Film Socialism by Jean Luc Godard
Curated by Cliona Harmey.
Film Socialisme
sees Godard on the offensive with a violent experimental drive and urgency..”[1]
The film takes many unconventional
approaches to narrative, montage, screen text, titling, editing, image and
sound giving the film an experimental edge.
The first movement is set on a voyage
around the Mediterranean of the ill-fated cruise ship Costa Concordia. The
ships acts as a sort of micro continent[2].
Godard uses the combined footage of four camera men/agents, taken on multiple
moving image formats, from high end HD to poor quality cctv, cheap mobile phone
and handy-cam images and with low-grade sound to create highly visual, colour
saturated episodes.
“As some of the sound is recorded quite
crudely—with wind flapping against a cheap mic on a cheap camera—and prone to
drop-outs and fading, the eccentric spacing creates not only a gap between
words, but also, quite significantly for the viewer, a mental gap between
sounds”[3].
This gap is further evidenced in the
fragmentary narrative which touches on ideas, hidden histories and stories of
the circulation of disappeared /stolen spanish gold. “Pilfering clips from Pollet
(mediteranee), Rossellini, Eisenstein, Chaplin, Ford, Varda et al., Godard
makes like his subjects and pathologically steals images from the world (and
the inscription of war)”[4]. The reverberations of time and the echo of history in the present, is elucidated
in the first part with reference to the circulation of cultural artifacts
(paintings, gold coins, a watch, cinema itself).
“the watch that doesn't give the hour
and the still camera that will become a movie camera. Two contradictory
machines that cross the Mediterranean, passing hand to hand"[5].
The film also has a strong engagement with
the making and taking of pictures. The camera is at the core, with the slippage
between the still and moving image, the image as artifact and also the site of
privilege and power.
Film Socialisme is replete with images
of people taking photos. Photographers are seen everywhere, snapshots are
taken, shutters are clicking incessantly, flashes flare and the world is
revealed as a hyper- and multi-mediated voyage through seeing “photographically.”
[6]
Language, bold typography, wordplay,
versions, descriptions, spacings, omissions are also a major part of the film.
There are multiple versions of the trailers: which exist as small works in
themselves with varying treatments, time-tracks and time compressions. There is more than one title for the
film and more than one translation. For the initial screening at Cannes the
english subtitling was deliberately only partial and was described by Godard as
“Navajo English” : a type of truncated pidgin english. After initially wanting
to leave the film subtitle free, he eventually agreed to do it “his way”l[7] getting an initial
translation of all the french dialogue to english. “With a marker pen, he
crossed out the words that did not interest him and left only those which
seemed especially meaningful to him, before rearranging them..”[8] thus the viewer who spoke only english received a type of haiku
like experience of language.
There are three movements in the film each
given a separate title “Des choses comme ça” (“Things like
that”), “Quo Vadis Europa” and “Nos humanités” (“Our humanities”). The first follows onboard the cruise ship, the second follows a
family in a small house at a gas station and the third : “recapitulates the
Mediterranean journey of the first, depicting places where what Godard terms
“our humanities” were born—Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas (i.e. Greece,
hélas), Naples, Barcelona—largely by scavenging through banked images of
20th-century horror”[9].
[1] Williams,
James S. Williams “Entering the Desert: The Book of Film Socialisme”
[2]
Bordwell, David, “Observations on
Film Art” http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2012/02/06/the-ship-of-statements-sails-on/ On his site Bordwell gives some
interesting extra information on the Costa Concordia, which “was designed with
thirteen decks, each named for a European nation (using the Italian version of
each name, since that is where the vessel is registered)”.
[3] :Picard,
Andrea Spotlight | Film Socialisme
“http://cinema-scope.com/spotlight/spotlight-film-socialisme-jean-luc-godard-switzerlandfrance/
[4]
IBID
[5]
Phelps, David “Film Socialism Annotated” from Moving Image Source
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/film-socialisme-annotated-20110607
[6]
Petho?,A?gnes, Jean-Luc Godard’s Passages from the Photo-Graphic to the
Post-Cinematic. Images in between Intermediality and Convergence accessed at http://www.acta.sapientia.ro/acta-film/C4/Film4-2.pdf
[7]
Bréan, Samuel,
”godard
english
cannes: The Reception of Film Socialisme‘s “Navajo English” Subtitles”
Senses of Cinema, Feature Articles, Issue 60 | October 2011
[8] IBID
[9] Taubin, Amy, Film Socialisme review
http://www.filmcomment.com/article/film-socialisme-review/print
