filmography.
6. Linhart's delineation in L'Etabli of the realities of 'travail la chalne' beyond cliches
by
label
'Taylorist'
the
mirrors and compliments Sonimage's constant return to
evoked
the figure of the chaine to equate the world of work, cinema, television and the
detailed
identity
in
book
The
the
the
also presents a
construction of
era of
mass media.
factory
CFT
the
the
the
complicity of
management, plus
gauchiste critique of
with
institutionalised racism overtly enacted in employment practice. See Robert Linhart,
L'Etabli (Paris: Minuit, 1978). A discussion of Linhart's pivotal role at J'accuse, and
in
be
found
in
France
Francois1970s
the
the
alternative
press
early
can
of
generally,
Marie Samuelson, Il etait une fois Liberation (Paris: Seuil, 1979). For details of
J'accuse, see particularly pp. 97-113. Linhart is also discussed in Herve Hamon &
Patrick Rotman, Generation Vo1.2: Les annees de poudre (Paris: Seuil, 1988), pp. 357-8.
Commentators have overlooked the extent to which France tour refers to
contemporaneous figures within French life. Recognition of the importance of such
references by Godard/Mieville is noticeably absent from critical work on these
programmes, particularly in Anglo-American criticism.
7. Jean-Edem Hallier, 'Joumaux et informations gauchistes', L'Idiot International,
fevrier 1971, pp. 25-6.
Hallier, incidentally, dismisses Godard's contribution
'franchement mauvaise' (p. 26.).

13
as

8. From the untitled, unsigned statement of intent in J'accuse, 1,15 janvier 1971, p. 2.

9. Ibid.
10. Godard in Bergala, 'Z'art a partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard
in
is
intent
J'accuse
This
in
17.
Alain
Bergala',
the
echoed
published
p.
of
statement
par
in January 1971.
11. Bamberger's role in procuring finance for the launch of J'accuse is documented in
Samuelson, p. 102. His association with Godard spans the Groupe Dziga Vertov and
Sonimage. He appears in Vladimir et Rosa, in Id et ailleurs, and, as noted here,
for
Mieville
in
Godard
Mozambique
the
to
the
preparations
of
and
course
accompanied
Naissance (de l'image) dune nation. He subsequently wrote a number of extremely
Bamberger,
Godard's
Jean-Pierre
'La
on
articles
post-Sonimage
work:
perceptive short
decomposition, c'est la vie', Liberation, 7 novembre 1980, pp. 19-20, 'La decomposition,
19-20,
'C'est
C'est
1980,
',
la
2:
8-9
quoi
cette
musique?
pp.
and
novembre
en
c'est vie
janvier
des
19
1984,
Liberation,
terribles',
toi,
cela
produit
vagues
que
p. 30.
moi, en
12. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Pas de vrai plaisir sans Perrier', J'accuse, 1,15 janvier 1971, p. 11,
Godard,
'Nantes-Batignolles:
fevrier
bond
J'accuse,
2,15
Jean-Luc
Un
en
avant',
and
1971, p. 4. Godard also contributed a 'photo-reportage' to an article by Catherine
Humblot on the collapse of the SAB laundry, and subsequent mistreatment of the
(who
Robain,
final
'Monsieur
their
vous
not
paid
were
salary):
workers
month's
women

256

etes un escroc,vous meritez la prison!', in J'accuse, 3,15 mars 1971, p.9. This, along
with Godard's other contributions to J'accuse, are amongst the rare articles by Godard
not to have been reproducedin Godard par Godard.
13. Servet (pseudonym for Godard), 'Le Cercle Rouge'. The reference to Melville in
Godard's diatribe as a gauge of a reactionary mode of cinema sets up an interesting, and
bout
A
de
the
of
of course conscious, revision of
apolitical anarchistic aestheticism
in
in
in
homage
his
Melville,
to
establishing
souffle
which
position as auteur, pioneer
leading
his
films
by
his
and
control
own
studio,
artistic
over
owning
widespread
exponent of French film noir, plays the novelist Parvelesco. Melville's political
inevitably
infuriated
describes
himself
(he
the
conservatism,
as a'Right-wing anarchist'),
Godard of 1970. See Rui Nogueira (ed.), Melville on Melville, translated by Tom Milne
(London: Secker & Warburg/British Film Institute, 1971), p. 159. Godard had direct
knowledge
to
of the shooting of Le Cercle rouge between January and April 1970
access
via Gian Maria Volonte, one of the principle collaborators on Vent d'est the previous
Summer. Melville and Volonte did not get on at all during the making of the film, their
mutual dislike centring largely on their opposed political positions (pp. 164-5.).
14. Servet, p. 24.
15. Ibid.
16. '...et il a ecrit une chanson politique, de l o il etait et qui dit je. ' Godard in
Delilia and Dosse, p. 29.
17. Godard's role in instigating the APL is detailed in Samuelson, pp. 104-5. Hamon and
Rotman repeat much of Samuelson's information on Godard's activities in paraphrased
form. In the course of paraphrasing, they suggest that the APL was intentionally
instigated by Godard, rather the by-product of his intentions for a video press agency
(which they do not mention). See Hamon and Rotman, Generation 2: Les annees de
its
in
356.
Their
journalism,
evocation of a
sprawling
romanesque
valuable
poudre, p.
broad canvass, should be approached with caution in so far as sources frequently go
(as
here)
and claims unsubstantiated.
undocumented
18. Karmitz, especially pp. 99-100 & 106-7.
19. Lambert has supposedly related to Dray how he and his fellow farmers are prepared
by
illustrated
land
force,
the on-screen
to contest compulsory
purchase orders with
intervention, QUAND LA LOI NEST PAS JUSTELA JUSTICEPASSEAVANT LA LOI.
20. He developed his ideas in Bernard Lambert, Les paysans dann la lutte des classes
(Paris: Seuil, 1970). He died in a car crash in 1988.
21. Bernard Lambert, 'Un paysan parle', J'accuse, 2,15 fevrier 1971, pp. 6-7. The
interviewers remain anonymous, although it is tempting to postulate that Godard, writing
direct
link
have
A
for
J'accuse
been
this
time,
them.
at
may
of
one
would thus
regularly
be established between Lambert, this interview, and Louison. Furthermore, when Dray
he
7
he
his
farm
in
France
Nantes,
that
Lambert
tour
to
talk
to
went
on
near
claims
invoking
directly
J'accuse
is
be
interview
interview.
The
this
presented as the
could
fact
in
himself,
Lambert
it
J'accuse
to
that
of
was
stress
who wrote to
unmediated work
257

the main portion of a transcript of an interview.

Bernard Lambert', J'accuse, 5,1 mai 1971, p. 16.

See Bernard Lambert, 'Lettre de

22. Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Clavel, 'Communique', L'Idiot International, 19-20,30
juin -1 septembre 1971, p. 2.
23. Godard in Yvonne Baby, 'Pour mieux ecouter les autres', Le Monde, 27 avril 1972,
p. 17.

24. Jean-Luc Godard, 'JeanRenoir: La television m'a revele un nouveau cinema.', Arts,
718,15 avril 1959. In Godard par Godard, pp.191-3. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Un cineaste
c'est aussiun missionnaire',Arts, 716,1 avril 1959. In Godard par Godard, pp. 187-90.
SeeGodard'scommentson these'interviews' in Bergala, 'L'art partir de la vie: Nouvel
entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard par Alain Bergala', p. 13.
25. Godard in Bergala, 'Z'art a partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard
par Alain Bergala', p. 10. Godard has discussed his work for Fox (a job he took over
from Claude Chabrol) elsewhere: 'Par exemple, on me demandait de raconter des
anecdotes de tournage, des petits potins. Alors, moi, j'inventais des trucs, des mots
celebres. Les gens aimaient beaucoup ca. C'etait repris par tous les journalistes de
province... '. See Godard in Jean-Luc Douin and Alain Remond, 'Godard dit tout 4: "A
bout de souffle" c'etait le Petit Chaperon Rouge', Telerama, 1489,1978, pp. 58-60, p. 58.
What is more, in the press packs accompanying his own films, Godard has always
exploited the readiness of the media to incorporate wholesale quotations as original
research; newspaper and magazine articles often simply repeat wholesale vast sections
of these carefully pitched packs.
26. See Francois Nourissier, 'Godard-Gorin: le souffle court', L'Express, 1086,2-7 mai
1972, pp.40-1, p.40. The full text of the invitation is given in English translation in
Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Paris Journal', Film Comment, 8, No. 3, September-October 1972,
&
76.
The
76-7,
2
screening took place on 26 April 1972.
p.
pp.
27. Jean Lattes, 'Des reporters-photographes repondent Jean-Luc Godard', Le Monde,
14 aot 1976, p. 11. Lattes was writing in his capacity as board member of the ANJPC.
28. Deleuze, Trois questions sur Six fois deux', p. 6.
29. Godard, 'The Story: Extraits du scenario', p. 428.
30. Discussed in Lavers, p. 114. Godard's use of such terminology was driven by a
desire to evade conventional political demarcations: 'Plutt que de parler de gauche ou
de droite, j'aime employer les termes de paresse, de plaisir, de travail, de chomage.
C'est ces trucs-l qui sont beaucoup plus complexes, et plus interessants.' Godard in
Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images: paroles...', pp. 11-13, p. 12.
31. This question is inflected with an ironical attack on cine-verite use of light-weight
'direct technology to present ever more 'truthful' unmediated access to 'reality'. Le
Grand escroc turns on an equation of the financial fraud of the escroc with the
fraudulent theft of images of ailleurs and presentation of them ici (in the USA) under
the guise of unproblematic direct communion with that ailleurs (a model of 'counterfeit
258

journalism').
The sarcasm and parody overflow into Patricia's surname, Leacock
(thereby overtly condemning Richard Leacock as emblematic of cine-verite) and into her
ludicrous job description as television reporter for W. X. Y. Z in San Francisco, Channel
8, making a programme entitled The Most Extraordinary Man I EverMet, sponsored by
the Reader's Digest. The inspector (Laszlo Szabo) addresses the question to Patricia
(Jean Seberg). Gilles Deleuze astutely observed that this early short film (1963)
encapsulates in a simple narrative the entirety of the Godardian project ('mineur, pourtant
fondamental'). See Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: L'Image-Temps (Paris: Minuit, 1985),
p. 173.
32. Such critiques of journalism, and specifically of sports reporting as paradigm of
unworked journalism (pervading Numero deux, Six fois deux and France tour) were
foreseen in Godard's proposal in a 1973 interview: 'Par ailleurs, le role du commentaire
est nul. Faites 1'experience suivante: enregistrez le son d'un match dominical et,
simplement en changeant les noms des joueurs, utilisez la meme bande avec l'image de
la semaine suivante: je suis persuade que tout se passers sans surprise. C'est que le
responsable du commentaire, lui, ne change pas; il conserve toujours le meme rapport
avec ce qu'il commente parce que ce qu'il fait ne l'interesse pas.' Godard in Durand,
p. 159. Godard develops a very similar critique in Jean-Luc.
33. Godard in Jeanne'Makie, 'Numero deux, un film different', Temoignage chretien, 25
juillet 1975. In Godard par Godard, pp. 379-80, p. 379. Marguerite Duras, despairing
of the ease with which 'objective' journalism distorts and conceals, similarly maintained
her preference for the most hackneyed of overtly opinionated partisan journalism: 'On
le
alors
pour
corriger. ' At least disagreement provides a point of departure for
y accede
discussion. See Marguerite Duras, 'La femme de Walesa', in La Vie materielle (Paris:
Gallimard [Coll. Folio], 1987), pp. 124-6, p. 126.
34. The emphasis on the subjective in journalism is mirrored in Che Guevara's call for
each and every individual to initiate revolution within the context of their own lives.
See Guevara, 'Message to the Tricontinental: "Create two, three.. many Vietnams". The
.
individual
of
responsibility for making revolution first and foremost in the
principle
life
is
one's
everyday
of
a recurrent theme in Godard's work and political
context
activities. When Langlois's position was under threat at the Cinematheque, for instance,
he called for sabotage on the part of each and every Langlois supporter: '...lacerer les
fauteuils discretement avec une lame de rasoir, jeter des encriers sur l'ecran, sabotage
integral pour rendre i-nu-ti-li-sable la Cinematheque. Car eile est utilisable seulement
'
See'L'Affaire
Langlois'
Henri.
(Dossier),
du
Cinema, 199, mars 1968,
Cahiers
Les
avec
pp. 31-46, pp. 43-4.
35. See Samuelson, pp. 292-5.
36. Godard in Collet, Delahaye, Fieschi, Labarthe and Tavernier, p. 24.
37. From the soundtrack of Camera-oeil. Transcribed in English as Jean-Luc Godard,
'Camera Eye', Peace News, 5.1.68., p. 7. Godard's film incorporates extracts of the
filmmakers
the
to the collective film (particularly those who
of
other
contributions
images
Vietnam)
Loin
du
Vietnam, thereby setting itself apart from, and in
of
presented
judgement over, the overall film. Other contributions were from Joris Ivens, William
Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Agnes Varda. Production was

259

by
coordinated Chris Marker, who establishedSLON specifically to produce it.
38. Antenne 2 Midi, 22.5.82. Godard, as often in live television appearances, engages
deliberately
disrupts, the temporal and spatial co-ordinates of television. He
with, and
succeeds, with great humour, in getting Labro to state 'Je n'ai pas vu ce qui s'est passe'.
This extract was re-broadcast in the context of a 'Soiree Thematique' on Arte (10.6.93),
Faux et images de faux under the title 'Si la tele le dit, c'est que c'est vrai'. For full
details, see filmography.

39. See Marcorelles.

40. A quote already used in Week-end. For a denunciation of all 'professionals', see
comments by Godard in Charles Tatum and Philippe Elhem, 'Rolle over Godard',
Visions, 17,15 mars 1984, pp. 5-9, p. 8. The claim 'on est des professionels' punctuates
Prenom Carmen, the irony of their claim encapsulated in the masquerade of the
bandit/filmmakers' extortion plan.
41. The Parvelesco (Jean-Pierre Melville) interview in A bout de souffle is the first of
myriad enactments and subversions of the interview form in Godard's work, traversing
the parody of the static conventional interview with Chantal Goya in Masculin feminin
(by a music journalist), the interview with 'Madamoiselle 19 ans' ('Dialogue avec un
de
in
the same film, the repeated interviews of actors/characters
consommation')
produit
by Godard, sometimes via fictional intermediaries (in Une Femme mariee, Deux ou trois
d'elle
dissection
in
La
Chinoise
for
the
sais
queje
and
coalescing
choses
example), and
and 'rewiring' of the interview format throughout the Sonimage work.
42. Constance Penley, 'Les Enfants de la Patrie', Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 33-58,
includes
in
interviews
France
in
Penley's
discussion
38.
tour
the
article
a
useful
of
p.
relation to the television interview (pp. 44-8).
43. Godard in La Bardonnie, p. 14.
44. Raymond Bellour, L'Entre-Images: Photo. Cinema. Video (Paris: La Difference,
1990), p. 143. Bellour made similar observations (showing this clip from Ici et ailleurs)
in the course of his defence of Godard's post-1974 output at the Watershed Media
Centre, Bristol, on the 15 February 1991.

45. Godard in Anon., 'Les derrieres lecons du donneur: fragments d'un entretien avec
Jean-Luc Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 300, pp.60-9, p.64.
46. The opening words of Mieville's 'poem' evoke and pay homage to Michelangelo
Antonioni's Professione: reporter (1974, a.k. a. The Passenger, co-scripted by Antonioni,
Mark Peploe and Peter Wollen) which traces the fate of successful journalist David
Locke (Jack Nicholson) as he attempts to flee his past by assuming the identity of a
dead man. A central sequence mirrors closely Sonimage's concerns: an interview filmed
by Locke is subverted when the interviewee refuses the received hierarchy of relations
holding the positions of interviewer and interviewee in place, physically manipulating
the camera to place Locke under interrogation (a reversal with which he is visibly
Peploe,
Mark
documentary
film
in
talking
the
the
on
of
of
course
a
uncomfortable).
Antonioni, Dear Antonioni, suggests that it was one of the first to sketch a vision of
260

both cinema and society on the verge of an irreversible mutation, that of the exponential
growth of television. In a discussion of the film's critique of journalism, and especially
a certain type of 'objective' documentary filmmaking equated with the BBC, Peploe
interview
to
the
specifically
refers
reversal sequence discussed above as the 'central
critical scene'. For details of Professione: reporter and Dear Antonioni, see the
filmography.
47. Godard had already parodied his own cynical and disastrous flirtation with
advertising (he shot two minutes of an abandoned and untransmittable advertisement for
Schick after-shave in 1971, a man in an HLM daubing profanities on his mirror with a
in
Tout va bien: for the burnt-out ex-Nouvelle Vague filmmaker Jacques
shaving stick)
(Yves Montand), who is making an advertising film for Remington razors,
advertisements are profoundly static, ('pour moi c'est une activite purement mecanique').
Inversely, Godard took the unusual step of demanding payment (4000 francs) for his role
as interviewee in an extended interview with Telerama in 1978, serialised over seven
weeks, maintaining that for him such a position constituted a form of work: Jean-Luc
Douin and Alain Remond, 'Godard dit tout', serialised in Telerama, Nos. 1486 - 1492,
1978. For details, see bibliography.
48. Roger Fowler, Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press (London
& New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 4. The position outlined by Fowler, central to
Sonimage, constitutes a crucial advance on empirical analyses of the media which
overlook the constructive role of the discursive structure of the medium in question, and
concentrate on developing the familiar hypothesis that news is never natural, but rather
produced and shaped by the bureaucratic and economic structure of a 'news industry'.
49. Benjamin, p. 220.
50. The legende accompanying the photograph stated: 'Jane Fonda interrogeant des
habitants de Hanoi sur les Bombardements americains'. Published in L'Express on the
31 July 1972. Godard and Gorin's thesis surrounding the lie of the legende is found in
Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, 'Enquete sur une image', Godard par Godard,
&
355
361.
350-62,
pp.
pp.

51. Durgnat, p.269.

52. Godard in Makie, p. 379. Godard developed this critique of arbitrary image/text
in
in
Jean-Luc.
the
print
media
relations

CHAPTER

1. Godard in Bergala, Daney and Toubiana, p. 58.

2. Philippe Dubois, 'L'image la vitesse de la pensee', Les Cahiers du Cinema,
(supplement to Les Cahiers du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 76-7, p. 76.
3. Sonimage's critique of the social function of photography evolves directly from its
in
d'est
Vent
(to
disguise
formulation
reality and identify class enemies) where
prior

261

in
is
1871 of the photograph of the executed
to
the
made
again
publication
reference
in
Godard/N
ieville's
Photos et cie operates through rapid
critique
communards.
juxtaposition rather than academic accuracy; the first photograph taken was in fact of
fortifications within a landscape, taken by Nicephore Niepce in 1826.
4. Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p.460. This thesis is developed at greater length in the
fifth voyage of the Montreal lectures, in Godard, Introduction, p. 217. Cf., '...il faut voir
les choses, il ne faut pas parier de ce qu'on a vu, il faut voir et rester dans le voir. '
Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p. 463.
5. 'Tout cela me fait penser au livre de Barthes sur la mode. Il est illisible pour une
donc
lit
doit
etre
c'est
qu'il
et
senti
parce
que
porte,
phenomene
qui
raison:
vu
un
simple
de
ici
fondes.
[Les
Sartre
] Je pense que Barthes ne s'interesse
tres
reproches
sont
vecu.
pas vraiment la mode, qui ne lui plait en tant que teile, mail en tant que langage dej
mort, donc possible a decoder.' Godard in Jacques Bontemps, Jean-Louis Comolli,
Michel Delahaye and Jean Narboni, 'Lutter sur deux fronts', Les Cahiers du Cinema,
194, octobre 1967. In Godard par Godard, pp. 303-27, p. 313. See too Godard's
dismissal
linguistic
basis
in
the
to
the
the
of
cinema
structural
analysis
of
contemptuous
wake of the Pesaro conference on new approaches to cinema in 1966: 'Nos parents, ce
les
Griffith,
d'ailleurs
Hawks,
Dreyer,
Bazin,
Langlois,
et
et
et
mais pas vous,
sont
images,
sans
et sans sons, comment pouvez-vous en parler? ' See Jean-Luc
structures,
Godard, 'Trois mille heures de cinema', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 184, novembre 1966,
has
intricacies
been
The
interaction
48.
Godard's
Structuralist
47-8,
theory
p.
of
with
pp.
lucidly detailed by Marc Cerisuelo in 'Godard et la theorie: tu Was rien vu a Pesaro...',
CinemAction 52, pp. 192-8.
6. His use of the term focuses primarily on video's ability to relay an instant image of
here,
duplicate
(or
'la
lieu',
direct
d'un
to
to
multiply) any
presentation
and
en
elsewhere
by
lumiere
indirecte',
'mise-en-onde
'La
du
Virilio,
Paul
a
event
reel'.
pro-filmic
Communications, 48,1988 (Video), pp. 45-52, p.45. Virilio goes on to argue (p. 45)
that the principle role on which videoscopie has settled is to simply cast a new kind of
light, primarily into the home, an 'eclairement indirect d'un environnement domestique
la
la
directe

de
lumiere
lumiere
electrique,
analogique
seule
plus
qui ne satisfait
lumiere du jour', and that our subsequent perception of the world cannot fail to undergo
a parallel shift.
7. Godard in Philippe, p.408. See a similar development of this position in Godard,
Introduction, p. 81.

8. Godard, Introduction, p.70.

9. 'Rapport sur le voyage No. 2A de la societe Sonimage au Mozambique', Les Cahiers
du Cinema, 300, pp. 79-129, p. 85. The lines quoted here are an extract of the 'poem'.
10. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Au-del des etoiles', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 79, janvier 1958.
In Godard par Godard, pp. 119-21, p. 120.

11. Asked why he had used this quotation in the film, Godard replied 'C'est sa sujet, sa
definition. ' Jean-LucGodard,'Jean-LucGodard: Montparnasse-Levallois',Les Cahiers
du Cinema, 171, octobre 1965, pp.9-10, p.9.
262

12. Godard in Jean-Louis Comolli, Michel Delahaye, Jean-Andre Fieschi and Gerard
Guegan, 'Parlons de "Pierrot"', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 171, octobre 1965, pp. 18-35,
is
Godard's
The
25.
this
to
centrality
reiterated through the
of
position
view
p.
film
(during
Pierrot/Ferdinand's
through
this
the
same quotation midway
paraphrasing of
Michel Simon imitation), the notion of entre now ostensibly transposed onto the form
in
Pierrot
lefou
he
is
fictional
Delacroix
The
the
quoted
on
novel
writing.
passages
of
I
Moderne,
Tome
de
Art:
LArt
&
1.67-8,171
173
Elie
L'Histoire
1
Faure,
of
are on pp.
(Paris: Livre de Poche, 1964).
13. Merleau-Ponty, pp. 85-106. Originally given as a lecture at IdHEC on the 13 March
1945. In an article prefacing a 1964 interview with Godard, Raymond Bellour relates
how when he raised the subject of Merleau-Ponty's lecture, Godard quoted back at him
from
memory. Godard in Raymond Bellour, 'Jean-Luc Godard
an entire sentence
s'explique', Les Leitres Francaises, 1029,1964, pp. 8-9, p. 8.
14. Merleau-Ponty, p. 105.

15. Ibid., p.86.

16. Benjamin, pp. 229-30.
17. Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p.458.

18. The heritage of this schema,which views reality as flux and insists on the primacy
from
familiar
derives
in
from
tools
the
clearly
conceptual
work of mediation,
part
of
Marxism, and above all the Marxist refusal of empirical separationsof subject from
object (with the accompanying bias towards the static contemplation of objects), to an
insistence on reality as meaningful only as a result of the significations we produce in
but
is
Knowledge
through
produced through
not attained
contemplation,
social practice.
the processof interaction between people and things. Truth, like reality, is not so much
latent and immanent in objects and artworks, but rather produced under socially
determined conditions.
19. Deleuze, Trois questions sur Six fois deux', p. 12.

20. The Sonimage work thus provides an emblematic illustration of Fredric Jameson's
dissolved
in
'the
the
spectator'.
themselves
that
along
with
auteurs
video
are
contention
See Chapter 3, 'Video: Surrealism without the unconscious',in Jameson,p.74.
21. Godard, Introduction, p.303.
22. Godard in Even, 'Le remake d'<About de souffle:
Hot de socialisme', p. 13.

Rencontre avec Godard sur un

23. Godard and Mieville, '6 fois 2: Sur et sous la communication', p. 396.
24. Godard in Anon., 'Les dernieres lecons du donneur: fragments d'un entretien avec
Jean-Luc Godard', p.63.
25. Godard, 'The Story: Extraits du scenario', p.438.
263

26. Barthes, 'Le mythe, aujourd'hui', in Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957),
pp. 191-247, p. 243. Barthes argues that 'myth' plays on the two levels of language: the
first-order signifying system (Saussure's arbitrary relation between signifier and signified)
and a second-order semiological system built around accumulated connotations acquired
through social usage. Myth uproots first-order language and blends it with second-order
associations. In the process, some meanings are concealed, others promoted, and the
resultant mix reproduced as 'natural'. Mythic language hence patterns the world
according to specific latent interests rather than functioning transparently. Furthermore
(and equally important for Barthes), such mythic language has the effect of narrowing
the signifying power of language and its creative use. Barthes stresses that myth does
in
deny
it
On
the
to
things.
them,
the
to
and
speak about
contrary,
seeks
not seek
history,
to
them
to purify them of their artifice and reproduce them
evacuate
of
process
figures
identifies
is
by
(one
Barthes
Explanation
'constat'
the
as
replaced
of
as natural.
in
is
fabrication
lost.
the
the
myth),
and
characterising
process
memory of
27. Roland Barthes, 'La mythologie aujourd'hui', Esprit, avril 1971. In Barthes, Le
bruissement de la langue, pp. 79-82, p. 80. Anthologised in English as 'Change the object
itself in Roland Barthes, Image-Music-Text, essays selected and translated by Stephen
Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), pp. 165-9. Barthes recognises here that mythologie had
dead
had
into
by
its
Everybody
a
end,
one
paradoxically
caused
success.
run
very
become amateur mythologistes, seeking out and denouncing myth; the work of the
become
itself
had
been
itself
fully
into
bourgeois
a
absorbed
culture and
mythologiste
form of myth.
28. Viewing the work of Godard and Barthes across the overall evolution of their
bodies
(unfinished
in
Godard),
the
of
such similarities are very
work
case
of
respective
in
favour
including
didactic
the
theory
post-partisan
politics
and
repudiation
of
striking,
has
by
both
language
Such
desire
the
them.
the
a
correlation
reintroduction
of
of
of
of
by
been
Godard's
to
two
the
on
pointed
work,
of
most
astute
commentators
already
Raymond Bellour and Jacques Aumont. Bellour suggested in 1988 an extremely close
de
dix
Godard
between
'Pendant
two
their
compose
ans,
projects:
un peu plus
correlation
de
la
il
Systeme
les
de
decompose
Mythologies
Barthes
mode:
son
en
romancier
et
et
dresse travers les fictions qui animent ses personnages un etat des lieux du monde
380.
379-85,
48,
'
'Autoportraits',
Raymond
Bellour,
Communications,
p.
pp.
contemporain.
Reprinted in Bellow, L'Entre-Images: Photo. Cinema. Video, pp. 327-87. Aumont,
been
has
in
the
quick
to
their
overlaps and rapprochements
respective oeuvres
pointing
to caution that to discuss such interpenetrations is not to assert a direct correlation,
distort
intellectual
immediately
intricacies
their
the
and creative
of
which would
de
le
Barthes/Godard
'Le
comme
recul,
trajectories.
rapport
apparaltra srement avec
facile

je
le
ici
quelque
et
reduire
ne
essentiel,
veux
surtout pas
plus en plus
1'artiste-efr
de
La
Seenote-3
Au
'Autopertrait
thiori
tot,
chi
en',
opposition'.
-JacquesRevue Beige du Cinema, 22-23, pp. 171-6, p. 176. An in-depth comparative study of
Barthes and Godard be fascinating.
29. Godard in Baby, 'Faire les films possibles 14 o on est'.
30. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Sauve qui peut (la vie): scenario', 11 avril 1979, in Godard par
Godard, pp. 445-8, p.445. The notion of blocked traffic had already been used by Gorin
bien
in
inability
Tout
(Jane
Susan
Fonda)
Godard
Witt's
De
to
to write
va
equate
and
American
Broadcasting
her
Jacques
System
the
to
the
of
refusal
articles.
publish
and

264

(Yves Montand) says 'C'est comme la circulation'.

which he replies 'Bah oui: 'Ic'es-bloquee,.quoi'.

De Witt asks 'La circulation? ', to

31. Godard in Steinebach,p.8.

32. Barthes summarises doxa- thus under- the- heading 'Le mauvais objet' in his
autobiography. The section 'Doxa/paradoxa' discussesdoxa as 'une opinion courante',
from
Mythologies to
this
the-context
the
trajectory
concept
of
within
and summarises
du
desir'.
Barthes,
Roland
See
'le
Roland
to
the
reintroduction
of
grain
semiology
Barthes par Roland Barthes-(Paris: Seuil-,1975), p.75; He succinctly summarisesdoxa
in 'La mythologie aujourd'hui': 'What is nothing but a product of class division and its
being
(stated)
and
a matter of
aesthetic-consequences--is
as
presented
moral, cultural
course; under the effect of mythical inversion, the quite contingent foundations of the
become
in
Common-Sense,
General
Opinion,
Right
Reason,
the-Norm,
hort
utterance
the doxa (which is the secular figure of the Origin). ' Barthes, 'Change the object itself,
p. 165..
33. Rape as threat had-already figured, -albeit-far too casually, in Une Femme mc4riee.
In an argument over records he has brought back from Berlin for a friend, Pierre
(Philippe Leroy) shouts--atCharlotte (Macha-Meril)-'Pose ce disque, oiuje to viole'.
34. Arrow imagery also pervades Rene(e)s, where it is discussed by Thom. It was used
in Deux ou trois choses -que-je-sais-delle-in-the- form of a feet walking-right across an
dual
left
hear
deliberately
Godard's
eliding
as
we
whispered voice
arrow pointing
identical
image
direction
Virtually
'sens-et
this
of
non-sens.
connotations
-and meaning,
is used again in Je vous salue, Marie, a sequence which in turn refers to a very similar
largein
later
Rene(e)s:
in
Tati's
Playtime:
Jacques
This--isa
arrow
schematised
shot(pointing right) is accompanied by the word'sens', then'sens-oui', followed by an arrow
left
by-'non-sens.
accompanied
pointing

35. Godard and Gorin, 'Enquete sur une image', p.362.

the-potential for
36. This was not always the-case-inGodard's-work: Theatre-embodieslaboratoire').
('un
in
Chinoise
La
progressive political experimentation
37. Godardin Anon., 'Jean-LucGodard,television-cinema-video-images:paroles:..', p. 12.
38. This is repeated five times. At one point she also asks 'Qu'est-ce qu'iI dit7' An
interesting-- analogous - critique- of - the-- discourses- of -politics, the media, and -,their
doctored
(1967),
TV
in
3
Nam
June
Study
No.
is
Paik's
Tape
Video
a
enacted
conjunction
interview with President-Johnson-in which- repetition is employed in an echo and an
both.
introduce
into
to
the
of
a stutter
smooth unfolding
electronic strobe effect
39. Jean-Louis Comolli, 'Le detour par le direct (2)', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 211, avril
1969, pp. 40-5, p.42.

40. Only three representativesof the Western press presenceremained in the stadium.
The photograph taken by the Michel Laurent (who was one of the other two to stay in
the stadium) won the Pulitzer Prize. The other photographer was Horst Faas. Laurent
because,
he
for
Press,
the
Associated
to
the
prize
working
affiliated
won
was
allegedly
265

(a
for
American
requirement
consideration by .the Pu'itzer
press-photographers
union of
committee).
41. Milan Kundera, The- Unbearable- Lightness-- of-Being (London: Faber and Fiber,
'
1984), p. 100.
MacCabe's- perceptive
42. MacCabe, Godard: --Images, Sounds, - Politics, p. 153.
discussion of solitude, which he sees as the logical endpoint of the Sonimage work,
appears particularly prescient -in-the light-of the subsequent centrality of solitude las_a
in
formulated
(chillingly
in
Godard
Mon
Mieville's
theme
and
post-1979
work
recurrent
Cf:
gncle
'-).
irremediablementage,
devrais-savoir-qu'on-est'A
ton
tu
seule.
cher sujet:
Jean (Godard) in Prenom Carmen, echoing numerous similar comments by Godard in
interviews in the 1980s-and-90s:-'La solitude; -qui-m'afom&de faire de moi-meme, pour
between
direct
link
doctor's
in
First
the
of
a
assertion
articulated
moi, un compagnon'.
death and solitude in Made in-USA- ('je-ne comprends pas que vous ayez de la pene a
imaginer qu'il peut y avoir un rapport entre la solitude et la maladie organique ), it
in
Numera--4eux
intertitleinSonimagetheSOLITUDE
the
aswork,
permeates
(materialising between USINE and NULL
E), and scenes such as the mise en scent' of
Leo-Frre's
in-the-bar-in-France-tour--1-2
(to-the
of
solitude
accompaniment
contemporary
'La Solitude').
41. Godard in MacCabe, Godard---Images, --Sound, - Politics, P.158; - For- a- useful
discussion of the real events surrounding the events later enshrined in Eisenstein's
Battleship- Potemkin, see -D; J.Wenden, 'Battleship--Potemkin - Film and Reality', in
Feature Films as History, edited by K. Short (London: Croom Helm, 1981), pp. 31-61.
It is possible that this-essay-is-the study cited-by-Godard (in MacCabe, p. 158) as -source
for his own argument. The Potemkin demonstration has been a constant pole of
in
for
instance,
in
Godard's
to,
an
referred
and
criticalalready
writings,
reference
-work
invented interview with Roberto Rossellini in 1959. See Jean-Luc Godard, 'Un cineaste
189.
p.
missionnaire'1
un
aussi
c'est
44. MacCabe, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics, p. 146.

45. Gorier-in Belilos; -Boujnt;-Deschamps-and--Zoller;p371.

46. Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, p. 53.
de
Monde
in
Jacques-Drilloni-'Faire
Godard
47.
un-film-comme on-joue Un-quatuor', -Le
la Musique, 55, avril 1983. In Godard par Godard, pp. 574-82, p. 580.
48. As Godard said of his-own-work, 'Je ne cherche pas a communiquer quelque chose,
je cherche communiquer avec quelqu'un'. In Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television',
13.
paroles:..
p.
cinema-video-images: 49. Tennis has fulfilled an analogous function within Godard's work as a whole (notably
in Pierrot le fou, Vladimir et Rosa, Soft and- hard, Soigne to droite, and JLG/. ILG:
in
decembre)
de
particular, as mdel
as paradigm of communication, and,
autoportrait
be
letter,
As
it
has
tennis
dialogue
towith
someone:
exchange.
played
with
a
and
of
like
'
In
balls
tennis,
this
to
the
way,
whom
are addressed.
requires a receiver, someone
functions
letter,
as an economical . figural riposte to the universality- and
the
266

homogenisation of mainstream broadcasting structures as exemplified by television. In

line with the metaphor; Mieville- articulated her role-at the-hub of Sonimage as prin\arily
that of 'renvoyeur de balles' for Godard in a collaborative process that constituted the
driving dynamic to the works. - See-Mieville in JeanMichel Frodon, 'En couple aver son
film', Le Monde (Arts et Spectacles), 22 decembre 1994, p.III.
-.
50. Ibid., p. 146.
51. MacCabe, 'Betaville', p. 62.

52. This is not to deny that specific (and important) localised issuesare attachedt? the
it
is
linked
for
figure
in
Vladimir
Rosa,
In
to the
this
example,
certain
cases.
et
use of
feminist
in
faceis
discoursefilm:
through
the
always
seen
woman's
emergent
-the(mediated by) that of the male.
53. Godard, Introduction, p. 135.

54. Godard in Baby, 'Faire les films possibles l o on est'.

55. Godard, Introduction, -p7309.
Stam, Reflexivity in-Film-and- Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean -Luc
56.
-Robert
Godard (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 62.
57.45.8% in the first half o1974,47.1% in the second half, and 46.8% in the firsthalf
bien',
figures
Le
Film
les
Extensive
in
Anon.,
'Porno:
1975.
vont
are
affaires
given
of
Franfais, 1592,19 septembre 1975, (((Special porno), pp. 64-5. Further discussiots of
the surge in the production and consumption of pornographic films in France are -given
in Forbes, The Cinema in-France. After the New Wave, p. 8, and Susan Hayward, Frrnch
National Cinema (London & New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 244-6.

59. Discussed in Reynold-Humphries,-'Godard's--Synthesis:Politics and the Personal',

Jump Cut, 9, October-December 1974, pp.12-13, p. 13, n.5.
59. Sautet's film, a portrait of France-in the-197s-through the relations-between Vincent
(Yves Montand), Francois (Michel Piccoli), and Paul (Serge Reggiani) won the Prix Jean
Cocteau in 1974. Bergman's Scenesfrom. a marriage (1975) foresees Numero dex in
its conception (shot on 16mm as a series of six fifty minute episodes for television),
depiction of sexual relations and violence, and the-hidden passions and deceits contained
is
immense
harmonious
bourgeois
In
there
an
addition,
marriage.
within an apparently
handful
in
imagery
(the
look
in
the
of characters).
colours, and emphasis on a
similarity
Bergman's film (and indeed his oeuvre generally) is very close to both Numero deux the
Sonimage work in its emphasis -on showing human relations in terms of phyical
'sparring' (the rapprochement and repulsion of bodies), foreseeing its schematic
dissection and depiction by GodardlMieville (particularly in Numero deux and across Six
fois deux).

60. This sequencedisplaces onto- the realm of sexual relations-the oft-used figure of
feedback to designatea breakdown in communication, as, for example, in the flashing
de
in
in
Lecons
Id
image
infinity
the
calculator
on
et ailleurs, or the
of capitalism
of
267

choses as a whiting eating its own tail: 'Quand on ferme un circuit ou qu'on branche un
micro- quand l'ecouteur-est--ouverti--ca-fait-un-effet Larsen, il n'y a plus rien. ' GodaFd in
Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images: paroles... ', p. 13. A good
discussion of this 'caricatural-formula of
is-even
rendered
as
a-sign'
an-orgy
-ar--orgy,
in Robert Stam, 'Jean-Luc Godard's Sauve Qui Peut (la Vie)', Millenium Film Jou nal,
10-11, Fall-Winter 1981-82, ppJ94-1, - pp.-198-9. -- This-engagement with pomogrphy
his
in
Godard's
films
1980s,
to
the
attempt to film
punctuate
across
visible
continues
Marie's -body in Je vous- -salue; Marie-- in-- a manner which resists conventional
between
love
female
in
body.
Similarly,
the
the
the
scene
exploitations
of
pornographic
invoke
(Johan
Meysen)
Eva-(Anne
Gauthier),
Godard
to
and
again seeks
and
professor
les
de
'Peut-etre
les
dialogues
X,
gestes.'
pornography:
style
mais
pas
que
sont
subvert
Jean-Luc Godard, 'Je vous- salue, -Marie: Continuite pour le tournage', janvier -1\984,
Godard par Godard, pp. 592-7, p. 596.

61. Cf. Raymond Bellour: 'La-force-du-film de-Godard, son effet violent et massif, est
d'avoir fait se croiser (entre autres chores mais surtout) cette lutte entre les images vec
la lutte entre les sexes'.- See Raymond Bellour, 'Moi, je-suis-une image!, La Revue
Beige du Cinema, 16, pp. 109-10, p. 109. Godard ascribesthe reflection on intimacy and
Mieville.
inGodardDavid,
to
violence
--See-p_70.
62. A literal correlation of TV with shit runs through interviews with Godard in the
1980s: 'Pendant longtemps-on-a- eu peur-de la merde, l eile est accepte.' Godard in
Dulaure and Parnet, p. 603. Shit and anality as central figures can be seen emerging
image
Godard's
in-thelate--1960s:
in
Le
an
of
work
over
graffitiacross
-Gai -savoir
Brigitte Bardot in bed warns 'Regardez les choses en face toute votre vie si vous ne
etre
pas
encules- par- la culture-bourgeoise'.
voulez

63. MacBean, 'An Open Letter to Godard', p. 12.

64. Whilst elaboration is required, Stuart Cunningham-and Ross Harley's observatioi that
informs
the narratives of Passion and Je vous salue, Maize is
mediation
on
a reflection
El Greco's resurreption
highly suggestive. In- a- discussion
of
-of-the -reconstruction
'(and
Passion,
loss
its
in
Isabelle's
the
end of
of virginity
and
reflection
painting at
Jerzy's assertion that--'il- faut--pas--que ca--laisse -des traces'), - Cunningham and Hrley
perceive a general principle: 'There can be no movement up and away without a
'
Stuart-Cunningham-and-Ross-Harley,
'The-Logic of the--Virgin
through.
movement
Mother', Screen, 28, No. 1, Winter 1987, pp. 62-76, pp. 67-8.

CHAPTER

1. Godard in Devarrieux.
2. Eagleton, pr108.
3. Godard in conversation with Andre-S. Labarthe in La Nouvelle Vague par elle-mime,
1964. Cf. Godard's suggestion in his Montreal lectures that a major impetus driving A
bout de souffle's assault on received procedures was to explode the conventions
268

governing dialogue (Godard, -Introduction, -p. 65). - See too Michel Marie's discussiop of
the dialogue of A bout de souffle as the primary innovation of the film, and of language
less
a-means-of-communication -than--a barrier to. understanding: -Mjchel
generally as
Marie, "'It really makes you sick! ": Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle (1959)', in
Susan Hayward and Ginette Vincendeau,
Contents (London:
Film:
Texts
and
-French
Routledge, 1990), pp. 201-15, especially pp. 208-11.
4. In the late 1970s, Godard explained his-early critical defence of-a filmmaker- such as
Norbert Carbonneaux purely in relation to dialogue: Tetais alors tres sensible au
dialogue. Et dans les--films--de- Charbonneaux,
desdes
trues,
phrases, une
--il y avait
e'est
certaine invention parfois, qu'on ne s'attendait pas trouver dans ce genre de film.
faisait-defendre-Casque
d'or, de--JacquesBecker, par exemplei les-repliques
ce qui noun
echangees dann 1'atelier de menuiserie nous paraissaient un bon exemple de dialogue qui

1'Academie-francaise
ecrit un article-, o6 on
rien
voir
avec
n'avait
avait
meme
-On
disait: voila, pour nous, le dialogue type, et voila ce qu'il aurait du etre selon les notmes
de la tradition francaise. '- Godard in-Jean-Luc Douin-and Alain Remond; 'Godard dit
6-1.
tout 2: Pour moi, la critique doit etre terroriste', Telerama, 1487,1978, pp. 60-2, pp.
Godard's articles on Carbonneaux--are--Jean-LucGodard,
Cahiers
du
Lestrot',
petit
--'-Au
Cinema, 70, avril 1957 (in Godard par Godard, pp. 99-100), 'Dictionnaire de cinestes
francais', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 7-1,mai-1957 (in. Godard par Godard, pp: 100-1) and
'Esoterisme farfelu', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 82, avril 1958 (in Godard par Godard,
pp. 12,5-6).
5. Such- a view correlates-closely with Barthes's-assumption of culture as intrinsically
petit-bourgeois, and the mass media as the site through which that culture is broadcast
to the proletariat: 'Le proletariat (les producteurs) n'a aucune culture propre; dans les
developpes,
langage
dits
son
pays
est celui de la petite-bourgeoisie, parce que c'est le
langage qui lui est offert par les communications de masse (grande presse, radio,
television): la culture de masse est petite-bourgeoise. ' Roland Barthes, 'La paix
culturelle', in Barthes, Le bruissement de la langue, p. 110.
6. Louis Althusser, 'La philosophie comme arme de la revolution', La Pensee, 138, avril
1968. Anthologised in Althusser, Positions, pp. 35-48. Interview dated November 1967.
7. Godard, 'Je vows salue Marie: Continuite pour le tournage', p. 596. Lacan developed
Levi-Strauss's notion of the symbolic (the communal systems of categorisation and
in
it
beliefs
human
institutions),
turn
to
support
radicalising
which
socio-cultural
shared
denote the construction of the-subject-in relation to meaning, incorporating Saussure's
language
from
theory
of
signified, wherein any correspondence
or
severance of signifier
knowledge is jettisoned in favour of a view of language as definable only as a system
differences.
Cf.
Godard's
('OU'
his
internal
to
question
own
rhetorical
response
of
This
habitez-vous? ') in JLG/JLG: autoportrait de decembre: 'Dans le langage'.
formulation invokes Juliette's statement in Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle that
'Le langage, c'est la maison dans laquelle 1'homme habite'.
8. Eagleton, p. 130.
9. Colin MacCabe argued that the-virulence of Lacanian psychoanalysis' rejection of the
irreversible
break
'an
unity
of
any
ultimate
of
consciousness
marked
with all
primacy
idealism and religion. ' Colin MacCabe, 'Presentation of 'The Imaginary Signifier',

269

Screen, 16, No.2, Summer 1975, pp.7-13, p.8.

10. It constitutes, simultaneously, a recognition of irretrievable separation from the body
desire
for
lost
is
For
Lacan,
the
the
the
of
mother.
of
speech
mother.
of
repression
price
To speak is thus to represent the- existence of repressed desire. To say 'I am' is to say
'I am the one who has lost something'. In this sense the speaking subject 'is' lack, and
the creation of the unconscious depends on suppression of desire for symbiotic unity
Coward
For
Rosalind
Lacanian
the
theory,
and
clear summaries of
see
mother.
with
John Ellis, Language and Materialism: Developments in Semiology and the Theory of
the Subject (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), Sherry Turkle, Psychoanalytic
Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution (London: Burnett Books/Andre
Deutsch, 1978), and Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory
(London and New York: Routledge, 1985).

11. Whilst Lacan's anti-ego theory constitutes a vital pole of reference to

Godard/Mieville, we should not forget that such imagery also invokes Deleuze/Guattari's
formulation
imagery
invokes
identity
discussed
in
Such
Chapter
1.
clearly
of
schizoid
both simultaneously.
12. Godard, 'Propos Rompus', p.464.
13. The notion of preposition! metaphors-is-borrowed-from Gunther Kress, 'Values and
meaning: the operation of ideology through texts', in Gunther Kress, Linguistic processes
in sociocultural practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 68-84, p. 71. The
section from which the term is drawn is titled 'Metaphor and ideological struggle'.
14. Godard in Anon., 'Les- derrieres lecons du donneur: fragments d'un entretien avec
Jean-Luc Godard', p. 68. Within such a projection, language is best understood not as
but,
expression,
of
as -William Burroughs suggested provocatively, -a virus
a medium
from outer space.
15. Godard and Mieville, '6 fois 2: Sur et-sous --la--communication', p.399. Similarly,
Jean-Pierre Gorin's interest in the twins Grace and Virginia Kelly in his film Poto and
Cabengo, who appeared to have-invented their own language, quite possibly turns on a
belief in a direct language/Symbolic relation.

16. Cf. Godard'sformulation in his Montreal lectures of writing as less a liberating tool
than 'une trace de police'. Godard, Introduction, p. 122.
17. Godard in Even, 'Le remake d'A bout-de souffle: Rencontre avec Godard sur un
hot de socialisme', p. 13.
18. Where language conforms to dominant modes of perception and categorisation,
drawing, whilst retaining a direct link to the body, evades linguistic convention. The
instance,
for
in
in
Nous
in
trois,
to
the
repetitive
memories
an
evade
attempt
prisoner
his
imagination
his
drawing
finds
he
trapped,
through
thoughts
tries
to
express
which
('quelque fois je tentais en pensee de ne pas ecrire, de faire des dessins'). Drawing as
language
less
than
means
of
expression
prescriptive
constitutes a recurrent theme of
a
Godard's Montreal lectures.

270

19. Godard, Introduction, p.217.

20. The potency of- the FRANCAIS-sequence derives- from its pessimism, conveyed
through the surreal peculiarity of its status: who are these two, and why are they talking
so self-consciously and-ineptly? As often; Godard and Mieville provoke emotion, and
logic
by
intricate
whose
a
precise,
of
a
sequence
polished,
and
mise
en
scene
questioning
(context, history, raison d'etre)- is withheld.
Amongst other things, the sequence
impoverished
image
speech
a
prescient
quality, and
constitutes
vision of characters,
in
It
Godard's
the
of
particular,
soap
and,
prior work,
opera.- also--refers-to
characteristic
Paul's (Michel Picolli) eulogy to Camille (Brigitte Bardot) at the beginning of Le Mepris
(itself already parodied-in Tout- va-bien). But-where the sequence in Le Mepris carried
language
is
huge
Godard/Mieville
that
the
emotional charge,
no
suggest
use of such
a
longer possible.

21. Godard in Devarrieux.

22. Deleuze, Trois questions- sur- Six fois- deux', p. 8.
23. Althusser, 'Ideologie et appareils ideologiques d'Etat', p. 72.
24. See Williams, Television: Technology and- Cultural Form, p. 131.
25. Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (Harmondsworth:
by
Chatto & Windus in-1957.
published

Penguin, 1984).

First

26. Godard, Introduction, p. 112. Cf.: 'Le fait de voir est considere comme dangereux,
A
libere.
je
dit
la
litterature
Moi,
chaque
pays-alphabetise
ne
reprehensible.
on
que
in
'
Godard
Devarrieux.
pas.
pense
27. Godard in Philippe; p;407.
28. Godard, Introduction, p. 183.
29. Godard claimed that -the--empathy he felt with writers was coloured by their
des
'Et
text:
the
temps,
amis qui, pour
ce
sont
of
written
puis,
en meme
championing
'.
Godard
le
de-mohr
disons,
texte...
ennemi- royal, principal, qui est,
moi, sont au service
in Paini and Scarpetta, p. 5.
30. See Carole Desbarats's survey of language in Godard's work. Perceptive and
illuminating, Desbarat's account does not, however, relate the consistent logic of the
treatment of language by Godard to the decisive role played by concurrent theoretical
Carole
Structuralism
See
Desbarats,
language
Post-Structuralism.
within
and
views of
'L'ennemi royal', in Desbarats- and Gorce (eds.), pp. 63-79.
31. Martin Heidegger, On the way to language (New York: Harper and Row, 1971),
breaks
final
line
be'.
is
George's
'Where
This
Cf.
151.
thing
the
off
word
no
of
may
p.
discussed
Word',
60,
This
141.
'The
quoted
on
p.
central tenet of
again
on
p.
poem
Heidegger's position recurs throughout On the way to language (a repetition accounted
for by the original conception of the book as a series of lectures). Echoing George,
Heidegger formulates the argument in such variations as 'Only where the word for the
271

thing has been found is the thing a-thing. Only thus is it. ' (p. 62. ), 'No thing is where
the word is lacking. A thing is not until, and is only where, the word is not lacking but
is there.' (p. 86.), and 'Without the word, no thing is.' (p. 152.).
32. Godard explicitly invoked On the way to language in Bergala, Daney and Toubiana,
p. 62. The enduring importance of the book-as reference point in Godard's philosophical
book,
its
is
fact
he
brought
by
the
the
that
and
central
underscored
again
up
universe
thesis, in conversation with-- Colin- MacCabe at- a conference on shifting European
identities held at the National Film Theatre in 1992. Transcribed as 'Jean-Luc Godard
in conversation with Colin-MacCabe', in Duncan Petrie (ed.), Screening Europe: Image
Contemporary
(London:
Identity
in
European
Cinema
British Film Institute, 1992),
and
Appendix 1, pp. 97-105.
33. As Heidegger summarizes- his own-position, -language is 'a web of relations in which
we ourselves are included. (... ) We are, then, within language and with language before
all else.' Heidegger, p. 112.
34. This position is an elaboration of- a- consistent refrain of Godard's lectures in
Montreal in 1978-9: 'la loi est faite de mots, eile nest pas faite d'images. ' Godard,
Introduction, p. 219. Cf. the reference to the-title-of Heidegger's book in the introduction
to Soft and hard: 'On cherchait encore le chemin vers notre parole... '.
35. The notion of a video- script- might be expanded to incorporate the image/text
scenario of The Story. Godard was much impressed by Wim Wenders's assemblage of
paintings and photographs- for-- Hammett, a form which foresees the preparatory
assemblages of images which accompany Godard's late films.
36. Godard, Introduction, p. 80.
37. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Passion, Premiers-elements' (j anvier 1981), Godard par Godard,
484.
484-5,
p.
pp.
38. Godard draws an analogy between--the distance from Indian music to the tradition
of Western classical music, and from a semi-improvised mode of filmmaking to a
donc
follows
'Il
As
Godard's-voice
that
the
a
scenario.
ya
cinema
soundtrack:
asserts on
le theme et le temps, et autour de ca, rien. Je pense que c'est un systeme merveilleux,
j'essaie
lignes,
Jean
Renoir,

humblement
tres
comme
ces
qui-j'emprunte
et, exactement
de faire un peu ca au cinematographe. '
39. Godard, Introduction, p. 179.
40. Frame enlargements of Passion, le travail et l'amour: introduction un scenario
du
Cahiers
Cinema,
'Recette
la
Les
Henry,
Jean-Jacques
336,
pour
passion',
accompany
15-17.
1982,
pp.
mai

41. Before the idea of video scenarios,Mieville had employed actors for a film project
(with Brigitte Fossey), photographing them over four days. She did not develop the
finished
is
finding
It
that
the
a
object.
photographs
already
constituted
project,
following this experiment that Godard and Mieville elaboratedtheir vision-mixed 'halfimages'as exemplified in Scenario dufilm-Passion. As Godard remarkedon the lessons
272

of Mieville's experiment, 'Et c'est l quej'ai compris que si on veut fabriquer une image
il ne faut pas la voir. ' Godard in-Bergala,- Daney and-Toubiana,-p.66.
42. The book plays a pivotal role in the film, bridging the scene at Prokosch's house and
the scene de menage back- at the-Javals' flat.
43. Vertov, p.221.
44. Godard in Serge July, 'Alfred Hitchcock est mort', Liberation, 2 mai 1980. In
Godard par Godard, pp. 412-16, p.415. This thesis constitutes a central enduring strand
to Godard's critical position: 'L'image, elle-; ne-nomme pas. Le cinema muet a ete une
grande revolution culturelle et populaire. Il ne nommait pas, mais on reconnaisait tout
et on savait tout. Avec l'industrie du parlant, on s'est mis de nouveau nommer. Avec
la television, on est au sur-nom jusqu'au ridicule. ' Godard in Philippe, p. 408.
45. See the transcriptions- of selected extracts of Dolto's broadcasts: Francoise Dolto,
Lorque 1'enfant parait Tomes 1/2/3 (Paris: Seuil, 1977/8/9). Godard later paid homage
to Dolto as 'une des rares personnes avoir ecoute les enfants' in recognition both of her
broadcasts and psychoanalytic work with children. In Helene Merrick, 'Entretien avec
Jean-Luc Godard, La revue dtt cinema, 434, janvier 1988, pp. 51-5, p. 54. Godard has
frequently
subsequently
cited Dolto, particularly in relation to Je vous salue, Marie and
Heias pour moi.
46. Friedrich Nietzsche, 'On Truth and Falsity in their Extramoral Sense', in-Warren
Shibles (ed.), Essays on Metaphor (Whitewater, Wisconsin: The Language Press, 1972),
pp. 1-13, p. 1.

47. Deleuze, Trois questions sur-Sixfoie deux', p.6.

48. Traced by Ellen Winner in 'Philosophical and Linguistic Approaches to Metaphor
in
Ellen
Winner,
The Point of Words: Children's Understanding of Metaphor
Irony',
and
(Harvard
University
Irony
Press,
1988), pp. 15-33.
and
49. Aristotle, Rhetoric (Book III), in The Works of Aristotle, Vol. II [Vol. 9 of Robert
Hutchins (ed.), Great Books of the Western World], pp. 653-75, p. 655. Aristotle's
discussion of metaphor spans pages 654-6 and-662-3.
50. Godard in Herve Guibert, 'Une pantie du monde et sa metaphore', Le Monde, 27 mai
1982, p. 19.
51. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, is made up of papers given at a conference on
University
See
in
1977.
Illinois
September
the
thought
too another
at
and
of
metaphor
important anthology of writings on metaphor from this era: Sheldon Sacks (ed. ), On
Metaphor (London: University of Chicago Press, 1979), a volume resulting from a
University
Chicago
in February 1978 entitled 'Metaphor: The
the
at
of
symposium
Conceptual Leap'.
52. Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, translated by Rodney Needham, (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1966), p. 263.

273,

53. Alain Robbe-Grillet, 'Nature, humanisme,tragedie', in Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pour un

nouveau roman (Paris:-Les-Editions de Minuit, 1963), pp.45-67, p.56.
54. See Beda Allemann, 'Metaphor and Antimetaphor', in Stanley Romaine Hopper and
David Miller (eds.), Interpretation: The Poetry of Meaning (New York: Harcourt, Brace
& World, 1967), pp. 103-23, especially p. 110-14.
Les Fleurs du Mal
55. Charles Baudelaire, 'Correspondances!, in- Charles
-Baudelaire,
(London: Bernard & Westwood, 1946), p. 18.
56. Robbe-Grillet, p. 53.
57. Ibid., p.64.
58. Not surprisingly, they cite both Levi-Strauss and the sociolinguistic heritage (Lakoff
and Johnson, pp. xi-xii).
59. Ibid., p.3. For a- discussion of the- spatial- positioning of abstract concepts, see
Chapter 4, 'Orientational Metaphors' (pp. 14-21).
60. The entire book is shot through-with such- examples. See in particular Chapter 10,
'Some further examples' (Ibid., pp. 46-51. ).
61. David Cooper points out that Barthes's-'myth' is virtually a theory of metaphor, and
treats it as such in Metaphor (London: Basil Blackwell [Aristotelian Society Series
Vol. 5], 1986), pp. 41-3.
62. Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (London: Allen Lane (Penguin), 1979).
Similarly, she subsequently developed this thesis in relation to Aids, in an attempt to
deflate the media hysteria- which- rounded- on-the- ill, confining them in the myths, and
by
Susan
define
Sontag,
the
to
the
carried
metaphors
situation.
used
new
prejudices
AIDS and its Metaphors (London: Penguin, 1-988). For an intriguing antecedent to both
Sontag's and Lakoff/Johnson's work, see Ernest Weekley's discussion of the permeation
language-with
English
the
sporting-metaphors: Ernest Weekley, 'National sports and
of
Living
Age,
309,16
April
1921, pp. 45-56.
metaphor',
national
63. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, p. 14.

64. Lakoff and Johnsonsuggest,for instance,that the Westernisationof cultures worldlargely

introduction
has
thearound
revolved
and impact of a central structuring
wide
'time
is
to
those
that
cultures,
metaphor
money'. Lakoff and Johnson,p. 145.
capitalist
65. Robbe-Grillet, p. 65.
66. Godard referred frequently in interviews to his desire to make a film devoted to the
dual
in
light
'des
de
films sur la
a
political
and
of
cinematic
context:
projets
notion
lumiere, sur le fascisme, sur 1'eclairage... sur l'ombre et le contraste, sur les films de
in
'
Godard
Anon.,
Tenser
la
d'usine',
Liberation, 2,15
termes
etc.
maison
en
gangsters,
Godard
in
Godard,
1975,
par
pp. 380-2, p. 380. Whilst not completed in this
septembre
form, it nevertheless permeates much of his later work, from France tour (especially

274

2)
King
Lear
Histoire(s)
du
1
Cinema. Passion, in particular,
to
and
and
movements
film
be
can
read as
which revolves around inflections of the notion of light in relation
to both life and cinema
67. As Anna Balakian argues- in relation- to- Breton's poetry, Surrealism stands any
idealist correspondence theory of language on its head. Anna Balakian, 'Metaphor and
metamorphosis in Andre Breton's poetics', French Studies, 19,1965, pp. 34-41, especially
p. 36.
68. Williams, Figures of Desire: A- Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film, pp. 180-1.
Williams's opposition of a metaphoric process characteristic of Surrealism to Bunuel's
is
The
than
thereof
real.
schematic
use of
and
explosionperhaps
more
exploitation
interesting
in
is
doubtless
Surrealist
texts
and
other
equally
complex
when
metaphor
subjected to close scrutiny.
69. Bamberger, 'La decomposition, c'est la vie', p. 20.
70. Deleuze, Cinema 2: L'Image-Temps, p, 32.
71. Deleuze's observation is couched in a footnote: 'La critique de la metaphore est aussi
presente dans la nouvelle vague, chez Godard, -que dans le nouveau roman chez RobbeGrillet (Pour un nouveau roman). ' Ibid., p. 32, n.35, reinvoked on p. 238, n. 47. Deleuze
is in fact referring to the Sonimage- work, invoking Comment ca va in particular. Here,
interview
ignores
his
fois
deux,
he
in
Six
the role of
much-cited
consistently
on
as
Mieville. Contrary to initial- appearances, he is-not-suggesting that Godard's early work
less
'nouvelle
His
to a
term
the
vague' refers
constitutes a critique of metaphor.
use of
filmmakers
linked
late
(the
1950s
1960s)
the
than-to
the
of
and early
overall work
period
to that movement.

CHAPTER

1. It is, therefore, quite different to the principle three existing (and divergent) critiques
figural
film:
Christian
Metz's
operations
and
account
of
psychoanalytic
of metaphor
figures
Clifton's
N.
Roy
the
translation
myriad
of
within a specifically cinematic context,
huge
Whittock's
illustrated
Trevor
into
terms,
taxonomy
a
and
of
rhetoric
of classical
imaginative
(incorporating
the
theory
of
critique
other
a
an
of
of
metaphor
adaptation
two). Christian Metz, 'Metaphor/metonymy, or the imaginary referent', Part IV in
Christian Metz, Psychoanalysis and- Cinema: - The Imaginary Signifier, translated by
Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster and Alfred Guzzetti (London: Macmillan,
1982), pp. 149-297; N. Roy Clifton, The Figure in Film (London and Toronto: Associated
University Presses, 1983); and Trevor Whittock, Metaphor and Film (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1990). See in particular (pp. 113-18) Trevor Whittock's
in
in
film,
his
imaginative
Lakoff/Johnson's
theory
of
metaphor
position
and
adaption of
Dudley Andrew's lucid critique of Metz in Chapter 9 ('Figuration') of Concepts in Film
Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 157-71. In addition, mention
Linda
Williams's
be
Metz's
of
schema to the work of
made
application
of
should
Bunuel, a study which brings out much of the potential not instantly accessible within
by
distance
Metz's theorising from any direct relation to specific
travelled
the great

275

from
difference
The
Sonimage'scritique
these
of
each
of
studies
practices.
cinematic
is
logic for the existence of
is
to
theirconcern
sketch
a
of metaphor clear: where
- .
far-reaching
in
Godard
Mieville
the
cinema,
and
conduct
a
critique of
metaphors
in
functioning
images
the
to
through
metaphor
relation
of
of
a
use
and
analysis
metaphor
and sounds.
2. Godard and Mieville, '6fois 2: Sur et sous la communication', p. 398.
3. Jacques Derrida, 'La mythologie blanche', in Derrida, Marges de la Philosophie (Paris:
Minuit, 1972), pp. 247-324.
4. For a compelling discussion of art as metaphor, as 'bridge' between life and its
representation, see Richard Shiff, 'Art and Life: A Metaphoric Relationship', in Sacks
(ed.), pp. 105-20, p. 106: 'Art, regarded as expression or communication, functions as
linking
individual
the
to this expanding world. ' The notion of 'metaphoric
metaphor,
bridge' is advanced on p. 107 and developed on p. 120.
5. Godard and Mieville, '6 fois 2: Sur et sous la communication', p. 390. Art (as
exemplified in cinema for Godard) as-metaphor has operated as a recurrent model in
relation to which Godard has measured his own aims and achievements. It offers a rich
area for future research. His comments on-Pierrot le fou, for instance, are very close
to the extract from the scenario to Lecon de choses: Tai l'impression que Demy ou
Bresson, lorsqu'ils toument un film, ont une-We du monde qu'ils cherchent appliquer
idee
du
ce
ou,
qui
revient
au
cinema,
meme,
cinema qu'ils appliquent au monde.
une
au
Le cinema et le monde sont des moules pour der, matieres, alors que dans Pierrot-il n'y
Godard
in
'
Comolli, Delahaye, Fieschi and Guegan, p. 21.
matiere.
ni
a ni moule
6. Stuart Cunningham and Ross-Harley, 'The-Logic of the Virgin Mother', Screen, 28,
No. 1, Winter 1987, pp. 62-76, p. 66.
7. Catherine Clement, for instance, - in -a -reading of- Lefon de choses, suggests that
'Godard fait des metaphores', giving no hint of the underlying dissection of metaphor at
work: Une metaphore, et puis une-autre; - et- puis encore une - autre, un glisseinent
Clement,
de
Catherine
'Devoirs
'
de
1'examen
communication',
vacances pour
perpetuel.
Le Monde, 29-30 aot 1976, p. 10.
8. Conscious acknowledgement of such-recognition-is visible in the first movement of
France tour through the incorporation of the extract of the blinking owl, an
is
imagery
Eisenstein's
For
Strike(where
to
used).
reference
near-identical
unmistakable
further evidence of the resurgence of the centrality of Eisenstein in Sonimage's schema,
du
October
in
Cahiers
Cinema
his
issue
Les
Godard's
around
montage
of
special
see
(No. 300), and the frequent reference by Godard to The General Line as pole of reference
for Sauve qui pent (la vie), indeed intercutting video copies of the two in a 'cinema
lesson' given in Rotterdam.
9. Eisenstein's view of metaphor is outlined at length in 'Word and image' (also known
in
1938'),
'Montage
Chapter
The
in
Film
1
Sergei
Eisenstein,
Sense,
title
the
edited
under
by
Leyda
(London
Jay
&
&
Faber,
1943),
Boston:
Faber
translated
pp. 13-59.
and
10. Jacques Aumont, Montage Eisenstein, translated by Lee Hildreth, Constance Penley,
276

(London:
Andrew
Ross
British Film Institute, 1987), p. 158.
and
11. Ibid., p. 178.
12. Ibid., p. 195.
13. Pierre and Madelaine Caminade, 'Metaphore et Nouveau Roman', in Jean Ricardou
and Francoise van Rossum-Guyon (eds.), Nouveau Roman: hier, aujourd'hui, Tome 1:
Problemes generaux (Paris: Union- Generale d'Editions, 1972), pp. 255-76.
14. In the 'Discussion' following the above paper, pp. 277-87, p.277.

15. Ibid., p.282.

16. Ibid., pp. 179-80.
17. Ibid., p. 180.
18. Williams, Figures of Desire: A- Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film, p. 73. See
too pp. 184-5.
19. Schn, in Ortony (ed.), pp. 254-83-. Eugene Raudsepp put forward a similar case for
metaphor as a problem-solving technique in his 'Synectics', Dot Zero (New York), 2,
1967, pp. 37-42, reprinted in- Warren Shibles- (ed.), Essays on Metaphor (Whitewater,
Wisconsin: The Language Press, 1972), pp. 141-61.
20. Schn, p. 254.
21. 'Les meilleurs films- (pour - moi} sont ceux qui suspendent le mieux le sens.
Suspendre le sens est une operation extremement difficile, exigeant la fois une tres
loyaut6
intellectuelle
technique
totale. Car cela veut dire se debarrasser
et
une
grande
de tous les sens parasites, ce qui est extremement difficile. ' Barthes in Michel Delahaye
du
Cahiers
Cinema,
Rivette,
'Entretien
Les
147,
Jacques
RolandBarthes',
avec
and
septembre 1963, pp. 20-30, p. 28.
22. Rod Stoneman, 'Passion-2', Framework, 21, Summer 1983, pp. 5-6, p. S.
Cf. Rosenbaum's magnificent closing
23. Rosenbaum, 'Numero deux', pp. 124-5.
back
in
its
flight
destructive
'Simultaneously
(p.
125):
to zero,
and constructive
paragraph
Numero Deux situates the loss of memory and the birth of signification on the same dark
terrain
factory-landscape
becomes
fertile
but
'
anything
possible.
where
slippery
and
--a
24. Godard in Philippe, p.408.

25. Neither of these functions of the intertitle are, in fact, opposed to its traditional
discussion
film
A
intertitle
in
is
to
the
useful
of
narrative
role.
relation
given
narrative
by Kristin Thompson in Part Three ('The formulation of the classical style, 1909-28) in
David Bordwell, JanetStaiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema:
Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge, 1985), pp.183-9.

277

26. 'Bande annonces' for A bout-de- souffle, Le Petit soldat, Une Femme est une femme,
Les Carabiniers, Le Mepris, and Pierrot le fou are available on video by UCG (Coll.
'Les Annees 60'). These and others (Vivre sa
feminin) can also be
Masculin
and
-vie
Videotheque
in
Paris. The 'bande annonce' of Vivre sa vie is transcribed
the
at
consulted
in Jean Collet, Jean-Luc Godard (Paris! Seghers [Cinema d'aujourd'hui No. 18], 1963),
p. 131.
27. Godard in Anon, Tenser la-maison en termes d'usine', p. 381.
See Gerard Genette, 'Metonymie chez
28. Genette borrows the term from B. Migliorini.
(Paris: Seuil, 1972), pp. 41-63, p. 54.
Proust', in Gerard Genette, Figures
-III

29. As formulated by Godard in Delilia and Dosse, p.29.

30. '...from pin-ups to strip-tease, from-Ziegfeld to Busby Berkeley, she holds the look,
plays to and signifies male desire.' Laura Mulvey, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative
Cinema', Screen, 16, No. 3, Autumn 1975, pp. 6-18,
11. Cf. John Berger's similar
-pp.
argument that the women 'watch themselves being looked at' as visual objects of the
male gaze: John Berger, Ways-of Seeing (London: - Penguin/BBC, 1972), p. 47. The
Mulvey's
in
of
position
relation to the development of feminist art's
evolution
engagement with the problematic of-the representation of the female. body can be
followed in Laura Mulvey, 'A Phantasmagoria of the Female Body: The Work of Cindy
Sherman', New Left Review, 188; July/August 1991, pp. 137-50.
31. Roland Barthes, 'La metaphore de l'oeil', in Barthes, Essais Critiques, pp. 238-45,
p. 241.
32. Anna Balakian, The- Surrealist image', The-Romanic Review, 44,1953, pp. 272-8 1,
p. 281.
33. Godard in Anon, Tenser- la maison- en-termes d'usine', p. 3 81.
34. For a succinct analysis of metaphor in terms of 'seeing as', see Virgil C.Aldrich,
'Visual Metaphor', Journal ofAesthetic Education, 2, January 1968, pp. 73-86, especially
from
Wittgenstein,
it is also central to Trevor Whittock's view of
Deriving
75-8.
pp.
in
Metaphor
film.
and
metaphor
cinematic
35. Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary
studies of the creation of
by
language,
Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John
in
translated
meaning
Costello (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 212. Ricoeur's discussion of
'seeing as', including the sense of Wittgenstein's-original concept, spans pages 212-14.
The notion of the two halves of metaphor as 'tenor' and 'vehicle' derives from the
influential terminology proposed by I. A. Richards in 'Lecture V in The Philosophy of
Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1936), pp. 87-112.
36. "'Seeing as" is an experience-and an act at one and the same time. On the one hand,
is
beyond
images
the mass of
voluntary control; the image arises, occurs, and there is
for
learned
"having
be
images".
(...
)
On
hand,
"seeing
is
to
the
rule
other
as"
an act.
no
To understand is to do something. ' Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary
language,
in
the
of
creation
meaning
of
p. 213.
studies
278

37. Discussed in Philip Wheelwright, Metaphor and Reality (Bloomington:

University Press, 1962),. p. 74-9.

Indiana

38. Thus Godard could say in his Montreal -lectures that the most interesting film on
Nanouk of the North and Une Femme mariee would be a montage demonstrating 'en
deux
le
de
lel'amanted'un
gestes,
geste
esquimau, pourraiertt se
etgestequoi
lectures
Godard,
Introduction,
Indeed,
130.
the
the
entire conception
p.
ressembler'.
his
films
own
with
revolves around a process of rapprochement and -enchainement of
those from film history, subsequently formalised visually in Une Histoire seule.
39. Godard asserts on the soundtrack that -'On voit que c'est un peu le meme mouvement.
Et on peut voir que l'amour et le travail, c'est pas juste une des conneries habituelles de
Jean-Luc, c'est quelque chose-de.:. c'est-quelque chose -qui existe. ' See too the linkage
insisted
in
form
Godard's
image/text
Passion:
Introduction
on
collage,
preproduction
of
un scenario in relation to the curve of the back of the woman in the bottom corner of
Delacroix's Entry of the crusaders into Constantinople: 'Le mouvement que l'on pourra
(je
ne cherche pas,-je trouve disait Picasso) dans l'immobilitee d'une ouvriere
retrouver
figee par la fatigue, et affalee au cafe apres l'arrivee des gendarmes.' Godard, 'Passion:
Introduction un scenario', p.494.
40. Marc Chevrie, '((Scenario- de--Passion:- La-blancheur- et le geste', Le journal
Cahiers du Cinema No. 43, in Les Cahiers du Cinema, 359, mai 1984, p. X.

des

41. Thus he argues- in relation- to- a short story by Chateaubriand: 'On- croit
communement que 1'effet litteraire consiste rechercher des affinites, des
des
similitudes et que la- fonction de l'ecrivain est d'unir la nature et
correspondances,
l'homme en un seul monde (c'est ce que l'on pourrait appeler sa fonction synesthesique).
Cependant la metaphore, figure fondamentale de la litterature, peut titre aussi comprise
instrument
de
disjonction; notamment chez Chateaubriand o elle
puissant
un
comme
abonde, eile nous represente la- contiguite, mais - aussi l'incommunication de deux
deux
langues
flottantes,
de
la fois solidaires et separees,comme si l'une n'etait
mondes,
de Raiice,
jamais que la nostalgie de l'autre... '. Roland-Barthes,
Vie
-'Chateaubriand:
in Le degre zero de 1'ecrfture suivi de Nouveaux essais critiques (Paris: Seuil, 1972),
114.
106-20,
p.
pp.
42. Umberto Eco, 'The semantics,of metaphor', in-Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader:
Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (London: Hutchinson, 1981), pp. 67-89, p. 72.

43. Ibid.
44. Godard in Douin and Remond, 'Godard dit tout 6: "C'est toujours les memes qui
58.
les
p.
cendriers"',
vident
45. Linda Williams, 'Hiroshima and Marienbad: Metaphor and Metonomy', Screen, 17,
No. 1, Spring 1976, pp. 34-9, especially p. 38.
46. Deleuze, Cinema 2: L'Image-Temps, p. 238.

47. For a discussionof the interpenetration of metaphor and metonymy (and the reliance
latter),
former
Guy
Rosolato, 'L'oscillation metaphoro-metonymique',
the
the
on
see
of
279

in Guy Rosolato, La relation d'inconnu (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), pp. 52-80, p. 57.
48. Jakobson's formula is immediately -followed by the qualification that in such a
is
'any
metonymy
slightly metaphorical and any metaphor has a metonymical
situation,
tint'. Jakobson, p.370.
49. Jean-Luc Godard, 'France-Tour Detour Deux Enfants: Declaration l'intention des
heritiers', Camera Stylo, septembre 1983, pp. 64-5, p. 64. The following formulation
(p. 65) demonstrates the extent to-which the process of generative metaphor bridges both
the original book and Godard/Mieville's'adaption' thereof: 'Quatre images fondamentales:
geographique, sociale, -scientifique, historique. Et-puis leur combinaison dans le triple
rapport que nous avons dit'.
50. Ibid.
51. Quoted in Rosolato, 'L'oscillation metaphoro-metonymique', pp. 52-80, p. 55. Cf.
Barthes, who wrote of the immense potential communicative power of metaphor, 'une
information tres forte, situee egale distance du banal et de 1'absurde'. BarthesA 'La
metaphore de 1'oeil', p. 243.
52. It is far from incidental that-Jerry Palmer's analysis-of film and-television-comedy
is underwritten by metaphor theory; Palmer demonstrates how the process of metaphor
serves as paradigm of the surprise, anomaly, decontextualisation, and sudden
introduction of an inappropriate context that characterises the comic. Jerry Palmer, The
Logic of the Absurd (London: British Film Institute, 1987). See Chapter 3, 'The
Semiotics of humour: The Comic and the Metaphorical', pp. 59-74, and especially pp. 601. For further exploration of the interpenetration of metaphor and humour, see Ted
Cohen, 'Metaphor and the Cultivation of Intimacy', in Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor, pp. 110, especially pp. 8-9.

53. Godard in Baby, 'Faire les films -possibles-l o on est'.

54. Godard in Matheson, p. 7.
55. Allemann, p. 116. The motion-in metaphor-is also discussed in Wheelwright, p. 69.

56. Roland Barthes, 'Abou Nowas et la metaphore', in Roland Barthes par Roland
Barthes (Paris: Seuil, 1975), p: 127. The italics-are Barthes'sown.
57. Perhaps the most economical distillation of this notion occurs in Soigne to droite:
the creative process of the imaginary film- within the diegesis, plus the time and space
droite
itself,
Soigne
takes place in transit, in the aeroplane taken by the
to
of
Dostoyevskian fool (Godard) to-fulfil his contract and deliver his film on time. Cf.
Derrida, who privileges the boat in his discussion of modes of transport as reflexive
figures of metaphor ('Retour traditionnel au navire, -son mouvement, ses rames et ses
figurer
de
transport qu'est la figure metaphorique. '). Derrida,
ce
moyen
pour
voiles,
p. 288.
58. Howard Nemerov, 'On metaphor', Virginia Quarterly Review, 45,1969, pp. 621-36,
p. 629.
280

59. Derrida, p. 303. Furthermore, Derrida (p. 299) links the process of metaphor, via the
sun, to the circle and circularity: 'C'est le paradigme du sensible et de la metaphore: il
(se) toume et (se) cache regulierement. '
60. Richard Klein, 'Straight lines and arabesques: metaphors of metaphor', Yale French
Studies, 45,1970, pp. 64-86, p. 68.
61. A study of Je vous salue, Marie- in relation to metaphor, the body, and circularity
Godard has spoken of having used the circle
would be extremely illuminating.
in
Je vous salue, Marie in Dieckmann, p. 4.
metaphorically

62. Borrowing the term from Douglas Berggren, Ricoeur explores the notion in "The
Metaphorical Process-as- Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling', Critical Inquiry, 5,
Autumn 1978, pp.143-59, p. 154. Anthologised in Sacks (ed.), pp. 141-57.
63. Lubtchansky in Bergala and le Peron, p. 89.

64. Ibid.
65. Bill Krohn has suggested-the- possible- influence- of -We can't go home again- on the
format of Icf et ailleurs and Numero deux in Bill Krohn, 'The class', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 288, mai 1978, pp. 62-4, - p.63. In- his Montreal lectures (Introduction, P.279),
Godard declared himself at a loss for historical cinematic co-ordinates via which to
deux.
for
instance)
its
imagery,
Numero
Much
(the
of
aestheticsof
situate
use -multiple
is familiar from avant garde film practices and video art, particularly reminiscent of the
split-screen experiments- of Andy- Warhol. The Chelsea girls operates entirely. argund
the simultaneous unfolding of two image tracks in parallel. Not only do the images feed
into one another, the viewer constantly tempted into the application of-sequences of the
from
image
depicts
but
to
the
the
one
sequence
other,
central
an extended
soundtrack
from-different
does
Warhol's
Whilst
simultaneously
work
woman
not
perspectives.
same
depiction
instantaneous
the
of a single subject characteristic of video, and of
achieve
Sonimage's cross-fertilization of film and video, it undoubtedly -clearly indicates the
route.
66. We know from Paik that the video equipment was his. See Jean-Paul Fargier, JeanPaul Cassagnac and Sylvie van der Stegen, 'Entretien avec Nam June Paik', Les Cahiers
du Cinema, 299, avril 1979, pp. 10-15, p. 14: Further discussions of Ray's film can be
found in Tom Farrell, 'We can't go home again', Sight and Sound, 50, No. 2, Spring
1981, pp. 92-4, and Jonathan Rosenbaum, 'Circle of Pain: The Cinema of Nicholas Ray',
Sight and Sound, 42, No. 4, Autumn 1973, pp. 218-21.
67. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Lettre numero un aux membres de la commission d'avance sur
du
film:
la
la
Sauve
Premieres
sur
remarques
production
et
realisation
qui pent
recettes.
(Ia vie)', Les Cahiers du Cinema (Isabelle Hupperl: autoportraits), 477, mars 1994,
dated
April
12
1979.
Letter
58.
p.
68. Godard, Introduction, p. 148. A wealth of anecdotal evidence supports the suggestion
had
Bufluel's
Le Fantme de la liberte (1974) and Cet Obscur objet
Godard
seen
that
de desir (1977) before making Sauve qui peut (la vie): the similarity between Cet
Obscur objet de desir's use of two actresses to play the same woman and Nous 3's
281

idea,
the
same
of
and the roving camera of Sauve qui peut (la vie), wandering
reworking
off in pursuit of incidental passing characters, recalls the central narrative conceit of Le
Fantdme de la liberte. We should recall that all three films were co-scripted by JeanClaude Carriere. It seems more than likely that the barely veiled references to Bunuel's
like
to that of Eisenstein, turns on an acknowledgement of the critique of
work,
metaphor contained therein. The reconstruction of Goya's La Fusillard du 3 mai 1808
Madrid in Passion also constitutes an oblique nod in the direction of Bufluel: the
de
la
liberte.
is
departure
for
Le
Fantme
the
and
enacted
quoted
as
painting
point of
Furthermore, the presence of the orchestra on-screen at the end of Sauve qui peut (la
in
long-cherished
his
Bunuel's
analogous project of
mentioned
vie) realises a
autobiography, My Last Breath.
69. Williams, Figures of Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film, p. 70.
70. Ibid., p. 71. What is more, in a further contribution to the concept of generative
metaphor, she goes on (p. 86) to assert that this founding inversion underpins a practice
in which 'the meaning of the text is generated entirely through its figures'. See too
Wiliams's conclusion (pp. 210-18) in which she summarises the importance accorded the
inversion of metaphor/narrative relations in her thesis, linking this reversal to 'generative
qualities that are usually associated with the diegesis' (p. 214).
71. Schn, p. 262, n. 11.
72. Yves De Laurot, 'From Logos to Lens: From the Theory of Engagement to the
Praxis of Revolutionary Cinema', Cineaste, IV, No. 1, Summer 1970, pp. 10-23, p. 13.
73. Clifton, p. 87.
74. Whittock, p. 18.
75. Donald Davidson, 'What Metaphors Mean', Critical Enquiry, 5,1978, pp. 31-47, p. 31.
Anthologised in Sacks (ed.), pp. 29-45.
76. Ibid., p.46.
77. Wayne C.Booth, 'Metaphor as Rhetoric: The-Problem of Evaluation', in Sacks (ed.),
has
Cohen
in
63.
Ted
47-70,
argued
a similar vein that metaphor-maker and
p.
pp.
interpreter necessarily become an 'intimate pair' in the process of acceptance or rejection
Cohen,
Intimacy',
Cultivation
'Metaphor
in
the
through
of
metaphor.
and
motion
set
6-7.
1-10,
p.
especially
pp.
78. See Alan Harris, 'Really Seeing Things with Words: The Impact of LinguisticallyBased Visual Metaphors as Objects of Amusement', in Don L. F.Nilsen (ed.), Western
Humor and Irony Membership Serial Yearbook [WHIMSY] II (Arizona: Arizona State
University, 1984), pp. 250-2.
79. See Jean-Luc Godard, 'Mots qui se croisent + rebus = cinema donc: ', in Vianey,
in
Godard
Godard,
Reprinted
Cf.
Godard
284-5.
I-VII.
talking of a collagepar
pp.
pp.
like sequence in La Chinoise: 'C'est une sorte de theoreme qui se presente sous forme
de puzzle: il faut chercher quelle piece s'ajuste. exactement quelle autre. II faut
282

induire, ttonner et deduire. ' Godard in Bontemps, Comolli, Delahaye and Narboni,
'Lutter sur deux fronts', p. 310.
80. Jean-Luc Godard, 'On doit tout mettre dans un film', L Avant-Scene du Cinema, 70,
Godard
Godard,
In
1967.
par
pp. 295-6, p. 296.
mai
81. Godard in Makie, p, 379.

CONCLUSION

1. The signing of an agreementbetween Godard and the CNC for this researchproject
Croix,
in
de
La
5.4.90,
7.
A
Anon.,
Un
Godard',
p.
centre
recherche
pour
was reported
contract was signed in 1989 between the Ministere de la Culture, the CNC, the FEMIS,
and Godard and Mieville's production company,Peripheria. Godard evidently set much
See
by
in
Godard
Jousse, 'Entretien avec Jean-Luc
this
collaborative
venture.
store
Godard', p.80.
2. Serge Daney in the introduction to 'Godard fait des histoires', p.24.
3. In a paper at a conference on visual culture and French national identity at the
University of Stirling in June 1997. Forthcoming as Michael Witt, 'Qu'etait-ce que le
Godard's
in
Godard?
An
Jean-Luc
the
and
around
analysis
of
cinema(s) at work
cinema,
Histoire(s) du cinema' in the conference publication (edited by Elizabeth Ezra and Susan
Harris)

4. Current (as yet unpublished) research by Michael Temple and James Williams
demonstratesan important renegotiation of this position in relation to language across
the 1980s and 1990s. I would like to thank Michael Temple for allowing me to read
in
fascinating
his
'Godard,
ecrivain'
his
draft
collaboration with
and
essaywritten
of
a
JamesWilliams, 'Jean-Luc Godard: Images, Words, Histories'.
5. Jean-Luc Godard, 'Preface' (extracts of an interview with Godard by Freddy Buache
(Renens:
Hatier/5
in
des
70
Le
Annees
Freddy
Buache,
Cinema
Francais
14.7.89),
on
Continents, 1990), pp. 5-7, pp. 6-7.
6. C.f the comments with which Thom closed his own influential book, Structural
Stability and Morphogenesis: An outline of a general theory of models, quoted in
Chapter 2 (n. 57).

283

BIBLIOGRAPHY
This is not an exhaustive bibliography of books and articles on and by Godard. It lists
in
for
to
the
this thesis and/or cited in the text.
referred
course
either
of
research
material
It does, however, provide a list of a considerable body of articles and interviews not
collated elsewhere, particularly those directly related to the Sonimage era. Rich sources
(the
libraries
database
further
FEMIS
CNC
BFI
the
the
the
material are
at
and
and
of
has
du
latter
been
Film
Bibliotheque
the
two
transferred
to
the
of
now
archival resources
[BIFI]). Julia Lesage's guide to references on Godard, although in need of updating, is
Godard.
invaluable
Julia
Jean-Luc
Lesage,
resource:
" a guide to references and
an
(Boston:
G.
K.
Hall, 1979).
resources

This bibliography is split into two principal sections. Section A regroups material
pertaining to a contextualisation of the Sonimage period and work and the
have
it.
is
divided
into
I
It
to
employed
analyse
subsectionson cinema,
methodologies
(A.
1), the historical and intellectual context (A. 2), and work on
television
video and
(A.
3).
metaphor
Section Two lists material on and by Godard, particularly as it relates to a study of
Sonimage. It includes a bibliography of articles on the Sonimage work (B. 5), a selection
list
(B.
Godard
further
Mieville
6),
the
on
of
and
a
of non-audiovisual
articles
work
of
material produced by Godard, Gorin and Mieville (B. 7), interviews with Godard of
direct relevance to Sonimage (B. 10), and, finally, a series of short sub-sections listing
interviews with Godard/Gorin, Mieville, and Gorin.

SECTION A
1. Cinema, video, televison
'L'Affaire Langlois' (Dossier), Les Cahiers du Cinema, 199, mars 1968, pp. 31-46
Alekan, Henri, Des Lumieres et des ombres (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1984)
Almendros, Nestor, Un Homme la camera (Renens: Hatier/5 Continents, 1980)
Altman, Rick, 'Moving Lips: Cinema as Ventriloquism',
("Cinema/Sound"), 1980, pp. 67-79

Yale French Studies, 60,

Andrew, Dudley, The Major Film Theories: An Introduction (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1976)
Bazin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978)
Andre
----,

in Film Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)

Concepts
----,

Unauthorized Auteur Today', in Film Theory goes to the Movies, edited by

The
----,.
Jim Collins, Hilary Radner, and Ava Preacher Collins (London and New York:
Routledge, 1993), pp. 77-85

284

Anon., `Porno: les affaires vont bien', Le Film Francais, 1592,19 septembre 1975,
(Special porno), pp. 64-5
Anon., 'Mister 0: Entretien avec Nam June Paik', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 357 (Le
Journal des Cahiers, 41), mars 1984, p.VII
Anon., 'Entretien: Jean Baudrillard', Cinema 84,301, janvier 1984, pp. 16-18
Anon., 'Entretien: Jean Douchet and Eric Rohmer', Cinema 84,301, janvier 1984,
pp. 11-15

Aumont, Jacques,Alain Bergala, Michel Marie and Marc Verret, L'Esthetique du

film (Paris: Nathan, 1983)
Bazin, Andre, Quest-ce que le cinema? (Paris: Cerf, 1985)
Bonitzer, Pascal, 'Les images, le cinema, 1'audiovisuel', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 404,
fevrier 1988, pp. 17-21
Bordwell, David, The Art Cinema as a Mode- of Film Practice', Film Criticism, 4,
No. 1,1979, pp. 56-63
Fiction
(London:
Narration
in
Film
Routledge,
1985)
the
----,
Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood
Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge, 1985)
Boyd-Bowman, Susan, 'Imaginary cinematheques: the postmodern programmes of
INA', Screen, 28, No. 2, Spring 1987 ("Postmodern Screen"), pp. 103-17
Brecht, Bertolt, Slatan Dudow, Ernst Ottwald, Robert Scharfenberg and Kaspar,
'Collective Presentation (1932)', Screen, 15, No. 2, Summer 1974 ("Brecht and a
43-4
cinema"),
pp.
revolutionary
Bresson, Robert, Notes on the Cinematographer, translated by Jonathan Griffin
(London: Quartet, 1986)
Britton, Celia, The representation of Vietnam in French Films before and after 1968',
in D. L. Hanley and P.Kerr (eds.), May '68: coming of age (Basingstoke: Macmillan,
1989), pp. 163-81
images in Resnais' Muriel', French Cultural Studies, 1, No. 1, February
'Broken
----,
1990, pp. 37-46
Buache, Freddy, Le Cinema Francais des Annees 70 (Renens: Hatier/5 Continents,
1990)
Bunuel, Luis, My Last Breath, translated by Abigail Israel (London: Flamingo, 1985)
Burch, Noel, Theory of Film Practice, translated by Helen R. Lane (New York:
Praeger, 1973)

285

Les Cahiers du Cinema (Serge Daney), 458, juillet-aot

1992

Carroll, Noel, Mystiffing Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)
Caughie, John, (ed.), Theories of authorship (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1981)
Comolli, Jean-Louis, 'Technique et Ideologie: Camera, perspective, profondeur de
champ', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 229, mai-juin 1971, pp. 4-21

de
Ideologie:
Les
'Technique
Camera,
2',
et
champ
perspective,
profondeur
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 230, juillet 1971, pp.51-7

"Technique
Ideologie:
Camera,
de
3',
Les
et
champ
perspective,
profondeur
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 231, aot-septembre 1971, pp. 42-9
de champ 4', Les
'Technique
Ideologie:
Camera,
et
perspective,
profondeur
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 233, novembre 1971, pp. 39-45
de
"Technique
Ideologie:
Camera,
Les
5',
et
perspective,
profondeur
champ
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 234-235, decembre 1971 - janvier-fevrier 1972, pp. 94-100
Ideologie:
de
'Technique
Camera,
6',
Les
et
perspective,
champ
profondeur
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 241, septembre-octobre 1972, pp. 20-4
detour par le direct', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 209, fevrier 1969, pp.49-53
'Le
----,
detour par le direct (2)', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 211, avril 1969, pp. 40-5
'Le
----,
Comolli, Jean-Louis, and Jean Narboni, 'Cinema/ideologie/critique', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 216, octobre 1969, pp. 11-15
'Cinemarideologie/critique (2)', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 217, novembre 1969,
----,
pp. 7-13
Cook, Pam (ed.), The Cinema Book (London: British Film Institute, 1985)
Daney, Serge, La Rampe (Paris: Gallimard/Cahiers du Cinema, 1982)
Cine Journal 1981-1986 (Paris: Cahiers du Cinema, 1986)
----,
Salaire du zappeur (Paris: Ramsay, 1988)
Le
----,
ete profitable, Monsieur (Paris: P. O.L, 1993)
L'Exercice
a
----,
Delahaye, Michel, and Jacques Rivette, 'Entretien avec Roland Barthes', Les Cahiers
du Cinema, 147, septembre 1963, pp. 20-30
Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 2: L'Image-Temps (Paris: Minuit, 1985)
Cine
in
Daney,
Serge

Daney',
Lettre
'Optimisme,
et
voyage:
pessimisme
----,
Journal, pp. 5-13
Deniel, Jacques (ed.), Jean-Pierre Gorin (Dunkerque: Studio 43,1993)
Dennett, Terry, and Jo Spence (eds.), Photography/Politics:
Photography Workshop, 1979)

One (London:

Doane, Mary Anne, 'The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space',
Yale French Studies, 60, ("Cinema/Sound"), 1980, pp. 33-50

286

Stake:
Filming
Female
'Woman's
Body',
October,
17,
Summer
the
1981, pp. 23----,
36
Douchet, Jean, L Art d'aimer (Paris: Etoile/Cahiers du Cinema, 1987)
Douin, Jean-Luc (ed.), La Nouvelle vague 25 ans apres (Paris: Cerf, 1983)
Duras, Marguerite, Les Yeux Verts (Paris: Cahiers du Cinema, 1980), republished in
book form in 1987

(Paris:
Vie
Gallimard,
La
1987)
materielle,
----,
Durgnat, Raymond, Films and Feelings (London: Faber, 1967)
Dyer, Richard, Stars (London: British Film Institute, 1979)
Eaton, Mick, 'The reproduction of cinematic reality', in Mick Eaton (ed.),
Anthropology-Reality-Cinema: The Films of Jean Rouch (London: British Film
Institute, 1979), pp-40-53
Ellis, John, Visible Fictions - Cinema: television: video (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1982)
Enzensberger, Hans Magnus, 'Constituents of a theory of the media', New Left
Review, 64, November-December 1970, pp. 13-36
'Les Etats Generaux du Cinema' (Dossier), Les Cahiers du Cinema, 203, aot 1968,
pp. 23-46
Farges, Joel, 'Les figures du conditionnement', Cinethique, 5,1969, pp. 41-4
Fargier, Jean-Paul (ed.), O va la video? (Paris: Les Editions de 1'Etoile [Les Cahiers
du Cinema hors serie No. 14], 1986)

incruste', Les Cahiers du Cinema (Numero Special Television),

'L'homme
----,
Automne 1981, pp.60-1

Fargier, Jean-Paul, Jean-Paul Cassagnac and Sylvie van der Stegen, 'Entretien avec
Nam June Paik', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 299, avril 1979, pp. 10-15
Fieschi, Jean-Andre, 'Jean Rouch', in Richard Roud (ed.), Cinema: A Critical
Dictionary (London: Secker & Warburg, 1980), pp. 901-9
Fiske, John and John Hartley, Reading Television (London: Methuen, 1978)
Forbes, Jill (ed.), INA - French for Innovation: the work of the Institut National de la
Communication in cinema and television (London: British Film Institute [BFI dossier
No. 22], 1984)
The Cinema in France: After the New Wave (London: Macmillan/British Film
----,
Institute, 1992)

287

Georgakas,Dan, and Lenny Rubenstein (eds.), The Cineaste Interviews: on the art
(Chicago:
Lake View Press, 1983)
the
of
cinema
politics
and
Georgakas, Dan, Udayan Gupta and Judy Janda, 'The Politics of Visual
Anthropology: An Interview with Jean Rouch', Cineaste, 8, No. 4, Summer 1978,
pp. 17-24
Gidal, Peter, Materialist Film (London: Routledge, 1989)
(ed.
),
Structural
Film
Anthology
(London:
British
Film
Institute,
1976)
---Glasgow University Media Group, Bad News (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1976)
News
(London:
More
Bad
Routledge
&
Kegan
Paul,
1980)
----,
Harvey, Sylvia, May 68 and Film Culture (London: British Film Institute, 1978)
'Woman's
family
film
in
Women
Film
Noir,
in
theplace:
absent
of
noir',
edited
----,
by E. Ann Kaplan (London: British Film Institute, 1978), pp. 22-34
Cinema?
Independent
(Stafford:
West
Midlands
Arts,
1978)
----,
'Whose
Brecht?
Memories
for
Screen,
Eighties',
23,
May-June
1982,
45the
pp.
----,
59
Hayward, Susan, French National Cinema-(London & New York: Routledge, 1993)
Hayward, Susan, and Ginette Vincendeau, French Film: Texts and Contents (London:
Routledge, 1990)
Heath, Stephen, 'Lessons from Brecht', Screen, 15, No. 2, Summer 1974, pp. 103-28
Questions of Cinema (London: Macmillan, 1981)
----,
Heath, Stephen, and Teresa de Lauretis (eds.), The Cinematic Apparatus (London:
Macmillan, 1980)
Insdorf, Annette, Francois Truffaut (London: Macmillan 1981)
Ishaghpour, Youssef, Dune image 1'autre: La representation dans le cinema
d'aujourd'hui (Paris: Denoel, 1982)

de ce cte du miroir (Paris: Editions de la Difference,

Cinema
contemporain
----,
1986)
Jarman, Derek, The Last of England, edited by David L. Hirst (London: Constable,
1987)
Kaplan, E. Ann (ed.), Women in Film Noir, (London: British Film Institute, 1978)
Television, (Los Angeles: University Publications of
Regarding
----,
America/American Film Institute, 1983)
Kristeva, Jiilia, 'Pratique analytique, pratique revolutionnaire', Cinethique, 9-10,1970,
pp. 71-9

288

Lapsley, Robert, and Michael Westlake, Film Theory: An Introduction (Manchester:

ManchesterUniversity Press, 1988)
Lellis, George, Bertolt Brecht: 'Cahiers du Cinema' and contemporary film theory
(Ann Arbor: UNff Research Press, 1976)
MacCabe, Colin, 'Realism and the Cinema: Notes on some Brechtian theses', Screen,
15, No. 2, Summer 1974, pp. 7-27
The
Signifier',
Screen,
No.
Summer
1975,
7'Presentation
Imaginary
16,
2,
of
pp.
----,
13

Marcorelles, Louis, 'Leacock at M. I. T', Sight and Sound, 43, No.2, Spring 1974,
pp.104-7
Marcorelles, Louis, with the collaboration of Nicole Rouzet-Albagli, Living Cinema,
translated by Isabel Quigly (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1973)
Marie, Michel, 'The Art of the Film in France since the "New Wave"', Wide Angle, 4,
No. 4,1981, pp. 18-25
in Jean Collet, Michel Marie, Daniel Percheron, Jean-Paul Simon and
'Direct',
----,
Marc Vernet, Lectures du film (Paris: Albatros, 1980), pp. 78-85. Reprinted in
English in Eaton (ed.), Anthropology-Reality-Cinema: The Films of Jean Rouch,
pp. 35-9
Mast, Gerald, and Marshall Cohen, Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory
Readings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974)
Martin, Marcel, Guy Hennebelle- and Guy Vautier, Un phenomene nouveau: les
les
C.
R.
de
P.
Les
Vertov,
Dynadia
Dziga
se
et
realisation.
collectifs
groupes
definissent eux-memes' (Dossier Politique et Cinema 3), Cinema 70,151, decembre
1970, pp. 81-104
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 'Le Cinema et la Nouvelle Psychologie', in Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, Sens et Non-Sens (Paris: Nagel [Coll. Pensees], 1966), pp. 85-106
(article originally given as a lecture at the IdHEC on the 13 March 1945)
Metz, Christian, Essais sur la signification au cinema 1 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968)
Monaco, James, How to Read a Film (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981)
Mulvey, Laura, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', Screen, 16, No. 3, Autumn
1975, pp. 6-18
Film and the Avant Garde', Framework, 10,1979, pp. 3-10
'Feminism,
----,
'A Phantasmagoria of the Female Body: The Work of Cindy Sherman', New Left
----,
Review, 188, July/August 1991, pp. 137-50
Neale, Steve, Cinema and Technology: Image, Sound, Colour (London:
Macmillan/British Film Institute, 1985)

289

Nichols, Bill, Ideology and the Image: Social Representation in the Cinema and
Other Media (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981)
Nogueira, Rui (ed.), Melville on Melville, translated by Tom Milne (London: Secker
& Warburg/British Film Institute, 1971)
Nowell-Smith,
pp. 113-18

Geoffrey, 'Minelli and Melodrama', Screen, 18, No. 2, Summer 1977,

Philippon, Alain, Jean Eustache (Paris: Cahiers du Cinema, 1986)

Questerbert,Marie-Christine, 'Gorin, suite americaine', Trafic, 11, Ete 1994, pp. 10520
Predal, Rene, Le Cinema francais contemporain (Paris: Cerf, 1984)
Reader, Keith, Cultures on Celluloid (London: Quartet, 1981)
"'Pratiquement
d'interessant
Jean
Eustache's
La
Maman
plus
Tien
ne
se
passe":
et
----,
la Putain', Nottingham French Studies, 32, No. 1, Spring 1993 ("French Cinema"),
edited by Russell King, pp. 91-8
Renoir, Jean, My Life and My Films (London: Collins, 1974)
Revault d'Allonnes, Fabrice, La Lumiere au cinema (Paris: Cahiers du cinema, 1991)

Reynaud, Berenice, 'Letter to J.-P.', in JacquesDeniel (ed.), Jean-Pierre Gorin

(Dunkerque: Studio 43,1993), pp.5-14
Rosenbaum, Jonathan, 'Barthes and Film: 12 suggestions', Sight and Sound, 52, No. 1,
Winter 1982-83, pp. 50-3
Rouch, Jean, 'The Camera and Man' (Extract), in-Eaton (ed.), Anthropology-RealityCinema: The Films of Jean Rouch, pp. 54-63
Roud, Richard, Jean-Marie Straub (London: Secker & Warburg/British Film Institute,
1971)
for Films: Henri Langlois and the Cinematheque Francaise (London:
Passion
A
----,
Secker & Warburg, 1983)
Russell, Sharon, Semiotics and Lighting: A Study of Six Modern French Cameramen
(Ann Arbor, Michigan: UM! Research Press, 1978)
Salt, Barry, Film Style and Technology: history and analysis (London: Starword,
1983)

Seidenberg,Steven 'Jean-PierreGorin', in Steven Seidenberg,In search of thefeature

documentary (London: BBC, 1992), pp.44-7
Slide, Anthony (ed.), International Film, Radio, and Television Journals (Westport:
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290

Stam, Robert, 'Television News and its Spectator', in Kaplan (ed.), Regarding
Television, pp. 23-43
Truffaut, Francois, Correspondance, edited by Gilles Jacob and Claude de Givray
(Renens: Hatier, 1988)
Van Damme, Charlie, and Eve Cloquet, Lumiere Actrice (Paris: FEMIS, 1987)
Vertov, Dziga, Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Yertov, edited by Annette
Michelson, translated by Kevin O'Brien (London: Pluto, 1984)
Villain, Dominique, Le Montage au cinema (Paris: Cahiers du Cinema, 1991)
Virilio, Paul, 'La lumiere indirecte, Communications, 48,1988 (Video), pp. 45-52
by
Camiller
Patrick
Cinema:
The
Logistics
Perception,
War
translated
of
and
----,
(London/New York: Verso, 1989)
Wenden, D. J, 'Battleship Potemkin - Film and Reality', in Feature Films as History,
edited by K. Short (London: Croom Helm, 1981), pp. 37-61
Wenders, Wim, Emotion Pictures: Reflections on the Cinema (London: Faber and
Faber, 1989)

Willener, Alfred, Guy Milliard, and Alex Gantry, Videology and Utopia:
Explorations in a new medium, translated and edited by Diana Burfield (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976)
Williams, Christopher (ed.), Realism and the Cinema (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1980)

Williams, Raymond, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (London: Fontana,

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'Advertising: the Magic System', in Raymond Williams, Problems in Materialism
----,
170-95
Verso/New
Left
1980),
(London:
Books,
Culture
pp.
and
Williamson, Judith, 'Images of "woman"', Screen, 24, No. 6, November-December
1983, pp. 102-6
Wollen, Peter, Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, (London: Secker and
Warburg/British Film Institute, 1970)
1982)
Verso,
(London:
Semiotic
Counter
Strategies
Writings:
Readings
and
----,
'Le cinema, 1'americanisme et le robot', Communications, 48,1988 (Video),
----,
in
English
Cinema/Americanism/The
'Modern
Times:
Later
7-44.
as
published
pp.
Robot', in Peter Wollen, Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century
Culture (London & New York: Verso, 1993), pp. 35-71

291

2. Intellectual, political and theoretical context

Adair, Gilbert, Myths and Memories (London: Fontana, 1986)
Althusser, Louis, Pour Marx (Paris: Francois Maspero, 1965)
de
la
in
Althusser,
Positions
'La
Louis
philosophie
commearme
revolution',
----,
(Paris: Editions Sociales, 1976), pp. 35-48
ideologiques d'Etat', in Althusser, Positions, pp. 67-125,
'Ideologie
et
appareils
----,
(article dated April 1970)

Anon., 'Interview d'Omar Diop', 4 minute radio interview, produced by Ocora,

broadcaston Radio France on the 21.10.67
Henri Avron, 'Le Gauchisme' (Paris: Presses-Universitaires de France [Coll. Que
saisje? ], 1974)
Barthes, Roland, Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957)
Critiques (Paris: Seuil, 1964)
Essais
----,
de l'image', Communications, 4,1964, pp. 40-51. Reprinted in
.
Rhetorique
----,
English in Barthes, Image-Music-Text, pp. 32-51
de la Mode (Paris: Seuil, 1967)
Systeme
----,
de 1'auteur', Manteia, 1968, anthologised in Roland Barthes, Le
'La
mort
----,
Bruissement de la langue (Paris: Seuil, 1984), pp. 61-7
(Paris: Seuil, 1970)
S/Z
----,
'La mythologie aujourd'hui', Esprit, avril 1971, anthologised in Le Bruissement
----,
de la langue, pp. 79-82

in
in
de
la
langue,
Le
Bruissement
'La
published
culturelle',
originally
paix
----,
English as 'Pax culturalis' in the Times Literary Supplementin 1971

Le degre zero de 1'ecriture suivi de Nouveaux essais critiques (Paris: Seuil,

----,
1972)
'En sortant du cinema', Communications, 23, ((Psychanalyse et Cinema) 1975,
----,
in
de
langue,
Le
Bruissement
la
383-7
104-7,
pp.
anthologised
pp.
'Brecht et le discours: contribution a 1'etude de la discursivite', L Autre Scene,
----,
1975, anthologised in Le Bruissement de la langue, pp. 243-53

Barthes par Roland Barthes (Paris: Seuil, 1975)

Roland
_--_,

by Stephen Heath (London:

Image-Music-Text,
translated
selected
essays
and
_---,
Fontana, 1977)
La Chambre claire: Note sur la photographie (Paris: Editions de
I'Etoile/Gallimard/Seuil, 1980)
Grain de la voix: Entretiens 1962-1980 (Paris: Seuil, 1981)
Le
----,
du
Fleurs
Les
Mal
in
Charles
'Correspondances',
Baudelaire,
Charles
Baudelaire,
(London: Bernard & Westwood, 1946), p. 18
(Paris:
du
de
Pour
1'economie
Jean,
signe
Baudrillard,
une critique
politique
Gallimard, 1972)

292

"The
in
Implosion
Meaning
Media
The
Implosion
Social
in
the
the
of
the
and
of
----,
Masses', in The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial Culture, edited
by Kathleen Woodward (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), pp. 137-48
'The
in
Ecstasy
Communication',
The
Anti-Aesthetic:
Essays
Post-modern
of
on
----,
Culture, edited by Hal Foster (Port Townsend, Wa.: Bay Press, 1983), pp. 126-34,
published in French as Jean Baudrillard, L'Autre par lui-meme (Paris: Galilee, 1987)
Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations,

edited by Hannah Arendt (London: Fontana, 1973)

Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin/BBC, 1972)

Bourseiller, Christophe,Les maoistes: la folle histoire des gardes rougesfrancais

(Paris: Plon, 1996)
Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, edited and
translated by John Willett (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964)
Me-Ti:
des
Livre
by
by
Bernard
Uwe
Johnson,
translated
retournements,
edited
----,
Lotholary (Paris: L'Arche, 1968)
l'opera
'Notes
decadence
de
la
de
Les
Mahogonny',
sur
Grandeur
et
ville
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 238-239, mai-juin 1972, pp. 28-32
Campbell, Jeremy, Grammatical Man (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1984)
Cohn-Bendit, Daniel and Gabriel, Le gauchisme, remede a la maladie senile du
communisme (Paris: Seuil, 1968)

Coward, Rosalind, and John Ellis, Language and Materialism: Developmentsin

Semiology and the Theory of the Subject (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977)
Culler, Jonathan,Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of
Literature (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975)
(Glasgow: Fontana, 1983)
Barthes
----,
Debord, Guy, La Societe du Spectacle (Paris: Champ Libre, 1971)
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari, LAnti-Oedipe:
(Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972)

Capitalisme et Schizophrenie

Dolto, Francoise, Lorque J'enfant parall Tome 1 (Paris: Seuil, 1977)

J'enfant parait Tome 2 (Paris: Seuil, 1978)
Lorque
----,
1'enfant parall Tome 3 (Paris: Seuil, 1979)
Lorque
----,
Doray, Bernard, From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness, translated by
Davis Macey (London: Free Association Books, 1988)
Duchen, Claire, Feminism in France: from May '68 to Mitterand (London:
Routledge, 1986)
Durand, Jacques, Les Formes de la Communication (Paris: Dunod, 1981)

293

Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory: An Introduction

(Oxford: Basil Blackwell,

1983)

Fiske, John, Introduction to Communication Studies (London: Methuen, 1982)

Foucault, Michel, Discipline- and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated by Alan
Sheridan (Harmondsworth: Peregrine, 1979)
Fowler, Roger, Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press (London
& New York: Routledge, 1991)

Garnham,Nicholas, Capitalism and Communication: Global Culture and the

Economics of Information, edited by Fred Inglis (London: Sage Publications, 1990)
Guevara, Che, Venceremos!The speechesand writings of Ernesto Che Guevara,
Schuster,
by
(New
Simon
1968)
Gerassi
York:
John
translated
and
edited and
Hall, Stuart, 'Culture, the Media and the-Ideological Effect', in James Curran,
Michael Gurevitch and Janet Woolacot (eds.), Mass Communication and Society
(London: Edward Arnold, -1977), pp. 315-48
Hallier, Jean-Edern 'Journaux et informations gauchistes', L'Idiot International,
fevrier 1971, pp.25-6

13

Hamon, Herve and Patrick Rotman, Generation 1: Les annees de reve (Paris: Seuil,
1987)
Generation 2: Les annees de poudre (Paris: Seuil, 1988)
----,
Hawkes, Terence, Structuralism and Semiotics (London: Methuen, 1977)
Hebdige, Dick, Subculture: the meaning of style (London: Methuen, 1979)
Hiding in the Light, (London: Routledge, 1988)
----,
Heidegger, Martin, On the way to-language (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), first
Sprache
in
1959
Unterwegs
zur
as
published
Hoggart, Richard, The Uses of Literacy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), first
in
&
Windus
1957
Chatto
by
published
Illich, Ivan, Deschooling Society (London: Calder & Boyars, 1971)
Gender (London: Boyars, 1983)
----,
Jakobson, Roman, 'Closing Statement: linguistics and poetics', in Thomas A. Sebeok
(ed.), Style in Language (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachussets Institute of Technology,
1960), pp. 350-77
Jameson, Fredric, The Prison House of Language: A Critical Account of
Structuralism and Russian Formalism (Princeton & London: Princeton University
Press, 1972)
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London/New York:
_---,
Verso, 1991)
294

July, Serge, and Jean Daniel, 'Sur la violence', radio programme, produced by Roger
Pillaudin, broadcast in the series Dialogues on France Culture on the 11.12.79
Kalven, Harry (ed.), Contempt: Transcript of the Contempt Citations, Sentences, and
Responses of the Chicago Conspiracy 10 (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1970)
Karmitz, Marin, Bande part (Paris: Grasset, 1994)
Kristeva, Julia, The Kristeva Reader, edited by Toril Moi (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1986)
Kundera, Milan, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (London: Faber and Faber,
1984)
Lambert, Bernard, Les paysans dans la lulle des classes (Paris: Seuil, 1970)
fevrier
J'accuse,
Un
2,15
1971,
6-7
parle',
paysan
pp.
----,
de Bernard Lambert', J'accuse, 5,1 mai 1971, p. 16
'Lettre
----,
Lavers, Annette, Roland Barthes: Structuralism and after (London: Methuen, 1982)
Linhart, Robert, L'Etabli (Paris: Minuit, 1978)
Lynch, Kevin, The Image of the City (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960)
Lyotard, Jean-Francois, La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (Paris:
Editions de Minuit, 1979)
Mao Tse-Tung, 'On Practice: on the relation between knowledge and practice,
between knowing and doing', in Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung,
voll, edited and translated by the Committee for the Publication of the Selected
Works of Mao Tse-Tung, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,
(Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1965), pp. 295-309
'On Contradiction', in Mao Tse-Tung, pp. 311-47
----,
McQuail, Denis, and Steve-Windahl, Communications Models for the study of mass
(New
York:
Longman,
1981)
communications
Moi, Toril, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London and New
York: Routledge, 1985)
Reader, Keith, Intellectuals and the Left in France since 1968 (London: Macmillan,
1987)
Reader, Keith, with Khursheed Wadia, The May 1968 Events in France:
Reproductions and Interpretations (London: Macmillan, 1993)

Rylance, Rick, Roland Barthes (Hemel Hempstead:Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994)

Salvaresi, Elisabeth, Mai en heritage (Paris: Syros/Alternatives, 1988)

295

Samuelson, Francois-Marie, I1 etait une fois Liberation (Paris: Seuil, 1979)

Sartre, Jean-Paul, and Maurice Clavel, 'Communique', L'Idiot International,
juin -1 septembre 1971, p. 2

19-20,30

Scriven, Michael, 'Sartre and the Press', in Michael Scriven, Sartre and the Media
(London: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 24-70
Shannon, Claude, and Warren Weaver, The Mathematical
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964)

Theory of Communication

Sontag, Susan, Against Interpretation (New York: Delta Books, 1966)

(London:
On
(Penguin),
Photography
Allen
Lane
1978)
----,
(ed.
),
A
Barthes
(London:
Reader
Cape,
1982)
---Souchier, Emmanuel, May 68: Les medias et 1'evenement (Paris: La Documentation
Francaise, 1988)
Thom, Rene, Structural Stability-and Morphogenesis: An outline of a general theory
(Reading,
Mass.: W. A. Benjamin, 1975)
models
of
Turkle, Sherry, Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French
Revolution (London: Burnett Books/Andre Deutsch, 1978)
Wadia, Khursheed, 'Women and the Events of May 1968', in Reader with Wadia, The
May 1968 Events in France: Reproductions and Interpretations, pp. 148-66
Weaver, Warren, 'Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of
Communication', in Shannon and Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of
Communication, pp. 1-28

Woodcock, Alexander, and Monte Davis, Catastrophe Theory (Harmondsworth:

Penguin, 1980)

3. On Metaphor
Aish, Deborah, La Metaphore dans 1'oeuvrede StephaneMallarme (Geneva: Slatkine
Reprints, 1981)
Aldrich, Virgil, 'Visual Metaphor', Journal of Aesthetic Education, 2, January 1968,
pp. 73-86
Allemann, Beda, 'Metaphor and Antimetaphor', in Stanley Romaine Hopper and
David Miller (eds.), Interpretation: The Poetry of Meaning (New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, 1967), pp. 103-23

296

Andrew, Dudley, 'Figuration', in Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory, pp. 157-71

Aristotle, Rhetoric (Book III), in The Works of Aristotle, Vol. II [Vol. 9 of Robert
Hutchins (ed.), Great Books of the Western World], pp. 653-75
Augst, Bertrand, 'Metz's Move', Camera Obscura, 3, No. 7, pp. 31-41
Aumont, Jacques, Montage Eisenstein, translated by Lee Hildreth, Constance Penley,
(London:
Ross
British Film Institute, 1987)
Andrew
and
Balakian, Anna, 'The Surrealist image', The Romanic Review, 44,1953, pp. 272-81
'Metaphor
in
Studies,
Andre-Breton's
French
19,
and
metamorphosis
poetics',
----,
1965, pp. 34-41
Barthes, Roland, 'La metaphore-de-l'oeil', in Barthes, Essais Critiques, pp. 238-45

Black, Max, Models and Metaphors: studies in language and philosophy (Ithaca &
New York: Cornell University Press, 1962)
Metaphor',
in
'More
Andrew
Ortony
(ed.
),
Metaphor
Thought
(New
about
and
----,
York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 19-41
Booth, Wayne, 'Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation', in Sheldon Sacks
(ed.), On Metaphor (London: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 47-70
Brakhage, Stan, 'Metaphors on Vision', Film Culture, 30,1963.
by Brakhage. )

(Special issue edited

Breton, Andre, Manifestes du surrealisme (Paris: Gallimard [Coll. Idees], 1979)

Caminade,Pierre and Madelaine, 'Metaphore et Nouveau Roman', in Jean Ricardou
(eds.
hier,
Rossurn-Guyon
),
Nouveau
Roman:
Tome
Francoise
aujourd'hui,
van
and
1: Problemesgeneraux (Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1972), the collected papers
from
Cerisy-la-Salle
in
discussions
July 1971
a
conferenceat
and
Clifton, N. Roy, The Figure in Film (London and Toronto: Associated University
Presses, 1983)

Cohen, Ted, 'Metaphor and the Cultivation of Intimacy', in Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor,
pp. 1-10
Cooper, David, Metaphor (London: Basil Blackwell [Aristotelian Society Series
Vol. 5], 1986)
Culler, Jonathan, The Turns of Metaphor', in Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs:
Semiotics, Literature, and Deconstruction (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981),
pp. 188-209
Davidson, Donald'What Metaphors Mean', Critical Enquiry, 5,1978, pp. 31-47,
(ed.
),
On
in
Sacks
Metaphor,
29-45
pp.
anthologised

297

De Man, Paul, "The Epistemology of Metaphor', in Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor, pp. l l28
Derrida, Jacques, 'La mythologie blanche', in Jacques Derrida, Marges de la
Philosophie (Paris: Minuit, 1972), pp. 247-324
Ejxenbaum, Boris, 'Problems of Cinema Stylistics' (1927), translated by Herbert
Eagle, in Herbert Eagle (ed.), Russian Formalist Film Theory (Michigan: Michigan
Slavic Publications [Michigan Slavic Materials, No. 19], 1981), pp. 55-80
Eco, Umberto, 'The semantics of metaphor', in Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader:
Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (London: Hutchinson, 1981), pp. 67-89
Eisenstein, Sergei, 'Word and Image', in Sergei Eisenstein, The Film Sense, edited
and translated by Jay Leyda (London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1943), pp. 13-59,
also known under the title Montage in 1938'
Frazer, Ray, The origin of the- term "image"', ELH, 27, June 1960, pp. 149-61
Genette, Gerard, 'Metonymie chez Proust', in Gerard Genette, Figures III (Paris:
Seuil, 1972), pp. 41-63
Haussman, Carl, Metaphor and Art: Interactionism and Reference in the Verbal and
Nonverbal Arts (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989)
Hawkes, Terence, Metaphor (London: Methuen [The Critical Idiom 25], 1972)

Jakobson,Roman, Two aspectsof language and two types of aphasic disturbances',

in Roman Jakobsonand Morris Halle, The Fundamentals of Language (The Hague:
Mouton, 1975), pp-67-96
Klein, Richard, 'Straight lines and arabesques:metaphorsof metaphor', Yale French
Studies, 45,1970, pp.64-86
Kress, Gunther, 'Values and meaning: the operation of ideology through texts', in
Gunther Kress, Linguistic processes in sociocultural practice (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985), pp. 68-84
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago & London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1980)
De Laurot, Yves, 'From Logos to Lens: From the Theory of Engagement to the
Praxis of Revolutionary Cinema', Cineaste, IV, No. l, Summer 1970, pp. 10-23.
Anthologised in abridged form as Yves De Laurot, 'From Logos to Lens', in Bill
Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of
California Press, 1976), pp. 578-82

LeSage, Laurence, 'The cliche basis for some of the metaphorsof Jean Giraudoux',
Modern LanguagesNotes, 56, June 1941, pp.435-9
298

Levi-Strauss, Claude, The SavageMind, translated by Rodney Needham, (London:

Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1966)
Metz, Christian, Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Imaginary Signer,
translated by
Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster and Alfred Guzzetti (London:
Macmillan, 1982)
Miller, Donald, The Reason of Metaphor: a study in politics (New Delhi, London &
California: Sage, 1992)
Mitry, Jean, 'Symboles et Metaphores', in Jean Mitry, La semiologie en question:
langage et cinema (Paris: Cerf, 1987), pp. 193-213
Nemerov, Howard,

'On metaphor', Virginia Quarterly Review, 45,1969, pp. 621-36

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 'On Truth and Falsity in their Extramoral Sense', in Warren
Shibles (ed.), Essays on Metaphor (Whitewater, Wisconsin: The Language Press,
1972), pp-1-13
Nilsen, Don (ed.), Western Humor and Irony Membership Serial Yearbook
[WHIMSY] II (Arizona: Arizona State University, 1984), proceedings of the 1983
WHIM conference entitled 'Metaphors be-with you: humor and metaphor'
Ortony, Andrew, 'Metaphor: A Multidimensional
and Thought, pp. 1-16

Problem', in Ortony (ed.), Metaphor

Palmer, Jerry, The Logic of the Absurd (London: British Film Institute, 1987)
Penley, Constance, Introduction to "Metaphor/Metonymy,
Referent"', Camera Obscura, 3, No. 7, pp. 7-28

or the Imaginary

Queneau,Raymond, 'L'explication des metaphores',in Raymond Queneau,Les Ziaux

(Boston: Twayne, 1985), pp.65-6
Reverdy, Pierre, 'L'Image', Nord-Sud, 13, mars 1918, anthologised in Pierre Reverdy,
Oeuvres Completes (Paris: Flammarion, 1975), pp. 73-5
Richards, I. A., The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press,
1936)
Ricoeur, Paul, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary
studies of the creation of
by
language,
Robert
Czerny
in
translated
with Kathleen McLaughlin and
meaning
John Costello (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978)
'The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling', Critical
----,
Inquiry, 5, Autumn 1978, pp. 143-59, anthologised in Sacks (ed.), On Metaphor,
141-57
pp.
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, 'Nature, humanisme, tragedie', in Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pour un
(Paris:
Editions
Les
de
Minuit,
1963),
roman
pp. 45-67
nouveau

299

Ropars-Wuilleumier, Marie-Claire, 'Fonction de la metaphore clans Octobre

d'Eisenstein', Litterature, 11, octobre 1973, pp. 109-28
Rosolato, Guy, 'L'oscillation metaphoro-metonymique', in Guy Rosolato, La Relation
d'inconnu (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), pp. 52-80
Schianger, Judith, 'Metaphor and Invention', Diogenes, 69, Spring 1970, pp. 12-27
Schn, Donald, 'Generative Metaphor: A Perspective on Problem-Setting in Social
Policy', in Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, pp. 254-83

Shiff, Richard, 'Art and Life: A Metaphoric Relationship', in Sacks (ed.), On

Metaphor, pp.105-20
Sontag, Susan, Illness as Metaphor (London: Allen Lane (Penguin), 1979)
Metaphors (London: Penguin, 1988)
AIDS
its
and
----,
Stoltzfus, Ben, 'Generative Themes and Serial Permutations', in Ben Stoltzfus, Alain
Robbe-Grillet: The Body of the Text (London & Toronto: Associated University
Presses, 1985), pp-23-56
Thomas, Dylan, 'A Battle of Images', in E. Ellman and C.Feidelson (eds.), The
Modern Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 157-8
Van Noppen, J.P., Metaphor: a bibliography of post-1970 publications (Amsterdam
& Philadelphia: John Benjamin Publishing Co, 1985)
Warner, Marina, Monuments and Maidens: the Allegory of the Female Form
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1985)
Weekley, Earnest, 'National sports and national metaphor', Living Age, 309,16 April
1921, pp.45-56
Wheelwright, Philip, Metaphor and Reality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1962)

Whittock, Trevor, Metaphor and Film (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1990)
Williams, Linda, 'Hiroshima and Marienbad: Metaphor and Metonomy', Screen, 17,
No. 1, Spring 1976, pp-34-9
Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film (Berkeley: Los
Figures
of
----,
Angeles & Oxford: University of California Press, 1981)
Winner, Ellen, Philosophical and Linguistic Approaches to Metaphor and Irony', in
Ellen Winner, The Point of Words: Children's Understanding of Metaphor and Irony
(Harvard University Press, 1988), pp. 15-33

300

SECTION B
4. Books and special issues of reviews on Godard (listed
alphabetically)
Achard, Maurice, Vous avez dit Godard? (Paris: Libres-Halliers,

1980)

Albera, Francois (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag [Reihe Film
19], 1979)

art press (sic), 'Special Godard', hors serie No.4, decembre 1984 - janvier/fevrier
1985
Aumont, Jacques, L'Oeil Interminable:

Cinema et Peinture (Toulouse: Seguier, 1989)

Bellour, Raymond, L'Entre Images: Photo. Cinema. Video (Paris: La Difference,

1990)
Bellour, Raymond, and Mary Lea Bandy (eds.), Jean-Luc Godard. Son + Image,
1974-1991 (New York: The Museum of Modem Art, 1992)

Brown, Royal (ed.), Focus on Godard (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972)
Les Cahiers du Cinema, (((Special Godard: 30 ans depuis), supplement to Les
Cahiers du Cinema, 437, novembre 1990
Camera Obscura: A Journal of Feminism and Film Theory, 8-9-10, Fall 1982, triple
issue on Godard and Mieville's work
Cameron, Ian (ed.), The Films of Jean-Luc Godard (London: Studio Vista, 1967)

Cardinal, Marie, Cet ete-l (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1980)

Cerisuelo, Marc, Jean-Luc Godard (Paris: Lherminier/Quatre Vents, 1989)

), Jean-Luc Godard. - au-dehi de 1'image, (Paris: Lettres Modernes [etudes

(ed.
---194-202],
1993)
cinematographiques
CinemAction 52, 'Le cinema selon Godard', juillet

1989, edited by Rene Predal

Cinematographe, 95, decembre 1983 (Dossier Jean-Luc Godard), pp. 1-33

Collet, Jean,Jean-Luc Godard (Paris: Seghers[Cinema d'aujourd'hui No. IS], 1963)

Cramier, Alain, and Philippe Roux (eds.), Godart (sic) (Saint Etienne: Reboul, 1991),
dossier and filmography accompanying the Godard retrospective and associated
Le
Cinema
Le
Le
Melies
Musee
d
Art
and
cinema
painting
at
on
and
conference
Moderne at Saint Etienne from the 10 to 30 April 1990: talks on Godard were given
by Jean-Paul Fargier, Alain Bergala, Roland Amstutz, and Philippe Dubois

301

Crofts, Steve, Jean-Luc Godard (London: British Film Institute Education

Department, 1972), BFI Study Unit 15, unpublished
Desbarats, Carole, and Jean-Pierre Gorce (eds.), L'Effet Godard (Toulouse: Editions
Milan, 1989)
Dixon, Wheeler Winston, The Films of Jean-Luc Godard (New York: SUNY, 1997)
Douin, Jean-Luc, Godard (Paris & Marseille: Rivages, 1989)
Esteve, Michel (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard. - au-del du recit, (Paris: Lettres
Modernes/Editions Minard [etudes cinematographiques 57-61], 1967)
Giannetti, Louis, Godard and Others: Essays on Film Form (New Jersey: Associated
University Presses, 1975)

Godard, Jean-Luc,Jean-Luc Godard par Jean-Luc Godard, edited by Alain Bergala

(Paris: Cahiers du Cinema/Editions de 1'Etoile, 1985)
Godard, Jean-Luc, Godard on Godard, translated and edited by Tom Milne and Jean
Narboni (New York: De Capo, 1986)
Guzzetti, Alfred, Two or Three Things I know about Her., Analysis of a film by
Godard (London and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981)
Harcourt, Peter, Six European Directors: essays on the meaning of film style
(Baltimore: Penguin, 1974)
Image et Son, (((Jean-Luc Godard), 211, decembre 1967
Kawin, Bruce, Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard, And First Person Film (Princetown,
N. J.: Princetown University Press, 1978)

Kreidl, J.F., Jean-Luc Godard (Boston: Twayne, 1980)

Lefevre, Raymond, Jean-Luc Godard- (Paris: Edilig, 1983)

Lesage,Julia, Jean-Luc Godard: a guide to referencesand resources (Boston:

G.K. Hall, 1979)
Leutrat, Jean-Louis,Kaleidoscope (Lyon: PressesUniversitaires de Lyon, 1988)

(Seyssel: Editions Comp'Act, 1990). This short

Des
traces
nous
ressemblent
qui
----,
book is an augmented version of an article previously published as 'Des traces qui
du
(translated
Beige
Cinema,
127-35
by
La
Revue
22-23,
pp.
nous ressemblent',
Monique Cresci as 'Traces that Resemble Us: Godard's Passion' in Sub-Stance, 15,
No. 51,1986, pp. 36-51) and incorporates material previously published as 'Qu'est-ce
histoire?
in
',
Raymond
(ed.
),
Cinema
Peinture:
Bellour
cette
et
que
que c'est
Approches (L'Aigle: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990), pp. 123-35

302

Locke, Maryel, and Charles Warren (eds.), Jean-Luc Godard's Hail Mary: women
film
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1993)
in
the
sacred
and
Loshitsky, Yosefa, The radical faces of Godard and Bertollucci
State University Press, 1995)

(Detroit: Wayne

MacBean, James Roy, Film and Revolution (Bloomington/London:

Press, 1975)

Indiana University

MacCabe, Colin, with Laura Mulvey and-Mick Eaton, Godard: Images, Sounds,
Politics (London: Macmillan/British Film Institute, 1980)
Ming, Law Wai (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard After 68 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
International Film Festival, 1986)
Mussman, Toby (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard. a critical anthology (New York:
E.P.Dutton, 1968)
L'Oeil sur eux: Marithe & Francois Girbaud (Paris: MFG Design, 1987), publicity
dossier consisting of a large quantity of press cuttings relating to On s'est sous defile
for
Girbaud
Francois
Marithe
Godard's
television
advertisements
et
and
Philippon, Alain, Gilles Laprevotte and Jean-Francois Egea, Made in Godard Annees
70/80: De 1972 1987,1'oeuvre de Jean-Luc Godard (Amiens: Maison de la Culture
d'Amiens, 1987), dossier produced to accompany the Godard retrospective at the
Maison de la Culture d Amiens from the 6-30.1.88
La Revue Belge du Cinema, 16, Ete 1986, (Jean-Luc Godard: Les ftlms), edited by
Philippe Dubois
La Revue Belge du Cinema, 22-23,2` Edition, undated, (Jean-Luc Godard: le
by
Philippe
Dubois
edited
cinema),
Roud, Richard, Jean-Luc Godard (Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1969)

Segal, Abraham, Jean-Luc Godard: filmographie complete de 1957 a 1969 et

legendes des 120 diapositives (Paris: L'Avant-Scene du Cinema, 1970), LAvant-Scene
du Cinema slide supplement No. 4
Serie Noire: Grandeur et decadence dun petit commerce de cinema d'apres un
(Chantons
Choeur)
Special,
No.
20
Chase
[TFJ
Hebdo,
Numero
H.
de
J.
en
roman
bis], (Paris: Service de Presse de TF1,1986)
Stam, Robert, Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc
Godard (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992)
Toffetti, Sergio (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard: un hommage du Centre Culture! Francais et
Cinema
del
de Turin (Turin: Centre Culturel Francais de Turin,
Nazionale
du Museo
1990)

303

Touratier, Jean-Marie, and Daniel Busto (eds.), Jean-Luc Godard

TelevisionlEcritures (Paris: Galilee, 1979)
Le Tout Godard (Paris: Com'Images, 1989), booklet accompanying the major Godard
retrospective at La Lanterne (Courbevoie), Le Magic (Bobigny), and the Cine 104
(Pantin) in 1989

Vianey, Michel, En attendant Godard (Paris: Grasset, 1966)

Video Doc': CommunicationAudiovisuelle (Dossier Godard), 85, avril 1986
Visions (France), 17,15 mars 1984 (Dossier Godard), pp. 3-9
Walsh, Martin, The Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema, edited by Keith M. Griffiths
(London: British Film Institute, 1981)
Wide Angle, 1, No. 3,1976 (Godard Special)

5. Articles and interviews directly relevant to Sonimage (listed

alphabetically)
Achard, Maurice, 'Vous reprendrez bien du godard? ' (sic), Les Nouvelles Litteraires,
10 juin 1979, p. 11
Anon., Interview: Jerome Prieur', Video Doc': Communication Audiovisuelle

7-9
pp.
,

Anon., 'Interview: Alain Bergala', Video Doc': Communication Audiovisuelle pp. 10,
11
Anon., Interview: Jean-Paul Fargier', Video Doc': Communication Audiovisuelle
,
pp. 17-18

Adair, Gilbert, 'Gilbert Adair from London', Film Comment,May-June 1981, pp.4-6
Albera, Francois, 'Arbeit mit Video', in Albera (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard, pp. 201-8
Augst, Bertrand, 'Comment ca va? (How is it going? ), 1976, Jean-Luc Godard',
Pacific Film Archives programme notes, 1976, published with accompanying frame
(How
'Comment
)
Godard,
in
Jean-Luc
1976'
is
it
ca
va?
as
going?
enlargements
Camera Obscura, 2, Fall 1977, pp. 105-13, reprinted in a slighter shorter version in
Lesage, Jean-Luc Godard: a guide to references and resources, pp. 129-32
Bergala, Alain, 'Comment ca va', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 290-291, juillet/aot
pp. 32-4
'Enfants: Ralentir', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 301, juin 1979, pp. 28-33
----,

304

1978,

Bergala, Alain, and Leos Carax, 'Jean-Luc Godard: Sauve qui pent (1a vie): Une
Journee de Tournage 1', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 306, decembre 1979, pp. 32-7
Bergala, Alain, and Serge le Peron, 'Entretien avec William Lubtchansky', Les
Cahiers du Cinema, 325, juin 1981, pp. 82-9
Bergala, Alain, Jean-Jacques Henry and Serge Toubiana, 'Entretien avec Jean-Pierre
Beauviala 1', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 285, fevrier 1978, pp. 8-15
des
Sortie
'La
Usines
Aton:
Entretien
Jean-Pierre
Beauviala
2', Les
avec
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 286, mars 1978, pp. 5-14
'Aux
Deux
Bouts
de
la
Chaine:
Entretien
Jean-Pierre
Beauviala
3', Les
avec
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 287, avril 1978, pp. 5-16
'Le
Maillon
Central:
Entretien
Jean-Pierre
Beauviala
4',
Les
Cahiers
du
avec
----,
Cinema, 288, mai 1978, pp. 16-21
Bruneau, Pierre, Un drle de "tour" avec Godard', Minute, 2-8 avril 1980, p. 28
Chapier, Henry, 'Le film de Godard moitie retire de I'affiche... Un fascisme chasse
l'autre', Le Quotidien de Paris, 20 septembre 1976
Clement, Catherine, 'Devoirs de vacances pour 1'examen de communication', Le
Monde, 29-30 aot 1976, p. 10
Coleman, John, '2 or 3 Things', New Statesman, 28 January 1977, pp. 132-3
Collet, Jean, 'Le crime dans l'information', L Avant-Scene Cinema, 171-172, juilletsept 1976, pp. 3-4
'Godard
bon
Du
de
la
345,
Etudes,
television',
aujourd'hui:
usage
novembre
----,
1976, pp. 507-18, reprinted in Video Doc': Communication Audiovisuelle pp. 12-17,
,
translated by Dana Polon as 'A Good Use of TV', Jump Cut, 27, July 1982, pp. 61-3
Daney, Serge, 'Le therrorise (pedagogie godardienne), Les Cahiers du Cinema, 262263, janvier 1976, pp. 32-9, reprinted in Daney, La Rampe, pp. 77-84
Faussaire', in Cine Journal, pp. 42-4
'Le
----,

De Baroncelli, Jean, 'La sortie-de Numero Deux: La galaxie Godard', Le Monde,

25 septembre 1975, p. 1
Deleuze, Gilles, Trois questions sur Six fois deux', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 271,
5-12.
Anthologised
in
1976,
(Paris:
Gilles
Deleuze,
Pourparlers
Minuit
pp.
novembre
1990), pp. 55-66. Published in English as 'Three questions on Six fois deux: an
interview with Gilles Deleuze', translated by Diana Matias, Afterimage, 7, Summer
1978, pp. 112-19. Republished in a new translation as Gilles Deleuze, 'On "Sur et
Three
la
questions about "Six fois deux", translated by Rachel
communication":
sous
Bowlby, in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp. 35-41
Delvaux, Claudine, 'L'effet television: Le chat et la souris', Video Doc':
Communication Audiovisuelle, pp. 4-5

305

Diawara, Manthia, 'The clash between Guerra, Rouch, and Godard in Mozambique',
in Manthia Diawara, African Cinema: Politics and Culture (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press), pp. 93-103
Dubois, Philippe, 'Video thinks what cinema creates: Notes on Jean-Luc Godard's
Work in Video and Television', in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp. 169-85
Fargier, Jean-Paul, 'Le grand mechant loup', Les Nouvelles Litteraires, 30 mai 1980,
p. 36

face
de
la
lune',
hors
'La
(sic),
No.
4,
22-5
cache
art
press
serie
pp.
----,

Farrell, Tom, 'We can't go home again', Sight and Sound, 50, No. 2, Spring 1981,
pp. 92-4
Forbes, Jill, 'Jean-Luc Godard: 2 into 3', Sight and Sound, 50, No. 1, Winter 1980,
pp. 40-5
"Two
Interviews
Manette-Bertin',
in
),
for
Forbes
(ed.
INA
French
with
----,
Innovation, p. 14
Ganahl, Margaret, and R. S.Hamilton, 'One-Plus One: A Look at Six Fois Deux',
Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 89-115

Gianvito, John, 'Biographical sketch and filmography of Anne-Marie Mieville', in

Maryel Locke and Charles Warren (eds.), Jean-Luc Godard's Hail Mary: women and
the sacred in film (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press),p. 125
Harcourt, Peter, 'Le nouveau Godard', Film Quarterly, 35, No.2, Winter 1981-82,
17-27
pp.
Hennebelle, Guy, 'Un charabia indigeste', Ecran, 51, octobre 1976, pp.57-8
Hoberman, James,'He-e-ere'sJean-ee:TV la Godard', The Village Voice, 22 April
1986, pp.45-6
Humphries, Reynold, 'Godard's Synthesis: Politics and the Personal',Jump Cut, 9,
October-December1974, pp.12-13
Kaplan, E. Ann, and Jeff Halley, 'One Plus One: Ideology and Deconstruction in
Godard's Ici et Ailleurs and Comment Ca Va', Millenium Film Journal, 6, Spring
1980, pp. 98-102
Krohn, Bill, 'The class', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 288, mai 1978, pp. 62-4
Lattes, Jean, 'Des reporters-photographes repondent a Jean-Luc Godard', Le Monde,
14 aot 1976, p. 11. (Lattes, a member of the board of 1'Association nationale des
journalistes reporters-photographes et cineastes (1'ANJRPC), writes to decry the
in
Photos
)
his
et
cie.
profession
portrayal of

deux:
'Numero
Entre le zero et l'infini', Les Cahiers du Cinema,
Serge,
Peron,
Le
262-263, janvier 1976, pp.11-13
306

MacCabe, Colin, 'Le travail de Jean-Luc Godard en video et television', La Revue

Beige du Cinema, 16, pp. 57-60, reprinted in La Revue Beige du Cinema, 22-23,
pp. 57-60, translated from the Los Angeles 1985 National Video Festival catalogue,
this article was also published in English in a shorter version as 'Betaville', American
Film, 10, No. 10, September 1985, pp. 61-3
fighting',
'Godard
Guardian,
October
1
1980,
10
comes
out
p.
----,
long
home",
"'Taking
The
Times
Profile:
Jean-Luc
Godard',
the
The
Times,
way
----,
14 January 1984, p. 8
Magny, Joel, 'Le dogme et la crise', Cinema 78,234, juin 1978, pp. 75-6
Marcorelles, Louis, '6 fois 2: Le Voyage en France de Jean-Luc Godard', Le
Monde, 18-19 juillet 1976, p. 14
Penley, Constance, 'Les Enfants de la Patrie', Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 33-58
Predal, Rene, 'La troisieme epoque de Jean-Luc Godard', Jeune Cinema, 101, mars
1977, pp. 23-6
'Un
CinemAction
52,
144-50
technicien
cote
pionnier',
pp.
----,
la television dans le cinema', CinemAction 44, juin 1987, ((<L'influence
'Godard:
----,
de la television sur le cinema), edited by Guy Hennebelle and Rene Predal (Paris:
Cerf, 1987), pp. 149-53
Prieur, Jerome, 'Premieres Impressions', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 301, June 1979,
in
its
definitive
25-7,
reprinted
version as 'Premieres impressions d'un nouveau
pp.
in
blanches:
Prieur,
le
Gallimard,
Jerome
Nuits
(Paris:
essai
cinema
sur
monde',
1980), pp. 367-77
Raynal, Jackie, 'La sortie de Numero-deux New York', art press (sic), hors serie
No. 4, pp. 36-7
Rosenbaum, Jonathan, 'Circle of Pain: The Cinema of Nicholas Ray', Sight and
Sound, 42, No. 4, Autumn 1973, pp. 218-21

deux', Sight and Sound, 45, No.2, Spring 1976, pp.124-5

'Numero
----,

Roud, Richard, 'Godard image', Manchester Guardian Weekly, 16 August 1975, p. 19

Sanbar, Elias, 'Vingt et un ans apres', Trafic, 1, Hiver 1991, pp. 109-19

Simon, Jean-Paul,'Les signes et leur maitre', ca cinema, 3, No.9,1976, pp.27-36

Toubiana, Serge, 'Le hasard arbitraire', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 262-263, janvier
1976, pp. 15-19
Trosa, Sylvie, 'Le begaiement createur', Cinematographe, 49, juillet 1979, pp. 29-32

307

6. Additional

selected articles on Godard and Mieville (listed

alphabetically)
Anon., 'Entretien: Philippe Sollers', Cinema 84,301, janvier 1984, pp. 26-8.

Anon., Un centre de recherchepour Godard', La Croix, 5.4.90, p.7

Andrew, Dudley, 'Au Debut du Souffle: le culte et la culture d'A bout de souffle', La
Revue Beige du Cinema, 16, pp. 11-21, reprinted in La Revue Beige du Cinema, 2223, pp. 11-21
Certain
'On
Tendencies
(ed.
),
Cinema',
in
Hollier
A
French
Denis
New
the
of
----,
History of French Literature (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University
Press, 1989), pp. 993-1000
Aragon, Louis, 'Qu'est-ce que fart Jean-Luc Godard? ', Les Leitres Francaises, 1096,
9-15.9.1965, pp. 1 & 8, published in English as 'What is Art, Jean-Luc Godard? ',
translated by Royal S.Brown, in Brown (ed.), Focus on Godard, pp. 135-46

Ardagh, John, 'An Alpha for Godard?', Guardian, 12.3.66, p.7.

Aumont, Jacques, 'Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics' (review of Colin MacCabe's
book of this title), Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 211-15
'Godard
La
du
Revue
Beige
Cinema,
in
16,
41-6,
La
Revue
peintre',
pp.
reprinted
----,
Beige du Cinema, 22-23, pp. 41-6, later published in an augmented and reworked
Chapter
8, 'Godard peintre, ou l'avant-dernier artiste' in Aumont, L'Oeil
as
version
Interminable: Cinema et Pe! nture (Toulouse: Seguier, 1989), pp. 223-47
de l'artiste en theorichien', La Revue Beige du Cinema, 22-23,
'Autoportrait
----,
pp. 171-6
in
'The
Bellour
(eds.
),
Bandy
205-13
medium',
and
pp.
----,
Bamberger, Jean-Pierre, 'La decomposition, c'est la vie', Liberation, 7 novembre
1980, pp. 19-20
'La decomposition, c'est la vie 2: C'est quoi cette musique? ', 8-9 novembre 1980,
----,
19-20
pp.
'C'est en moi, en toi, que-cela produit des vagues terribles', Liberation, 19
----,
janvier 1984, p.30

Baudon, Guy, 'L'horreur et la beaute du monde', L Avant-SceneCinema, 323-324,

13-17
1984,
pp.
mars
Bellour, Raymond, '"I am an image"', Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 117-22, reprinted
in French as 'Moi, je suis une image', La Revue Beige du Cinema, 16, pp. 109-10,
du
Cinema,
Beige
22-23,
in
La
Revue
121-2
pp.
and
'Autoportraits', Communications, 48,1988 (Video), pp. 379-85, reprinted in
----,
Bellour, L'Entre-Images: Photo. Cinema. Video, pp. 327-87

just an other filmmaker', in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp.215-31

'(Not)
----,

308

Bergala, Alain, 'Les mouettes du pont d'Austerlitz: entretien avec Francois Musy', Les
Cahiers du Cinema, 355, janvier 1984, pp. 12-17
du
du
Cinema,
'Si
Les
Cahiers
janvier
367,
1985,
14-16
secret',
pres
pp.
----,
beaute du geste', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 385, juin 1986, pp. 57-8
'La
----,
fart du plus grand ecart', La Revue Beige du Cinema, 22-23, pp. 5-6
'Godard,
ou
----,
du
Godard', La Revue Beige du Cinema, 22-23, pp. 137-47
'La
plan
selon
passion
----,
l'ange',
Le Tout Godard (Paris: Com'Images, 1989), pp. 5-10,
'Le
avec
combat
----,
in
(ed.
),
Toffetti
pp. 127-31
reprinted

du
ete
du
Cahiers
Cinema,
(supplement
Les
',
Cahiers
'Godard
Les
to
a-t-il
petit?
----,
Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp.28-9
bouquet',
in
(eds.
),
'The
Bellour
57-73
Bandy
the
side
of
other
and
pp.
----,
Biette, Jean-Claude, 'Godard et son histoire du cinema', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 327,
des
du
(Le
Cinema),
Cahiers
1981,
Journal
pp. V-VI
septembre
Bonitzer, Pascal, 'Le Gros Orteil', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 232, octobre 1971, pp. 1522
lui-meme', Les-Cahiers du Cinema, 311, mai 1980, (Le Journal des
'Godard
par
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 5), p.XI
Bordwell, David, 'Jump Cuts and Blind Spots', in Wide Angle, 6, No. 1,1984, pp. 411, reprinted in French as 'La saute et l'ellipse', La Revue Belge du Cinema, 16,
pp. 85-90
Buache, Freddy, 'Un cineaste vaudois', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 323-324, mars 1984,
pp. 67-8
'De Godard A Jean-Luc', La Revue Beige du Cinema, 14, Hiver 1985 ((Le
----,
Cinema Suisse Francophone))), pp. 51-61, reprinted in CinemAction 52, pp. 211-15
'Jean-Luc Godard et Anne-Marie-Mieville', in Freddy Buache, Trenle ans de
----,
117-23
(Paris:
Centre
Pompidou,
1995),
1965-1995
pp.
cinema suisse
Cannon, Steve, 'Godard, the Groupe Dziga Vertov and the myth of 'Counter-Cinema',
by
Cinema"),
("French
Spring
No.
1,
1993
Studies,
32,
French
edited
Nottingham
Russell King, pp. 74-83

CinemAction
',
52,

Pesaro...
la
Was
'Godard
tu
Marc,
theorie:
vu
Cerisuelo,
rien
et
pp. 192-8
des
Le
le
journal
de
blancheur
'((Scenario
Passion:
La
Marc,
Chevrie,
geste',
et
Cahiers du Cinema No. 43, in Les Cahiers du Cinema, 359, mai 1984, p.X.
Claire Clouzot, 'Godard and the US', Sight and Sound, 37, No. 3, Summer 1968,
pp. 111-14
Collet, Jean, 'An Audacious Experiment: The Sound Track of Vivre sa vie', in Brown
(ed. ), Focus on Godard, pp. 160-2, originally published in La revue du son, 116,
decembre 1962, p. 513

309

Cournot, Michel, 'Le saut dans le vide', Le Nouvel Observateur, 25,6 mai 1965,
into
in
English
'A
Emptiness: Interview with Suzanne
Leap
29,
as
reprinted
p.
Schiffmann', translated by Royal S.Brown, in Brown (ed.), Focus on Godard, pp. 46-9
Ex-Godard', Le Nouvel Observateur, 292,15 juin 1970, pp. 42-4
'Jean-Luc
----,
Coutard, Roaul, 'Light of Day', Sight and Sound, 35, No. 1, Winter 1965-66, pp. 9-11
hors
equipe
de
film
desequilibre',
(sic),
No. 4,
'(Mettre)
serie
en
art
press
une
----,
pp. 34-5
Cunningham, Stuart, and Ross Harley, 'The Logic of the Virgin Mother', Screen, 28,
No. 1, Winter 1987, pp. 62-76
Daney, Serge, 'Le paradoxe de Godard', La Revue Beige du Cinema, 16, p. 7,
du
7
in
Cinema,
22-23,
Revue
Beige
La
p.
reprinted
bagage pour Passion', in Cine Journal, pp. 95-100
'Petit
----,

de
(Cannes
in
de
la
1985)',
Cine
la
la

'Godard
tarte
presse
conference
creme
et
----,

Journal, pp. 281-3

(ed.
),
in
15-18
Toffetti
'Godard,
pp.
morale,
grammaire',
----,

Daney, Serge, Jean Narboni and Serge Toubiana, 'Entretien avec Francois Truffaut',
Les Cahiers du Cinema, 315, septembre 1980, pp. 7-17 (pages 12-13 constitute an
by
Godard
Truffaut)
of
critique
extended
Dawson, Jan, 'Raising the Red Flag', Sight and Sound, 39, Spring 1970, pp. 90-1
Desbarats, Carole, 'L'ennemi royal', in Desbarats and Gorce (eds.), L'Effet Godard,
pp. 63-79

Diamant, Ralph, 'One P.M. ', Take One, 2, No. 11, March-April 1970, p.25
Douchet, Jean,'Godard au temps des Cahiers', art press (sic), hors serie No.4,

69-71
pp.
'Le theoreme de Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, (supplement to Les Cahiers

du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp.12-13

Dubois, Philippe, 'Passage: Le ventre et l'ecran, ou, Le desir d'origine et le chemin
du
Cinema,
22/23,
de
Godard',
La
Beige
le
Jean-Luc
Revue
dans
la
cinema
grace
vers
pp. 151-60
'L'image la vitesse de la pensee', Les Cahiers du Cinema, (supplement to Les
----,
Cahiers du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 76-7
11-12
One',
June
1970,
Brighton
21,
'One
Plus
Film
Review,
Thomas,
pp.
Elsaesser,
Godard:
Monthly
'Jean-Luc
His
Crucifixion
Resurrection',
Raymond,
and
Durgnat,
September
No.
620,
1985,
52,
Bulletin,
pp. 268-71
Film
in
Godard',
'Jean-Luc
Manny Farber, Negative Space: Manny Farber
Manny,
Farber,
Vista,
Studio
1971),
(London:
259-68
pp.
on the movies

310

Fargier, Jean-Paul, 'Le theatre de l'instant', Les Cahiers du Cinema, (supplement to

Les Cahiers du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 78.80
Fargier, Jean-Paul, and J.-P. Cassagnac, 'deux critiques comme les autres' (sic),
Cinethique, 1, No. 1,20 janvier 1969, pp. 30-2
Farocki, Harun, and Kaja Silverman, 'To Love to Work and to Work to Love
-A
Conversation about Passion', Discourse, 15, No. 3, Spring 1993, pp. 57-75
Finter, Joel, 'L'affaire Godard', International

Times, 13-31 December 1969, p. 24

Foster, Hal, Un signe excessif, art press (sic), hors serie No. 4, pp. 64-6
Gervais, Marc, 'Jean-Luc Godard 1985: These Are Not The Days', Sight and Sound,
53, No. 4, Autumn 1985, pp. 278-83
Green, Peter, 'Godard Demands- Ads Be Cut Into His Films On TV', Variety, 27 July
1988, pp. 3 & 67
Hartley, Hal, 'Daylight Robbery', Independent, 13 November 1992, p. 25
Henderson, Brian, Towards a Non-Bourgeois Camera Style', Film Quarterly, 24,
No. 2, Winter 1970-1971, pp. 2-14

Henry, Jean-Jacques,'Recette-pourla passion',Les Cahiers du Cinema, 336, May

1982, pp. 15-17
Jameson, Fredric, 'High-Tech Collectives in Late Godard', in Fredric Jameson, The
geopolitical aesthetic: cinema and space in the world system (Bloomington,
Indianapolis and London: Indiana University Press/British Film Institute, 1992),
p. 158-85
Jouando, Martine, 'Godard mene-Canal Plus en bateau', Liberation, 11 mai 1987, p. 45
Jousse, Thierry, 'Entretien avec Caroline Champetier', Les Cahiers du Cinema,
(supplement to Les Cahiers du-Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 54-7
Kael, Pauline, The Current Cinema: The Civilization
November 1980, pp. 197-205

of the Rump', New Yorker, 24

Kernan, Margot, 'Colin MacCabe with Mick Eaton and Laura Mulvey, Godard:
Images, Sounds, Politics' (Review), Postscript, 3, No. 1, Fall 1983, pp. 61-4

Krebs, Albin, 'Notes on people', New York Times, 10 June 1971, p.37
Kristeva, Julia, 'Les femmes, il n'y a quasiment que les hommes qui les ont
hors serie No. 4, pp. 28-31
(sic),
press
art
representees',

Kwietniowski, Richard, Between Love and Labour', Screen, 24, No.6, NovemberDecember 1983, pp.52-69
311

Larouche, Michel, 'Godard et les Quebecois', CinemAction 52, pp. 158-64

Latil-Le Dantec, Mireille, 'Jean-Luc Godard ou 1'innocence perdue', in Michel Esteve
(ed.), Jean-Luc Godard. au-dehi du recit, pp. 49-70
Lane, John Francis, 'Revolt Italian Style', Sunday Times, 17 August 1969, p.46
Leblanc, Gerard, 'godard: valeur d'usage ou valeur d'echange' (sic), Cinethique, 5,
septembre-octobre 1969, -p. 22
Lennon, Peter, 'The falling stars', Guardian, 18 November 1966, p. 9

Lesage,Julia, 'Godard and Gorin's Left Politics, 1967-72, Jump Cut, 28,1983, pp.51Leutrat, Jean-Louis,'The-declension',in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp.23-33
Lyon, Elisabeth, 'La passion, c'est pas ca', Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 7-10.
Republished in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp. 43-4
MacBean, James Roy, 'See you at Mao', Film Quarterly, 24, No. 2, Winter 19701971, pp. 15-23
Godard and Rocha at the- Crossroads', in Godard,
From
East
'Wind
the
or
----,
Weekend and Wind From the East: two films by Jean-Luc Godard, pp. 109-19
Seen Through a Camera Obscura, Darkly: A Review of the Special
'Godard,
----,
Godard Issue, Camera Obscura, No. 8-9-10', Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 9,
No. 4, Fall 1984, pp-341-5

Open Letter to Godard', Jump-Cut, 31, March 1986, pp.8-12

'An
----,

MacCabe, Colin, 'The Politics of Separation', Screen, 16, No. 4, Winter 1975-76,
pp. 46-61

Motion', Screen, 21, No.3,1980, pp.111-14

'Slow
----,

'Jean-Luc's new testament', Guardian, 13 July 1985, p. 10

----,

Godard: A Life in Seven Episodes (to Date)', in Bellour and Bandy

'Jean-Luc
----,
(eds.), pp.13-21
Maggi, France and Gilbert, 'Entretien avec Michel Brault', CinemAction 17 (L AJrique
Litteraire 61-62: Jean Rouch, un greot gaulois), edited by Rene Predal, pp. 119-21
Magny, Joel, 'Fille de, film de...', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 415, janvier 1989, p. 50
Manceaux, Michele, 'Godard ne plaisante plus', Le Nouvel Observateur, 275,16
fevrier 1970, p. 35
Marie, Michel, "'It really makes you sick! ": Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle
(1959)', in Susan Hayward and Ginette Vincendeau, French Film: Texts and Contents
(London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 201=15, published in French as'<A bout de soufe:
de la communication impossible in CinemAction 52,
du
langage
tragedie
et
une
pp. 53-63

312

'Le cinema selon Godard', CinemAction 52, juillet

1989 (edited by Rene Predal)

Meta, Christian, 'Le cinema moderne-et la narrativite', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 185,
pp.42-69, reprinted in Metz, Essais sur la signification au cinema 1, pp. 185-221
Monreal, Guy, 'Qui n'a pas son petit Godard? ', L'Express, 888,15-21 juillet
pp. 37-8

1968,

Moullet, Luc, 'Jean-Luc Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 106, avril 1960, pp. 25-36
le guide', Les Cahiers du Cinema, (supplement to Les Cahiers du
'Suivez
----,
Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 104-11
Mulvey, Laura, 'The Hole and the Zero: The Janus Face of the Feminine in Godard',
in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp. 75-88
Neupert, Richard, '444000 images speak for themselves', Wide Angle, 9, No. 1,1987,
pp. 50-8
Nourissier, Francois, 'Godard-Gorin: le- souffle court', L'Express, 1086,2-7 mai 1972,
pp. 40-1
O'Pray, Michael, 'Godard's television: Soft and Hard, Art Monthly, September 1985,
pp. 35-6
Penley, Constance, 'Pornography, eroticism', Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 13.18.
Republished in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp. 47-9
Predal, Rene, 'Science et cinema, ou le-mystere du nombre 137: Entretien avec JeanMarc Levy-Leblond', CinemAction 52, pp. 27-33
Oudart, Jean-Pierre, 'bans le-texte', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 213, juin 1969, pp. 59-60
Pajaczkowska, Claire, 'Liberte! Egalite! Paternite!: Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie
Mieville's Sauve qui pent (la vie)', in Hayward and Vincendeau, French Film: Texts
241-55
Contents,
pp.
and
Ramasse, Francois, 'Passion', Positif, 257/258, juillet-aot

1982, pp. 122-3

Reynaud, Berenice, '"Impure Cinema": adaption and quotation at the 1985 New York
Film Festival', Afterimage, 13, No.6, January 1986, pp.9-11
Rodchenko, H. A, 'Bluejean-Luc Godard', Film Comment, December 1987 - January
1988, pp. 2 &4

Rogard, Vincent, 'Raoul Coutard' (Interview), in Douin (ed.), La nouvelle vague 25

117-19
pp.
ans apres,
Ropars-Wuilleumier, Marie-Claire, 'Le forme et le fond ou les avatars du recit', in
Michel Esteve (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard: au-deli du recit, pp. 17-34, reprinted in
Marie-Claire Ropars-Wuilleumier, L'Ecran de la Memoire (Paris: Seuil, 1970), pp. 91313

109, published in English translation as 'Form and Substance, or the Avatars of the
Narrative', in Brown (ed.), Focus on Godard, pp. 90-108
fragmentaire:
'Totalite
La
Godard',
Hors
Cadre,
6, Printemps
et
reecriture
selon
----,
1988, pp. 193-207
Rosenbaum, Jonathan, "Theory and Practice: The criticism of Jean-Luc Godard', Sight
and Sound, 41, No. 3, Summer 1972, pp. 124-6
Film
Comment,
No.
September-October
'Paris
Journal',
8,
3,
1972,
&
2
76-7
pp.
----,
Godard in the United States', in Bellour
'Eight
to
the
obstacles
appreciation
of
----,
),
(eds.
Bandy
pp. 197-203
and
Ross, Walter S, 'Splicing together Jean-Luc Godard', Esquire, July 1969, pp. 72,74,75,
& 142
Scarpetta, Guy, 'sur plusieurs plans' (sic), art press (sic), hors serie No. 4, pp. 42-50,
Chapter
('Godard:
in
4
Guy Scarpetta, L'Impurete
as
sur
plusieurs
plans')
reprinted
(Paris: Grasset & Fasquelle, 1985), pp. 133-52
Sey, Patrick, 'Les films du groupe Dziga Vertov', Le Monde, 8 avril 1971, p. 21
Siclier, Jacques, 'Histoires de peurs et de pudeurs', Le Monde (Numero Special:
Libertes),
1989,
12-13
mai
et
pp.
((Cinema

Skorecki, Louis, 'Godard contre-la montre', Liberation, 13 decembre 1983, p.37

Sollers, Philippe, 'La Bonne Nouvelle de Godard', Le Nouvel Observateur, 17 mai
1985, p.58
Sontag, Susan, 'Going to the movies: Godard', Partisan Review, Spring 1968,2,
pp. 290-313

in Susan Sontag,Styles of Radical Will (New York: Farrar, Straussand

'Godard',
----,
Giroux, 1969), pp.147-85

'Syberberg's Hitler', in Susan Sontag, Under the Sign of Saturn (London: Writers
----,
Cooperative,
1983),
135-65
Publishing
Readers
pp.
and
Stam, Robert, 'Jean-Luc Godard's Sauve Qui Peut (la Vie)', Millenium Film Journal,
10-11, Fall-Winter 1981-82, pp. 194-9, reprinted in reworked form as 'Realism,
Reflexivity: Sauve Qui Peut/(la Vie)', in Stam, Reflexivity in Film and Literature:
From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard, pp. 231-7
Stoneman, Rod, 'Passion 2', Framework, 21, Summer 1983, pp. 5-6
'Bon Voyage', Sight and Sound, 3, No. 7, July 1993, p. 29
----,
Vidal, Laurence, 'Godard entre en pub', Le Figaro, 7 mai 1987, p. 33
Will, David, 'Edinburgh Film Festival Notes 1: Godard's Second Coming',
Framework, 30/31,1986, pp. 158-69
Willeman, Paul, 'Passion 3', Framework, 21, Summer 1983, pp. 6-7

314

Williams, Christopher, 'Politics and Production: Some pointers through the work of
Jean-Luc Godard', Screen, 12, No. 4,1977, pp. 62-80
Witt, Michael, 'Godard, le cinema et l'ethnologie: ou l'objet et sa reproduction', in
Christopher Thompson (ed.), LAutre et le sacre: surrealisme, cinema, ethnologie
(Paris: L'Harmattan, 1995), pp. 369-78
Wittig, Monique, 'Lacunary Films', New Statesman, 15 July 1966, p. 102

Wollen, Peter, 'Lee Russell writes', New Left Review, 39, November-December 1966,
pp.83-7 (article written under the pseudonym Lee Russell)

Counter Cinema: Vent d'Est', in Wollen, Readings and Writings:

'Godard
and
----,
Semiotic Counter Strategies, pp. 79-91
Avant-Gardes', in Wollen, Readings and Writings: Semiotic Counter
'The
Two
----,
Strategies, pp. 92-104
1',
Framework,
Summer
'Passion
21,
1983,
4
p.
----,
in Bellour and Bandy (eds.), pp. 187-95
'L'Eternel
Retour',
----,

Wood, Robin, 'Jean-Luc Godard', New Left Review, 39, November-December 1966,
pp. 77-83
Yakir, Dan, 'Godard: Return of the Master', New York, 6 October 1980, pp. 31-4

7. Non-audiovisual material and correspondence produced by

Godard, the Groupe Dziga Vertov, Godard/Gorin, and
Godard/Mieville (including selectedrelevant early critical articles by
Godard; listed chronologically in order of their writing rather than in
dates
their
of eventual publication)
order of
Godard, J-L, 'Pour un cinema politique', Gazette du cinema, 3, septembre 1950, in
Godard par Godard, pp 72-4
Godard, J-L, 'Montage, mon beau souci', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 65, decembre 1956,
in Godard par Godard, pp. 92-3

decembre
du
(Special
Renoir),
Cahiers
Cinema,
78
Les
Renoir',
'Jean
J-L,
Godard,
116-19
Godard,
Godard
in
pp.
1957,
par
Godard, J-L, 'Au-deli des etoiles', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 79, janvier 1958, in
Godard par Godard, pp.119-21
in
du
1958,
Godard par
Cahiers
Cinema,
Les
89,
'Ailleurs',
J-L,
novembre
Godard,
Godard, pp. 146-9

Godard, J-L, 'Super Mann', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 92, fevrier 1959, in Godard par
Godard, pp.163-7
315

Godard, J-L, 'Etonnant', Arts, 713,11 mars 1959, in Godard par Godard, pp. 177-8

Godard, J-L, 'L'Afrique vous-parle de la fin et des moyens', Les Cahiers du Cinema,
94, avril 1959, in Godard par Godard, pp.180-3
Godard, J-L, 'Un cineaste-c'est-aussi-unmissionnaire',Arts, 716,1 avril 1959, in
Godard par Godard, pp.187-90
Godard, J-L, 'Jean Renoir: La television m'a revele un nouveau cinema', Arts, 718,
15 avril 1959, in Godard par Godard, pp. 191-3
Godard, J-L, 'Dictionnaire-des cineastes americains', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 150-151
(Special cinema americain), decembre 1963-janvier 1964, in Godard par Godard,
pp. 249-51
Godard, J-L, 'Jean-Luc Godard: Montparnasse-Levallois', Les Cahiers du Cinema,
171, octobre 1965, pp. 9-10, anthologised in Godard par Godard as 'MontparnasseLevallois', pp.258-9
Godard, J-L, 'Pierrot mon ami', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 171, octobre 1965, pp. 17-18,
in Godard par Godard, pp. 259-63

Godard, J-L, Mots qui se-croisent+ rebus =- cinema donc:', in Michel Vianey, En
attendant Godard, pp.I-VII, in Godard par Godard, pp.284-5
Godard, J-L, 'Grace Henri Langlois', Le Nouvel Observateur, 61,12 janvier 1966,
in Godard par Godard, pp. 280-3
Godard, J-L, 'Lettre au ministre de la Kultur', Le Nouvel Observateur, 6 avril 1966,
du
in
Cahiers
Cinema,
in
Les
177,
Godard
1966,
Godard,
avril
par
republished
pp. 285-6
Godard, J-L, Trois mille Neures de cinema', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 184, novembre
1966, pp. 47-8, in Godard par Godard, pp. 291-5
Godard, J-L, 'On doit tout mettre clans un film', LAvant-Scene du Cinema, 70, mai
1967, in Godard par Godard, pp. 295-6
Godard, J-L, 'Ma demarche en quatre mouvements', L Avant-Scene du Cinema, 70,
Godard,
(An
in
Godard
1967,
pp-296-8
extended version of this article was
par
mai
in
d'elle'
Marie
Cardinal,
je
Cet
ete-l,
'Deux
trois
que
sais
choses
ou
published as
)
113-25.
pp.

Godard, J-L, 'Manifeste', (From the press book for La Chinoise, aot 1967), in
Godard par Godard, p.303
Truffaut, Francois, 'La savate et la finance, ou deux ou trois chosesque je sais de
lui', in Jean-Luc Godard, 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (Paris: Seuil/Avant-Scene,

316

1971), pp. 119-20 (Truffaut's enthusiastic explanation of why he is coproducing Deux

ou trois choses que je sais d'elle. )

Godard, J-L, 'Presentationde Week-end,in Collet, Jean-Luc Godard, pp.15-19

Godard, J-L, 'Premiers sons anglais', Cinethique, 5, septembre-octobre 1969, in
Godard par Godard, pp. 337-8
Godard, J-L, 'Pravda'. Text distributed at 1ARC (le musee d'Art Moderne de Paris) in
February 1970 accompanying the projection of Pravda, in Godard par Godard,
pp. 338-40
Altman, Robert, 'Dziga Vertov notebook', Take One, 2, No. 11,1970, pp. 7-9
(Reproduction of extracts of the storyboard for Jusqu' la victoire. )
Godard, J-L, 'Pas de vrai plaisir sans Perrier', J'accuse, 1,15 janvier 1971, p. 11
Servet, Michel, (pseudonym for Godard), 'Le Cercle Rouge', J'accuse, 1,15 janvier
1971, p.24
Godard, J-L, 'Nantes-Batignolles: Un bond en avant', J'accuse, 2,15 fevrier 1971, p. 4

Humblot, Catherine, 'Monsieur Robain, vous etes un escroc,vous meritez la prison! ',
J'accuse, 3,15 mars 1971, p.9, accompaniedby a 'Reportagephoto' by Godard
Godard, J-L, 'Jean-Luc Godard Francois Truffaut', in Truffaut, Correspondance,
letter
dated
(Vitriolic
May 1973 attacking both La Nuit americaine and
423-4
pp.
Truffaut personally. )
Truffaut, Francois, 'A Jean-Luc Godard', in Truffaut, Correspondance, pp. 425-31
(Lengthy riposte dated May/June 1973 to Godard's letter, refusing to invest in
Godard's film project, but above all an extended angry character assassination of
Godard. These exchanges were republished with illustrations as 'Truffaut-Godard:
in
)
la
L'Express,
22
1988,
40-8.
de
avril
pp.
cruaute'
cinema

le

Godard, J-L, 'France Tour Detour Deux Enfants: Declaration l'intention des
heritiers', Camera Stylo, septembre 1983, pp.64-5
Godard, J-L, 'Lettre numero un aux membres de la commission d'avance sur recettes.
Premieres remarques sur la production et la realisation du film: Sauve qui pent (la
du
Cinema
(Isabelle
Cahiers
Les
Huppert:
477,
1994,
mars
autoportraits),
vie)',
dated
)
12
April
1979.
(Letter
58
p.
Godard, J-L (ed.), Les Cahiers du Cinema, 300, mai 1979 (Includes letters to AnneMarie Mieville, Elie Sanbar, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Jean-Pierre Rassam, Wim Wenders
(pp.
Beauviala,
70-129)
Jean-Pierre
plus
an extensive report on preparations for
and
Naissance (de 1'image) dune nation)

Godard, J-L 'Histoire(s) du Cinema et de la Television' (image/text collage), in

Albera (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard, p.59
317

Godard, J-L, Introduction a une veritable histoire du cinema (Paris, Albatros: 1980)
Godard, J-L, 'L o c'etait, je serai. L ou' je serai, j'ai dej ete. L o ca ira, on
du
du
(Numero
Situation
Cinema
Francais
Cahiers
Cinema
Les
special:
sera mieux',
1), 323-324, mai 1981, pp. 58-9 (Double page image/text collage depicting Freud
)
in
image
by
Godard
1981.
followed
Eisentein
at work
an
of
editing,
watching
Godard, J-L, 'Passion: Premiers elements' (janvier 1981), Godard par Godard,
pp. 484-5
Godard, J-L, 'A propos du film Prenom-Carmen: etudes sur des morceaux de
Godard,
Godard
de
la
le
de
de
par
melodie',
corps
chair
morceaux
musique et
pp. 569-73.
Godard, J-L, 'Derriere Minute'-, Cinematographe, 95, pp. 32-3 (Transcript of an
Cinematographe
by
Godard
to
the
to
the
accompany
release
of
editors
sent
audiotape
)
Carmen.
Prenom
of
Godard, J-L, 'Vu par le boeuf et l'ine', Le Nouvel Observateur, 6 janvier 1984, in
Godard par Godard, p. 588
Godard, J-L, Untitled double page homage to Georges de Beauregard, Le Film
Francais, 2003,21 septembre 1984, in Godard par Godard, pp. 610-11

Godard, J-L, Tout Seul: Francois Truffaut', Les Cahiers du Cinema, decembre 1984
(Special Francois Truffaut), in Godard par Godard, pp.612-13
leurs

de
le-tournage
Detective
ecrites
'Lettres
J-L,
Godard,
et non envoyees
pendant
destinaires' (1984-85) (Letters addressed to Alain Cuny, Bruno Nuytten, Julie Delpy,
Christine Gozlan, Pierre Novion, Aurelle Doazan, Alain Sarde, Claude Brasseur,
Anne-Marie
Leaud,
Jean-Pierre
Duras,
Baye,
Marguerite
Nathalie
Bregie,
Bernard
Mieville and Renald Calcagni), in Godard par Godard, pp. 613-17
Le
(Supplement
d'autres',
Radio-Television
Le
Monde
to
'Notes
J-L,
Godard,
parmi
Monde 12876), 22-23 juin 1986, p. 17
Georges
Centre
(Paris:
Cinemamemoire
in
Braunberger,
Pierre
Preface',
J-L,
Godard,
Pompidou/Centre Nationale de la Cinematographie, 1987), pp. 9-13
dated
(Letter
27
9
July
1988,
Le
Monde,
3-4
l'oseille
'De
J-L,
p.
Godard,
en plus',
fragmentation
des
Societe
the
the
of
1988
question of
to the
auteurs around
June
(rather
for
He
by
than
six
advertisements
films on television
calls
advertisements.
de
bout
A
by
into
be
inserted
M6
their
souffle.
screening of
the proposed one) to
for
illustration
Godard's
by
the
is
suggestions
letter
an
of one of
The
accompanied
just
for
insecticide
after Patricia
or washing powder
insertion of an advertisement
)
'degueulasse'.
says
(Letter
dated
Le
Monde,
9
12
3
July
1988,
'L'amere
J-L,
porteuse',
p.
Godard,
directeur
Teneze,
de
l
Godard
Action
TF
1.
M.
Amaud
1988
to
at
artistique
March
be
inserted
Grandeur
in
TF1
to
the
transmission
for
et
of
advertisements
several
calls

318

decadence dun petit commerce de cinema. The letter is accompanied by Godard's

illustrated critique of the superimposition of the A2 logo over images of the
)
camps.
concentration
Godard, J-L, 'Avant-propos', in- Truffaut, Correspondance, pp. 7-8
Godard, J-L, Trojets', Les Cahiers du Cinema, (supplement to Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 10-11 (Selected projects in preparation entitled Les
)
Science
Berenice,
sans
conscience.
and
signes parmi nous,
Godard, J-L, 'Document' (Storyboard extract from Nouvelle vague), Les Cahiers du
Cinema, (supplement to Les Cahiers du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, p.87
Godard, J-L, "Textes pour servir au(x) histoire(s) du cinema', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, (supplement to Les Cahiers du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, pp. 68-9
Godard, J-L, 'La Paroisse Morte', Trafic, 1, Hiver 1991. p.72 (also printed on pages
108 & 138)
Godard, J-L, 'Le cine-fils', Liberation,
Daney following his death.)

13-14 June 1992, p.27 (Homage to Serge

Godard, J-L, 'Lettre a une- amie allemande', L'Humanite, 8 mars 1995, p. 20

8. Scripts and transcriptions (listed chronologically)

Godard, J-L, 'Charlotte et son Jules', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 5, juin 1961, pp. 52-4
juin
52-4
1961,
5,
Cinema,
d'eau',
LAvant-Scene
Histoire
'Une
J-L,
pp.
Godard,
1974)
(Paris:
Ballard,
de
bout
A
J-L,
Godard,
souffle
23-37,
1961,
du
119,
Cahiers
Cinema,
Les
Petit
'Le
and
J-L,
pp.
mai
Godard,
soldat',
Les Cahiers du Cinema, 120, juin 1961, pp. 5-30

York:
Simon
(New
Garnham
by
Nicholas
Petit
Le
and
translated
J-L,
Godard,
soldat,
Schuster, 1967)
d'apres
Godard
de
femme:
Jean-Luc
Scenario
Femme
'Une
une
J-L,
Godard,
est une
in
Godard
1959,
du
98,
Cahiers
Cinema,
Les
Cluny',
de
Genevieve
par
aot
We
Godard, pp. 205-9
Godard, J-L, 'Vivre sa vie', L Avant-Scene Cinema, 19, octobre 1962, pp. 5-30
Godard, J-L, 'Les Carabiniers', L Avant-Scene Cinema (Special Godard), 171-172,
juillet/aot 1976, pp-5-38

319

Godard, J-L, 'Le Grand escroc', L'Avant-Scene Cinema, 46, mars 1965, pp. 37-41
Godard, J-L, 'Scenario du Mepris: Ouverture', in Godard par Godard, pp. 241-8
Godard, J-L, 'Le Mepris', filmcritica
pp. 719-40 (French language script)

(sic), 139-140, November/December 1963,

Godard, J-L, 'Une Femme mariee', L Avant-Scene Cinema, 46, mars 1965, pp. 7-32

Godard, J-L, Alphaville, translated by Peter Whitehead (London: Lorrimer, 1972)

Godard, J-L, Pierrot le fou, translated by Peter Whitehead (London: Lorrimer, 1969)
Godard, J-L, 'Pierrot le fou', LAvant-Scene Cinema (Special Godard), 171-172,
juillet/aot 1976, pp. 71-109
Godard, J-L, Masculine Feminine, edited by Robert Hughes (New York: Grove Press,
1969)
Godard, J-L, A Woman is a Woman, A Married Woman, Two or Three Things I
Know About Her. - three films by Jean-Luc Godard, translated by Jan Dawson, Susan
Bennett and Marianne Alexander (London: Lorrimer, 1975)
Godard, J-L, 2 ou 3 choses que je sais delle (Paris: Seuil/Avant-Scene, 1971)
Godard, J-L, Made in USA: screenplay (London: Lorrimer, 1967)
Godard, J-L, 'Camera Eye', Peace News, 5.1.68., p. 7
Jean-Luc Godard: la chinoise (sic), filmcritica
language script)
,

(sic), 182, ottobre 1967 (French

Godard, J-L, 'La Chinoise', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 114, mai 1971, pp. 7-40
Godard, J-L, Weekend and Wind From the East: two films by Jean-Luc Godard,
by
by
Fry,
Marianne
Sinclair
Nicholas
Danielle
Adkinson
translated
and
edited
(London: Lorrimer 1972)
Godard, J-L, le gai savoir (mot--mot d'un film encore trop reviso) (sic), (Paris:
Union des Ecrivains, 1969)
Godard, J-L, 'Cinetracts' (Nos. 7 & 10, Descriptions by Abraham Segal), LAvantScene Cinema (Special Godard), 171-172, juillet-septembre 1976, pp. 54-8
Groupe Dziga-Vertov, 'Pravda', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 240, juillet/aot,
pp. 19-30

1972,

Godard, J-L, & Jean-PierreGorin, 'Vent d'est', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 240,
juillet/aot 1972, pp.31-50

320

'Groupe Dziga-Vertov (J.-P. Gorin): Lotte in Italia (bande paroles)', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 238-239, mai/juin 1972, pp. 40-57
Godard, J-L, and Jean-Pierre- Gorin, 'Letter to Jane', Tel Quel, 52, Hiver 1972, pp. 7490, reprinted in Godard par Godard as 'Enquete sur une image', pp. 350-62
Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie Mieville, Id et ailleurs, unpublished French and
English language dialogue transcripts held by the BFI, undated
Roland-Levy, F, 'Id et Ailleurs', Liberation, 5 octobre 1976, p. 14 (Transcription of
extracts of soundtrack. )
Godard, J-L, 'Propos d'auteur (Extraits de la-bande sonore du film de Jean-Luc
Godard, Numero deux)', Cinema 75,203, novembre 1975, pp. 64-5

Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie-Mieville, 'Fragment du decoupagede Comment ca va',

Godard par Godard, p.384
Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie Mieville, Comment ca va: dialogues, transcribed by
Solange Vidaud and Claude Leblanc (Paris, undated) (This booklet is the unpublished
dialogue transcript of the three reels that constitute the film. )
Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie Mieville, '6 fois 2: Sur et sous la communication',
Godard par Godard, pp. 387-99 (Godard and Mieville's programme summaries for the
)
series.
Six fois deux (Sur et sous la communication) - la: Y'a personne, lb: Louison, 2a:
Lecons de choses, 2b: Jean-Luc, 3a: Photos et cie, 3b: Marcel, 4a: Pas d'histoire, 4b:
Nanas, 5a: Nous trois, 5b: Rene(e)s, 6a: Avant et apres, 6b: Jacqueline et Ludovic,
transcribed and translated by Jill Forbes, Tom Milne and Gilbert Adair (Unpublished
BFI English language dialogue transcripts. )
'Jean-Luc', 'Lecons de choses' and 'Marcel', partially transcribed in Jean-Marie
Touratier and Daniel Busto (eds.), Jean-Luc Godard - Television/Ecritures, pp. 33-40,
55-67, & 79-80
Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie- Mieville, 'France tour detour deux enfants', Godard
(Godard
)
Mieville's
401-3
Godard,
and
summary
of
each
programme.
pp.
par
Godard, J-L, 'France tour detour deut enfants', Communications, 48,1988 (Video),
dialogue
from
first
)
(Extract
the
the
217-19
of
mouvement.
pp.
(First
Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie Mieville, 'France/Tour/Detour/Two/Children'
Movement), translated by Tom Milne and Gilbert Adair, Camera Obscura, 8-9-10,
pp. 61-72
Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie Mieville, France/Tour/Detour/Deux/Enfants
(12
'movements'), translated by Tom Milne and Gilbert Adair (Unpublished BFI English
language transcripts. )

321

Godard, J-L, 'Sauve qui peut (la vie): scenario', 11 avril 1979, Godard par Godard,
pp. 445-8
Godard, J-L, 'Sauve qui pent (la vie): Quelques remarques sur la realisation et la
film',
du
du
Cinema, 22-23, pp. 117-20 (These remarques
La
Revue
Beige
production
are in fact a transcription of the soundtrack of Scenario video de Sauve qui peut (la
vie), transcribed by Philippe Dubois. )
Godard, J-L, 'The Story: Extraits du scenario', 1979, Godard par Godard, pp. 418-41
Godard, J-L, 'Passion: Introduction un scenario', Godard par Godard, pp. 486-97.
Published in English as 'Passion (Love-and Work)', Camera Obscura, 8-9-10,
)
dated
for
15.3.81.
(The
Passion,
125-9
treatment
original
pp.
Godard, J-L, 'Passion', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 380, avril 1989
Godard, J"L, 'Scenario du film Passion', LAvani-Scene Cinema, 323-324, mars 1984,
pp. 79-89

Godard, J-L, 'Prenom Carmen',juillet-decembre 1982, Godard par Godard, pp.557)

68 (Detailed breakdown of the film into sequences.
Godard, J-L, 'Je vous salue, Marie: scenario', Godard par Godard, pp. 590-2
Godard, J-L, 'Je vous salue, Marie: Continuite pour le tournage', janvier 1984,
Godard par Godard, pp. 592-7
Godard, J-L, 'Leitre Freddy Buache', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 323-324, mars 1984,
pp. 68-75

Godard, J-L, 'Grandeur et decadencedun petit commercede cinema', translated by

Michael Henry Wilson (London: British Film Institute, undated) (Unpublished
National Film Theatre commentary.)
Godard, J-L, and Anne-Marie Mieville, 'Soft and Hard. " Soft talk on a hard subject
between two friends', La Revue Belge du Cinema, 22-23, pp. 161-76
Godard, J-L, 'Nouvelle vague', LAvant-Scene Cinema, 396-397, novembre/decembre
1990
du
Cahiers
Cinema,
de
la
(extrait)',
Les
de
Puissance
'Scenario
parole
Godard, J-L,
(supplement to Les Cahiers du Cinema, 437), novembre 1990, p. 58
O.
L, 1996)
(Paris:
P.
JLG/JLG
J-L,
Godard,

Godard, J-L, For Ever Mozart (Paris: P.O.L, 1996)

Mieville, Anne-Marie, Nous sommestous encore ici (Brive: Alpha Bleue, 1997)

322

9. Source material employed by Godard and Mieville

Moravia, Alberto, A Ghost at Noon, translated by Angus Davidson (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1964), first published in 1955
Faure, Elie, L'Histoire de I Art. L Art Moderne, Tome 1 (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1964)
(The passages on Delacroix quoted in Pierrot lefou are on pp. 167-8,171 & 173.)
Stark, Richard, The Jugger (New York: Pocket Books, 1965)

Greer, Germaine, Thefemale eunuch (London: Paladin, 1971)

Bruno, G, Le Tour de la France par Deux Enfants: Devoir et Paine (Paris: Firmin
Didot, 1975) (First published by Eugene Belin in 1884.)
Kundera, Milan, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, translated by Michael Henry
Heim (London: Faber & Faber, 1982), first published in French as Le Livre du Rire
(Paris:
de
Gallimard, 1979)
L'oubli
et
Van Vogt, A. E, Defence, in Destination:
3

Universe! (Frogmore: Panther, 1960), pp. 92-

Poe, Edgar Allan, The Power of Words, in The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe
(London: Penguin, 1976), pp. 171-4 (First published in 1885)
Simak, Clifford D, City (London: Mandarin, 1988), first published by Street and
Smith Publications, 1952

10. Interviews with Godard relating specifically to the Sonimage

(listed
chronologically)
period
Durand, Philippe, 'Juin 1973: Jean-Luc Godard fait le point... ', Cinema Pratique, 124,
No. 60, juillet-aot 1973, pp. 156-60

Annaud, Monique, 'Jean-Luc Godard: 1'important c'est les producteurs',Le Film

Francais, 1571,14 mars 1975, p. 13
Even, Martin, 'Le remake d'A bout de souffle:
de socialisme', Le Monde, 8 mai 1975, p. 13

Rencontre avec Godard sur un hot

Godard, J-L, 'propos 1,2 et 3', in Jean-Marie Touratier and Daniel Busto (eds.),
Jean-Luc Godard: Television/Ecritures, pp. 122-5 (Transcribed extracts of Godard's
in
Cannes
deux.
Numero
)
to
relating
conference
press

323

Makie, Jeanne, 'Numero deux, un film different', Temoignage chretien, 25 juillet

1975, in Godard par Godard, pp. 379-80
Anon., 'Penser la maison en termer d'usine', Liberation, 2,15 septembre 1975, in
Godard par Godard, pp. 3 80-2
Delilia, Herve, and Roger Dosse; 'Les aventures de Kodak et de Polaroid: Un
entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard', Politique Hebdo, 189,18-24 septembre 1975, pp. 289
Baby, Yvonne, 'Faire les films possibles l o on est', Le Monde, 25 septembre 1975,
p. 15, in Godard par Godard, pp. 3 82-6
Anon., 'Jean-Luc Godard, television-cinema-video-images:
septembre-octobre 1975 (special Godard), pp. 11-13

paroles... ', Telecine, 202,

Braucourt, Guy, 'Propos de Jean-Luc Godard', Ecran, 41,15 novembre 1975, pp. 52-3
fois deux', Ecran, 51, octobre 1976, pp. 56-7
'Ici
Six
ailleurs
et
et
----,
La Bardonnie, Mathilde-, 'Un Debat de I'I. N. A.: Godard au Bistrot des images', Le
Monde, 21 aot 1976, pp. 1 & 14
Richard, Jacques, 'Entretien avec J-L Godard le 12 avril 1978', Cinequanone, 1,1016 mai 1978, pp. 25-9
Douin, Jean-Luc, and Alain Remond, 'Godard dit tout 1: Je ne suis ni la prise de
la
Lampe',
first
Telerama,
1486,1978,
4-7.
The
two sections of this
courant ni
pp.
interview
are reprinted in Jean-Luc Douin (ed.), La Nouvelle Vague 25 ans
seven part
apres (Paris: Cerf, 1983), pp. 171-9
dit tout 2: Pour moi, la critique- doit titre terroriste', Telerama, 1487,
'Godard
----,
1978, pp. 60-2
'Godard dit tout 3: La "realisation" me degoutait, la "mise en scene" me
----,
Telerama,
1488,1978, pp. 58-60
noble',
paraissait

dit tout 4: "A bout de souffle" c'etait le-Petit ChaperonRouge',

'Godard
----,
Telerama, 1489,1978, pp.58-60
'Godard dit tout 5: "Le peu que les acteurs savent faire, ils le font plutt mal"',
Telerama, 1490,1978, pp.60-2
dit tout 6: "C'est toujours les memes qui vident les cendriers"',
'Godard
----,
Telerama, 1491,1978, pp.58-60

'Godard dit tout 7: "Avant 68, j'etais un-petit commercant de gauche"', Telerama,
----,
1492,1978, pp-62-4
Anon., 'Les demieres lecons du donneur: fragments d'un entretien avec Jean-Luc
Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 300, mai 1979 (edited by Jean-Luc Godard), pp. 609
'Jean-Luc Godard, Chantal Akerman: Entretien sur un projet - 1', Ca cinema, 19,
1980, pp. 4-16

324

'Jean-Luc Godard, Luc Beraud, Claude Miller: Entretien sur un projet - 2', ca
cinema, 19,1980, pp.17-30
Devarrieux, Claire, 'Se vivre, se-voir', Le Monde Dimanche, 30 mars 1980, p. IX, in
Godard par Godard, pp. 404-7
July, Serge, 'Alfred Hitchcock est mort', Liberation,
Godard, pp. 412-16

2 mai 1980, in Godard par

Even, Martin, 'Jean-Luc Godard: Ma seconde vie', Le Point, 349,24 mars 1980,
pp. 126-8
Philippe, Claude-Jean, 'La chance de repartir pour un tour', Les Nouvelles Litteraires,
30 mai 1980, pp. 37-8, in Godard par Godard, pp. 407-12

11. Additional selected interviews with Godard (listed chronologically)

Collet, Jean, Michel Delahaye, Jean-Andre Fieschi, Andre S.Labarthe and Bertrand
Tavernier, 'Jean-Luc Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 138 (Sp6cial Nouvelle
Vague), decembre 1962, pp. 20-39, anthologised as 'Entretien' in Godard par
Godard, pp.215-36
'Feu sur Les carabiniers', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 146, aot 1963, in Godard par
Godard, pp. 238-41
Bellour, Raymond, 'Jean-Luc Godard s'explique', Les Leitres Francaises, 1029,1964,
pp. 8-9
Comolli, Jean-Louis, Michel Delahaye, Jean-Andre Fieschi and Gerard Guegan,
'Parlons de "Pierrot"', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 171, octobre 1965, pp. 18-35, in
Godard par Godard, pp. 263-80
Bontemps, Jacques, Jean-Louis Comolli, Michel Delahaye and Jean Narboni, 'Cutter
in
du
Godard
Cinema,
Godard,
1967,
fronts',
Cahiers
deux
Les
194,
par
octobre
sur
pp. 303-27

Pilard, Philippe, 'Entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard', Image et Son, 'Jean-Luc Godard',
211, pp.51-9
Whitley, John, 'Interview', Sunday Times, 23 June 1968, p.50
Leblanc, Gerard, and J.-P. Cassagnac, 'un cineaste comme les autres' (sic), Cincthique,
1,20 janvier 1969, pp. 8-12
Fargier, Jean-Paul, and Bernard Sizaire, 'Deux heures avec Jean-Luc Godard', Tribune
Socialiste, 23 janvier 1969, in Godard par Godard, pp. 332-7

325

Sarris, Andrew, 'films in focus' (sic), The Village Voice, 30 April 1970,
pp. 53,61,63,& 64
Garin, Michel, 'Godard chez les Feddayin', L'Express, 994,27 juillet-2
pp. 44-5, in Godard par Godard, pp. 340-2

aot 1970,

Martin, Marcel, 'Le troupe "Dziga Vertov". Jean-Luc Godard parle au nom de ses
camarades du groupe: Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gerard Martin, Nathalie Billard et Armand
Marco', Cinema 70,151, decembre 1970, pp. 82-8, in Godard par Godard, pp. 342 &
346-50

Gauthier, Guy, Une reapparition de Jean-Luc Godard', La Revue du Cinema: Image

et Son, 245, decembre 1970, pp.136-7. (This 'interview' is the transcript of Godard's
discussionwith Professor JacquesMonod on RTL (Radio-Television Luxembourg) in
the course of which Godard elaboratesplans for a film on the death of Amara, an
immigrant
overworked underpaid
worker.)
Baby, Yvonne, 'Pour mieux ecouter les autres', Le Monde, 27 avril 1972, p. 17, in
Godard par Godard, pp. 362-7
Anon., 'Le "deuxieme premier film" de Jean-Luc Godard: Sauve qui peut (la vie)',
Cinema Francais, 35, mai 1980, pp. 34-8
Godard, J-L, 'Propos Rompus', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 316, octobre 1980, in Godard
par Godard, pp. 458-71 (Transcription of Godard's address at the Verger in Avignon
in the course of a debate coordinated by Jean Douchet. )
David, Catherine, Travail-Amour-Cinema',
Le Nouvel Observateur, 20 octobre 1980,
in
Godard
65-70,
par Godard, pp. 449-58
pp.
Wollen, Peter, and Don Ranvaud, 'An Interview: Jean-Luc Godard... for himself,
Framework, 13,1980, pp. 8-9 (This interview is a transcription of the dialogue
between Wollen, Ranvaud, and Godard in Jon Jost's film Godard 1980, produced by
Framework and distributed in Britain as the accompanying short film to Sauve qui
Framework's
does
(la
Curiously,
transcription
this
vie).
not
peut
publication of
its
)
source.
acknowledge
Cott, Jonathan, 'Godard: born-again filmmaker', Rolling Stone, 27 November 1980,
pp. 32-6
Jouffa, Francois, 'Jean-Luc Godard: La pellicule c'est completement chiant! ', TVl&Cine-Video, decembre 1980, pp. 34-5
'The Economics of Film Criticism: A Debate [Jean-Luc Godard and Pauline Kael]',
Camera Obscura, 8-9-10, pp. 163-84 (This document, partial transcript of a debate
held at the Marin Civic Center, Mill Valley, California in May 1981, was later
translated and published as'Economie politique de la critique de film: Ddbat entre
Jean-Luc Godard et Pauline Kael', in Godard par Godard, pp. 471.84. )

326

Bergala, Alain, Serge Daney and Serge Toubiana, 'Le chemin vers la parole', Les
Cahiers du Cinema, 336, mai 1982, pp. 8-14 & 57-66, in Godard par Godard,
pp. 498-519
Guibert, Herve, 'Une partie du monde et sa metaphore', Le Monde, 27 mai 1982, p. 19
Bachmann, Gideon, 'In the cinema it is never Monday', Sight and Sound, 52, No. 2,
Spring 1983, pp. 118-20
Bergala, Alain, 'Genese d'une camera: premier episode', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 3489, juin-juillet 1983, in Godard par Godard, pp. 519-39

du
deuxieme
Cahiers
Cinema,
dune
episode',
Les
350,
'Genese
camera:
aot
----,
1983, in Godard par Godard, pp.539-57

Ranvaud, Don, and Alberto Farassino, 'An interview with Jean-Luc Godard',
Framework, 21, Summer 1983, pp.8-9
Drillon, Jacques, 'Faire un film comme on joue un quatuor', Le Monde de la
Musique, 55, avril 1983, in Godard par Godard, pp. 574-82
Godard, J-L, 'Godard a Venise', Cinematographe, 95, pp. 3-7 (Transcription of
Godard's press conference at the Venice Film Festival in September 1983, translated
as Gideon Bachmann, 'The Carrots Are Cooked: A Conversation with Jean-Luc
Godard', Film Quarterly, 37, No. 3, Spring 1984, pp. 13-19. The source of the
'conversation' goes unacknowledged. )

Drillon, Jacques,'La star, c'est le film... ', Le Nouvel Observaleur, 30 decembre 1983,
in Godard par Godard, pp.582-7.
Steinebach, Sylvie, 'Les signes du mal vivre: entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard',
LAvant-Scene Cinema, 323-324, mars 1984, pp. 4-11
Tatum, Charles, and Philippe Elhem, 'Rolle over Godard', Visions, 17,15 mars 1984,
pp. 5-9
Paini, Dominique, and Guy Scarpetta, 'Jean-Luc Godard: la curiosite du sujet', art
No.
4,
4-18
(sic),
hors
pp.
serie
press

Dulaure, Antoine, and Claire Parnet, 'Dans Marie il ya aimer', LAutre Journal, 2,
janvier 1985, pp. 15-27, in Godard par Godard, pp.597-608
Bergala, Alain, Pascal Bonitzer and Serge Toubiana, 'La guerre et la paix', Les
Cahiers du Cinema, 373, juin 1985, in Godard par Godard, pp. 617-24
Bergala, Alain, 'Z'art partir de la vie: Nouvel entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard par
Alain Bergala', in Godard par Godard, pp. 9-24
Dieckmann, Katherine, 'Godard in His "Fifth Period": An Interview', Film Quarterly,
39, No. 2, Winter 1985-86, pp. 2-6

327

MacCabe, Colin, 'Politics is only a movie made in Russia: interview with Jean-Luc
Godard', in Law Wai Ming (ed.), Jean-Luc Godard After 68 (Hong Kong: Hong
Kong International Film Festival, 1986), pp. 48-51
Rambert, Marie, 'Parti de Chase', Telerama, 1892,1986, pp. 62-3
Humblot, Catherine, and Thomas Ferenczi, 'La tole selon Jean-Luc', Le Monde RadioTelevision (Supplement to Le Monde 12876), 22-23 juin 1986, pp. 16-17
Matheson, Nigel, 'The Creator', New Musical Express, 2 October 1986, pp. 6,7 & 61
Heymann, Daniele, 'Le cinema meurt, vive le cinema! ', Le Monde, 30 decembre
1987, pp. 1 & 10
Peretie, Olivier, 'ABCD... JLG, Le Nouvel Observateur, 18 decembre 1987, pp. 50-2
Bergala, Alain, and Serge Toubiana, 'Z'art de (de)montrer: entretien avec Jean-Luc
Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 403, janvier-1988, pp. 50-7
Halberstadt, Michele, 'Godard arret sur images: Le cineaste commente quelques
Soigne
droite',
janvier
de
Premiere,
130,
1988, pp. 56-9
to
photos
Merrick, Helene, 'Entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard, La revue du cinema, 434, janvier
1988, pp. 51-5
Daney, Serge, 'Godard fait des histoires', Liberation, 26 decembre 1988, pp. 24-7
(This transcription of a filmed conversation between Daney and Godard, intended for
television broadcast to accompany Histoire(s) du cinema, remains as yet
interview
The
is
by
illustrations
chosen and annotated
accompanied
untransmitted.
by Godard. Republished in English as 'Godard makes (hi)stories', in Bellour and
Bandy (eds.), pp. 159-67. )

Albera, Francois, 'Cultivons-notre jardin: Une interview de Jean-Luc Godard',

CinemAction 52, pp.81-9, reprinted in Gen Lock, 15, decembre 1989, pp.14-17
Godard, J-L, 'Preface' (extracts of an interview with Godard by Freddy Buache on 14
July 1989), in Freddy Buache, Le Cinema francais des annees 70 (Renens: Hatier/5
Continents, 1990), pp-5-7

Godard, J-L, 'Conference de presse de Jean-Luc Godard (extraits)', Les Cahiers du

Cinema, 433, juin 1990, pp.10-11
Godard, J-L, 'Le montage, la solitude et la liberte', in Jean Narboni (ed.),
Confrontations: Les mardis de la FEMIS (Paris: FEMIS, 1990), pp. 15-23
Ferney, Frederic, 'Jean-Luc Godard: La France reste 1'avant-garde...de la
decembre
Le
Monde,
11
1990, p. 29
regression',
Wenders, Wim, and Jean-Luc Godard, 'For a few dollars less', Guardian/Sight and
Sound (London Film Festival Special, edited by Philip Dodd), October 1991, pp. 20-2

328

'Jean-Luc Godard in conversation with Colin MacCabe', in Duncan Petrie (ed.),

Screening Europe: Image and Identity in Contemporary European Cinema (London:
British Film Institute, 1992), Appendix 1, pp. 97-105
Albera, Francois, and Mikhail Iampolski, 'Entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard: Le
Briquet de Capitaine Cook', Les Lettres Francaises, 19 avril 1992, pp. 17-21
Vezin, Annette, and Christophe Derouet, 'Jean-Luc Godard: "On ne dit pas la place
de l'argent dans tout ca"', InfoMatin, 16 janvier 1995, pp. 26-7

Levieux, Michele, 'Le bien difficile art d'etre un dieu', L'Humanite, 14 septembre
1993, p.24 (Extracts of Godard's press conference at Cannesfor Helas pour moi.)
Jousse, Thierry, 'Entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 472,
octobre 1993, pp. 76-85

12. Interviews with Godard and Gorin (listed chronologically)

Carroll, Kent. E, 'Film and Revolution: Interview with the Dziga-Vertov Group', in
Royal S.Brown (ed.), Focus on Godard, pp. 50-64 (This interview is an augmented
Dziga-Vertov
Carroll,
Kent
E.
'Film
Interview
Revolution:
the
with
and
reprint of
Group', Evergreen Review, 14, No. 83, October 1970.)
Vianey, Michel, 'Deux petits soldats: Entretien avec Godard-Gorin', Le Nouvel
Observateur, 17 avril 1972, pp. 49-52
Belilos, Marlene, Michel Boujut, Jean-Claude Deschamps and Pierre-Henri Zoller,
'Pourquoi Tout Va Bien? Entretien avec Jean-Luc Godard et Jean-Pierre Gorin',
Politique Hebdo, 26,27 avril 1972, in Godard par Godard, pp. 367-75
Mate, Ken, Russell Cambell, Louis Alvarez, and Maureen Turim, 'Let's see where we
Cinema,
Trap
Review
Light
Godard,
Jean-Pierre
Gorin',
Velvet
The
Jean-Luc
of
are:
9, Summer 1973, pp. 30-6
Kolker, Robert Phillip, 'Angle and Reality: Godard and Gorin in America', Sight and
Sound, 42, No. 3, Summer 1973, pp. 130-3

13. Interviews with Mieville (listed chronologically)

Anon., 'Entretien avec Anne-Marie Mieville', in the press book for Mon cher sujet
(Paris: Lasa Films, 1988), reprinted in the publicity brochure for the film, published
by the distributors, LAssociation des Cinemas de Recherche de 1'lle-de-France
(L'ACRIF), Courbevoie, 1988

329

Heymann, Daniele, 'Un entretien avec la realisatrice: Il faut parler de ce que Yon
connait, Le Monde, 18 janvier 1989, p. 13
Macia, Jean-Luc, 'Les trois ages de la femme', La Croix-L'Evenement,
1989, p.20

19 janvier

Frodon, Jean-Michel, 'En couple avec son film', Le Monde (Arts et Spectacles), 22
decembre 1994, p.III
Euvrard, Janine, 'Entretien avec Anne-Marie Mieville',
Printemps 1995, pp. 12-16

24 Images (Canada), 76,

14. Interviews with Gorin

Goodwin, Michael, and Naomi Wise, 'Raymond Chandler, Mao Tse-Tung & Tout va
bien', Take One, 3, No. 6, July-August 1971, pp. 22-4
Even, Martin, 'Des travailleurs artistiques de- l'information', Le Monde, 27 avril 1972,
p. 17
Thomsen, Christian Braad, 'Filmmaking and History: Jean-Pierre Gorin', Jump Cut, 3,
September-October 1974, pp. 17-19
Walsh, Martin, 'Godard and Me: Jean-Pierre Gorin Talks', Take One, 5, No. 1,1976,
pp. 14-17, reprinted in Martin Walsh, The Brechtian Aspect of Radical Cinema, edited
by Keith M. Griffiths (London: British Film Institute, 1981), pp. 116-28
Fargier, Jean-Paul, 'Ici et l-bas: Entretien avec Jean-Pierre Gorin', Les Cahiers du
Cinema, 388, octobre 1986, pp. 37-42
Bail, Kathy, and Raffaele Caputo, 'Have Idees, Will Travel' (sic), Cinema Papers
(Australia), 65, September 1987, pp. 16-21
Nevers, Camille and Vincent Vatrican, 'French connection: Entretien avec Jean-Pierre
Gorin', Les Cahiers du Cinema, 476, fevrier 1994, pp. 60-3

330

FILMOGRAPHY
This filmography is divided into two principal sections. Section A lists the Sonimage
followed
by
films
by
Godard,
the Groupe Dziga Vertov, and
work,
other
made
Mieville. Section B lists films and television programmes on Godard, television and
radio interviews with Godard and Mieville, and other films and television
programmes viewed in the course of research for this thesis and/or cited in the text.
Press books for a large number of the films by Sonimage and Godard/Mieville were
also consulted.

Conventional academicfilmographic criteria are observed. Where filmographies

brevity,
have,
in
deference
for
I
to the
the
contributors
often omit some
sake of
importance accorded such roles by Sonimage, included producer, editor, and sound
recordist. In addition to 'd for director, 'sc' for script, 'c' for camera (director of
photography), 'lp. ' for leading players, 'r' for running time, I include 's' for sound
for
'ed'
editor, and, where known, both 'p' for producer and 'p.c.' for
engineer,
listed
films
Video
All
technicians
company.
are
production
are
where relevant.
35mm unless otherwise stated. Dating films is always problematic given the frequent
time lapsesbetween pre-production, shooting, completion and distribution. Dates
given are those of completion of production. Where this differs markedly from the
date of initial distribution, usually through direct or indirect censorship,the latter date
is also specified.

SECTION A
1.Films and television programmes by Godard & Mieville
Moije (The first Sonimage project, envisaged as a short colour video work. Begun
in
Anne
du
1973
in
Maine,
Paris,
first
Sonimage
with
the
avenue
studio
at
Wiazemsky, work continued on the project with Mieville in Grenoble.
film
du
des
is
held
by
Service
Moi
je
to
the
Documentation relating
archives
at the
CNC, and due to move to the new Bibliotheque du film in Paris (currently based at
100 rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine until its move to the Palais de Tokyo).
Storyboard extracts were published in Philippe Durand, 'Juin 1973: Jean-Luc Godard
fait le point... ', Cinema Pratique, 124, No. 60, juillet-aot 1973, pp. 156-60. )
Ici et ailleurs, d: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard,
for
(Armand
Marco
William
Lubtchansky
the
Mieville
original
Anne-Marie
c:
Mieville
50
Anne-Marie
la
Godard,
Jean-Luc
Jusqu'ii
r.
victoire) - ed.
rushes of
Rassam
Jean-Pierre
Godard,
Mieville,
Jean-Luc
Anne-Marie
16mm
min, col,
- p:
in
(first
1976)
1974
Sonimage/Gaumont/INA
released
c.:
p.

331

Numero deut, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville

- c:
William Lubtchansky (film), Gerard Teissedre-(video) - s: Jean-Pierre Ruh technical
collaboration: Milka Assaf, Gerard Martin - l.p.: Sandrine Battistella, Pierre Oudry,
Alexandre Rignault, Rachel Stefanopoli - r. 88 min, col, video & 35mm p: Georges
de Beauregard, Jean-Pierre Rassam - p. c.: SonimageBela/SNC/Gaumont 1975
Comment p va, d: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard,
Anne-Marie Mieville - c: William Lubtchansky - ed: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie
Mieville - lp.: Michel Marot, Anne-Marie Mieville -r 78 min, col, 16mm - p: JeanLuc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville, Jean-Pierre Rassam - p. c.: SonimageBela/SNC
1975 (first distributed in 1978)
Six fois deux (Sur et sous la communication) (la: Y'a personne, lb: Louison, 2a:
Lecons de choses, 2b: Jean-Luc, 3a: Photos et cie, 3b: Marcel, 4a: Pas d'histoire, 4b:
Nanas, 5a: Nous trois, 5b: Rene(e)s, 6a: Avant et apres, 6b: Jacqueline et Ludovic),
d: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie
Mieville - c: William Lubtchansky, assisted by Dominique Chapuis (colour video) Gerard
Teissedre - ed: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville engineer:
video
technical collaboration: Philippe-Ropy, Henri False, Joel Mellier - r. 6x 100 min,
col, video - p: Michel Raux, Jean-Luc Godard - p. c.: Sonimage/INA for FR3 1976 broadcast: FR3,25.7.76,1.8.76,8.8.76,15.8.76,22.8.76,
and 29.8.1976
France tour detour deux enfants, d: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - sc:
loosely-based on G. Bruno's Le Tour de la
Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie-Mieville,
France par Deux Enfants: Devoir et Pattie (1884) - c: Pierre Binggeli, William
Lubtchansky, Dominique Chapuis, Philippe Rony (colour video) - ed: Jean-Luc
Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - I.p.: Camille Virolleaud, Arnaud Martin, Betty Berr,
Albert Dray, (in the 4th mouvement only) Evan Hanska - r. 12 x 26 min, col, video for
2,4.4.80,11.4.80,
Antenne
broadcast:
Sonimage/INA
Antenne
2
1978
p. c.:
25.4.80,2.5.80 (4 blocks of-3-programmes)
Naissance (de i'image) dune nation, Proposed series of 5 'emissions TV-cinema'
envisaged as the conclusion to Sonimage's collaborative research project with the
Mozambican government from 1977 to 1979. The programmes were to have been
delivered in December 1979. Negotiations began in 1977, followed by working visits
by Godard and Mieville to the Popular Republic of Mozambique in 1978. The series
formats
(Polaroid, still photography, video and
to
a
multiplicity
of
employ
aimed
Super 8) to explore the opposition between a culture entirely lacking in media
imagery (Mozambique) and a society awash in images and sounds (Western Europe,
France in particular), with the aim of drawing lessons for the nascant Mozambiquan
5
emissions
infrastructure.
Details
format
the
the
of
and content
of
audio-visual
are
in
Godard
Jean-Luc
in
Godard,
'Le
dernier
d'un
Jean-Luc
producteur',
reve
given
(ed.), Les Cahiers du Cinema, 300, mai 1979, pp. 70-129, p. 77. The theoretical
in
document
by
Sonimage
television
relation to the
a
produced
regarding
portion of
Mozambique project is reproduced in Colin MacCabe with Laura Mulvey and Mick
Eaton, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics (London: Macmillan/British Film Institute,
1980), pp. 138-40. )

332

2. Previous films by Godard, the- Groupe Dziga Vertov, and

Godard/Gorin
In addition to the films below, the-'bande- annonces' made by Godard to accompany
their release, entirely neglected by critics, are of particular interest. Intricate selfcontained short works, they often use sequences not used in the films themselves and
foresee the later video scenarios. 'Bande annonces' for A Bout de souffle, Le Petit
soldat, Une Femme est une femme, Les Carabiniers, Le Mepris, and Pierrot lefou
have been made available on video by UCG (Coll. 'Les Annees 60'). These and
(Vivre
sa vie and Masculin feminin) can also be consulted at the Videotheque
others
in Paris.

Operation beton, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Adrien Porchet - s:

Jean-Luc Godard - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - r. 20 min, b/w - p: Jean-Luc Godard - p. c.:
Actua Film 1954
Une Femme coquette, d: Hans Lucas (Jean-Luc Godard) - sc: Hans Lucas (Jean-Luc
Godard), from Le Signe by Guy de Maupassant - c: Hans Lucas (Jean-Luc Godard) (Jean-Luc
Lucas
Godard) -l. p.: Marie Lysandre, Roland Tolma - r. 10 min,
Hans
ed.
b/w, 16mm - p: Jean-Luc Godard 1955
Tous les garcons s'appellent Patrick (a.k. a. Charlotte et Veronique), d: Jean-Luc
Godard - sc: Eric Rohmer - c: Michel Latouche - s: Jacques Maumont - ed: Cecile
Decugis - l.p.: Jean-Claude Brialy, Nicole Berger, Anne Colette - r. 21 min, b/w - p:
Pierre Braunberger - p. c.: Les Films de la Pleiade 1957
Une Histoire d'eau, d: Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard - Sc: Francois Truffaut,
Jean-Luc Godard - c: Michel Latouche - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - l.p.: Jean-Claude
Brialy, Caroline Dim - r. 18 min, b/w - p: Pierre Braunberger - p. c.: Les Films de la
Pleiade 1958
Charlotte et son Jules, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Michel
Latouche - s: Jacques Maumont - ed: Cecile Decugis - l.p.: Jean-Paul Belmondo,
Anne Colette, Gerard Blain, the voice of Jean-Luc Godard - r: 20 min, b/w - p:
Pierre Braunberger - p. c.: Les Films de la Pleiade 1959
A bout de souffle, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, from an outline by
Francois Truffaut - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Jacques Maumont - ed: Cecile Decugnis lp.: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Henri-Jacques Huet, Daniel Boulanger, Roger
Hanin, Michel Favte, Jean-Pierre Melville, Liliane David, Richard Balducci, Claude
Mansard, Jean Domarchi, Andre S.Labarthe, Francois Moreuil - r. 90 min, b/w - p:
Georges de Beauregard - p. c.: Societe Nouvelle de Cinema 1959
Le Petit soldat, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard - s:
Karina,
Anna
HenriJacques Maumont - ed. Agnes Guillemot
Subor,
l.
Michel
p.:
Jacques Huet, Paul Beauvais, Laszlo Szabo, Georges de Beauregard - r. 88 min, b/w

333

Georges
de
Beauregard
Societe
Nouvelle
de
Cinema
1960 (banned until
p:
c.:
p.
1963)
Une Femme est unefemme, d: Jean-Luc Godard sc: Jean-Luc Godard, based on an
idea from Genevieve Cluny c: Raoul Coutard s: Guy Villette
Agnes
ed:
Guillemot - l.p.: Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy, Marie
Dubois, Nicole Paquin, Marion Sarraut, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Demongeot r. 84
min, col - p: Carlo Ponti, Georges de-Beauregard -p. c.: Rome-Paris Films 1961
La Paresse (one episode in Les sept peches capitaux), d:
Luc Godard - c: Henri Decae -s: Jean-Claude Marchetti,
Jacques Gaillard - l.p.: Eddie Constantine, Nicole Mirel Bercholz - p. c.: Films Gibe/Franco-London Films/Titanus

Jean-Luc Godard - sc: JeanJean Labussiere - ed:

r. 15 min, b/w - p: Joseph
1961

Vivre sa vie, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Guy
Villette - ed. Agnes Guillemot - l.p.: Anna Karina, Saddy Rebot, Andre S.Labarthe,
Guylaine Schlumberger, Monique Messine, Paul Pavel, Gerard Hoffman, Brice
Parain, Peter Kassovitz, Dimitri Dineff, Eric Schlumberger, Henri Atal - r: 85 min,
b/w - p: Pierre Braunberger - p. c.: Les Films de la Pleiade 1962
Le Nouveau monde (one episode of RoGoPaG), d. Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc
Godard - c: Jean Rabier - s: Herve - ed: Agnes Guillemot - lp.: Alexandra Stewart,
Jean-Marc Bory, Jean-Andre Fieschi, Michel Delahaye, the voice of Andre
S.Labarthe - r. 20 min, b/w - p: Alfredo Bini - p. c.: Societe Lyre
Cinematographique/Arco Film/Cineriz 1962
Les Carabiniers, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Gruault, Roberto
Rossellini, based on the play I Carabinieri by Benjamin Joppolo - c: Raoul Coutard s: Jacques Maumont - ed: Agnes Guillemot - lp.: Marino Mase, Albert Juross,
Genevieve Galea, Catherine Ribeiro, Gerard Poiret, Jean Brassat, Alvaro Gheri, Odile
Geoffroy, Barbet Schroeder, Jean Gruault, Jean-Louis Comolli, Catherine Durante - r.
80 min, b/w - p: Carlo Ponti, Georges de Beauregard - p. c.: Rome-Paris
Films/Laetitia/Les Films Marceau 1963
Le Grand escroc (one episode in Les plus belles escroqueries du monde), d: JeanLuc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Herve - ed. Agnes
Guillemot - lp.: Jean Seberg, Charles Denner, Laszlo Szabo - r. 25 min, b/w - p:
Pierre Roustang - p. c.: Ulysse Productions/LUX-CCF/Primex Films/Vides
Cinematografica/Toho-Towo/Caesar Film Productie 1963
Le Mepris, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, from the novel Ii disprezzo
by Alberto Moravia - c: Raoul Coutard - s: William Sivel - ed: Agnes Guillemot
l.p.: Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang, Georgia Moll, Linda
Veras - r. 110 min, col - p: Joseph Levine, Carlo Ponti, Georges de Beauregard p. c.: Rome-Paris Films/Les Films Concordia/Compagnia Cinematografica Champion
1963
Bande a part, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, based on the novel Fool's
Gold by Dolores and Bert Hitchens c: Raoul Coutard s: Rene Levert, Antoine
-

334

Bonfanti - ed: Agnes Guillemot -Lp.: Anna Karina, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur,
Louise Colpeyn, Daniele Girard, Chantal Darget, Ernest Menzer, Michel Delahaye,
Georges Staquet - r. 95 min, b/w - p. c.: Anouchka Films/Orsay Films 1964
Une Femme mariee, d: Jean-Luc Godard - Sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard s: Antoine Bonfanti, Rene Levert, Jacques Maumont - ed: Agnes Guillemot,
Francoise Collin - l.p.: Macha Meril, Bernard Noel, Philippe Leroy, Roger Leenhardt,
Rita Maiden, Margaret Le-Van, Veronique Duval - r: 98 min, b/w - p. c.: Anouchka
Films/Orsay Films 1964
Montparnasse-Levallois (one episode-in-Paris vu par... ), d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc:
Jean-Luc Godard - c: Albert Maysles - s: Rene Levert - ed. Jacqueline Raynal - lp.:
Johanna Shimkus, Philippe Hiquilly, Serge Davri - r. 18 min, col, 16mm - p: Barbet
Schroeder - p. c.: Les Films du Losange 1965
Alphaville, une etrange aventure de Leinmy Caution, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: JeanLuc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Rene Levert - ed: Agnes Guillemot - lp.: Eddie
Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff, Howard Vernon, Laszlo Szabo, Michel
Delahaye, Jean-Andre Fieschi, Jean-Louis Comolli, Christa Lang - r. 98 min, b/w - p:
Andre Michelin - p. c.: Chaumiane/Filmstudio 1965
Pierrot le fou, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, from the novel Obsession
by Lionel White - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Rene Levert - ed: Francoise Collin -I p.:
.
Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Dirk Sanders, Raymond Devos, Roger Dutoit,
Hans Meyer, Graziella Galvani, Jimmy Karoubi, Samuel Fuller, Princess Aicha
Abadie, Alexis Poliakoff, Laszlo Szabo, Jean-Pierre Leaud - r. 110 min, col - p:
Georges de Beauregard, Dino de Laurentiis --p. c.: Rome-Paris Films/Dino de
Laurentiis Cinematografica 1965
Masculin feminin, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, based on Le Signe
Kurant
Rene
de
by
Levert
Willy
Guy
de
Paul
Femme
Maupassant
La
s:
c:
and
Chantal
Goya,
l.
Debord,
Guillemot
Jean-Pierre
Michel
Leaud,
Agnes
p.:
ed:
Marlene Jobert, Brigitte Bardot, Catherine-Isabelle Duport, Elsa Leroy, Antoine
Bouseiller, Francoise-Hardy, Eva Britt Strandberg, Berger Malmsten, Chantal Darget
Filmindustri/Sandrews
b/w
Anouchka
Films/Svensk
Films/Argos
110
min,
- p. c.:
- r.
1966

Made in USA, d: Jean-Luc Godard - Sc: Jean-Luc Godard, basedon the novel The
Jugger by Richard Stark - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Rene Levert - ed: Agnes Guillemot I.p.: Anna Karina, Laszlo Szabo, Jean-PierreLeaud, Marianne Faithful], Yves
Afonso, Ernest Menzer, Jean-ClaudeBouillon, Kyoko Kosaka, Philippe Labro,
Sylvain Godet, Roger Scipion - r. 90 min, col - p: Georgesde Beauregard- p. c.:
Anouchka Films/Rome-Paris Films/SEPIC 1966
Deux ou trois choses queje sais delle, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard Vlady,
l.
Marina
Coutard
Anny
Rene
Collin
Levert
Raoul
Francoise
p.:
s:
c:
ed:
Duperey, Roger Montsoret, Raoul Levy, Jean Narboni, Christophe Bourseiller, Marie
Bourseiller, Yves Beneyton, Blandine Jeanson, Caude Miller, Jean-Patrick Lebel,

335

Juilet Berto, Helen Scott -r 90 min, col - p. c.: Anouchka Films/Argos Films/Les
Films du Carosse/Parc Film 1966
Anticipation (a.k. a. L'amour en l'an 2000, one episode in Le plux vieux metier du
Agnes
Pierre
Lhomme
d:
Godard
Jean-Luc
Godard
Jean-Luc
ed:
c:
sc:
monde),
Guillemot -I p.: Jacques Charrier, Anna Karina, Maril Tolo, Jean-Pierre Leaud,
.
Daniel Bart, Jean-Patrick Lebel, Daniel Bart, Jean-Patrick Lebel - r. 20 min, col - p:
Joseph Bercholz - p. c.: Francoriz Films/Les Films Gibe/Rialto Films/Rizzoli Films
1967
Camera-oeil (one episode of Loin du Vietnam), d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc
Godard - c: Alain Levent - s: Antoine Bonfanti - ed. Jacques Meppiel - l.p.: Jean-Luc
Godard (incorporating sequences from-La Chinoise and the contributions to Loin du
Vietnam by Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, William Klein, Alain Resnais, Claude
Lelouche, and Joris Ivens) - r. 15-min, col, 16mm - p: Chris Marker - p. c.: SLON
1967
La Chinoise, d: Jean-Luc- Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Rene
Levert - ed: Agnes Guillemot - I.p.: Anne Wiazemsky, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Michel
Semeniako, Juliet Berto, Omar Diop, Francis Jeanson, Blandine Jeanson, Lex de
Bruijn -r 90 min, col - p. c.: Anouchka Films/Les Productions de la Gueville/Athos
Films/Parc Films/Simar Films 1967
et retour andate e ritorno des enfants prodigues dei figli prodighi (one
episode in Vangelo 70. French release title L'amour, in La Contestation), d: JeanLuc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Alain Levent - s: Guy Villette - ed: Agnes
Guillemot - l.p.: Christine Gueho, Nino Castelnuovo, Catherine Jourdon, Paolo
Pozzesi - r. 26 min, b/w - p: Carlo Lizzani - p. c.: Castoro Films/Anouchka Films
1967

L'Aller

Week-end, d: Jean-Luc Godard - Sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Rene

Levert - ed: Agnes Guillemot - l.p.: Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne, Jean-Pierre Leaud,
Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Valerie Lagrange, Jean Eustache, Juliet Berto, Daniel
Pommereulle, Blandine Jeanson, Yves Afonso, Paul Gegauff, Laszlo Szabo, Ernest
Menzer, Valerie Lagrange, Anne Wiazemsky, Virginie Vignon, Georges Staquet - r.
95 min, col - p. c.: Films Copernic/Ascot Cineraid/Comacico/Lira Films 1967
Le Gai savoir, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Georges Leclerc - ed:
Germaine Cohen - I.p.: Juliet Berto, Jean-Pierre Leaud - r. 95 min, col - p. c.:
Atelier
1968
later
Anouchka
ORTF,
Films/Gambit/Bavaria
originally
Cine tracts, d: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Jean-Luc Godard - ed: film edited in camera - r.
from 2 to 4 min each, 16mm, b/w (From the-tacts' style, and Godard's distinctive
handwriting, Cine-tracts 7,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,23
and 40 were made, or at
least extensively collaborated on, by Godard. They are distributed on 16mm by the
London Filmmakers Co-op, and can be viewed on video at the Videotheque in Paris)
May-June 1968

336

Un Film comme les autres, d: Groupe Dziga Vertov

Groupe
Dziga
Vertov
sc:
- c:
Groupe Dziga Vertov - ed: Groupe Dziga Vertov
lp.:
3
from
militant
students
Nanterre and 2 workers from the Flins Renault factory (incorporates footage of May
1968 shot by the ARC group) - r. 110 min, 16mm, col & b/w p. c.: Anouchka Films
1968
One plus one, d: Jean-Luc Godard sc: Jean-Luc Godard c: Tony Richmond s:
Arthur Bradburn, Derek Ball ed: Ken Rowles, Agnes Guillemot
l.
The
Rolling
p.:
Stones, Anne Wiazemsky, lain Quarrier, Sean Lynch, Clifton Jones, Danny Daniels,
Frankie Dymon, Bernard Boston, Danny Daniels, Illario Pedro, Roy Stewart, Limbert
Spencer, Tommy Ansar, Michael McKay, Rudi Paterson r. 99 min, col p: lain
Quarrier, Michael Pearson - p. c.: Cupid Productions 1968
One American movie (a.k. a. One AM), d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard
c: Donald Pennebaker, Richard Leacock - s: Mary Lampson, Robert Leacock, Kate
Taylor - I.p.: Rip Tom, Jefferson- Airplane, Eldridge Cleaver, Tom Hayden, LeRoi
Jones, Tom Luddy, Paula Madder, Mary Lampson, Anne Wiazemsky p. c.: LeacockPennebaker Inc 1968 (Unfinished. A compilation of the footage shot for One A. M.,
and of a film being shot on the making of One A. M, was edited by Pennebaker and
by
Leacock and Pennebaker as One PM in 1971: 90 min, 16mm, col. )
released
British sounds (a.k. a. See you at Mao), d: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Henri Roger - sc:
Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Henri Roger - e: Charles Stewart - s: Fred Sharp - ed:
Elizabeth Kozmian - l.p.: Michel Lonsdale, students from Oxford and Kent, British
Motor Co. production line-workers (Cowley, Oxford), militant workers from
Dagenham - r. 52 min, 16mm, col - p: Irving Treitelbaum, Kenith Trodd - p. c.:
Kestrel Productions for London- Weekend Television 1969 (Never broadcast.
Extracts of the film were intercut with a debate on the issues raised by the film at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts, broadcast on LWT in the Aquarius programme series
)
2.1.70.
the
on
Pravda, d: Groupe Dziga Vertov (Jean-Luc Godard, Paul Burron, Jean-Henri Roger) Vertov
Groupe
Groupe
Dziga
Vertov
Groupe
Dziga
Dziga
Vertov
c:
s:
sc:
- ed:
Jean-Luc Godard - l.p.: voice of Jean-Luc Godard - r. 58 min, 16mm, col - p: Claude
Nedjar - p. c.: Centre Europeen Cinema-Radio-Television 1969
Vent d'est, d: Groupe Dziga Vertov (Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gerard
Martin) - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gianni
Barcelloni, Sergio Bazzini -- c: Mario Vulpiani - s: Antonio Ventura, Carlo Diotalevi
I.
Gian
Godard,
Maria
Jean-Pierre
Gorin,
Volonte,
Enzo
Micarelli
Jean-Luc
p.:
- ed:
Anne Wiazemsky, Paolo Pozzesi, Christiana Tullio Altan, Daniel Cohn-Bendit,
Glauber Rocher, Jose Varela, George Gotz, Vanessa Redgrave, Allan Midgett, Fabio
Garriba, Marco Ferreri - r. 100 min, 16mm, col (also blown up to 35mm) - p:
Georges de Beauregard, Gianni Barcelloni, Ettore Rohoch - p. c.: CCC/Poli Film
Kunst/Film/Anouchka Films 1969
Lotte in Italia (Luttes en Italie), d: Groupe Dziga Vertov (Jean-Luc Godard, JeanAnne
Altan,
Tullio
Pierre Gorin) - sc: Groupe Dziga Vertov
l.
Christiana
- p.:

337

Wiazemsky, Jerome Hinstin, Paolo Pozzesi - r. 76 min, 16mm, col (Italian version:
55 min) - p. c.: Anouchka Films/Cosmoseion for Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) 1969
Jusqu'a la victoire, d: Groupe Dziga Vertov (Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin,
Armand Marco) - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin - c: Armand Marco - p:
1970 (Commissioned by the Central Committee of the Palestinian revolution.
Following the massacre of the Palestinians by the troops of King Hussein of Jordan
in September 1970, and the resultant theoretical and tactical shift on the part of the
PLO, the film was abandoned. Shooting- was conducted and completed between
February and the Summer of 1970, but editing unfinished. 16mm colour rushes used
in Id et Ailleurs, 1974.)
Vladimir et Rosa, d: Groupe-Dziga Vertov (Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin) Anne
l.
Berto,
Dziga
Juliet
Groupe
Vertov
Groupe
Dziga
Vertov
sc:
- p.:
- ed:
Wiazemsky, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Yves Alfonso, Claude Nedjar,
Ernest Menzer -r 103 min, 16mm, col - p. c.: Munich Tele-Pool/Grove Press
Evergreen Films 1971
Schick, d: Jean-Luc Godard -p: Dupuy Compton 1971 (Incompleted and never
broadcast advertisement for Schick after-shave. Two minutes were shot of a man in
he
his
bathroom
filthy
HLM
the
mutters
obscenities
on
as
vest,
writing
mirror
of
a
'merde'. Godard was given carte blanche, and paid 60,000 francs in advance.)
Tout va bien, d: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, JeanPierre Gorin - c: Armand Marco - s: Bernard Orthion, Antoine Bonfanti - ed: Kenout
Peltier - lp.: Yves Montand, Jane-Fonda, Vittorio Caprioli, Jean Pignol, Pierre
Oudry, Elisabeth Chauvin, Eric Chartier, Yves Gabrielli, Michel Marot, Anne
Wiazemsky, Huguette Mieville, Castel Casti, Marcel Gassouk, Didier Gaudron, Luce
Marnaux, Nathalie Simon - r. 95 min, col - p: Alain Coffier - p. c.: Anouchka
Films/Vicco Film/Empire Film-1972
Letter to Jane, d: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, JeanPierre Gorin -r 52 min, col, 16mm -p: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin 1972

3. Post-Sonimage films by Godard with the frequent collaboration of

Anne-Marie Mieville as co-director and in a variety of other roles
The Story (a.k. a. Bugsy or The picture. Extensive negotiations with Robert De Niro
Story,
The
in
Keaton,
Diane
on
preceeded
work
conjunction
with pre-production
and
the shooting of Sauve qui peut (la vie). Previously envisaged with Vittorio Gassman
de
Beauregard
by
Georges
film
Rampling,
be
Charlotte
the
to
produced
and
was
(who had bought the rights to Henri Sergg's book, Bugsy Siegel). Marlon Brando
for
the male role. Whilst never made, the project
considered
subsequently
was
Jean-Luc
Godard's
in
image/text
largely
'script',
as
elaborate
reproduced
resulted
Godard, 'The Story: Extraits du scenario' in Godard par Godard, pp. 418-41.
Elements of the gangster/mafia plot later re-emerge in King Lear. )

338

Scenario video de Sauve qui peat (la vie), d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc
Godard - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - I.p.: photographs of Isabelle Hupert, Miou-Miou,
Werner Herzog - r. 20 min, col, video - p. c.: Sonimage/Television Suisse Romande
1979
Sauve qui peut (1a vie), d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Anne-Marie Mieville, Jean-Claude
Carriere - c: William Lubtchansky, Renata Berta, Jean-Bernard Menoud - s: Jacques
Maumont, Luc Yersin, Oscar Stellavox -- ed: Anne-Marie Mieville, Jean-Luc Godard
Fred
Amstutz,
Roland
Huppert,
Isabelle
l.
Dutronc,
Nathalie
Baye,
Jacques
- p.:
Personne, Guy Lavoro, Anna Baldaccini, Dore de Rosa, Monique Barsha, Paule
Muret, Michel Cassagne, Catherine Freiburghaus, Cecile Tanner, Nicole Wicht,
Giogiana Eaton, Paul Cassagne, Claude Champion, Gerard Battaz, Angelo Napoli - r.
87 min, col - p: Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Sarde - p. c.: Sara Films/MK2/Saga
1979
Productions/Sonimage/CNC/ZDF/SSR/ORF
Passion, le travail et l'amour: introduction un scenario (a.k. a. Troisieme etat du
Godard
Jean-Luc
du
film
d:
Godard
Passion),
Jean-Luc
Jean-Luc
ed.
sc:
scenario
Godard - lp.: Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Claude Carriere, Hanna Schygulla, Isabelle
Huppert, Jerzy Radziwilowicz - r. 30 min, col, video --p. c.: Sonimage 1981

Passion, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Raoul Coutard - s: Francois

Musy - video: Jean-BernardMenoud - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - lp.: Isabelle Huppert,
Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Hanna Schygulla, Lazlo Szabo,Michel Piccoli, Sophie

Lucatchevsky, Jean-Francois Stevenin, Magaly Champos, Myriem Roussel, Ezio

Ambrosetti, Patrick Bonnel, Jean-Luc Bideau, Barbara Tissier - r. 87 min, col - p:
Alain Sarde - p. c.: Sara Films/Sonimage/Films A2/Film et Video Production SA/SSR
1982
Scenario du film Passion, d: Jean-Luc Godard - Sc: Jean-Luc Godard Anne-Marie
Studio
Mieville,
Menoud,
Pierre
Binggeli,
Jean-Bernard
collaboration:
Trans Video - lp.: Jean-Luc Godard, Hanna Schygulla, Isabelle Huppert, Jerzy
Radziwilowicz -r 54 min, col, video - p. c.: Television Romande/JLG Films 1982 broadcast: in the framework of the-series 'Visions', Channel 4,11.5.83 at 21.00

Leitre Freddy Buache, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: JeanBernard Menoud - s: Francois Musy - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - collaboration: Pierre
Binggeli, Gerard Ruey - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard - r. 11 min, col, video transferred to
35mm - p. c.: Film et Video Production Lausanne 1981 (Broadcast on TF1 on the
1.10.83 in the framework of Etoiles et tolles. )
Changer d'image (a.k. a. Leitre la bien-aimee, episode in the series 'Le changement
plus d'un titre'), d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard,
INA/Sonimage
1982
Mieville
10
Anne-Marie
c.:
p.
min, col, video voice of
- r.
broadcast: FR3,10.5.82
Prenom Carmen, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Anne-Marie Mieville - c: Raoul Coutard I.
Maruschka
Lang-Villar
Musy
Jean-Luc
Suzanne
Godard,
Francois
p.:
s:
- ed.
Detmers, Jacques Bonnaffe, Myriem Roussel, Hyppolite Girardot, Christophe Odent,
Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Bertrand Liebert, Pierre-Alain Chapuis, Alain

339

Bastien-Thiry, Odile Roire, Jacques Villeret, Jean-Michel Denis, Valerie Dreville,

Christine Pignet - r. 85 min, col - p: Alain Sarde p. c.: Sara Films/JLG Films/Films
A2 1982
Petites notes propos du film Je vous salue, Marie, d: Jean-Luc Godard sc: JeanLuc Godard - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Myriem Roussel, Thierry
Rode, Anne-Marie Mieville - r. 25 min, col, video p. c.: JLG Films 1983 (Extracts
presented by Godard in the framework of Cinema Cinemas on Antenne 2 on the
4.1.84)
Je vous salue, Marie, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard c: Jean-Bernard
Menoud, Jacques Firmann - s: Francois Musy - ed. Anne-Marie Mieville
l.
- p.:
Myriem Roussel, Thierry Rode, Philippe-Lacoste, Juliette Binoche, Anne Gauthier,
Manon Anderson, Malachi Jara Cohen, Johann Leysen r. 72 min, col p. c.: Pegase
Films/SSR/JLG Films/Sara Films/Channel 4/Gaumont/Television Romande 1983
Detective, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Alain Sarde, Philippe Setbon, Anne-Marie
Mieville - c: Bruno Nuytten - s: Pierre Gamet, Francois Musy ed: Marilyn Dubreuil
I.
Nathalie
Claude
Baye,
Brasseur,
Stephane
Ferrara,
Hallyday,
Johnny
Jeanp.:
Pierre Leaud, Laurent Terzieff, Cyril Autin, Julie Delpy, Eugene Berthier, Laurent
Terzieff, Xavier Saint-Macary, Emmanuelle Seigner, Alain Cuny, Anne Gisele Glass,
Aurele Doazan, Pierre Bertin, Alexandre Garijo r. 95 min, col p: Alain Sarde
p. c.: Sara Films/JLG Films 1984
Soft and hard (a.k. a. Soft talk on a hard subject between two friends), d: Jean-Luc
Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville
- video:
Pierre Binggeli - lp.: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville -friend: Colin
MacCabe- r: 52 min - p: Tony Kirkhope
Beach
JLG
Films/Deptford
p.
c.:
Productions for Channel-4 1985 - broadcast: Channel 4,19.8.85 at 22.45
Grandeur et decadence d'un petit commerce de cinema (a.k. a. Chantons en choeur),
d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, from the novel The Soft Centre
(Chantons en choeur) by James Hadley Chase - c: Caroline Champetier, Serge
Lefrancois - s: Francois Musy, Pierre-Alain Besse - video: Pierre Binggeli - lp.:
Jean-Pierre Leaud, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Marina Valera, Jean-Luc Godard, the
(Agence
ANPE
Nationale pour l'Emploi), Anne Carrel, Francoise
the
of
unemployed
Desporte, Jean-Pierre Delamore, Jacques Pena, Jean Grecault, Jean Brisa - r. 90 min,
col, video - p: Pierre Grimblat - p. c.: Hamster Productions/TF1iTelevision
Romande/RTL/JLG Films 1986 - broadcast: TF1,24.5.86 at 20.35 (Broadcast in the
'Serie noire' series as Grandeur et decadence dun petit commerce de cinema.
Released on video by Prosperine Editions as Chantons en choeur in 1990.)
Meetin' WA, d: Jean-Luc Godard - Sc: Jean-Luc Godard - ed. Jean-Luc Godard -I p.:
.
Jean-Luc Godard, Woody Allen, voice of Annette Insdorf - r. 26 min, col, video p:
Jean-Luc Godard - p. c.: Festival International de Film 1986
King Lear, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Sophie Maintigneux
- s:
Francois Musy - ed: Jean-Luc Godard l.p.: Norman Mailer, Burgess Meredith, Peter
Sellars, Julie Delpy, Molly Ringwald, Kate Miller, Leos Carax, Jean-Luc Godard,

340

Woody Allen, Freddy Buache, Michele Halberstadt

90
Tom
Luddymin,
col
p:
-r
p. c.: Cannon Films International (Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus) 1987
Armide (one episode of Aria), d: Jean-Luc Godard sc: Jean-Luc Godard c:
Caroline Champetier - s: Phillipe Lioret--ed: Jean-Luc Godard lp.: Marion
Petersen, Valerie Allain, Jaques Neuville, Luke Cone, Christian Cauchon, Philippe
Pellant, Patrice Linguet, Lionel Sorin, Jean Coffinet, Alexandre Des Granges, Gerrard
Vives, Frederick Brosse, Pascal Bermont, Jean-Luc Cone, Bernard Gaudray,
Dominique Mano, Patrice Tridian, Pierre Mignot
12
Don
Boyd
r.
min,
col
p:
p. c.: Lightyear Entertainment/RVP ProductionsiVirgin Vision 1987
Soigne to droite (Une place sur la terre comme au ciel), d: Jean-Luc Godard sc:
Jean-Luc Godard - c: Caroline Champetier s: Francois Musy ed: Jean-Luc Godard
I.
Jacques
Villeret,
Jean-Luc
Godard,
Wrier,
Rufus,
Francois
Jane Birkin, Michel
p.:
Galabru, Les Rita Mitsouko, Dominique Lavanant, Jacques Rufus, Pauline Lafont,
Eva Darlan, Philippe Korsand, Isabelle Sadoyan, Philippe Rouleau, Raphael Delpart,
Carina Baronne, Jean-Pierre Delamour
Godard
81
Jean-Luc
r.
min,
col
p:
- p. c.:
Gaumont/JLG Films/Xanadu Films/RTSR 1987
'Closed (10 spots publicitaires), d: Jean-Luc Godard c: Caroline Champetier s:
Francois Musy - lp.: Keshi, Suzanne Lanza, Luca, Marc Parent (Girbaud models) r.
10 x 15 seconds, col, video - p. c.: JLG Films/Marithe et Francois Girbaud Design
1987 - broadcast: 5 spots broadcast on TF1, A2, Canal Plus, FR3 and M6 in May
1987 (Two further series of spots were completed by Godard for MFG Design, the
first a series of 4 in March 1988 destined for Italian and Canadian television, the
in
January
)
1990.
second
On s'est tous defile, d: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard
Caroline
Jean-Luc
c:
-Sc:
Champetier - s: Francois Musy - l.p.: Marithe and Francois Girbaud, models
presenting the 1988 MFG collection -r 13 min, col, video - p. c.: M. F. G. Design
1988
Puissance de la parole, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Caroline
Champetier, Pierre Binggeli - s: Francois Musy, Marc-Antoine Beldent, Pierre-Alain
Besse - lp.: Jean Bouise, Lydia Andrei, Jean-Michel Irribarren, Laurence Cote r. 25
min, col, video - p. c.: France Telecom/JLG Films/Gaumont 1988 (commissioned by
Olivier Tcherniak of France Telecom) - broadcast: FR3,18.5.90 (listed in Le monde
la
de
Godard)
La
et
gloire
puissance
as
Le Dernier mot (one episode of Les Francais vus par... ), d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc:
Jean-Luc Godard - c: Pierre-Alain Besse, Pierre Binggeli - s: Pierre Camus, Raoul
Fruhauf, Francois Musy - I.p.: Andre Marcon, Hans Zischler, Catherine Aymerie,
Pierre Amoyal, Michel Radic, Luc Biffod, Laurent Rohrbach, Gilles Laeser, Laurence
Nanzer, Damien Nanzer - r: 12 min, col, video (total programme length: 94 min) p:
Anne-Marie Mieville, Herve Duhamel, Marie-Christine Barriere - p. c.: Erato
Films/Socpresse/JLG Films/Le Figaro magazine/Antenne 2 1988 - broadcast:
Antenne 2,26.10.89 at 22.10

341

Histoire(s) du cinema (Eight of a projected 10 episodes now completed, but only

two broadcast in their entirety: IA, Toutes les histoires, and 1B, Une Histoire seule),
d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Jean-Luc Godard, Pierre Binggeli - s:
Jean-Luc Godard, Pierre-Alain Besse, Francois Musy - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - r: 2
episodes of 52 min each, col, video - p. c.: CNC/Canal Plus/La
Sept/FR3/Gaumont/JLG FilmsNega Films/RTSR 1989 (Subsequent 'chapters' of
Histoire(s) du cinema, as projected en bloc at the Institut francais (London) on the
27th September 1997 are: 2A Seul le cinema, 2B Fatale beaute, 3A La Monnaie de
I'absolu, 3B Une Vague nouvelle, 4A Le Contrdle de 1'univers, and 4B Les Signes
les
histoires
22.15
)
broadcast:
7.5.89
Canal
Plus,
Toutes
the
at
on
parmi nous. (repeated on the 22.5.89 & 24.5.89), Une Histoire seule on the 14.5.89 at 22.40
(repeated on the 29.5.89 & 31.5.89). Subsequently broadcast on FR3 in the
framework of Oceaniques on the 14.5.90 & 18.5.90. Broadcast in the U. K. on
Channel 4 on the 21.6.93 at 22.55 & the 28.6.93 at22.55.
Le Rapport Darty, d: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard,
Anne-Marie Mieville - video: Pierre Camus, Pierre-Alain Besse, Francois Musy - lp.:
Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - r. 50 min, col, video - p. c.: Gaumont/JLG
Films 1989
Nouvelle vague, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard c: William Lubtchansky,
Christophe Pollock, Frank Messmer, Helene Sebillotte, Guy Antoine Boleat, Pierre
Speyer, Jean-Michel Vincent, Jim Howe, Richard Weber - s: Francois Musy, PierreAlain Besse, Henri Morelle, Miguel Rejas, Willi Studer - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - I.p.:
Alain Delon, Domiziana Giordano, Roland Amstutz, Laurence Cote, Jacques
Dacquime, Christophe Odent, Cecile Reigher, Veronique Muller, Joe Sheriden, Tatem
Belkacem, Violaine Barret, Laurence -Guerre, Joseph Lisbona, Laure Killing - r. 89
Sarde
Plus/Vega
Alain
Sara
Films/Peripheria/Canal
min, col - p:
- p. c.:
Film/Television Romande/Antenne 2/CNC/DFI/Sofica Investimage/Sofica Creations
1990
L'Enfance de fart (Sequence in the series '...et les gosses dans tout ca?'), d: JeanLuc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - c:
Sophie Maintigneux - l.p.: Nathalie Kadern, Antoine Beyes, Michel Boupoil, Denis
Vallas, Nicolas Sukic - r. 8 min, col - p. c.: JLG Films/UNICEF 1991 (Broadcast on
les Bosses dans tout ca? on the 6.11.91 at
Antenne 2 under the collective-title
et
...
22.05, presented by Michel Honorin. The overall programme lasted two hours and
included contributions from Marie-France Delobel, Jerry Lewis, Lino Brocka, Rolan
Bykov, Euzhan Paley, and Ciro Duran. Credits for whole programme: d: Roger
Gomez- p: Marie-France Delobel, Jacques Grandelaude - p. c.: C9i Communication
for Antenne 2 1991.)
Allemagne annee 90 neuf zero, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c:
Christophe Pollock, Andreas Erben, Stepan Benda - s: Pierre-Alain Besse, Francois
Musy - ed: - l.p.: Eddie Constantine, Hans Zischler, Claudia Michelsen, Nathalie
Kadern, the voice of Andre S.Labarthe, Nathalie Kadern, Robert Wittmers, Kim
Kashkashian, Anton Mossine, Heinz Przbylski, Kerstin Boos, H. J. Jurgen, Uwe
Orzechowsici, Jochen Glischinski, Iva svarcova, Elfi Gabel - r. 62 min, col - p:
Nicole Ruelle - p. c.: Antenne 2/Brainstorm. Production/Gaumont/Peripheria 1991 -

342

broadcast: 8.11.91 in the series La 25ieme heure on Antenne 2, presented by Jacques

Perrin (Rebroadcast on Arte on the 12.8.93 at 23.15. )
Pour Thomas Wainggai (in the series Ecrire contre I'oubli), d: Jean-Luc Godard,
Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville
Jean-Marc
c:
Fabre, Emmanuelle le Fur - s: Pierre-Alain Besse, Francois Musy - l.p.: Andre
Rousselet, Veronique Tillmann - r. 3min 30 sec, col, 35mm transferred to video (90
min for entire programme) - p. c.: Amnesty International PRINega Film 1991 (Other
sequences made by Michel Deville, Sarah Moon, Jane Birkin, Raymond Depardon,
Martine Franck, Jacques Doillon, Patrice Chereau, Jean-Loup Hubert, Alain Comeau,
Jean Becker, Francis Girod, Jean-Michel Cane, Philippe Muyl, Dominique Dante,
Jacques Deray, Gerard Frot-Contaz, Denis Amar, Patrice Leconte, Claire Denis, Rene
Allio, Romain Goupil, Robert Kramer, Alain Resnais, Chantal Akerman, Nadine
Trintignant, Costa-Gavras, Bertrand Tavernier, Coline Serreau, Michel Piccoli.
Overall programme length: 110 min. Broadcast 10.12.91 on Canal Plus, and all other
French channels with the- exception of TF1. )
Helas pour moi, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c: Caroline
Champetier, Julien Hirsch, Laurent Hincelin, Blaise Bauquis, Charly Huser, Philippe
Benoit - s: Francois Musy, Pierre-Alain Besse, Nathalie Vidal - ed: Jean-Luc Godard
l.
Gerard
Depardieu,
Laurence
Masliah,
Bernard
Verley,
Marc
Roland
Blanche,
p.:
Betton, Francois Germond, Jean-Pierre Miquel, Jean-Louis Loca, Annie Romand,
Michel Barras, Harry Cleven, Christina Hernandez, Jean-Louis Caillat, Monique
Couturier, Pascale Vachoux, Benjamin Kraatz, Manon Andersen, Raphael Potier,
Delphine Quentin, Veronique- Varlet, Laurence Dubois, Stephane Elbaum, Vincent
Siegrist, Jerome Pradon - r: 84 min, col - p. c.: Vega FilmsfLes Films Alain
Sarde/Canal Plus/Television Suisse Romande 1993
Les Enfantsjouent la Russie, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c:
Christoph Pollock - ed: Jean-Luc Godard - lp.: Laszlo Szabo, Jean-Luc Godard,
Bernard Eisenschitz, Andre S.Labarthe - r. 63 min, col - p: Alessandro Cecconi, Ira
Barmak, Ruth Waldburger -p. c.: Worldvision Enterprises (N. Y. )/Cecco Films/RTR
1993
JLG/JLG - autoportrait de decembre, d: Jean-Luc Godard - sc: Jean-Luc Godard - c:
Yves Pouliquen, Christian Jacquenod - s: Pierre-Alain Besse - ed: Catherine Cormon
Godard, Andre S.Labarthe, Genevieve Pasquier, Denis Jardot, Brigitte
l.
Jean-Luc
p.:
Bastien, Louis Seguin -r 62 min, col - p: Joseph Strub - p. c.: Gaumont 1994
Deuxfois cinquante ans de cinema francais, d: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie
Mieville - sc: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Mieville - ed. Jean-Luc Godard, AnneMarie Mieville - l.p.: Michel Piccoli, C.Reigher, E. Grynspan, D. Jacquet, P.Gillieron,
F. Dierx-Benard, X. Jougleux (employees of the 'Hotel du lac X... ') - r. 49 min, col,
Film
Jean-Luc
Godard,
British
Anne-Marie
Mieville
p:
video - p. c.:
Institute/Peripheria 1995 (Broadcast on Arte on the 26.5.95 at 22.05. )
For ever Mozart, d: Jean-Luc Godard sc: Jean-Luc Godard - l.p.: Madeleine Assas,
Ghalia Lacroix, Vicky Messica, Berangere Allaux, Frederic Pierrot, Harry Cleven,
Michel Francini, Sabine Bail, Max Andre, Sylvie Herbert, Cecile Reigher, Dominique
Pozzetto, Valerie Delangre, Xavier Boulanger, Yasna Zivandoc, Nathalie Dorval,

343

Daniel Krellenstein, Jean Grecault, Beatrice Avoine, Marc Faure, Francois Savioz,
Juliette Subira, Valerie Popesco, Euryale Winter, Gerard Baume, Norbert Krief, Erik
Pichon, Boris Andersen, Pierre-Yves Boutang, Cecile Caillard, Alain Wilmet,
Nedeljko Grujic, Dan Thorens, Sarah Bensousan, Kanine Belly, Claire Larouche,
Herve Langlois, Valerie Pelegatti, Alain Moussay, Stephanie Lagarde, Zbiniew
Horoks, Andre Lacombe, Stanislas Gaczol - r. 85 min, col - p: Jean-Luc Godard p. c.: Avventura Films/Peripheria/Vega Film/CEC Rhone Alpes/France 2
Cinema/Canal Plus/CNC/TSR/Eurimages/DFI 1996

4. Films by Mieville
The films listed below are in addition to Mieville's work with Sonimage and her role
as as co-director, writer and editor on collaborative films with Jean-Luc Godard after
1979 listed above. Mieville also directed a short TV film titled Papa comme maman
in 1977, and co-wrote the script for Lamour des femmes, directed by Michel Soutter
in 1981 (sc: Michel Soutter, Madelaine Chapsal, Anne-Marie Mieville - c: Hans
Liechti - ed: N. Lubtschansky, J-L. Gauthery - l.p.: Jean-Marc Bory, Pierre Clementi,
Jean-Pierre Malo, Heinz Bennent, Aurore-Clement, Severine Bujard, Anne
Lonneberg, Hilde Ziegler, Anne Bennent - r. 90 min, col - p. c.: Film et Video
Production/Television Suisse Romande 1981).

How can I love (a.k. a. How can I love a man when I don't even know him), d: AnneMarie Mieville - sc: Anne-Marie-Mieville - l.p.: Harriett Kraatz, Jo Excoffier, Carlo
Brandt, Dominique Stehle - r. 13 min, col - p. c.: JLG Films 1984
Le Livre de Marie, d: Anne-Marie Mieville- - sc: Anne-Marie Mieville - c: JeanBernard Menoud, Caroline Champetier, Jacques Firmann, Ivan Niclas - s: Francois
Musy - ed: Anne-Marie Mieville - l.p.: Bruno Cremer, Aurore Clement, Rebecca
Hampton, Copi, Valentine Mercier, Clea Redalier - r. 27 min, col - p. c.: Pegase/JLG
Films/Sara Films/GaumontlSSR/Channel 4 1984
d: Anne-Marie Mieville
Jean-Bernard
Mieville
Anne-Marie
Faire late,
c:
sc:
Menoud - l.p.: Anne Alvaro, Didier Flamand, Helene Lapiower - r. 13 min, col p. c.: JLG Films/Xanadu Films 1986

Mon cher sujet, d: Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Anne-Marie Mieville - c: Jean-Paul

Rosa da Costa, Daniel Barrau, Martin Gressmann- s: Pierre Camus,Raoul Fruhauf
ed: Anne-Marie Mieville - lp.: Gaele le Roi, Anny Romand, Helene Roussel, Yves
Neff, Bernard Woringer, Hans Zischler, Marc Darnault - r. 96 min, col - p. c.:
CNC/La Cinq/Les Films du Jeudi/JLG Films/Xanadu Films/RTSR/DFI

1988

Lou na pas dit non, d: Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Anne-Marie Mieville - c: JeanPaul Rosa da Costa - s: Pierre-Alain Besse - ed: Anne-Marie Mieville -Ip.: Marie
Bunel, Manuel Blanc, Caroline Micla, Genevieve Pasquier, Matilde Weyergans,

344

Harry Cleven, Wilfred Benaiche, Muriel Boulay - r. 78 min, col - p. c.:

CNC/Sofica/Canal Plus/Sara Films/Peripheria/Vega Films/BVF 1994
Nous sommes tous encore ici, d: Anne-Marie Mieville - sc: Anne-Marie Mieville - c:
Christophe Beaucarne, Jean-Paul Rosa da Costa, Christophe Pollock - s: Francois
Musy, Olivier Burgaud, Christophe Giovannoni - ed: Anne-Marie Mieville -Lp.:
Aurore Clement, Bernadette-Lafont, Jean-Luc Godard, David Amigoni, Vincent
Babel, Daniel Geiser, Roland Vouilloz, Colin Ledoux, Robert Degennes, Yvette
Gamet, Pascal Deratte, Jean Lottaz, Joaquim Almeida, Bernard Campergue - r. 80
Sarde
1997
du
Losange/Vega
Films/Alain
PeripherialLes
Films
min, col - p. c.:

SECTION B
5. Chronological

list of films and television programmes on Godard

La Nouvelle Vague par elle-meme (in- the- series 'Cinema de notre temps'), d: Robert
Valey - s: Maurice Teboul - ed: Jean Lopez, Marie-Louise Gesbert - l.p.: Henri
Langlois, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Agnes Varda, Jacques Rivette, Jacques
Demy, Jacques Rozier, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Jean Rouch, Jean-Luc Godard, the voice
ORTF
Maistre
JanineS.
1964
Bazin,
Andre
Labarthe
Francois
p.
c.:
p:
of
broadcast: Arte, 14.6.95 at 23.50 in a new format in the series 'Cinema, de notre
temps'
Jean-Luc Godard, ou le cinema au deft (in the series 'Cineastes de notre temps'), d:
Hubert Knapp - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Paul Godard (Godard's father), Veronique
Godard (Godard's sister), Louis Aragon, Anna Karina - r: 75 min, b/w, 16mm - p:
Janine Bazin, Andre S.Labarthe, Hubert Knapp - p. c.: ORTF 1965 - broadcast:
Antenne 2,15.7.65 (Extracts broadcast in Cinema Cinemas on the 20.12.87. )
Pour le plaisir, d: Guy Gilles - lp.: Emmanuelle Riva, Jean-Louis Trintignant, JeanPierre Leaud, Jean-Claude Drouot, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean-Louis Comolli, Louise
Vilmorin, Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Henri Langlois, Barbara Douchet,
Barbet Schroeder, Jacques Rivette, Francois Truffaut - r. 58 min, b/w, 16mm - p. c.:
ORTF 1967 - broadcast: TF 1,4.5.67
2 American audiences (a.k. a. Godard), d: Mark Woodcock - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard,
Jean-Pierre Gorin - r. 40 min, col & b/w, 16mm, 1970 (Film of Godard and Gorin's
tour to raise money for Jusqu' la victoire with British Sounds and the storyboard for
Jusqu' la victoire, intercut with extracts of La Chinoise. )
Hieroglyphes, l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard (self-presentation, including an extract of
Numero deux) - r. 50 min, col - p. c.: INA 1975 - broadcast: FR3,23.11.75

Der kleine Godard, an dasjunger deutscher Film, d: Hellmuth Costard - sc:

Hellmuth Costard - c: Bernd Upnmoor, Hans-Otto Walter, Hanno Hart, Hellmuth
Costard - s: Hernert Jeschke- ed. SusannePaschen- l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Hellmuth
345

Costard, Bernard Kiesel, Hilka Nordhausen, Andy Hertel, Jelena Kristl, Werner
Grassmann, Herbert Jeschke, Marie-Luise Scherer, Hedda Costard, Hans-Otto Walter,
Curt Costard - r. 81 min, col, Super 8 (blown up to 16mm) - p. c.: Toulouse-Lautrec
Institut/ZDF 1976-78
Pour changer etoiles et tolles, d: Jean Douchet -lp.:
col, video - p. c.: TF1 1982 - broadcast: TF1,24.4.82

Jean-Luc Godard -r

60 min,

Cinema Cinemas, d: Claude Ventura -- Lp.: Jean-Luc Godard, Hanna Schygulla - r.

58 min, col, video - p. c.: Antenne 2 1982 - broadcast: Antenne 2,5.5.82 (Includes
directing
Godard
of
a sequence of Passion. )
extract
Visions (Godard. - History: Passion), series editor John Ellis - c: Kevan Debonnaire s: Wonter van Herwenden - ed: Brian Wiseman -- video: Peter Baker, David Cole l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Mark Shivas, Nina Hibben, Chris Auty, Lynda Myles, Sue
Clayton, Angela Carter, Tom Milne, Peter Sainsbury - r. 35 min, col, video by
Christie
Griffiths,
(commissioned
Paul
Ian
Keith
Simon
Hartog
p:
contributor.
Madden of Channel 4) - p. c.: Large Door for Channel 4 1983 - broadcast: Channel
4,11.5.83 at 21.00, followed by Scenario du film Passion
Etoiles et toiles, d: Guy Saguez - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Georges Rouquier, Euzhan
Paley, Pascal Kane, Aline Issermann - r: 45 min, col, video - p. c.: TF1 1983 broadcast: TF 1,1.10.83 (Includes- transmission of Leitre a Freddy Buache. )
Cinema Cinemas, d: Alain Nahum - I.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Serge Silberman, Michel
Boujut, Anne Andrev, Claude-Ventura, Daniel Toscan du Plantier, Sterling Hayden,
Ctherine Deneuve, Pierre Chenel - p. c.: Antenne 2 1984 - broadcast: Antenne 2,
4.1.84 at 21.51 (Includes 14 minute extract of Petites notes propos du film Je vous
by
Godard. )
Marie,
presented
salue,
Etoiles et toiles, d: Georges Zenatti (for the section on Godard), Robert Rea (for the
Anne-Marie
Reyes
Jan-Henk
Kleijn
Edouardo
ed:
c:
programme)
s:
overall
L'Hote - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Maruschka Detmers, Pratt Quatuor - presente par.
Frederic Mitterand - r. 55 min, col - p. c.: TF1 1984 - broadcast: TF1,9.1.84 at 20.25
Cinema Cinemas, d: Claude-Ventura, Andre S.Labarthe - l.p.: Robert Altman, Elia
Kazan, Gene Tierney, Jean-Luc Godard -r 67 min, col, video - p. c.: Antenne 2 1986
Antenne 2,21.1.86 at 22.47 (Includes survey of the reaction to Je vous
broadcast:
in
Marie
the USA. )
salue,
Lehre Jean-Luc Godard, d: Claudine -Delvaux - sc: Claudine Delvaux - c: Philippe
Dubois - l.p.: Agnes Guillemot, Freddy Buache, voice of Claudine Delvaux - r. 37
l'Universite
de
de
Audiovisuel
Derives/RTBF
Liege/Centre
p.
c.:
col,
video
min,
Liege/Wallonie Image Production 1987
Cinema Cinemas, d: Claude Ventura - lp.: Paul Godard, Veronique Godard, JeanLuc Godard, Menahem Golan, Anne Wiazemsky, Anna Karina - r. 71 min, col, video
interview
broadcast:
2
1987
(Includes
Antenne
22.31
Antenne
2,20.12.87
at
- p. c.:
filmed
in
Godard
Godard
by
Rolle
13.12.87,
the
at
which
with
on
a sequence made

346

he inserts contemporary imagery into the postcard sequence at the end of Les
Carabiniers, Godard commenting on two slowed down extracts of Stanley Kubrick's
Full Metal Jacket and Santiago Alvarez's 79 Printemps, and extracts from numerous
femme
femme,
Le
hard,
de
Une
Vivre
bout
Soft
A
sa
vie,
est
une
and
souffle,
works:
mepris, Bande part, and Une femme mariee. )
Cinema! Cinema! The French New Wave, d: Christopher Spencer - c: Simon
Kossoff - s: Peter Miller, Paul Cottrell - ed: Peter Cartright - lp.: Richard Leacock,
Jean Rouch, Andrew Sarris, Agnes Varda, Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, JeanLuc Godard, Raoul Coutard, Anna Karina, David Newman, Robert Benton, Arthur
Penn, Laszlo Kovacs, Peter Bogdanovich - r. 60 min - p: Jane Root - p. c.: Wall to
Wall Television Ltd/Channel 4 1992 - broadcast: Channel 4,18.6.92 at 22.50

6. Chronological list of selected television and radio interviews with

Godard and Mieville
Le Dinosaure et le bebe (in the series 'Cineastes de notre temps'), d: Andre
S.Labarthe - c: G.Perrot-Minnot - s: Alain Costes - ed: Paul Loizon - l.p: Fritz Lang,
Jean-Luc Godard - r. 61 min - p: Janine Bazin, Andre S.Labarthe - p. c.: ORTF 1964
(recorded Paris, November 1964) - broadcast: Antenne 2,15.3.67 (Rebroadcast on
'La Sept sur FR3' on the 19.5.90 at 15.30, and on Arte on the 11.1.95 at 23.30. )
Un Clin d'oeil Fitzgerald (in the series 'Dim Dam Dom'), d: Guy Seligmann - sc:
Claude Brule - l.p.: Marcella Saint-Amant, Olivier Lebeaut, Jean-Luc Godard,
Francoise Sagan - r. 15 min, b/w, 16mm - p: Daisy de Galard - p. c.: ORTF 1965
Marina face Godard (in the series 'Dim Dam Dom'), d: Luc Favory - l.p.: Marina
Vlady, Jean-Luc Godard - r. 8 min, b/w, 16mm - p: Daisy de Galard - p. c.: ORTF
1967
Le Cinema des cineastes, 2-part interview with Godard by Claude-Jean Philippe on
France Culture within the framework of the series 'Le cinema des cineastes' broadcast: France Culture, 11.7.76 &19.7.76
Godard 1980, d." Jon Jost - sc: Jon Jost - c: Jon Jost - s: Alicia Wille - ed: Jon Jost I.p.: Peter Wollen, Don Ranvaud, Jean-Luc Godard - r. 17 min, col - p: Don
Ranvaud - p. c.: Framework Films 1980
Antenne 2 Midi, lp.: Jean-Luc Godard, Isabelle Huppert - presenters: Daniel
Bilalian, France Roche - r. 35 min, col, video - p. c.: Antenne 2 1980 - broadcast:
Antenne 2,19.5.80 (live)
Soir 3, l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard - presenter. Henri Chapier - col, video - p. c.: FR3 1980
FR3,21.5.80
broadcast:
-

347

Champ contre champ, d: Guy Seligmann l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Freddy Buache,
Krystof Zanussi, Jamil Dehlavi, Carlos Diegues
67
FR3
min,
col,
video
p.
c.:
-r
1980 - broadcast: FR3,31.5.80
Soir 3, lp.: Jean-Luc Godard--presenter: Henri Chapier col, video p. c.: FR3 1980
broadcast:
FR3,14.10.80
(Includes
Sauve
(la
)
extract
of
qui
peut
vie).
Les Nouveaux rendez-vous, d: Remy- Grumbach lp.: Jean-Luc Godard, Nathalie
Baye, Claude Sautet, Brigitte Fossey, Yves Robert - r. 76 min, col, video - p. c.: TF1
1980 - broadcast: TF1,19.10.80
Antenne 2 Midi, d: Jacques Christobel (Cannes), Olivier Baudoin (Paris) - lp.: JeanLuc Godard - presenters: France Roche, Philippe Labro, Francoise Kramer r. 45
min, col, video - p. c.: Antenne 2 1982 - broadcast: Antenne 2,22.5.82 at 13.00
(Live from Cannes. Includes 2 sequences from Passion. Extracts of the exchanges
between Godard and Labro were-rebroadcast in the framework of a 'soiree
thematique' entitled 'Faux et images de faux' on Arte on the 10.6.93 at 20.40. )
Ouvert le dimanche, l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Serge July, Maurice Achard, Anne
Tronche - r. 188 min, col, video - p. c.: FR3 1982 - broadcast: FR3,6.6.82
Cinema Cinemas, d: Claude Ventura - I.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Yves Boisset, Jose
Giovanni, Michel Deville, Robert Enrico, Alexandre Arcady, Pierre Etaix, Claude
Goretta, Philippe de Broca, Benoit Jacquot, Robin Davis, Claude Chabrol, JeanJacques Beneix, Patrice Lecomte, Francis Girod, Eric Rohmer - r. 60 min, col, video
2
broadcast:
Antenne
1983
Antenne
2,5.1.83
c.:
p.
Sept sur seilt, d: Jean Delannoy - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard - presenters: Jean-Louis
Burgat, Erik Gilbert - r. 60 min, col, video -p. c.: TF1 1983 - broadcast: TF1,
11.12.83 at 19.00 (live)
L'Entretien, d: Jean-Paul Fargier - c: Jean-Paul Gurliat, Richard Ugolini - s: Georges
Chretien - ed: Vincent Ferey - I.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Sollers - r. 75 min,
col, video - p: Dominique Patni - p. c.: Federation Nationale Leo Lagrange/Art
Press/Video Montages/Maison de la Culture de Reims 1984 (Copies of L'entretien
from
for
francs
5
500
VIDEO
J-P.
Fargier,
MONTAGES,
c/o
rue Victor
are available
Masse, 75009 Paris)
Etoiles et tolles, d: Jean-Christophe Rose - l.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie
Mieville, Jean Lemaire - r. 60 min, col, video - p. c.: TF1 1985 - broadcast: TF1,
21.1.85 (First half of programme devoted to the work of Anne-Marie Mieville.
Includes extracts of Le livre de Marie and Je vous salue, Marie. )
IT 1 13h, lp.: Jean-Luc Godard -presenters: Yves Mourousi, Alain Beverini - p. c.:
TF1 1985 - broadcast: TF1,22.1.85 at 13.36
Cinema Cinemas, d: Andre S.Labarthe I.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Andre S.Labarthe,
Claude Ventura - r. 64 min, col, video p. c.: Antenne 2 1985 - broadcast: Antenne
2,6.2.85

348

Droit de reponse, d: Maurice Dugowson -- lp.: Michel Polac, Jean-Luc Godard,

Philippe Sollers - r: 90 min, col, video - p. c.: TF1 1985 - broadcast: TF1,9.2.85
22.30

at

Etoiles et tolles, d: Robert Rea (overall programme), Jean Douchet (Godard

sequence) - lp.: Clint Eastwood, Desire Ecare, Youssef Chahine, Jean-Luc Godard r. 60 min, col, video -p. c.: TF1 1985 - broadcast: TF1,13.5.85 (Includes Godard's
1985 Cannes press conference, flanked by Nathalie Baye, Johnny Hallyday and JeanPierre Leaud. )
Oceaniques ('Duras-Godard'), d: Jean-Daniel Verhaege - c: Jean-Claude Ducouret - s:
Pierre Alessandri, Gilbert Cara - ed: Martine Biri - video: Julien Benedetti - lp.:
Marguerite Duras, Jean-Luc Godard - r: 60 min, col, video - p: Colette Fellous,
Pierre-Andre Boutang - p. c.: FR3 1987 - broadcast: FR3,28.12.87 at 22.32 (130 min
of dialogue was taped on the-2.12.87 at Duras's Paris apartment. Includes extract of
Sauve qui peut (la vie). Partially transcribed in Cinema 87,422,30.12.87 - 6.1.88,
)
6-7.
pp
Direct, lp.: Jean-Luc Godard, Rene Bonnell -presenter. Philippe Gildas -r 90 min
broadcast:
Canal
from
Canal
Plus
Plus,
(live
Cannes)
1987
10.5.87
c.:
p.
Oceaniques, d: Guy Seligmann - lp.: Anne-Marie Mieville, Pierre-Andre Boutang,
Serge Toubiana, Francis Girod, Yves Dangerfield, Jacques Siclier - r. 56 min, col,
broadcast:
(Includes
interview
(live)
FR3
1988
FR3,18.5.88
21.14
c.:
p.
at
video )
Mieville.
with
La Nouvelle Vague: 2 ou 3 chases..., d: Claude Ventura (Compilation of clips on
Godard from the 1960s. Includes Godard interviewed at Cannes in 1960, extract of
the shooting of Bande Part in 1964, the shooting of Pierrot le fou in 1965 (plus
interviews with Godard, Anna Karina & Jean-Paul Belmondo), the shooting of 2 ou 3
&
Godard
in
Marina
(includinginterviews
d'elle
1967
je
sais
with
choses que
Vlady), an interview with Godard for Television Suisse Romande in 1965, Godard,
Truffaut & Polanski calling for closure- and transformation of the 1968 Cannes
festival, and a 1985 interview with Godard by Claude Ventura and Andre S.Labarthe,
framework
in
)
Cinemas
for
Cinema
the
the-6.2.85.
of a'soiree
of
made
--broadcast:
thematique' entitled 'Nouvelle Vague, Annee Zero', presided over by Claude Ventura
Arte,
27.5.93
Villetard,
Xavier
at 20.40
and
Bouillon de Culture, d: Elisabeth Preschley - c: Albert Schimel - lp.: Bernard Pivot,
Jean-Luc Godard -r 90 min, col -p: Bernard Pivot - p. c.: France 2/FNAC 1993 broadcast: France 2,10.9.93 at 22.25 (live)
Le Bon plaisir, d: Anna Schmck, Francoise Reymond, Caspar de Besse, Olivier
Duprey - l.p.: Jean Daive, Jean-Luc Godard, Andre S.Labarthe, the voices of Henri
Langlois, Brice Parain, Serge Daney, Francois Truffaut, Roman Polanski - r. 180 min
Culture,
20.5.95
Dalve
France
France
Jean
broadcast:
Culture
1995
p.
c.:
p:
at
15.30

349

Le Cercle de minuit, I.p.: Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Sollers, Francois Lyotard - r:

80 min - broadcast: France 2,26.11.96 at 00.30

7. Additional
CHANTAL

relevant works, including films cited in the text

AKERMAN

Je, tu, il, eile, d: Chantal Akerman - sc: Chantal Akerman - c: Benedicte Delsalle - s:
Gerard Rousseau - ed: Luc Freche - l.p.: Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire
Wauthion - r. 90 min, b/w, 16mm - p: Chantal Akerman - p. c.: Paradise
Films/Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres 1974
Jeanne Dielmann, 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, d: Chantal Akerman - sc:
Chantal Akerman - c: Babette Mangolte - s: Benie Deswarte, Francoise Van Tienen ed. Patricia Canino - 1.p.: Delphine Seyrig, Henri Storck, Jacque Doniol-Valcroze,
Yves Bical, voice of Chantal Akerman - r. 225 min, col, 16mm - p: Evelyne Paul,
Corinne Jenart - p. c.: Paradise-Films/Unite Trois/Ministere de la Culture francaise du
Belgique 1975
News from home, d: Chantal Akerman - sc: Chantal Akerman - c: Babette Mangolte
Dalmasso,
Dominique
Larry
Haas
Sandberg
90
Francine
s:
min, col,
ed.
-r
16mm - p: Alain Dahan - p. c.: Paradise-Films/Unite Trois/INA 1976
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna, d: Chantal Akerman - sc: Chantal Akerman - c: Jean
Penzer - s: Henri Morelle - ed: Francine Sandberg l.p.: Aurore Clement, Magali
Noel, Lea Massari, Hans Zischler, Jean-Pierre Cassel - r. 127 min, col - p. c.: Helene
Films/Paradise Films/Unite Trois/ZDF 1978
Dis moi, d: Chantal Akerman - sc: Chantal Akerman - r. 46 min, col, 16mm - p. c.:
TF1 1980 - broadcast: in the series 'Grand-meres' on TF1,25.8.80
D'Est, d: Chantal Akerman - sc: Chantal Akerman - c: Raymond Fromont, Bernard
Delville - s: Pierre Mertens, Thomas Gauder, Didier Pecheur - ed: Claire Atherton,
Agnes Bruckert - r. 105 min, col - p: Francois le Bayon - p. c.: Lieurac
Productions/Paradise Films/La Radio Television Portugaise/La Sept/Arte/Centre de
I'Audio-Visuel a Bruxelles/RTBF (Television belge)/Gouvemement de Ia
Communaute Francaise de Belgique/Loterie-Nationale/Fonds Eurimages du Conseil
de 1RuropefLa Television Polonaise/CNC/Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres broadcast: Arte, 18.9.93 at 20.40

REN$

ALLIO

Moi, Pierre Riviere, ayant egorge ma mere, ma soeur, mon frere, d: Rene Allio from
Allio,
Pascal
Bonitzer,
Toubiana,
Serge
Rene
Jean
Jourdheuil,
adapted
a text
sc:
Bonfanti,
Francis
by
Michel
Foucault
Gamet,
Nurith
Pierre
Aviv
edited
- c:
--s:

350

Patrice Noia - lp.: Claude Hebert, Jacqueline Milliere, Joseph Leportier, Annick
Gehan, Nicole Gehan, Emilie Lihou, Antoine Bourseiller, Michel Amphoux, Robert
Decaen, Jacques Debray, Marthe Groussard, Roger Harivel, Francois Callu,
Christophe Milliere, Albert Husnot - r. 125 min, col - p: Rene Feret p. c.: Les Films
Arbesque 1976

WOODY

ALLEN

Hannah and her sisters, d: Woody Allen - sc: Woody Allen - c: Carlo Di Palma - s:
Tom Maitland, Les Lazarovitz - ed: Susan E.Morse - l.p.: Woody Allen, Michael
Caine, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Barbara Hershey, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen
O'Sullivan, Daniel Stem, Max von Sydow, Dianne Wiest, Sam Waterston, Tony
Roberts, Lewis Black, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Christain Clemenson, Julia Kavner - r.
107 min, col - p: Robert Greenhut - p. c.: Orion 1986
MICHELANGELO

ANTONIONI

Professione: reporter (The Passenger), d: Michelangelo Antonioni - sc: Mark Peploe,

Peter Wollen, Michelangelo Antonioni, based on a story by Mark Peploe - c: Luciano
Tovoli - s: Cyril Collick - ed: Franco-Arcalli, Michelangelo Antonioni - l.p.: Jack
Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry, Stephen Berkoff, Ambrose
Bia, Jose Maria Carafel, James Campbell, Manfred Spies, Jean Baptiste Tiemele,
Angel Del Pozo, Claude Mulvehill - r. 122 min - p: Carlo Ponti - p. c.: Compagnia
Cinematographica Champion/Les Films Concordia/CIPI Cinematografica 1974
II Mistero di Oberwald (The Oberwald mystery), d: Michelangelo Antonioni - sc:
Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino- Guerra, from the play L Aigle deux fetes by Jean
Cocteau - c: Luciano Tovali - s: Gianfranco Desideri - ed: Michelangelo Antonioni,
Francesco Grandoni - video: Franco De- Leonardis, Claudio Grandini - l.p.: Monica
Vitti, Franco Branciaroli, Paolo Bonacelli, Elisabetta Pozzi, Luigi Diberti, Ahmed
Saha Alan, Wanda Lazzarino, Enrico Bellani, Stefania Conti -r 129 min, col, video
(transferred to 35mm) - p: Sergio Benvenuti, Alessandro von Norman, Giancarlo
Bernardoni - p. c.: Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI)/Yolntel International 1980

ARC

Le Joli mois de mai, disc/c/s/ed: ARC -r

33 min, b/w, 16mm - p. c.: ARC 1968

Citroe"n Nanterre: mai-juin 1968, d/sc/c/s/ed: ARC -Ip.: Nanterre Citroen factory
b/w,
from
16mm
(filmed
May
63
December
ARC
1968)
to
p.
min,
c.:
r.
strikers
1968 (Sequences of this film were used in Godard's Un film comme les autres. )
CA13: Comite d'action du 13eme arrondissement de Paris (juin 1968), d/sc%ls/ed:
ARC - lp.: militant workers attempting to continue factory occupations at SESCO,
the Citroen factory at Porte de Choisy, and the RATP depot at rue Lebrun - r. 40
b/w,
16mm - p. c.: ARC 1968
min,

351

Notre histoire, d: Bertrand Blier - sc: Bertrand Blier - c: Jean Penzer - s: Bernard
Bats, Dominique Hennequin - ed: Claudine Merlin - lp.: Nathalie Baye, Alain Delon,
Michel Galabru, Sabine Haudepin, Genevieve Fontanel, Jean-Pierre Darroussin,
Gerard Darmon, Norbert Letheule r. 110 min, col p: Alain Sarde, Alain Delon -p. c.: Adel Productions/Sara Films/Films A2 1984

LUIS

BUNUEL

Cet Obscur objet de desir, d: Luis Bunuel - sc: Luis Bunuel, Jean-Claude Carriere Guy
Richard
Villette
Edmund
Helene
Rey,
Plemiannikov
Fernando
s:
ed:
c:
-I .p.:
Carole Bouquet, Angela Molina, Julien Bertheau, Andre Weber, Milena Vukotic,
Ellen Bahl, Valerie Blanco, Auguste Carriere, Jacques Debary, Antonio Duque,
Andre Lacombe, Lita Lluch-Peiro, Annie Monange, Jean-Claude Montalban, Muni,
Bernard Musson, Pieral, Isabelle Racier, David Rocha, Isabelle Sadoyan, Juan
Santamaria - r: 103 min, col -p: Serge Silberman -p. c.: Greenwich Film
Production/Les Films Galaxie/Incine 1977

HENRI

CLOUZOT

Le Mystere Picasso, d: Henri-Georges Clouzot -- sc: Henri-Georges Clouzot - c:

Claude Renoir - s: Joseph de Bretagne - ed: Henri Colpi - l.p.: Pablo Picasso, HenriGeorges Clouzot - r. 78 min, col & b/w -p: Henri-Georges Clouzot - p. c.: Filmsonor
1956

COLLECTIF

RAMEAU

ROUGE

Les Murs et la parole, d: Collectif Rameau Rouge - sc: Collectif Rameau Rouge - c:
Collectif Rameau Rouge- s: Collectif Rameau Rouge - ed: Collectif Rameau Rouge l.p.: Michel Beaud, Claude Friaux, Pierre Merlin, Claude Baible, Josette Trat,

Francois Chatelet, GeorgesLapassade,Jo Arditti, Robert Linhart, Madelaine

Reberioux - r. 94 min, b/w, 16mm --p.c.: Service de la Recherchede l'Universite
Paris VIIUIskra 1982
CLAIRE

DENIS

Jacques Rivette, le veilleur (1: Le jour, 2: La nuit), d: Claire Denis - c: Agnes

Godard, Beatric Mizrahi - s: Jean-Pierre Laforce, Henri Maikoff - ed. Dominique
Auvray, Jean Dubreuil - lp.: Jacques Rivette, Serge Daney, Jean-Francois Stevenin,
Bulle Ogier, Jean Babilee - r. 70 min & 55 min, col - p: Alain Plagne - p. c.: La
SeptJAMIP/CNC/Art Productions/Channel 4/Ministere des Affaires
Etrangeres/Intermedia 1990

353

Notre histoire, d: Bertrand Blier - sc: Bertrand Blier - c: Jean Penzer - s: Bernard
Bats, Dominique Hennequin - ed: Claudine Merlin - lp.: Nathalie Baye, Alain Delon,
Michel Galabru, Sabine Haudepin, Genevieve Fontanel, Jean-Pierre Darroussin,
Gerard Darmon, Norbert Letheule -- r. 110 min, col - p: Alain Sarde, Alain Delon p. c.: Adel Productions/Sara Films/Films A2 1984

LUIS

BUNUEL

Cet Obscur objet de desir, d: Luis Bufiuel - sc: Luis Bunuel, Jean-Claude Carriere Guy
Villette
Edmund
Richard
Helene
Plemiannikov
l.
Rey,
Fernando
s:
ed:
c:
p.:
Carole Bouquet, Angela Molina, Julien Bertheau, Andre Weber, Milena Vukotic,
Ellen Bahl, Valerie Blanco, Auguste Carriere, Jacques Debary, Antonio Duque,
Andre Lacombe, Lita Lluch-Peiro, Annie Monange, Jean-Claude Montalban, Muni,
Bernard Musson, Pieral, Isabelle Ratier, David Rocha, Isabelle Sadoyan, Juan
Santamaria - r: 103 min, col -p: Serge Silberman -p. c.: Greenwich Film
Production/Les Films Galaxie/Incine 1977

HENRI

CLOUZOT

Le Mystere Picasso, d: Henri-Georges Clouzot - sc: Henri-Georges Clouzot - c:

Claude Renoir - s: Joseph de Bretagne - ed: Henri Colpi - lp.: Pablo Picasso, HenriGeorges Clouzot - r. 78 min, col & b/w --p: Henri-Georges Clouzot - p. c.: Filmsonor
1956

COLLECTIF

RAMEAU

ROUGE

Les Murs et la parole, d: Collectif Rameau Rouge - Sc: Collectif Rameau Rouge - c:
Collectif Rameau Rouge- s: Collectif Rameau Rouge - ed: Collectif Rameau Rouge l.p.: Michel Beaud, Claude Friaux, Pierre Merlin, Claude Baible, Josette Trat,

Francois Chatelet, GeorgesLapassade,Jo Arditti, Robert Linhart, Madelaine

Reberioux - r. 94 min, b/w, 16mm --p.c.: Service de la Recherchede 1'Universite
Paris VIII/Iskra 1982
CLAIRE

DENIS

Jacques Rivette, le veilleur (1: Le jour, 2: La nuit), d: Claire Denis - c: Agnes

Godard, Beatric Mizrahi - s: Jean-Pierre Laforce, Henri Maikoff - ed. Dominique
Auvray, Jean Dubreuil - lp.: Jacques Rivette, Serge Daney, Jean-Francois Stevenin,
Bulle Ogier, Jean Babilee - r. 70 min & 55 min, col - p: Alain Plague - p. c.: La
Sept/AMIP/CNC/Art Productions/Channel 4/Ministere des Affaires
Etrangeres/Intermedia 1990

353

MARGUERITE

DURAS

La Femme du Gange, d. Marguerite Duras - sc: Marguerite Duras, from her own
novel LAmour - c: Ghislain Cloquet - l.p.: Catherine Sellers, Nicole Hiss, Dionys
Mascolo, Gerard Depardieu, Christian Baltauss, Robert Bonneau, Rodolphe and
Veronique Alepuz - r. 90 min, b/w - p: Marguerite Duras - p. c.: ORTF 1972
Nathalie Granger, d: Marguerite Duras - sc: Marguerite Duras - c: Ghislain Cloquet
l.
Gerard
Depardieu,
Lubtchansky
Lucia
Bose,
Jeanne
Moreau,
Nicole
p.:
ed.
Nathalie Bourgeois, Dionys Mascolo, Valerie Mascolo - r. 83 min, b/w - p: Luc
Moullet - p. c.: Moullet et Cie/Salleyrand 1973
India song, d: Marguerite Duras - sc: Marguerite Duras - c: Bruno Nuytten - s:
Michel Vionnet - ed: Solange Leprince - l.p.: Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale,
Mathieu Carriere, Didier Flamand, Claude Mann, and the voices of Nicole Hiss,
Monique Simonet, Viviane Forrester, Dionys Mascolo, Marguerite Duras, Francoise
Lebrun, Benoit Jacquot, Nicole-Lise Bernheim, Kevork Kutudjan, Daniel Dobbels,
Jean-Claude Biette, Pascal Kane, Marie-Odile Briot - r. 120 min, col - p: Stephane
Tchalgadjieff - p. c.: Sunchild/Les Films Armorial/S. Damiani/A. Valio-Cavaglione
1974
Le Camion, d: Marguerite Duras - sc: Marguerite Duras - c: Bruno Nuytten - s:
Michel Vionnet - ed: Dominique Auvray, Caroline Camus - l.p.: Marguerite Duras,
Gerard Depardieu - r. 80 min, col -p: Pierre and Francois Baret - p. c.: Cinema
9/Auditel 1977
Les Enfants, d: Marguerite Duras -sc: Marguerite Duras c: Bruno Nuytten - s:
Michel Vionnet - ed: Francoise Belleville
Daniel
l.
Bougoslavsky,
Alexandre
- p.:
Gelin, Tatiana Moukhine, Martine Chevalier, Andre Dussolier, Pierre Arditi - r. 90
min, col - p. c.: Les Productions Berthemont/Le Ministere de la Culture 1985
DZIGA VERTOV

The Man with a movie camera, d: Dziga Vertov - sc: Dziga Vertov - c: Mikhail
Kaufman - ed: Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svivlova - r: 90 min, b/w - p. c.: Ukrainian
Film and Photography Administration (VUFKU) (Kiev) 1928

SERGEI

EISENSTEIN

Strike, d: Sergei Eisenstein - Sc: Sergei Eisenstein, Valeri Pletnyov, I. Kravchunovsky,

Grigori Alexandrov - c: Eduard Tisse, Vassili Khvatov - ed: Sergei Eisenstein -I p.:
.
Alexander Antonov, Mikhail Gomorov, Maxim Strauch, Grigori Alexandrov, Judith
Glizer, other actors from the Proletkult Theatre - r. 90 min, b/w - p. c.:
Goskino/Proletkult 1925
Battleship Potemkin, d: Sergei Eisenstein - sc: Sergei Eisenstein, from an outline by
Nina Agadzhanova-Shutko and Eisenstein - c: Eduard Tisse - ed: Sergei Eisenstein I.p.: Alexander Antonov, Grigori Alexandrov, Vladimir Barsky, Alexander Lyovshin,

354

I. Bobrov, Andrei Fait, Konstantin Feldman, Protopopov, Korobei, Yulia Eisenstein,

Prokopenko, A. Glauberman, N. Poltavtseva, Brodsky, Zerenin, Beatrice Vitoldi,
Mikhail Gomorov, sailors of the Black Sea Fleet of the Red Navy, citizens of
Odessa, members of the Proletkult Theatre - r. 72 min, b/w - p: Yakov Bliokh - p. c.:
First Studio Goskino 1925
JEAN

EUSTACHE

Le Cochon, d: Jean Eustache, Jean-Michel Barjol - sc: Jean Eustache, Jean-Michel

Barjol - c: Philippe Theaudiere, Renan Polles, P.Meunier, G.Loreaux - s: Jean-Pierre
Ruh, Francoise Cane - r. 50 min, b/w, 16mm -p: Luc Moullet, Francoise Lebrun
1970
La Maman et la putain, d: Jean Eustache - sc: Jean Eustache - c: Pierre Lhomme Paul
de
Ruh,
Laine
Jean
Eustache,
lp.:
Jean-Pierre
Denise
Casabianca
ed.
s:
Francoise Lebrun, Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Pierre-Leaud, Isabelle Weingarten,
Douchka, Jean Douchet, Jean-Noel Picq, Jacques Renard, Jean Eustache - r. 220 min,
b/w, 16mm (blown up to 35mm) -p: Pierre Cottrell - p. c.: Elite Films/Cine-QuaNon/Les Films du Losange/Simar-Films/V. M. Productions 1973
Mes Pedtes amoureuses, d: Jean Eustache - sc: Jean Eustache - c: Nestor Almendros
Bernard Ortion - ed: Francoise Belleville -Lp.: Martin Loeb,
Aubouy,
Bernard
s:
Ingrid Caven, Jacqueline Dufranne, Dionys Mascolo, Henri Martinez, Maurice Pialat,
Jean-Noel Picq, Pierre Edelman, Marie-Paule Fernandez, Maurice Pialat - r. 123 min
Elite Films 1974
c.:
p.
Une Sale histoire 1, d: Jean Eustache - sc: Jean Eustache, Jean-Noel Picq - c:
Jacques Renard - s: Roger Letellier - ed: Chantal Colomer - I.p.: Michel Lonsdale,
Jean Douchet, Douchka, Laura Fianning, Josee Yann, Jacques Bruloux - r. 28 min,
du
Eustache
Les
Films
Losange
Jean
1977
p.
c.:
col - p:
Une Sale histoire 2, d: Jean Eustache - sc: Jean Eustache, Jean-Noel Picq - c: Pierre
Lhomme, Michel Cenet - s: Bernard Ortion - ed. Chantal Colomer - lp.: Jean-Noel
Picq, Elisabeth Lanchener, Francoise Lebrun, Virginie Thevenet, Annette Wademant du
Losange
Jean
Les
Films
16mm
Eustache,
Cottrell
Pierre
22
p:
min,
col,
p.
c.:
r.
1977
Odette Robert, d: Jean Eustache - sc: Jean Eustache - c: Philippe Theaudiere,
Adolpho Arrietta - s: Jean-Pierre Ruh - l.p: Odette Robert, Jean Eustache, Boris
Eustache - r. 54 min, b/w, 16mm -p. c.: INA for TF1 1979 - broadcast: in the series
'Grand-meres' on TF1,21.7.81 (Odette Robert is a shortened version of Eustache's
film
)
hour
1971.
Numero
Zero,
in
December
two
shot
unreleased

PHILIPPE

GARREL

Les Ministeres de ['art, d: Philippe Garrel - sc: Philippe Garrel - c: Jacques

Loiseleux - s: Jean-Claude Laureux - ed: Sophie Coussein - l.p.: Chantal Akerman,
Juliet Berto, Leos Carax, Jacques Doillon, Philippe Garrel, Helene Garidon, Benoit

355

Jacquot, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Werner Schroeter, Brigitte Sy, Andre Techine - r. 52

min, col - p: Charles Tesson, Jean-Philippe Jacquemot - p. c.: Lasa Production/La
Sept/CNC/Direction du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres 1988 - broadcast: Arte,
20.11.92 at 23.35

GIDAL

PETER

Condition of Illusion, d: Peter Gidal - c: Peter Gidal - ed: Peter Gidal - r. 33 min,
col, 16mm - p: Peter Gidal - p.c.: BFI Production Board 1975
Guilt, d: Peter Gidal - c: Peter Gidal - ed: Peter Gidal - r: 44 min, col, 16mm - p:
Peter Gidal 1988

JEAN-PIERRE

GORIN

Poto and Cabengo, d: Jean-Pierre Gorin - sc: Jean-Pierre Gorin - c: Les Blank, Greg
Durbin - s: Maureen Gosling, Michele Stone - ed: Greg Durbin - l.p.: Christine
Kennedy, Tom Kennedy, Grace Kennedy, Virginia Kennedy, Paula Knert - r. 80
min, col - p: Jean-Pierre Gorin - p. c.: ZDF/Jean-Pierre Gorin 1979 (broadcast on
Arte, 12.10.93)
My Crasy life (sic), d: Jean-Pierre -Gorin --sc: Jean-Pierre Gorin, Daniel Marks,
Patricia
Angeles
Mangolte
Los
Babette
s:
gang
members
c:
participating
Summers, Ken King - ed: Brand Thumin -- lp.: Spanky, Jokey, Trey, 8-Ball, C-Dog,
Mace, Bullet, Stryker, Psycho, T-Bone, G-Nutt, June-Bug, Lil Cool, Lil Joker, KLoc, Prankster, Trigger, Elvin, Lay-Low, Lil Swan, Tow Up, Criminal, Big Cool,
Evil Crip, Riddler, Deuce Deuce, Hit Man, Lil Hit, Sulu Boy, Venom, Jerry Kaono,
Richard Masur -r 94 min, col, 16mm -p: Daniel Marks, Cameron Allen - p. c.:
BBCIFR3 1991 - broadcast: in the 'Fine Cut' series (series editor. Andre Singer),
BBC2 4.4.92 at 22.15

ROMAIN

GOUPIL

Mourir trente ans, d: Romain Goupil

Chiabaut, Renan Polles - s: Dominique
Tazartes, Michel Chion - ed: Francoise
Recanati, Sophie Goupil, Pierre Goupil,
Najman, Henri Weber - r. 97 min, b/w
1982
Production
MK2
c.:
p.

HAL

Jean
Goupil,
Sophie
Goupil
Romain
c:
- sc:
Dalmasso, Jacques Kabadian, Ghedalia
Prenant - l.p.: Romain Goupil, Michel
Jacques Kebadian, Alain Bureau, Maurice
Bouveron
Stephane
Karmitz,
Marin
- p:

HARTLEY

Trust, d: Hal Hartley - sc: Hal Hartley - c: Michael Spiller - s: Jeff Pullman - ed.Nick Gomez - l.p.: Adrienne Shelley, Martin Donovan, Merritt Nelson, Edie Falco,
John MacKay, Gary Sauer, Matt Mallroy, Suzanne Costollos, Jeff Howard, Karen
Sillas, Tom Thon, M. C.Bailey, Patricia Sullivan, Marko Hunt, John St.James,

356

Kathryn Medros, Bill Sage, Julie Sukman, Robby Anderson r. 101 min, col p:
Bruce Weiss - p. c.: Zenith Productions/ True Fiction Pictures/Film Four International
1991

MARIN

KARMITZ

Camarades, d: Marin Karmitz - sc: Marin Karmitz, Jean-Paul Giquel, Lia Wajntal c: Pierre-William Glenn, Dominique Chapuis - s: Bernard Aubouy, Michel Laurent ed: Thierry Derocles, Michel Demoule, Roger Pyot - 1p: Jean-Paul Giquel, Juliet
Berto, Dominique Labourier, Andre Julien, Jean-Pierre Melec, Gilette Barbier,
Christian Bouillette, Gerard Zimmermann, Jean-Pierre le Mellec, Gabriel Seroni,
Sylvio Zambelli, Favre Bertin, Michel Ferrand, Michel Duplaix - r. 85 min, col,
16mm - p. c.: MK2 Productions/Reggane-Films/Les Films 13/Les Productions de la
Gueville 1969
Coup pour coup, d: Marin Karmitz - sc: Marin Karmitz, cast of 100 workers and
film crew - c: Andre Dubreuil - lp: workers, actors, students, teachers - r. 90 min,
col, 16mm - p. c.: MK2 Productions/Cinema Services/WDR 1972

JEAN-PATRICK

LEBEL

Notes pour Debussy: Leitre ouverte a Jean-Luc Godard, d: Jean-Patrick Lebel - sc:
Jean-Patrick Lebel - c: Gilberto Azevedo, Dominique Chapuis - s: Alix Comte,
Martin Boisseau - research: Emile-Breton - ed: Christiane Lack - l.p: Marina Vlady,
Claude Miller - r. 80 min, col, video - p. c.: Peripherie
Production/ZDF/Citecble/Mission TV-Cble/Ministere de la Culture/Ministere des
PTT 1987

HERVE LE Roux
Reprise, d: Herve Le Roux - c: Dominique Perrier - s: Frederic Ullmann - ed: Nadine
Tarbouriech, Anne Seguin - l.p: Herve Le Roux and those filmed outside the SaintOuen 'Wonder' battery factory by a group of IDHEC students on the 10th June 1968
Films
Richard
Copans,
Serge
Les
Lalou
192
col
p:
min,
p.
c:
-r
d'Ici/CNC/Ministere du Travail et des Affaires Sociales 1995

CHRIS

MARKER

"A bientt j'espere", d: Chris Marker, Mario Marret - c: Pierre Lhomme - s: Michel
Desrois - ed: SLON - r. 43 min, 16mm, b/w - p. c.: SLON 1967 (first released in
1969)
Chris Marker and Mario Manet of SLON from video
Critique/autocritique,
in
discussions
factory
Rhodiaceta
the
of
with
recordings
militant workers at the
Besancon (who had been the subject of their film )

357

Les Mots ont un sens, d/c/s/ed: Chris Marker/SLON

min, b/w, 16mm - p. c.: Iskra 1970

l.
Francois
Maspero
p.:
-r
-

19

La Solitude du chanteur de fond, d: Chris Marker - c: Pierre Lhomme, Yann le

Masson, Jacques Renard - s: Antoine Bonfanti, Michel Desrois - ed: Monique
Christel, Laurence Cuvilliers - Lp.: Yves Montand - r. 60 min, col, 16mm - p. c.:
Seuil Audiovisuel 1974
Le Fond de fair est rouge (1: Les mains fragiles), d: Chris Marker - s: Antoine
Bonfanti, Chris Marker - ed. Chris Marker - l.p.: Fidel Castro, Daniel Cohn-Bendit,
Alain Geismar, Jacques Sauvageot, Regis Debray - r. 115 min, col, 16mm (blown up
to 35mm) - p. c.: INA/Iskra/Dovidis 1977
Le Fond de lair est rouge (2: Les mains coupees), d: Chris Marker - s: Antoine
Bonfanti, Chris Marker - ed. Chris Marker - lp.: Fidel Castro, Georges Marchais,
Roger Gauvaudy, Jean Ellenstein, Andre Malraux, Salvador Allende - r. 115 min,
col, 16mm (blown up to 35mm) - p. c.: Dovidis 1977
Sans soleil, d: Chris Marker - sc: Chris Marker - c: Chris Marker, Sana na N'hada,
Jean-Michel Humeau, Mario Marret, Eugenio Bentivoglio, Daniele Tessier, Haroun
Tazieff - s: Antoine Bonfanti, Paul Bertault - ed: Chris Marker - r. 100 min, col - p:
Anatole Dauman - p. c.: Argos Films 1982
SLON Tango, d: Chris Marker - sc: Chris Marker - c: Chris Marker - ed: Chris
Marker - r. 10 min, col, video - p. c.: Les films de 1'astrophore 1993 - broadcast:
Arte, 12.2.94 at 23.30 in the series 'Snark' (Shot at Ljubljana Zoo in 1993.)

JEAN-PIERRE

MELVILLE

Le Cercle rouge, d: Jean-Pierre Melville - sc: Jean-Pierre Melville - c: Henri Decae Gian
lp:
Perier,
Alain
Delon,
Andre
Bourvil,
Yves
Montand,
Francois
Neny
Jean
s:
Maria Volonte, Andre Eykan, Pierre Collet, Paul Crauchet, Paul Amiot, Jean-Pierre
Posier, Jean-Marc Boris - r. 140 min, col - p: Robert Dorfmann - p. c.: Corona
(Paris)/Selenia (Rome) 1970

CLAUDE

MILLER

La Meilleure fagon de marcher, d: Claude Miller - sc: Luc Beraud, Claude Miller lp.:
Dewaere,
Patrick
Paul
Bonis
Nuytten
Laine
Jean-Bernard
Bruno
s:
c:
- ed:
Patrick Bouchitey, Christine Pascal, Claude Pieplu, Marc Chapiteau, Michel Blanc,
Michel Such, Frank d'Asconio, the children of '1'Atelier' at Saint Saturnin - r. 132
min, col - p: Hubert Niogret - p. c.: Filoblic 1975
NAM

JUNE PAIK

Video tape study No. 3, d.-led.- Nam June Paik, video, b/w p: Nam June Paik 1967
358

Good Morning Mr Orwell, live satellite link-up between France and the USA on the
1.1.1984. Coproduced by WNET/Channel 13 in New York, FR3, and the Centre
Georges Pompidou, performers as diverse as Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Laurie
Anderson and Peter Gabriel participated-in the broadcast.

PENNEBAKER

DONALD

Jane, d: Donald Pennebaker,Richard Leacock, Hope Ryden, Gregory Shuker, Abbott

Mills - c: D. A. Pennebaker,Richard Leacock, Abbott Mills, Alfred Wertheimer, James
Lipscomb - s: Hope Ryden, Gregory Shuker - ed. Nell Cox, Nancy Sen, Eileen
Nosworthy - /.p.: JaneFonda, Bradford Dillman, Lee Strasberg,Madelaine Sherwood,
Walter Kerr - r. 51 min, b/w, 16mm - p: Robert Drew - p. c.: Time-Life
Broadcast/Drew Associates 1963

SALLY

POTTER

The gold diggers, d: Sally Potter - sc: Lindsay Cooper, Rose English, Sally Potter Gray,
Bowen
Juliet
Chait,
Charles
Mangolte
Diana
Ruston,
Melanie
Babette
s:
c:
Gale,
l.
David
Christie,
Westlake,
Sally
Potter
JulieColette-Laffont,
Hilary
ed:
- p.:
Tom Osborn - r. 89 min b/w - p. c.: British Film Institute/Channel 4 1983

NICHOLAS

RAY

Anmere Victoire (Bitter victory), d: Nicholas Ray - sc: Rene Hardy, Nicholas Ray - c:
Michel Kelber - s: Joseph de Bretagne - ed: Leonide Azar - I.p.: Richard Burton,
Curd Jrgens, Ruth Roman, Raymond Pellegrin, Sean Kelly, Anthony Bushell,
Andrew Crawford, Nigel Green, Sumner Williams, Ronan O'Casey, Christopher Lee b/w
(English
100
min,
version, 90 min) - p: Paul Graetz - p. c.: Transcontinental
r.
Films/Robert Laffont Productions 1957
We can't go home again (a.k. a. The gun under my pillow), disc/c/s/ed: Nicholas Ray
Leslie
Ray,
lp.:
Nicholas
from
College,
Harpur
film
Binghamton
45
students
and
Levinson, Stanley Loo -format: 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, Super 8, video (all processed
Ray
Nicholas
film)
back
to
transferred
through a video colour synthesiser and
- p:
1971-3 (Working print shown at 1973 Cannes film festival. Film never completed. )

ALAIN

RESNAIS

L'annee derniere a Marienbad, d: Alain Resnais - sc: Alain Robbe-Grillet - c: Sacha

Vierny - s: Guy Villette - ed: Henri Colpi, Jasmine Chasney - l.p.: Delphine Seyrig,
Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoeff, Francoise Bertin, Luce Garcia-Ville, Helene
Kornel, Francoise Spira. Karin Toeche Mittler, Jean Lanier, Pierre Barbaud, Wilhelm
Von Deek, Gerard Lorin, Davide Montemuri, Gilles Queant, Gabriel Werner - r. 95
Sanz
Tamara/Cinetel/Silver
b/w
Leon
Terra
Films/Argos
Films/Films
p:
p.
c.:
min,
Films/Cineriz 1961

359

GEORGES

REY

La Vche qui rumine, d: Georges Rey -sc: Georges Rey - r. 49 min, b/w, 16mm p. c.: TF1 - broadcast: Antenne 2,28.2.82
JACQUES

RIVETTE

La Religieuse, d: Jacques Rivette - sc: Jacques Rivette, Jean Gruault, based on the
de
by
Denis
Diderot
Alain
Guy
Villette
Denise
Levant
novel
- c:
- s:
- ed:
Casabianca - l.p.: Anna Karina, Liselotte Pulver, Micheline Presle, Christine Levier,
Francine Berge, Francisco Rabal, Wolfgang Reichmann, Catherine Diamant, Yori
Bertin - r. 140 min, col - p: Georges de Beauregard - p. c.: Rome-Paris Films/Societe
Nouvelle de Cinematographie 1965 (banned until 1967)

JEAN ROUCH

Moi, un noir, d: Jean Rouch - sc: Jean Rouch - c: Jean Rouch - s: Andre Lubin,
Radio Abidjan - ed: Marie-Joseph Yoyette, Catherine Dourgnon - l.p.: Oumarou
Ganda, Petit Toure, Alassane Maiga, Amadou Demba, Seydou Guede, Karidyo
Daoudou, Mademoiselle Gamba - r. 77 min, col, 16mm - p: Pierre Braunberger d'Abdijan
l'Information
de
la
d'Ivoire/Fraternier
Nigerienne
de
Cote
Service
p. c.:
1958
Chronique dun ete, d. Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin - sc: Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin - c:
Raoul Coutard, Michel Brault, Jean-Jacques Tarbes, Roger Morillere - s: Guy Rophe,
Michel Fane, Barthelemy - ed: Jean Ravel, Nina Baratier, Francoise Colin - lp.: Jean
Rouch, Edgar Morin, Marceline Loridan, Marilou, Angelo, Jean-Pierre -r 90 min,
b/w - p: Anatole Dauman, Philippe Lifchitz - p. c.: Argos Films 1961
CLAUDE

SAUTET

Vincent, Francois, Paul et les autres, d: Claude Sautet - sc: Jean-Loup Dabadie,
Claude Sautet, Claude Neron - c: Jean Boffety - s: Jean-Pierre Ruh - I.p.: Yves
Montand, Michel Piccoli, Serge Reggiani, Gerard Depardieu, Stephane Audran, Marie
dubois, Umberto Orsini, Lumilla Mikael, C.Allegret - r. 113 min, col - p: Raymond
Danon, Roland Girard, Jean Bolvary - p. c.: Lira Films/President Produzioni 1974

VOLKER

SCHLNDORFF

Die Flschung (Circle of Deceit), d: Volker Schlndorff - sc: Jean-Claude Carriere,

Volker Sclndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Kai Hermann, based on the novel by
Nicolas Born - c: Igor Luther - s: Christian Moldt, Edmond Mouawad, Michael
Spies, Fayez Hijazi - ed. Suzanne Baron - l.p.: Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla, Jerzy
Skolimowski, Gila von Weitershausen, Jean Carmet, Martin Urtel, John Munro,
Fouad Naim, Josette Khalil - r. 109 min, col p: Eberhard Junkersdorf Films/Hessischer Rundfunk 1981
p. c.:Bioskop-Film/Artemis-Film/Argos
360

STRAUB

JEAN-MARIE

Nicht Vershnt, d: Jean-Marie Straub - sc: Jean-Marie Straub, based on the novel
Billard um Halbzehn by Heinrich Bll - c: Wendelin Sachtler - s: Lutz Grbnau,
Willi Hansprach - ed: Daniele Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub - lp.: Heinrich
Hargesheimer, Carlheinz Hargesheimer, Martha Stnder, Daniele Straub, Henning
Hermssen, Ulrich Hopmann, Jochim Weiler, Eva-Maria Bold, Hiltraud Wegener - r..
53 min, b/w - p: Daniele Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub - p. c.: Straub-Huillet 1965

FRANCOIS

TRUFFAUT

La Nuit americaine, d: Francois Truffaut - sc: Francois Truffaut, Suzanne Schiffman,

Jean-Louis Richard - c: Pierre-William Glenn - s: Rene Levert - ed: Yann Dedet I.p.: Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont,
Jean-Pierre Leaud, Francois Truffaut, Nathalie Baye, Jean Champion - r. 115 min,
/Produzione
du
Les
Films
Carosse/P.
E.
C.
F.
Bebert
Marcel
p.
c.:
p:
col Internationale Cinematographica (Rome) 1973

AGNES

VARDA

Daguerreotypes, d: Agnes Varda - sc: Agnes Varda - c: Nurith Aviv, William

Lubtchansky, Roland Vincent, Michel Thiriet, Christian Bachmann - s: J.F. Auger,
Antoine Bonfanti - l.p.: inhabitants and shopkeepers of the rue Daguerre, Paris - r. 80
min, col - p: Agnes Varda - p. c.: INA/Cine-Tamaris/ZDF (Mainz) 1975
Reponses de femmes, d: Agnes Varda -- sc: Agnes- Varda - c: Jacques Reiss, Michel
Thiriet - s: Bernard Bleicher - ed: Marie Castro, Andree Choty, Helene Wolf - r. 8
Cine-Tamaris/Antenne
Sylvie
Genevoix,
Honorin
Michel
16mm
p.
c.:
p:
col,
min,
2 1977

ANDY

WARHOL

Chelsea girls, d: Andy Warhol - Sc: Andy Warhol, Ronald Tavel - c: Andy Warhol Lp.: Nico, Eric Emerson, An Boulogne, Brigid Polk, Mary Woronov, Pepper Davis,
Mario Montez, Rona Page, Bob 'Ondine' Olivio, Ingrid Superstar, Ed Hood, Mary
Might, Mary Menken, Gerard Malanga - r. 215 min, col & b/w, 16mm - p: Andy
Warhol - p. c.: Factory Films 1966

WIM

WENDERS

Chambre 666 (a.k. a. Chambre-666 n'importe quand), d: Wim Wenders - sc: Wim
Wenders - c: Agnes Godard - s: Jean-Paul Mugel ed: Chantal de Vismes - lp.:
Jean-Luc Godard, Romain Goupil, Paul Morrissey, Noel Simsolo, Werner Herzog,
Michelangelo Antonioni, Maroun Bagdadi, Mike de Leon, Paule Rocha, Wim
Wenders, Steven Spielberg, Monte Hellman, Susan Seidelman, Rainer Werner
Fassbinder, Robert Kramer, Ana Carolina r. 55 min, col, 16mm - p: Chris
-

361

Sievernich - p. c.: Antenne 2/Gray City, Inc. (New York)

broadcast:
21
min version
broadcast in the series Cinema Cinemas, Antenne 2,2.6.82 at 00.00
Tokyo-Ga, d: Wim Wenders sc: Wim Wenders c: Edward Lachman s: Hartmut
Eich grn - ed: Wim Wenders, Solveig Dommartin, Jon Neuburger
Chishu
Ryu,
p.:
-I .
Yuharu Atsuta, Werner Herzog - r. 92 min, col, 16mm - p: Chris Sievernich - p. c.:
Wim Wenders Produktion (Berlin)/Gray City, Inc. (New York)/Chris Sievernich
Produktion (Berlin)/WDR 1985
Notebook on cities and clothes, d: Wim Wenders Sc: Wim Wenders c: Robby
Mller, Muriel Edelstein, Uli Kudilke, Wim Wenders, Masatoshi Nakajima, Masashi
Chikamori - ed. Dominique Auvray, Lenie Savietee, Anne Schnee I.p: Wim
Wenders, Yohji Yamamoto - r. 79 min, video and 35mm, col p: Ulrich Felsberg
p. c.: Road Movies Filmproduktion GmbH/Centre National d'Art et de Culture
Georges Pompidou 1989

FRANK

ZAPPA

and

TONY

PALMER

200 motels, d: Frank Zappa, Tony Palmer - sc: Frank Zappa, Tony Palmer - c: Dave
Swan, Barrie Dodd, Mike Fitch, John Howard s: Peter Hubbard, Robert Auger ed:
Richard Harrison, Barry Stephens (video) --l. p: Frank Zappa, The Mothers of
Invention, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon - r. 99 min, col, video (transferred to film by
Technocolor, England) - p: Jerry Good, Herb Cohen - p. c.: Murakimi Wolf/Bizarre
1971

8. Television programmes
Dear Antonioni, d: Gianni Massironi - c: Emilio Bestetti ed: Massimiliano, Giani
Massironi, David Kitson - 1.p.: Michelangelo Antonioni, Mark Peploe, Alain RobbeGrillet - r. 90 min, col, video - series: Arena series editor. Anthony Wall - p:
Vanni Ocleppo - p. c.: Memory Lane Movies Ltd (for BBC)/RAI Uno/CCS Srl 1997 broadcast: BBC2,18.1.97. at 22.20
de
la
Detours de France, d: Jean-Claude Guidicelli
G.
Le
Tour
based
Bruno's
on
- sc:
France par Deux Enfants: Devoir et Patrie (1884) - presenters: Jean-Claude Bourret,
TV
Meryl Manoukian - c: Alexandre Aufort
30
col,
programme,
each
min
- p:
--r.
Elisabeth Beuvin - p. c.: La Cinquieme 1996 broadcast: La Cinquieme, Fridays and
Sundays, March/April 1996
Generation 6: La Prochine: d: Daniel Edinger, Irene Richard c: Jacques Pamart,
Marc Seferchian - s: Andre Siekieski, Laurent Mallan ed: Anita Perez - l.p.:
Jacques Broyelle, Jean-Pierre Le Dantec r: 30 min, col, video p: Michel Rotman
p. c.: Kuiv Productions/INA/La Cinq/Sofica Investimage/CNC 1988 - broadcast: TF1,
20.6.88 at 23.19 (Includes interview with Godard at the time of the making of La
Chinoise, plus numerous extracts of the film itself. )
362

Generation 9: Paroles de mai, d: Francoise Prebois - c: Jacques Pamart, Marc

Seferchian - s: Andre Siekieski, Laurent Mallan - ed: Mireille Abramovici - l.p.:
Lizane Mozere, Prisca Bachelet, Henri Weber, Jean-Marcel Bouguereau, Daniel
Cohn-Bendit, Nicole Linhart, Alain Krivine, Jean-Marc Salmon, Jacques Remy - r.
30 min, col, video - p: Michel Rotman - p. c.: Kuiv Productions/INA/La Cinq/Sofica
Investimage/CNC 1988 - broadcast: TF1,23.6.88 at 23.16 (Includes extract of one of
Godard's Cine-tracts. )
Generation 11: MaL.. apres, d: Daniel Edinger, Jean Lassave - c: Jacques Pamart,
Marc Seferchian - s: Andre Siekieski, Laurent Mallan - ed: Martine Bouquin - l.p.:
Andre Senik, Antoine de Gaudemar, Jean-Paul Ribes, Michel-Antoine Burnier,
Roland Castro, Alain Kivine, Jean-Michel Bouguereau - r. 29 min, col, video - p:
Michel Rotman - p. c.: Kuiv Productions/INA/La Cinq/Sofica Investimage/CNC 1988
(Includes extracts of Le gai savoir and Godard's
broadcast:
TF1,7.7.88
23.16
at
Cine-tracts. )
The Late Show: Roland Barthes, d: Terry Braun - c: Raymond Grossjean - s:
Patrick Quirke, Daniel Tison, Pierre Vannoni - ed: Dai Davies - l.p.: Roland Barthes,
Serge Daney, Annette Lavers, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Gilbert Adair, Paul Morley,
Stephen Heath, Philippe Roger, Jacques Derrida, Chantal Thomas, Judie Lannon,
Francois Wahl - r. 40 min, col, video -series editor. Roland Keating - p. c.: BBC
1990 - broadcast: BBC2,2.4.90
Mai 68 5 ans apres, d: Claude Lebrun - l.p.: Alain Geismar, Michel Debre, Edgar
Faure - r: 33 min, col, 16mm - p. c.: RTBF 1973
Marithe et Francois Girbaud (in the series Coups de Griffes), d: Marie-Pierre
Raimbault - c: Gilbert Roger - s: Emmanuel de Soria - ed: Dominique Frazez - lp.:
Marithe and Francois Girbaud - r. 27 min, col, video - p: Eric Gozalez - p. c.: XL
Productions/La Cinq/CNC 1991 (Includes extracts of On s'est sous defile and several
for
MFG)
Godard's
advertisements
of
L'Objet d'art a lge electronique, d: Geoff Dunlop, Yves Michaud, Linda Zuck - sc:
Geoff Dunlop, Yves Michaud, Linda Zuck - l.p.: Jean Baudrillard, Stuart Hall, Paul
Virilio, Yves Michaud -r 52 min, video, col - p. c.: La Sept 1987
Serge Daney: Itineraire d'un- "cine-fels" (1: Le temps des Cahiers, 2: Des Cahiers a
Libe, 3: Le salaire du zappeur), d: Pierre-Andre Boutang, Dominique Rabourdin - c:
Olivier Petitjean - s: Michel Pacalin --ed. Nathalie Perrette - lp.: Serge Daney, Regis
Oceaniques/La
FR3
55
Debray -r3
min each, col, video - p. c.:
programmes of
Sept/Sodaperaga 1992 - broadcast: FR3 4.5.92 at 22.50,8.5.92 at 00.11,15.5.92 at
00.27
Zoom (No. 25 in series), d: Jean-Paul Thomas - c: Andre Germain - s: Serge
Raggianti - engineer. Pierre Vanschelle - collaboration: Jean-Paul Thomas presented by: Alain de Sedouy, Andre Harris - l.p.: Andre Fanton, Olivier Castro,
David Rousset, Pierre Jucquin, Alain Geismar, Jacques Sauvageot, M. le Recteur
Capelle - r. 60 min, b/w, 16mm - p: Alexandre Olari p. c.: ORTF 1968 - broadcast:
-

363

ALEXANDRE

ASTRUC

Une Wie, d: Alexandre Astruc - sc: Alexandre Astruc, Roland Laudenbach, based on
the novel by Guy de Maupassant - c: Claude Renoir - s: Antoine Archimbaud - ed:
Claudie Bouche - l.p.: Maria Schell, Christian Marquand, Ivan Desny, Antonella
Lualdi, Pascale Petit, Marie-Helene Daste, Louis Arbessier, Michel de Slubicki,
Andree Tainsy, Gerard Darrieu - r. 88 min, col - p: Annie Dorfmann - p. c.: Agnes
Delahaie Production/Nepi Film 1958

INGMAR

BERGMAN

Scenes from a marriage, d: Ingmar Bergman sc: Ingmar Bergman - c: Sven

Nykvist - s: Owe Svensson - ed. Siv Lundgren - l.p.: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson,
Bibi Andersson, Jan Malmsjo, Anita Wall, Gunnel Lindblom, Biabro Hiort of Omas,
Arne Carlsson - r: 168 min, col, 16mm - p: Ingmar Bergman p. c.: Cinematograph
AB 1973 (Originally made as six 50 minute episodes for Swedish television. )

JULIET

BERTO

and

JEAN-HENRI

ROGER

Neige, d: Juliet Berto, Jean-Henri Roger - sc: Marc Villard, based on an idea by
Juliet Berto - c: William Lubtchansky, Caroline Champetier, Bacha Bauer - s:
Ricardo Castro - ed. Yann Dedet - l.p.: Juliet Berto, Jean-Francois Stevenin, Robert
Liensol, Patrick Chesnais, Jean-Francois Balmer, Paul Leperson, Frederique Jamet,
Dominique Maurin, Michel Lachat, Michel Berto, Ras Paulinephtali, Nini Crepon,
Emilie Benoit, Anna Prucnal, Raymond Bussieres, Eddie Constantine, Bernard
Lavilliers - r. 87 min -p: Ken & Romaine Legargeant -p. c.: Odessa FilmsBabylone
Films/F3-Odec/Marion's Films 1981

BERNARDO

BERTOLUCCI

L'Ultimo tango a Parigi (Last tango in Paris), d: Bernardo Bertolucci - sc: Bernardo
Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli - c: Vittorio Storaro - s: Antoine Bonfanti - ed. Franco
Arcalli - l.p.: Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Massimo Girotti,
Maria Michi, Giovanna Galletti, Catherine Allegret, Darling Legitimus, Marie-Helene
Breillat, Catherine Breillat -r 129 min, col -p: Alberto Grimaldi - p. c.:
Cinematografica (Rome)/Les Artistes Associes (Paris) 1972

BERTRAND

BLIER

Les Valseuses, d: Bertrand Blier - Sc: Bertrand Blier, Philippe Dumarcay, from
Blier's novel of the same title - c: Bruno Nuytten - s: Paul Bertault - ed. Kenout
Peltier - l.p.: Gerard-Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere, Miou-Miou, Jeanne Moreau,
Jacques Chailleux, Brigitte Fossey, Isabelle Hupert, Michel Peurelon, Christiane
Muller, Christian Aller, Dominique Davray r. 117 min, col - p: Paul Claudon - p. c.:
CAPAC/Uranus/UPF/Prodis/SN 1974

352

Antenne 2,14.5.68 at 20.49 (rebroadcast on FR3,29.8.90

de
40
television')
ans
memoire:

364

in the series 'La belle

And that, as they say, is that. Another day K. O.'d by Godard. A

it?
I
isn't
day,
don't
thing
the
them
the
good
we
show
at
start of
I
how
difficulty?
do
follow
babble,
Godard?
With
mean,
you
with
refuse to answer that. All I'll do is say goodnight. From all of us
here at Channel Four, a very good night.
Late night Channel 4 announcer following
of One plus one at midnight, July 1985.

broadcast