Un
Film Comme les Autres
Un Film Comme les Autres [1968]
(AKA: Une Film Comme les Autres, A Movie Like the Others/ A Film Like All
The Others/ A Movie Like Any Other/ A Film Like the Others]120 Minutes.
"The machine has ground
up human language and dispenses it in clean slices, to which no flesh clings.
Those "binary digits," perfect segments, have only to be assembled
(programmed) in the requisite order. The code triumphs and attains its perfection
in the transmission of the message.
It is a great feast for the syntagmatic mentality."
-Christian
Metz 'The Cinema: Language or Language System?'
in 'Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema' 1968.
A Film Like the Others [1968]
ostensibly represents the final film Godard completed as an individual director
before beginning the collaborative projects with the Dziga-Vertov group in
1969. Entirely self-produced by Godard using his Anouchka Films
company, the film is indicative of Godard's increased politicisation, an unwillingness
to compromise the political message of his work, and representative of the
independent filmmaking means which Godard would pursue in his work throughout
the early 1970's. Many of the published sources of information on Godard's
career throughout 1968 posit Un Film Comme Les Autres as being Godard's first project to be shot and completed
by the Dziga-Vertov group. However, James Roy MacBean counters this idea by
stating that although the film does significantly illustrate a direction the
group would move in, it predates the formation of the Dziga-Vertov group by
several months.[1]
Whether due to problems the
film had with distribution, or possibly because of the public reaction it
received, the existence of the film is frequently mentioned in
the published criticism on Godard's career, but it has rarely been discussed
at any length during its period of release or since. Perhaps because of this,
a great deal of the information surrounding the production of the film is
contradictory and open to speculation. Significantly, it is also somewhat
prophetic of the marginal critical and commercial reception Godard's films
would receive during the period from 1968 until the demise of the Dziga-Vertov
group in 1972-3.[2]
Information about Un Film
Comme Les Autres including the extent of Gorin's influence
(if any) upon the project, the film's running time, and the precise date when
the colour material for the film was shot is contradictory. Even in what appears
to have been an extremely limited distribution, the film had at least four
English titles, and Richard Roud notes that there were rumours that Godard
was barely involved in the filming of the project.[3]
Something as simple as the date on which the film had its U.S. premiere at
the Philharmonic Hall in New York is contradictory depending on the source.[4]
Given
that at least two versions of the film were distributed, reported estimations
of the film's running time are anywhere between 100 and 120 minutes. The English
language VHS video that is being used as the source material is 120 minutes
in duration, each half being approximately 60 minutes.[5]
The
origin of the black and white footage is
contested by many of Godard's published critics. It has been suggested
that the material was shot by Godard himself, recycling material that was
used as part of the Cine-Tracts[6]
or, as noted by Royal S. Brown, it
is equally possible that it was provided by the 'Etats Généraux
du Cinéma.'[7] Loshitzky
and MacCabe offer the most precise date for the film's production by stipulating
the film was made throughout August 1968,[8]
but other possibly contradictory evidence exists.[9]
What can be verified about the
film are two 16mm reels of equal duration composed of two parts: A colour
component (which makes up the bulk of the film), illustrating a group of five
"students from Vincennes and workers from the Renault plant at Flins".[10] The group
sit in a field outside a large tenement block on the outskirts of Paris and
discuss politics, the objectives of the May revolt, and the potential steps involved in achieving
revolution in France. The second component of the film is comprised of silent
black and white 'documentary' footage from the events of May intercut with
the colour 'live' action in the field. Each of the black and white sections
illustrates the May events that the participants discuss, and acts as a complement
to their conversation.
Richard Roud reports that breaking
the film into two reels of equal length was not necessarily done for technical
reasons, but to force the projectionist to make an arbitrary decision on which
reel would screen first. Reportedly, Godard left specific details about the
presentation of the picture for its premiere. Legend has it that this was
a signed note left inside one of the reels for the projectionist to follow:
"one is meant to toss a coin to decide which reel comes first."
This would imply that Godard was highly aware of the project's political didacticism
by using footage that is shared between each of the reels. However, the sequencing
of the reels was not the only thing left to the discretion of those involved
at the screening.
In a New York Times article
published the day after the film's New York premiere, reporter Donal Henahan
writes:
In
line with Mr. Godard's wishes, the second half of the 100-minute film was
to be shown only if the audience voted to see it.[11]
Coming just one month after
the controversial premiere of One Plus One in London,
the premiere of Un Film Comme Les Autres in New York
was perhaps the most controversial of Godard's films in its reception by the
public in 1968. The English audio translation of the dialogue for the film
was synchronised with the French dialogue, creating a confusing melange of
audio that rendered both languages indecipherable. At several stages during
the premiere, the audience reacted with outbursts including demands for their
money back. The representative for the film's U.S. distributors (Leacock-Pennebaker)
was David McMillan, who defended the version of the screened film, and apparently
attempted to soothe the audience.
Possibly sensing a near riot,
the Philharmonic Hall house manager attempted to tell the audience that refunds
would in all likelihood be given, but McMillan countered by threatening the
house manager with legal action if admission charges were refunded. McMillan's
compromise was to promise the patrons admittance to a subsequent screening
that would include subtitling if they kept their ticket stubs.[12] What began
as an audience of one thousand expectant patrons at the beginning of the screening,
barely totalled one hundred after an exodus en masse at the end of the first
reel.
Partially due to the publicity
surrounding the New York premiere, stories began to develop about the content
of the film. Richard Roud provides a comprehensive list of the rumours precipitated
by the premiere.
Legend
has it that there is only one shot in the whole two-hour film, but this is
not true. Nor is it true that the camera never moves; there are a few lateral
pans now and then…. Legend again has it that the whole film consists
of views of tall grass, while on the soundtrack one can hear the discussion
of the people hidden by the grass; again, this is not quite true, for we often
see the bodies of the group, the man's polka-dot shirt, a girl's hair, her
red and green peppermint-striped blouse, and once in a while we even see a
face or two. This, reportedly, was pure accident. Legend again has it that
Godard was not there during much of the shooting and so was unable to assure
that none of the faces would be seen. The truth of this I have not been able
to establish.[13]
Roud's description appears to
reveal the closeness of the rumours to the reality; yet the description Roud
provides is also "not quite true." Roud very cautiously insinuates
that the basis for these legends are truthful representations of the film. However, he omits a number of significant
details about Un Film Comme Les Autres,
confining his description to the colour sections, and completely neglecting
the black and white footage that is of great significance.
Although each reel of the colour
component does contain a great deal of repeated footage that is also shared
between the two reels, it is a disservice to the film to ignore the complementary
black and white footage of the May events.
It is also a disservice to merely
examine the aesthetics of the film and not discuss the content in a more meaningful
way. Roud does not reflect on any of the spoken dialogue, which is the main
focus of the film's political message; and Roud also neglects to mention that
the film's visual techniques are of immense political importance as they break
with conventional cinematic techniques by being purposely 'anti-spectacle.'
By positing that the ending
is signalled by the politically laden "Italian Communist song,"
"Bandiera Rossa," the music "[welling] up on the soundtrack
to signal the climax of the movie," Roud suggests something far more
sentimental than the anti-spectacle provided within the film. Roud immediately
follows this description of the ending with what is an obvious oversight--
"Ultimately, it is a very boring film…"[14] A form of
conclusion to the film is suggested by an individual voice near the end of
the second part or reel of the film that precedes the music Roud mentions.
Using silence as a parenthesis for the lone voice on the soundtrack, Godard
provides a heavy contrast with the discussion and layering of voices that
occupies the majority of the film's content. It also provides a strongly defiant
message entreating the viewer to break the traditional hierarchical model
of society in favour of a new form of social practice. Roud skips this part
of the film, and fails to grasp the anti-climactic purpose of the film's ending
by turning it into a spectacle.
The colour footage of the group
in the field is dominated by two types of shot. One is of the group in long
shot, revealing the group in the grass with the tenement building behind them.
The other is a close-up from behind individuals backs, with arms, legs and
torso of others in the background. By providing at least one or two blades
of grass in the extreme foreground of these shots, Godard steadfastly prohibits
any easy access to seeing the individuals faces in either the fore or middle
ground of the frame. By using the two types of shot, there is a slight, potentially
fallacious implication, that the close up material of the group may in fact
be shot from a distance with a telephoto lens, reinforcing the idea that the
camera is an unobtrusive presence.
In contrast to the colour sections,
the black and white footage utilises hand-held camera work, and appears to
unfetter the footage of the May events. The black and white material uses
a number of fast moving pans, different points of view, and also includes
the use of a number of close-ups of individuals speaking, but does not include
the sound of their speech. Most of this material is shot on the streets of
Paris illustrating the public demonstrations. However, a great deal of the
black and white footage illustrates the strikes within the car factories and
many of the protest activities happening within the universities. The use
of post-synchronised sound seems to indicate Godard's desire to magnify or
explode the purpose of illustrating the group in the field, not merely as
a solitary collection of individuals, but as a microcosmic representation
that signifies the breadth of similar discussions, amongst similar groups
within France at the time.
Apart from the short Operation
Beton [1954] and the abandoned One AM
[1968] project, which was not screened until 1972, Un Film Comme Les Autres
is
Godard's first film that is exclusively a work of documentary. Although the
non-fictional content of the Cine-Tracts [1968] project
revealed Godard's attempt to create direct revolutionary cinema, it certainly
falls outside the scope of a full-length project such as Un Film Comme
Les Autres.
The techniques Godard employs
throughout the film defy 'normal' documentary methodology, and in fact strive
to alienate the audience by accentuating the differences within the film.
It is therefore worth considering that besides the effect of the alienation
techniques used, the audience reaction at the premiere possibly came about
from their expectation of believing they were about to be watching a fiction
film.[15]
Godard's interest in the documentary
form, its various modes of communication and forms of addressing an audience,
increases throughout the films of 1968. In particular, Dziga-Vertov's formulation
of the newsreel has parallels with both the Ciné-Tracts
and Un Film Comme les Autres. In an article written for
Lef,
Dziga-Vertov states:
Please let's get into
life.
This
is where we work – we, the masters of vision – organisers of visible
life, armed with the ever-present cinema-eye.
This
is where the masters of words and sounds work, the most skilful montage-makers
of audible life. And I venture to slip in with them the ubiquitous mechanical
ear and mouthpiece – the radio-telephone.
It
means THE NEWSREEL FILM
and
THE RADIO NEWSREEL
I
intend to stage a parade of film-makers in Red Square on the occasion of the
Futurists' issuing of the first edition of the montaged radio-newsreel. Not
the 'Pathé' newsreel-films or Gaumont (a newspaper-type 'newsreel')
and not even 'Kino-Pravda' (a political 'newsreel'), but a genuine
cinema newsreel – a swift review of VISUAL events deciphered by the
film-camera, pieces of REAL energy (I distinguish
this from theatrical energy), brought together at intervals to form an
accumulatory whole by means of highly skilled montage.[16]
By using multiple audio sources,
and the two types of visual footage, Un Film Comme les Autres
can be perceived as a critical radio newsreel in contrast with the Ciné-Tracts'
emphasised critique on the print medium.
Just as Rosenbaum credits Godard's
films with being 'global newspapers,'[17]
Un Film Comme les Autres presents the spectator with a radio
newsreel that presents events of the past and a discussion of the possible
future of the revolution in France. The film is also illustrative of the contrasting
switch in visual emphasis that Godard would attempt to move to later in the
year.
If it is to be accepted that
the film was shot in August, it predates the One AM
cinema verité project he would attempt with Leacock and Pennebaker in November of 1968. However, the
contrasts between the two projects illustrate lessons Godard learned from
Un Film Comme Les Autres, and would attempt to apply within
One AM.
In many respects Un Film
Comme les Autres is the antithesis of the experimental form of
Godard's intentions for the One AM project. The
One AM project was supposed to invert the traditional
forms of fiction and non-fiction, by using black and white film stock for
the fictional parts, and colour for the documentary. In contrast, Un Film uses conventional documentary chromatic
forms by organising the colour sections to represent the present moment, while
the black and white images are used to provide a context of the past for discussion.
The use of these more conventional
documentary modes, especially the effects of the seemingly static placement
of the camera, is intended to achieve two goals. Superficially, the first
goal of the colour footage is to contrast the reportage style of the black
and white images. However, what is more important, is that the colour footage
is also representative of something akin to a 'pure' form of cinema verité.
There are none of the usual 'self-conscious' signals of hand held camera movement
that can be identified as hallmarks of the Leacock-Pennebaker cinema verité
style: zoom, motion, out of focus images or follow focusing.
The camera remains predominantly
static, with the occasional slight pan.[18] However,
for the most part, the camera work is frequently supposed to give the impression
of having been set up and abandoned by the operator, leaving the subjects
to talk uninhibitedly. The majority of the film's action is manipulated through
editing and crosscutting between the two types of footage, or through different
perspectives of the group. By doing this, and thwarting the spectator's expectation
of seeing the identity of the participants in the field, Godard allows the
viewer a deceptively objective or unmediated image.
The colour sections achieve
the effect of live action by relying, in part, on the use of environmental
sounds.[19] Frequently
the sound of aeroplanes all but drowns out the conversation of the group.
Godard also employs other environmental sounds such as children playing
in the tenement building behind the group, and the sound of birds and insects
in the grass. Alan Williams suggests that this technique is used to contrast
the natural with the mechanised, and to illustrate acculturation of mechanised
objects in the human landscape.
The
sounds that interest him are, almost without exception, mechanical in origin...Two
noteworthy aspects of this preference are:
the
sounds are recorded at remarkably high levels; and
the
characters seem peculiarly unresponsive to them–it's as if they are
unaware of their sonic environment except to the extent that it assumes culturally
rationalised forms. Where as is typical in Godard's "location" recordings,
the spectator strains to decipher dialogue (subtitling tends to make this
seem easier than it actually is), the characters seem better adapted to urban
noise than the film audience is made to feel.[20]
In contrast, environmental sounds
are conspicuously absent from the black and white footage. In place of the
environmental sounds, classical and orchestral music (with and without vocals)
ebbs and flows throughout the black and white scenes until the spectator is
returned to the group in the field. The discussion the group engage in within
the colour sections continues to run through the black and white fragments,
leaving the black and white footage to act as a visual construct, illustrating
an event the group are discussing.
This leads us to the second
more obvious goal of the colour material. It is utilised to contrast and heighten
the effects of the other devices Godard wishes to emphasise. Most notably,
the effects accomplished with unsynchronised sound.
Sound
is not only language. Sound is everything. A picture can go without any images
on the screen for some time–just sound. Or only with silent images.
It depends on what you want to tell. It's only a matter of technique.[21]
By purposely providing a 'simplified'
image, the film draws the spectator's attention to the use of sound and the
discussion in which the participants are involved. The functionality of the
sound is a type of aural palimpsest, whereby, the audio track frequently uses
multiple voices talking simultaneously.
Significantly, as the film progresses,
the spectator becomes increasingly aware that the voices Godard uses for the
dialogue of the film are not necessarily those of the figures the spectator
sees. By using multiple overlapping voices on the soundtrack, it is made apparent
that many of the voices have been recorded in other locations, and not the
outside environment of the field where we see the group.
A great deal of the film's material
appears to use an incremental method of timing the cutting of the black and
white footage with the colour material. For example, within the first ten
minutes of Un Film Comme les Autres, Godard contrasts
the long takes of the colour material with increasingly faster cutting in
of the black and white material as action involved with the protests increases.
(Colour) The film opens with
a mid shot of a woman sitting in the field. The spectator sees her back, with
her hair obscuring her face. There is a blade of grass which sits conspicuously
in the foreground, and the leg and forearm of a man who sits in front of her
in the background of the shot. The shot lasts for approximately two minutes.
(Black and White) Shot of protestors
marching in a demonstration with a banner that reads: 'Enterrement Non Revolution
Qui' 7 seconds.
(Black and White) Long shot
of protestors. 16 seconds. Music begins.
(Black and White) Long shot
of Champs Elysees and protestors. 8 seconds.
(Colour) Back to medium shot
of woman in field revealing more of man in front of her, revealing both of
his forearms and the spectator can tell he is wearing a black shirt. The sound
of an aeroplane passing overhead is heard. 40 seconds.
(Black and White) Close up of
protestors. Camera pans right to extreme close up of the back of someone's
head with raised fists of the protestors in the background.
(Colour) Woman in field. Camera
slowly pans right revealing the back of a man in a white shirt smoking a cigarette.
Significantly, the pan enables the viewer to recognise there are at least
4 participants in the discussion. A figure on the right then moves into the
frame revealing the fifth member of the group. A book lies in the centre of
the shot. The camera then slowly pans left, stops, then back to its original
position with focus on the woman's back. 2 minutes 15 seconds.
(Black and White) Long shot
of fire and smoke in the distance. 2 seconds.
(Black and White) Long shot
from building rooftop of ambulance and people putting an individual in the
back of the ambulance on a stretcher. 14 seconds
(Black and White) Out of focus
long shot of trees and fire in distance. 2 seconds.
(Colour) Woman in field, with
sound of aeroplane passing overhead. 43 seconds. Camera pans right passing
grass onto the back of one of the men until Camera stops. 50 seconds. Camera
slowly pans back to the left, stopping when reaching the woman. 2 minutes.
(Black and White) Chaos of silhouetted
figures and fire in background. 4 seconds.
(Black and White) Same scene
as before, however the spectator is taken closer to the action seen in the
previous shot. 1 second.
(Black and White) Even closer
to the source of light, but out of focus. 4 seconds.
(Black and White) Long shot
of burning car and protestors throwing objects. 12 seconds.
(Black and White) Protestors
push the burning car forward. The sound of a car horn is heard. 4 seconds.
(Colour) Man with white shirt
in the field. 1 second.
(Black and White) Burning wreckage
of the car. 4 seconds
(Colour) Man with white shirt
in the field. 1 second.
(Black and White) Long shot
of burning in distance and silhouetted figures. 2 seconds.
(Colour) Woman in field. 1 second.
(Black and White) Protestors.
2 seconds.
(Colour) Woman in field. 1 second.
(Black and White) Protestors.
Camera pans left and right rapidly. 6 seconds.
By repeating the shot of the
woman in the field, the film anchors the black and white material to the ongoing
discussion. The group as a whole are never identifiably revealed in their
totality, with the exception of the long shot which situates them in front
of the tenement building approximately 11 minutes into the film. However,
the shot does not reveal any of their faces, and is used to reveal the location
of the group, rather than to identify them. The sound of the conversation in the field continues over the
top of the black and white images, tying the spectator to the discussion of
the events of May. The use of the discussion also keeps the spectator's attention
firmly focused on the film's use of sound.
In interviews and public discussions
he attended in 1968, Godard frequently espoused the opinion that sound had
been under-utilised since its inception in cinema, and positively attempted
to expand the boundaries of both silent and sound cinema throughout the year.
In Christian Metz' discussion of 'The Cinema: Language or Language System,'
Metz questions the underdeveloped nature of verbal language within cinema.
The
verbal element is never entirely integrated into the film. It sticks out,
necessarily. Speech is always something of a spokesman. It is never altogether
in the film, but always a little ahead
of it.[22]
Un Film Comme les Autres
challenges Metz' notions of speech within cinema and provides another channel
of communication that challenges other forms of media. A great deal of the
reportage available of the May events illustrates the importance of radio
communication as an organisational tool and a means of gathering information,
in particular, information about actions led by the state.[23]
Many of the images from May
illustrate the antipathy the participants felt for the state controlled Office
de la Radiodiffusion-Television Francaise (O.R.T.F.), which controlled the
flow of information over radio and television.[24]
Like many of Godard's film projects throughout 1968, Un Film Comme les
Autres attempts to provide an alternative to the conventional media
sources. Unlike conventional
media sources, Godard emphasises the soundscape and limits the pictorial depiction
of the discussion in the field. In part, Godard achieves this emphasis on
sound by disembodying the voices from the image.
Perhaps
what is at stake is that language is thus shown to be seperable
from the people who speak it. It does not merely "express" them
but also works through them. "One's own" voice is shown to be simply
a particular variety of language use.[25]
Like the visual contrasts between
Un Film Comme les Autres and One
AM, the use of sound in Un Film Comme les Autres
is the antithesis of its conventional use in the collaborative One AM.
Unlike One AM, Un Film Comme les Autres does
not use synchronised sound,
but attempts to use visual techniques to confirm the veracity of what the
spectator sees.
Particularly within the first
reel, the spectator sees the characters gesticulate during parts of the debate
to reinforce their points of view. The attendant sound goes some way to confirming
what the spectator sees. However, in the second reel the sound heavily contradicts
the images and undermines the spectator's belief that the voices heard on
the soundtrack belong to any of the individuals seen speaking in the first
reel. It is as if Godard were attempting to present a cautionary message telling
the audience to question both what it sees and what it hears. Another possible
interpretation is that this simple technique of unsynchronising the image
from the sound is employed to alienate the spectator even further from the
image.
In a 1970 interview, Godard
made clear his desire to reduce filmmaking to a more simplified process. Part
of his desire was to make films independently of the commercial methods of
production. Within this process of reducing cinema to its raw basics was a
desire to strip the technicalities of the sound process.
We
made a step forward when we tried to reduce all those so-called technical
problems to their utmost simplicity. […] So we are trying to make only
a few images, work with no more than two tracks, so the mixing is simple.
For the moment, most movie makers, except some underground movie makers, work
with ten to twelve sound tracks and mixing lasts one week. The mixing is only
three or four hours for us. We just work with two tracks and possibly later
with one track, because with one track, we can really have simple sound again.
[26]
Godard believed that the use
of sound is itself political.
But
for the moment, we have not the political capacity of working with one track.
This is the political stage, not simply a problem of techniques.[27]
Godard's seemingly simple use
of both black and white, and colour film stock, heightens the contrast when
the sound meets the image. Although the recording of the sound may be simple,
the application of unsynchronised sound within Un Film Comme les Autres
is complex and an effective tool in alienating the spectator.
By using these techniques, the
black and white footage examines the May revolt as an event, or as a precisely
fixed point that has passed. In contrast, the colour section depicts a 'present
time'. The sound techniques attempt
to alienate the spectator and create a sense of uncertainty that is shared
by the subjects of the film, as they explore the question of what happens
next.
Many of the texts written in
the aftermath of the May revolt have attempted to confine its participants
to two possible political extremes. The first is a representation of a unified
front between students and workers as a homogeneous mass. The other is a sociological
representation, a mass movement that had its basis amongst a far greater section
of the French population than it really had. Perhaps more controversial than
these two arguments, are the apolitical posturings that have arisen recently,
eviscerating any political ideas the May revolt had.
In Arthur Marwick's large and
extensive tome 'The Sixties,' he opines
It
will be a major theme of this book that it is a mistake to concentrate on
politics and changes of government: the social and cultural movements I am
concerned with continued largely irrespective of the political complexions
of governments.[28]
Contrary to Marwick's position
is Charles Posner's compilation of works about the events of May 'Reflections
on the Revolution in France: 1968'. Posner illustrates the basis for the May
events being a struggle for power, and the investigation of new forms of democracy.
It
also unveiled possible solutions to the problems of democracy, democratic
control, and the purpose and meaning of work which plague all industrial societies.
Hitherto these solutions have been discussed in the abstract; the May events
put them to the test for the first time.
All
of the contributors to this volume feel that if May was not a fully-fledged
revolution, it was, at the very least, 'a dress rehearsal...The May events
herald profound changes not only in who exerts power but how power is to be
exerted and for what ends.[29]
From
the Gaullists to the P.C.F.[30]
(Communist party) leaders chastised students and young workers for their refusal
to make the traditional demands of the consumer in the traditional way. When
they discovered to their horror that their ideological presuppositions were
not accepted and inadequate to the task, they resorted to less subtle means
of persuasion.[31]
In the case of the Gaullists,
the "less subtle means" were acts of violence perpetrated by the
C.R.S.,[32] the national
riot squad. The P.C.F. used political tools, albeit through less conventional
channels: media sources such as 'L' Humanité', the communist newspaper,
and through the CGT.[33]
The C.G.T., a Communist party
controlled confederation, advocated conventional means of strike negotiation
for the workers. They also attempted to keep students out of discussions surrounding
workers' rights and worker objectives, making their disapproval of the greater
goals of the May revolt well known. The predominant reason the C.G.T.
was against the student revolt was for self-preservation.
The students threatened a total
democratising of the workers, which of course would remove the power that
the C.G.T. held. Of course, a consequence of successful student led revolution
would of necessity be the loss of Communist Party power and influence.
On May 5, the C.G.T. issued
the following statement:
Wherever
the essential claims have been satisfied it is in the workers' interest to
pronounce themselves overwhelmingly in favour of a return to work.[34]
As Harvey points out, there
were those on the left who believed this was 'orchestrated with an indecent
haste.' Student activists accused the C.G.T. of not only behaving like American
Liberals, but also of being 'reformist' by not supporting the revolution beyond
their established role as negotiators.[35]
The C.G.T. also appeared to
miss the point of the workers general strike. Particularly within the automotive
factories, the strike action was about a number of issues, the least of these
were workers' wages. Amongst the many reasons for the strikes was a call for
foreign workers' rights.
Particularly within the Renault
and Citroen factories, the workers from such diverse places as Portugal, Spain,
Yugoslavia and North Africa lived under appalling conditions.
The
Communist Party union (the C.G.T.) did not make special efforts to equalize
the conditions of the foreigners with those of the French workers. This is
largely because the work contracts of most of the foreigners were temporary,
and the foreign workers could not vote, which means that the foreign workers
did not represent a power base for the Communist Party. And some union spokesmen
contributed to a further worsening of the foreign workers' situation by collaborating
with the police repression of the foreigners, and even by publicly defining
foreigners as the greatest threat to the French working class.[36]
The major cause of union between
the students and workers, as Posner perceives it, was due to demography, coupled
with the influence of a society that treated youth as an apprenticeship into
adulthood. Society placed all the accoutrements and responsibilities of adult
consumerism at the feet of youth, without any of the rights experienced by
adults. The student and worker revolts are therefore, according to Posner,
primarily a youth revolt that rejects consumerism.
…but for the consumer society youth was an
apprenticeship in how to adjust to hierarchical control whether in the factory,
the lycée, or the university…Youth's normal propensity to reject
parental values grew into a rejection of parental society with its ideas of
hierarchy masking as democracy.[37]
There is no doubt that Godard
is attempting to unify the students and workers to advance the revolt that
the events of May began. Far from being a roundtable discussion of both ideological
sides of the argument, representatives of the pro-Gaullist, C.G.T. and P.C.F.
factions are omitted from the discussion in the field. Godard had tried to
unite students and workers with the Ciné-Tracts,
but whereas the 'voice' of the Ciné-Tracts
was undoubtedly authorial, Un Film Comme les Autres allows
the participants in the revolt their chance to speak for themselves. It also
allows them to speak outside of any organised media response from spokespersons
and leaders such as Daniel Cohn-Bendit or René Riesel. The age demographic
of the speakers is also highly significant. Using workers and students who
appear to be in their twenties, Godard illustrates the politicised youth that
Posner had detailed as being the basis of the revolution. By bringing the
individuals together in a group, Godard emphasises the unification that must
happen if the revolution is to advance.
In an interview with Kent E.
Carroll in October of 1970, Carroll asked Godard if it was a necessity to
work in a group to make films politically. Godard suggests that after independently
moving away from bourgeois ideology and attaining a revolutionary consciousness,
there is a natural progression towards working with groups.
That
means you have to try to work as a group, as an organisation, to organize
in order to unite. The movies are simply a way to help build unity. Making
movies is just a little screw in building a new concept of politics.[38]
In other words, 'true' revolution
requires the unity of groups in order to achieve revolutionary goals. Un
Film Comme les Autres is Godard's first attempt at
building unity by directly addressing the student and worker populations,
and spreading the ideas from the discussion to increase unity along revolutionary
lines. Moreover, many of the techniques employed within the film, and Godard's
changing focus from auteur filmmaker to collaborative partner, are a paradigmatic
shift in methodology.
However, there is also the danger
of collective discussion not achieving revolutionary aims due to passivity.
Godard wants to achieve unity followed by revolutionary action.
A
first step might be to simply gather people. At least then you can have a
free discussion. But if you don't go on and organize on a political basis,
you have nothing more than a free discussion. Then collective creation is
really no more than collective eating in a restaurant.[39]
René Viénet, a
member of the Situationist International [SI], believed what was missing from
the May revolt was the type of active commitment Godard suggests.
What
was lacking was consciousness of a real revolutionary perspective and its
practical organisation. Never did an agitation by so few individuals lead
in so short a time to such consequences.[40]
This is not to suggest that
the Situationists were in agreement with Godard. Both Viénet and Guy
Debord, the leader of the SI, were vehemently against Godard's films, frequently
making attacks that were personal as well as professional. Yet, both share
similar techniques in their films, and a similar ideology, raising the question
of what could account for such wrath on Debord's part. In a review of Le
Gai Savoir, the Situationists appear to target Godard as a filmmaker
of unoriginal, even plagiarised, content and technique. Plagiarism being one
of many techniques that the Situationists frequently encouraged in others.
Godard
was in fact immediately outmoded by the May 1968 movement, which caused him
to be recognized as a spectacular manufacturer of a superficial, pseudocritical,
cooptive art rummaged out of the trashcans of the past (see The Role of Godard
in Internationale Situationniste #10). At that point Godard’s career
as a filmmaker was essentially over, and he was personally insulted and ridiculed
on several occasions by revolutionaries who happened to cross his path.[41]
Like Godard, Debord is also
influenced by avant garde film practice, and displays sensitivity to the lineage
of commercial and experimental cinema. Beginning his cinematic career while
with the Lettrists in the early 50's, Debord's films, like Godard's, are often
characterised as "hard to watch."[42] The Lettrist
cinema led by artists such as Isidore Isou and Gil J. Wolman were early influences
on Debord's work.
This early '50's cinema found
its roots in the avant-garde work of the dadaists and expanded into an avant-garde
film practice imbued with the Lettrists own unique perspective. Elizabeth
Sussman describes some of the techniques the Lettrists and Debord introduced
in the 1950's.
These
practices include, just to take a few examples, the use of flicker, radical
sound-image discontinuity, negative sequences, multiple simultaneous acoustic
inputs, direct manipulation of the celluloid surface through tearing, writing,
and scratching, and an active engagement of the spectator a la "expanded
cinema".[43]
The founder of the Lettrists,
Isidore Isou, outlined the development of the cinema as an art form with the
literary work Esthétique du cinéma in 1953. Illustrating
two practices involved with the cinema's development, Isou created two formal
divisions. The 'amplic phase' denoted the development of cinematic syntax
and style. The 'chiseling phase' refers to the subsequent development of the
form, whereby the form becomes exhausted "or of bloated, decadent excess."[44] When this
occurs, Isou believes the form becomes reflexive, and a radical investigation
of its basic formal and technical means takes place. Each of these examples
can be found in Godard's 1968 cinema.
Several key techniques of the
Lettrists mirror Un Film Comme les Autres, for example,
their use of sound, its suspension from the image, and the inclusion of newsreel
footage. Debord's Hurlements en faveur de Sade [1952] used
these techniques; and many of the textual inscriptions used mirror those Godard
would use in Le Gai Savoir [1968] and the Cine-Tracts
project. The soundtrack for Hurlements en faveur de Sade consisted
of
…dialogue
spoken without expression…when one of the five voices is speaking, the
screen is white….The dialogue consists primarily of phrases that have
been detourned from journals, works by James Joyce, the French code civil,
Isou's
Esthétique du cinéma, and from John
Ford's Rio Grande [1950], supplemented by quotidian banalities.[45]
Like Un Film Comme les Autres, Debord's Hurlements had a running
time of 120 minutes. However, Debord's film inverts Godard's extreme use of
speech by featuring only 20 minutes of spoken dialogue. The audience, like
that of Godard's, was apparently provoked into, at first boredom and then
violent outrage demanding admission refunds. It is also worthy of note that
many of the Lettrist projects encouraged a radical foregrounding of sound
rather than image.
Like Un Film,
Debord's Hurlements is supposed to engage the viewer in
a critical, more active participation. Sussman explains
….the
lack of images in Hurlements – is employed as the
essential ingredient in a recipe of provocation intended to "radically
transform" the cinematic "situation" from a shrine of passive
consumption into an arena of active discussion, a shift away from the spectacular
and toward critical engagement.[46]
In Made in USA
[1966], Godard began to develop and extend his interest in revolutionary cinema
to envelop third world politics, actively encouraging and supporting 'Third
World' political filmmakers and their initiatives. In 1968, and beginning
with Le Gai Savoir, many of the ideas espoused by third world filmmakers became
a regular touchstone of reference in Godard's films.
In Argentina, filmmakers such
as Solanas and Getino were attempting to encourage new forms of filmmaking
that would counteract the spread of imperialist Hollywood cinema. Significantly,
their goal, like that of Godard's throughout 1968, was to break free of the
stranglehold that they felt had been imposed by neocolonialist cinema and
the mass media wherein "Mass communications are more effective for neocolonialism
than napalm".[47]
By countering the limitations
of form in neocolonialist cinema that were being made contemporaneously, Solanas
and Getino believed theirs were the first steps in raising or fomenting a
national revolutionary consciousness. Promoting forms that were akin to the
'Direct Cinema' movement, and adopting many of the anti-spectacle techniques
proposed by the Situationist International and Debord, Solanas and Getino's
La Hora De Los Hornos/The Hour Of The Furnaces [Solanas and
Getino, 1968] creates a number of ideological and metaphoric links. The cinema
was being transformed into a weapon of guerrilla warfare by linking anti-spectacle
ideological struggles with physical combat.[48]
Solanas and Getino emphasise
the need for the intellectual to find their core competency to achieve "and
perform the most efficient work," something Godard would espouse in his
later work with Gorin in the Dziga-Vertov collaborations. Perhaps most important,
is the work Solanas and Getino were conducting with the exhibition of their
films.
The screenings of La Hora
De Los Hornos were accompanied by open forum discussions. Using
the film screening as a "detonator or pretext," the filmmakers organised
events at the screening to precipitate discussion. At the beginning of the
second part of La Hora De Los Hornos entitled Acto
para la liberacion, the directors would introduce a dialogue
with the audience as a means of dispelling any notions of spectacle.
Comrades,
this is not just a film showing, nor is it a show; rather, it is, above all,
A MEETING – an act of anti-imperialist unity; this is a place only for
those who feel identified with this struggle, because here there is no room
for spectators or for accomplices of the enemy; here there is room only for
the authors and protagonists of the process to which the film attempts to
bear witness and to deepen. The film is the pretext for dialogue, for the
seeking and finding of wills. It is a report that we place before you for
your consideration, to be debated after the showing.[49]
Although Un Film Comme les
Autres is missing the explicit instruction of Solanas and Getino's
film, it does implicitly ask the spectator to engage the film outside the
parameters of the theatrical experience. Whether Godard credited his audience
with too much intelligence, or lacked the foresight to provide explicit instruction
is open to question.
Like Godard, Solanas and Getino's
work is also attempting to escape the aesthetics of idealism, and the cult-like
view that "Beauty in itself is revolutionary." Instead, Solanas
and Getino provide a means of understanding the art of cinema outside of the
19th Century bourgeois form they wish to eliminate.
Man
is accepted only as a passive and consuming object; rather than having
his ability to make history recognized, he is only permitted to read history,
contemplate it, listen to it, and undergo it. The cinema
as a spectacle aimed at a digesting object is the highest point that can be
reached by bourgeois filmmaking. The world, experience, and the historic process
are enclosed within the frame of a painting, the same stage of a theater,
and the movie screen; man is viewed as a consumer of ideology,
and not as the creator of ideology.[50]
This statement is comparable
to what appear to be Godard's own thoughts on history and ideology. Near the
end of the second reel of Un Film Comme les Autres, an
extended period of silence is heard on the soundtrack. Illustrating what Alan
Williams describes as
…the
ultimate sound effect: silence, which when
it arrives–abruptly, as do most of Godard's sounds–is eerily soothing.[51]
The silence is followed by a
solitary voice on the soundtrack, and informs the spectator that
According
to Shakespeare, men are involved in history in three ways: Some create history
and are its victims. Others think they create history, and are its victims
also. Others yet do not create history, but they too are its victims. The
first are the Kings, the second are their assistants who carry out their orders,
the third are the simple citizens of the kingdom.
The speech that the individual
gives provides a more potent ending for Un Film Comme les Autres than
the one posited by Roud, and
importantly signals the direction the Dziga Vertov group would take in directly
addressing the political struggles of individuals and groups throughout 1969
to the early 1970's. The prevailing message from Un Film Comme les Autres
is
therefore one of attempting to escape the shackles of passively consuming
ideology; but also of becoming actively involved in rejecting bourgeois culture
in order to be an active participant in the making of history. For this to
be accomplished through the film medium, Godard requires the audience to communicate
with each other to achieve the ideological ideas he raises.
Although he later rejected the
film as a "complete failure,"[52]
he also affirms a belief that it marks the departure from quantity to quality.
This departure marks a transition in the targeting of his audience as a potential
collective cadre, as opposed to merely a collection of individuals and signified
his desire to expand the role of cinema.
At a certain point you go from quantity to quality. Until A Movie Like the Others I was a moviemaker and an author. I was only progressing from a quantity point of view. Then I saw the job to be done, and that I had the possibility of doing this job only with the help of the masses. For me this was a major advancement. You can't do it as an individual. You can't do it alone, even if you are an advanced element of the good militant. Because being a good militant means being related, one way or another with the masses.[53]
[1] James Roy MacBean,
'Godard and the Dziga-Vertov Group: Film and Dialectics', Film Quarterly,
26 (1972), 31.
[2] Journals such
as Sight and Sound frequently covered Godard and his films until 1968
where they appear to lessen their coverage throughout the year-- virtually
coming to a standstill after One Plus One. It is also interesting to
note that some critics make no division between Un film Comme les Autres and British
Sounds/See you at Mao. See Bruce F. Kawin, Mindscreen: Bergman, Godard,
and First-Person Film (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1978), p. 212.
[3] Richard Roud, Jean-Luc Godard (London: Indiana
University Press, 1970), p. 147.
[4] Richard Roud says
the film screened in "early 1969." Roud, p. 186.
The New York Times article (see Appendix Fig. 3.) reports the
film screened on 29 December 1968. Any source of information about successive
screenings of the film has been elusive. By winter of 1971-1972, it had
still not screened in England. See Christopher Williams, 'Politics and Production',
Screen, 12 (1971/2),
14.
[5] Un Film Comme
les Autres was originally distributed by Leacock-Pennebaker Films upon its
release. The video copy being used was purchased from Pennebaker's 'Living
Archives'.
[6] Wheeler Winston
Dixon says the black and white sections are from footage Godard recorded
for the Ciné-Tracts. Wheeler Winston Dixon, The Films of Jean-Luc
Godard
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), p. 104. There are a
great many similarities to the Ciné-Tracts material, especially in the
first half or reel of the film. However, there is a possibility that Godard
has used both material from the Ciné-Tracts and the Etats Généraux
du Cinéma.
[7] Royal S Brown,
ed., Focus On Godard, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1972),
p. 179.
The Etats Généraux du Cinéma was enormously
important immediately after the events of May. Constituted of French Film
luminaries and enthusiasts alike, the Etats Généraux du
Cinéma attempted to reform
the entire National Film industry through a series of 'Projects'. Many sources
have investigated the group and given excellent accounts of their activities.
See Sylvia Harvey, May '68 and Film Culture (London: British
Film Institute, 1978). In addition, see Simon Hartog, 'The Estates General
of the French Cinema, May 1968', Screen, 13 (1972), 58-88.
[8] It seems conceivable
that Loshitzky is quoting MacCabe. Yosefa Loshitzky, The Radical Faces
of Godard and Bertolucci. (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University
Press, 1995), p. 28. And: Colin MacCabe, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1980), p. 21.
[9] In an interview
with Godard and Gorin in 1970, Godard says the film was shot "just
after the 1968 May-June events in France." Whether this means before
August or beyond is unknown. Kent E. Carroll, 'Film and Revolution: Interview
with the Dziga-Vertov Group'. In Brown, ed., Focus On Godard. p. 53.
[10] Winston Dixon,
p. 230.
[11] Donal Henahan,
'Boos Greet Film By Godard Here', New York Times, December 30 (1968). See
Appendix: Figure 3.
[12] I can find no
information verifying that this subtitling was ever done. However, the suggestion
is quite fantastic given the volume of dialogue in the film; and it would
be a disservice to the intentions of the audio techniques, such as overlaps
in speech, to ameliorate there effect by the use of subtitles.
[13] Roud, Jean-Luc
Godard,
p. 147.
[14] Roud, Jean-Luc
Godard,
p. 147.
[15] Henahan's article
makes it clear that the audience for the film's premiere were "predominantly
young" and "booed and hissed" throughout the screening. See
Appendix, Figure 3. In Craig Fischer's examination of Godard's commercial
film releases in the U.S., Fischer examines the "hissing and snickers"
that seemed to be a normal part of the New York Film Festival. Although
Un Film Comme les Autres didn't appear as part of the
festival that year (One Plus One was supposed to, but there
were problems with getting the print) Fischer's article goes some way in
explaining 'normal' audience reactions for the time.
Craig Fischer, 'Films Lost in the Cosmos: Godard and New York
Distribution and Exhibition (1961-1973)', Spectator, 18 (1998), 47-66.
And: Donal Henahan, 'Boos Greet Film By Godard Here', New York Times, December 30 (1968).
See Appendix. Fig. 3.
[16] Dziga Vertov,
'Film Directors, A Revolution', Screen , 12 (1971/2), 57-58.
[17] Jonathan Rosenbaum,
'My Filmgoing in 1968: An Exploration', That Magic Moment: 1968 and the Cinema (1998). Internet WWW page, at URL: <http://www.viennale.or.at/1998/magic/rosenbe.htm>
(version no longer available). Publication (in German) available from Internet
WWW Page, at URL: <http://www.viennale.or.at/english/shop/index.html>
(version current at 7 October 2000).
[18] It should be noted
however, whether intentional or not, the camera can be seen almost imperceptibly
moving throughout all of the 'static' shots. Whether this is due to a zoom
lens being used, or an inexperienced camera operator is unknown.
[19] Similarly, in
One Plus One,
Godard uses three environmental sounds repeatedly.
[20] Alan Williams,
'Godard's Use of Sound', Camera Obscura, Autumn 1982, p. 197.
[21] Jean-Luc Godard,
quoted in, Gene Youngblood 'Jean-Luc Godard: No Difference between Life
and Cinema'. In David Sterritt, ed., Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews. (Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 1998), p. 37.
[22] Christian Metz,
Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1980), p. 54.
[23] See William Klein's
documentary Grands soirs et petits matins: Mai 68 au Quartier Latin [1978] to see
the significance of communication and the instruments which enabled students
and workers to organise demonstrations and protests.
[24] For many of the
posters created by students and the Atelier Populaire throughout the May
events, see: Burn Collective. Paris
1968 - Table of Contents.
Internet WWW page at URL: <http://burn.ucsd.edu/paristab.htm>
(version current at 7 October 2000).
[25] Alan Williams,
'Godard's Use of Sound,' Camera Obscura (1982), 194.
[26] Godard, in Carroll,
p. 52.
[27] Godard, in Carroll,
p. 52.
[28] Arthur Marwick,
The Sixties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 9. One of the 'social
and cultural movements' Marwick is interested in investigating, judging
from the large photo of the Latin Quarter on the back cover, is France in
May of 1968.
[29] Charles Posner,
'Introduction'. In Reflections on the Revolution in France: 1968. ed., Charles
Posner. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1970), pp. 13-14.
[30] P.C.F.: Parti
Communiste Français
[31] Posner, p. 16.
[32] C.R.S.: Compagnies
Républicaines de Sécurité
[33] C.G.T.: Confédération
Générale du Travail
[34] Sylvia Harvey,
May '68 and Film Culture (London: British Film Institute, 1978), p. 10.
[35] F. Perlman, 'Workers
Occupy Their Factories'. In Worker-Student Action Committees: France
May '68. eds., R. Gregoire and F. Perlman. (Detroit, Michigan: Black
and Red, 1991), p. 9.
[36] Perlman, p. 8.
[37] Posner, p. 40.
[38] Godard, in Carroll,
p. 51.
[39] Godard, in Carroll,
p. 51.
[40] René Viénet,
Enragés and Situationionists in the Occupation Movement, France,
May '68 (Brooklyn, New York: Autonomedia, 1992), p.19.
[41] Ken Knabb, (Trans.)
Situationist International. Cinema and Revolution. Internet WWW
page, at URL: <http://www.slip.net/~knabb/SI/12.cinema.htm>
(version current at 7 October 2000).
[42] Elizabeth Sussman,
'Dismantling the Spectacle: The Films of Guy Debord'. On the passage
of a few people through a rather brief moment in time: The Situationist
International 1957-1972. ed., Peter Wollen. (Boston: Institute of Contemporary
Art, Boston, 1989), p. 78.
[43] Sussman, p. 79.
[44] Sussman, p. 80.
[45] Sussman, p. 82.
[46] Sussman, p. 84.
[47]Solanas and Getino.
'Towards A Third Cinema'. In Bill Nichols, ed., Movies and Methods: Volume
One.
(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1976),
p. 49.
[48] Solanas and Getino,
p. 44.
[49] Solanas and Getino,
p. 62.
[50] Solanas and Getino,
p. 51.
[51] Alan Williams,
'Godard's Use of Sound,' Camera Obscura (1982), 197.
[52] Godard, in Carroll,
p. 53. In the Summer of 1972, Richard Roud states "Gorin admits that
the possible public for Un Film commes les Autres was of the order
of 5". Richard Roud, 'Godard is Dead, Long Live Godard/Gorin: Tout
Va Bien!', Sight and Sound, 41 (1972), 123.
[53] Godard, in Carroll,
p. 54.