GODARD IN AMERICA
Directed by Ralph Thanhauser
Released in 1970
Directed by Ralph Thanhauser
Released in 1970
In some ways people may find it difficult to sympathize with the political views of an artist, even though that artist's ideological aspirations seldom seem to ripple the social current, at least minus a few initial snickers. When a half-decent actor such as Ronald Reagan or his son Arnold Schwarzenegger elect to rule the country of California, the populace collectively shrugs and says to itself that, all in all, the world could do worse. But just let the Dixie Chicks or Pierre Perret or even Rio Reiser make a disparaging comment about the right of leaders to invoke the privileges of war and look out helter skelter.
Granted, this repulsion of ideology tends to only puke up at the left or, in a few cases, at the right, when the work of the reactionary signals just how horribly amateurish it is, and here I am thinking of things like The Ground Floor production of The Tea Party Movie(2009), an unmitigated piece of subhuman detritus, if such a thing ever existed. The objections take on an overtone of intolerance gone berserk, with such non sequiturs offered as, "Shut up and sing."
Things have not always been quite so lame. The time was when a nice man named Ralph Thanhauser decided it would be a Nietzsche-is-Peachy idea to document the coming to America of cinema gods Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, or in short, the Dziga Vertov Group that had been formed in Paris in 1968, a fascinating cooperative bent on making political films. And indeed they did, nine of them in all. The topic, more or less, of Godard in America (1970), is that Godard and Gorin came to the States to gain financing for a movie they planned about Palestine. The issue of the Israeli presence in the Middle East gets equated with workers struggles everywhere and Godard even mentions in the film that the beauty of Chinese communism is that instead of having one thousand books that you must read to approximate the truth, with Mao you only need one. He was evidently serious.
A story is told that Jean-Luc met with Elliott Gould to discuss the possibility of the Frenchman directing Little Murders. Even though I suspect the result would have been a vastly different movie, it is possible to recognize touches of Godard in the final product issued by director Alan Arkin. So the idea of making a film drawing parallels between Chinese peasants and the members of the Palestine Liberation Organization isn't that absurd in context.
Very well. We have skirted this issue over half a page of type and seem to be no closer to getting to the point, not a little unlike a certain French director whose name has appeared in this essay a time or two. The point actually being made here--if one must be made--is that there is no particular reason to care that Godard shared philosophical ground with the Chinese communists, certainly no more than it should concern us that the director was heavily influenced by Sartre and Camus, or by his own admittedly bourgeois upbringing, one that he claims paled when compared to the bourgeois culture of Hollywood. It doesn't matter if the man comes out in favor of rotten beef. What matters is whether he can make his meanings to mean something through his craft and art. Godard's work is very conceptually-based and audiences must be ready for something a bit more engaging than car chases and explosions. In the forty-four minute documentary Godard in America, it is hard to resist the cleverness and passion that the director brings to his storyboards, just as it is exciting to watch him lecture on the importance of sound in movies, versus, say, images.
Does it please me that a Marxist filmmaker makes modern movies? Of course. Does it delight me that such an intellectual fellow should be something of an icon for such a long time? Yes, indeed. Do either of these things actually make much difference in the enjoyment of the films? Not a bit. It is a fact that the propaganda effect to which movies or statues or hazelnut pies are put remains, in my mind at least, a given. The only differences are that some artists fool themselves into thinking they are above such politicking while a larger number fool the rest of us into thinking they respect us too much to attempt this kind of manipulation. One cannot escape it. Joy to the man or woman who comes out and says, in so many words, "The experiences of my life up to this moment are what have influenced the predisposition I have taken with what you are about to perceive. Good luck."
A person can despise the Nazis and have glorious dreams of machine-gunning Hitler in the movie theater and still admit the success Reni Riefenstahl experienced with Triumph of the Will. Godard in America is neither Triumph nor triumph. It is, however, a fascinating look at a man who was in the throes of pissing off nearly everyone who liked him in order to keep his art in sync with his philosophical principles. You know, just the way the Dixie Chicks did.
Granted, this repulsion of ideology tends to only puke up at the left or, in a few cases, at the right, when the work of the reactionary signals just how horribly amateurish it is, and here I am thinking of things like The Ground Floor production of The Tea Party Movie(2009), an unmitigated piece of subhuman detritus, if such a thing ever existed. The objections take on an overtone of intolerance gone berserk, with such non sequiturs offered as, "Shut up and sing."
Things have not always been quite so lame. The time was when a nice man named Ralph Thanhauser decided it would be a Nietzsche-is-Peachy idea to document the coming to America of cinema gods Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, or in short, the Dziga Vertov Group that had been formed in Paris in 1968, a fascinating cooperative bent on making political films. And indeed they did, nine of them in all. The topic, more or less, of Godard in America (1970), is that Godard and Gorin came to the States to gain financing for a movie they planned about Palestine. The issue of the Israeli presence in the Middle East gets equated with workers struggles everywhere and Godard even mentions in the film that the beauty of Chinese communism is that instead of having one thousand books that you must read to approximate the truth, with Mao you only need one. He was evidently serious.
A story is told that Jean-Luc met with Elliott Gould to discuss the possibility of the Frenchman directing Little Murders. Even though I suspect the result would have been a vastly different movie, it is possible to recognize touches of Godard in the final product issued by director Alan Arkin. So the idea of making a film drawing parallels between Chinese peasants and the members of the Palestine Liberation Organization isn't that absurd in context.
Very well. We have skirted this issue over half a page of type and seem to be no closer to getting to the point, not a little unlike a certain French director whose name has appeared in this essay a time or two. The point actually being made here--if one must be made--is that there is no particular reason to care that Godard shared philosophical ground with the Chinese communists, certainly no more than it should concern us that the director was heavily influenced by Sartre and Camus, or by his own admittedly bourgeois upbringing, one that he claims paled when compared to the bourgeois culture of Hollywood. It doesn't matter if the man comes out in favor of rotten beef. What matters is whether he can make his meanings to mean something through his craft and art. Godard's work is very conceptually-based and audiences must be ready for something a bit more engaging than car chases and explosions. In the forty-four minute documentary Godard in America, it is hard to resist the cleverness and passion that the director brings to his storyboards, just as it is exciting to watch him lecture on the importance of sound in movies, versus, say, images.
Does it please me that a Marxist filmmaker makes modern movies? Of course. Does it delight me that such an intellectual fellow should be something of an icon for such a long time? Yes, indeed. Do either of these things actually make much difference in the enjoyment of the films? Not a bit. It is a fact that the propaganda effect to which movies or statues or hazelnut pies are put remains, in my mind at least, a given. The only differences are that some artists fool themselves into thinking they are above such politicking while a larger number fool the rest of us into thinking they respect us too much to attempt this kind of manipulation. One cannot escape it. Joy to the man or woman who comes out and says, in so many words, "The experiences of my life up to this moment are what have influenced the predisposition I have taken with what you are about to perceive. Good luck."
A person can despise the Nazis and have glorious dreams of machine-gunning Hitler in the movie theater and still admit the success Reni Riefenstahl experienced with Triumph of the Will. Godard in America is neither Triumph nor triumph. It is, however, a fascinating look at a man who was in the throes of pissing off nearly everyone who liked him in order to keep his art in sync with his philosophical principles. You know, just the way the Dixie Chicks did.
