Self-reflectivity of Jean-Luc Godard's films: focusing on <Tout Va Bien>, <Numero Deux>, <JLG/JLG> This text was translated for this application from an academic journal under the same title, REVIEW, Korean Association of Digital Moving Image (2005.8)
Kim, Gye-joong
1. Introduction Jean-luc Godard has continued creating 'cinema about cinema'. This practice done for constructing elements of cinema internally reflected them externally and produced their variations in experimentation. His experimentations continued with <La Mepris>(1963), <Tout Va Bien>(1972) and through mid-late period work <Numero Deux>(1975), <Ici et Ailleurs>(1974), <Comment ca va?>(1976), partially used video technology equipments. He crossed genres between film and video reinforces the political discourse on relationship between mechanical mechanism and image production of cinema. Also much later work, <JLG/JLG>(1994) tried philosophical transcendence on using meditative tropes and connotative comments dealing with his personal life and furthermore his artistic movements in the stand point as an artist. I decided on the order of film, which will be referred according to the flow of aesthetic development in chronological perspective by years.
2. Self-reflectivity and Anti-illusionism The self-reflectivity in cinema and literature has history of various modes and concepts. 1 Especially the postmodern phenomenon is not only applied in cinema and literature. The tendency of crossover and hybrid genres might be unavoidable destiny we are facing now in contemporary society but Godard have criticized the political aspect of the danger upon which the media and the rhetoric laid. 2 Among the works that have anti-illusionist style, there are categories of style-representation, illusion of reality-tendency of delivering only pleasure out of it. However Godard wanted to reassure the fundamental elements of reality by following the lesson of Brecht, alienating effect. All the representational forms in art have been developed through the tension between illusionism and self-reflectivity. It defines itself as reality or/and admit its status as it is as just representation. Illusionism proclaims itself higher than artistic production, which is describing character or people as a real existence. From the early cinema, illusionism has been influential by powerful element, reality. Anti-illusionism artist destruct the form of illusionist who persist on keeping perfect synchronization of time and space in use of various transition effects such as dissolve, fade, etc. Their strategy is to pursue the split between character in film and consciousness of subjectivity of enunciation. One of the methods Godard used was recompose the object in 2 dimensional aspects in order to avoid the spatial construction of mise-en-scene. He tried to diminish the distinction between front, background and vanishing point by positioning characters in one axis on the set. The composition obtained from fixing camera 90 degree angle away from the object. Actors precede their actions in front of empty wall, or at least background where no perspective line appears. Horizontally flat composition and abstract picture plane guide us to gaze at the images and not observed into it. 3
3. <Tout Va Bien> (1972) 1
2 3
예술 지상주의 미학에 의거할 수 도 있고, 매체 특유의 형식주의 혹은 변증법적 유물론에 바탕을 둘 수도 있다. 그것은 개인주의적일 수도 집단적일 수도 있고, 나르시시즘적일 수도 상호 주관적일 수도 있다. 그것은 보헤미아적인 가벼움의 표시일 수도 있고, 정치적 동기를 지닌 진지함의 표시일 수도 있다. 자기 반영적 예술의 세 가지 항구적 양태들을 분리시켜 본다면 그것은 유희이기도 하고 (보르헤스 소설, 키튼의 2 릴짜리 영화, 혹은 TV 시트콤의 장난기 넘치는 자기 지시성), 도발적이기도 하며 (자리의 <우부 왕>, 혹은 부뉴엘의 <황금 시대>를 특징짓든 모더니즘적 탈인간화), 또는 교훈적이기도 하다(브레히트적 유물론 영화인 장 뤽 고다르, 존 버거, 알랭 타네의 작품들). (로버트 스탬/ 오세필 구종상 역 ‘자기 반영의 영화와 문학’. 한나래. 1998. p22) (Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Stam) Ibid, p.21 Ibid, p.48.
One of the collaborative works with Jean-Pierre Gorin was <Tout Va Bien>(1972), which has similar emblematic narrative structure 'cinema within cinema' with <La Mepris>. In <La Mepris>, Godard was referring to his personal experience with working in Hollywood film industry by metaphorical gesture to use the characters and roles, Fritz Lang take his role of himself, director, Jack Palance as producer and Brigit Bardo as secretary, in highly self-reflective setup. It implies that the ultimate theme of the film is that as art making could be prostitution as filmmaking. To be back to <Tout Va Bien>, the issue regarded with production and consume, product producer and labor class as consumer, information producer and artist as consumption, film producer and filmmaker as consumer, is mapped out through the relationship of characters and the function in the context of society. The main characters, Susan (Jane Fonda), American broadcast reporter and Jaques (Yves Montand), former film director, who'd fallen to making dull and meaningless TV commercial films due to economic deprivation. He redefines his filmmaking as continued process of seeking for new form for new content, but, in fact, it is just execution for selling soap and razor blade. She is works for ABC but realizes it's not possible to keep up in the bourgeois company. There is implication of her attitude calling his art 'trash' that the sarcastic criticism aims at Godard himself, who willingly take it for doing strict self-evaluation process. Godard posits this cultural labor in the context of general production labor. For instance, this film investigates the system of production and consumption. The first tracking shot looks through meat processing factory and the second cash registers in super market where the workers pay for what they produced. Pararelly running two tracking shots emphasize the symmetry between production and consumption from the rule of capitalist. Intellectuals are defined as cultural workers, which is political trap, on the other hand, superiority to factory workers and justice ignoring their own self-consciousness. <Tour Pa Bien> realizes the self-reflectivity of epic theater by Bertolt Brecht. For instance, off-screen sound constantly brings awareness to audience and becomes a film of which the form becomes the content. 4
4. <Numero Deux> (1975) Godard became interested in video, new emerging medium then, and returned to his home land, Switzerland, set up video production facility and started collaboration with Anne-Marie Mieville. Through the opportunity as his interest on the issue of representation of cinema was explored even deeper, he became occupied with the challenge of dealing with paradigmatic and syntagmatic representation on screen, which gave him definite motivation to new way of filmmaking. He commented on it as this. "To use video as you would cinema, and to sue cinema as you would television, is to make a television that doesn't exist, and a cinema that no longer exists...,“ 5
The three video essays <Numero Deux>(1975), <Ici et Ailleurs>(1974), <Comment ca va?>(1976) is fully composed of political expression. They were constructed of not only political questions but also mechanical apparatus that is cinematic body language. The specific criticism in the language of video medium is tried as he was doing political suggestion in that of film medium previously. Video presents the process of destruct composition and re-composition. Philippe Dubois asserted on the classification of Godard's strategy. 6 The first is ‘ the mise-en-scene of direct address’ , that 'you' is general object of delivery of 'I' and the conversation in voice over is heard over the image of typing letter on the screen. It simulates the process of communication method in electronic media which connects the feedback system promptly and mutually responded between the active and the passive, the actor and the spectator, the off-screen sound of author-commentator and images on screen, as said in the inscriptions in <Ici et ailleurs>. The second was 'The electric treatment of image'. Among the three video mentioned above Godard, considered it activity of linking that electronic images are organically mixed in various expressions. There is no singular image furthermore and they are just entangled in chain. Likewise, the possibilities of his political exploration through images, he said, "vague and complicated system that the whole world is continually entering and leaving." 4
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로버트 스탬/ 오세필 & 구종상 역 <자기 반영의 영화와 문학>, 한나래, 1998, p.309 (Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Stam) "To use video as you would cinema, and to sue cinema as you would television, is to make a television that doesn't exist, and a cinema that no longer exists...(생략),“ (Philippe Dubois. <Video Thinks What Cinema Creates: Notes on Jean-Luc Godard's work in video and television> Raymond Bellour, Mary Lea Bandy 편저. Jean-Luc Godard: Son + Image 1974-1991. The Museum of Modern Art. 1992. p.174) Ibid, p.170-171
Godard's video essays are experimentation machine realizing "language game" as in the book by Wittgenstein, 'Philosophical Investigations'. It made him possible for activity of real time writing. In <Scenario du Film Passion)>(1982) he controls images for himself in studio, from which the stylistic motivation for <Histoire(s) du Cinema)>(2004) is initiated. It could be a suggestion that writing comes earlier than shooting images. <Numero Deux> shows successfully the possibilities of destructive technique of cinema. He is extending his previous practices and started abandoning narrative, drama, and spectacles in order to delicately and closely observes every day life politics. The life, trends of labor class are trivialized and proletariatized. Also it illustrate the issue of production more elaborately than in <Tout va bien>, starting with chiaroscuro look of his face in the beginning and soon images on TV monitor from different angle. He started talking about how managed to get funding and make the make the film, and establish metaphor that video studio is factory and Godard himself is employer and worker. In the film, husband, Pierro works at factory and his wife Sandrine works at home which became factory to her. The marriage became collective production and giving a birth to child is reproduction. Also the cinema is produced by mechanical reproduction (representation) and TV program by electronic reproduction. Desire is a form of production and excessive invest become part of the economic of desire. Althusser's theory is that ideology is the relationship of production, which is reproduced in individual's mind and it's strongly confirmed in the film. 7
5. <JLG/JLG>(1984) <JLG/JLG> is laid on the course of recurring process to more personal and sentimental rhetoric from previously active creation career. The self-conscious destruction he was doing since the Dziga Vertov group period, is unexceptionably still executed in this film. He tries to position himself as subjectivity who dismantle the foundation of himself as an enunciator and author. And some questions are brought up to viewer on difference between autobiography and self-portrait, and how he sacrifices 'I' and gives out 'love' in this land. The beginning of <JLG/JLG> premised on his death, which he had attempted in earlier works and reflect upon them for his auto-portrait. On the appearance of his photo in frame, voice of himself is overheard towards protagonist in the film "Cast the roles, begin the rehearsals, settle problems concerning the direction, perfect the entrances and exits, learn your lines by heart." He helps audiences to understand what Godard himself perceives. Soon it moves to a few shots of inside apartment and a video camera with viewing panel opened for us to be able to see what it is recording beyond the window pane in. This shot, shot within shot, implies film within film, at which we gaze what only he, subjectivity of representation gaze. 8 Godard said "Artist is not a creator but the world where they engrave and install themselves. It will be possible when the ego of the author does not rule. Consequently when the author negates himself to be the ruler of auto-biography, he is truly qualified to be called an artist. 9 Godard clarifies in an interview in 1983 on how an artist could possibly proclaim 'love' on earth. During the film he narrates, "Cinema is love, meeting and love of life of ourselves, love of ourselves on earth." continued he said, "I said I love, that is promise.” which still means something undone yet. And the film shows nature and voice over is narrated, "Now I have to sacrifice myself to that through me the word 'love' means something, so that love exists on earth". 10 Godard keeps on trying to escape authorial stand point in systematic and philosophical way not in realization of typical re-characterization of author. On the presumption that I/author/Godard is subjectivity of enunciation, by abandoning that of symbol/signifier to dangerous moment, he let it experienced by the anxiety of loss. At this point, he hopes to find universality but still willing to accept to the destiny of being floated. The sacrifice give out the opportunity to be benevolent and also it is the action of carrying out continuous cycle of sacrifice even the body of subjectivity that promised 'love'. It is very modern phenomenon that segregating subjectivity and objectivity makes it possible for 7
Ibid, p.311 Ibid, p.25. 9 장 뤽 고다르는 르 몽드지와의 인터뷰에서 다음과 같이 말한다. 자화상 auto-portrait 이라고 부르는 것은 화가가 이 연습을 그리는 것과 같은 것이라고 볼 수 있다. 나르시시즘에 의해서가 아니라 그림 자체에 대한 탐문(interrogation)에 의해서이다. 예술은 인간보다 위대하고 심지어는 예술가들보다 위대하다. <JLG/JLG>는 내가 영화를 가지고 무엇을 할 수 있는지가 아닌 영화가 나를 가지고 무엇을 할 수 있는지에 대한 시도이다. (Ibidbook, p.24). 10 Ibid, p.33.
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meaningful thought process in order to deconstruct the power relations of power. Thus, persistent trial of Godard on institutional critique proves that personality could become politicality. A quote from Deleuze's comment could explain about the specific binary system used in the film. “ Godard is not a dialectical. What counts with him is not two or three, or however many you like, its AND, the conjunction AND. Godard's use of AND is crucial. It's important because our entire way of thinking is modeled instead on the verb "to be," IS. ......When Godard says that everything can be divided in two, and that day is morning and evening, he isn't saying that it's one or the other, nor that one becomes the other, becomes two. For multiplicity is never in term of ever their number, nor in the set, or totality, of the, Multiplicity is precisely in the AND, which does not have the same nature as the elements or the sets.” 11
6. Conclusion ‘ Ce n'est pas une image juste, c'est juste une image.' - Jean-Luc Godard
In <Tout Va Bien>, connections of allegory used for constructing narrative system was used and in <Numero Deux> the narrative disappear and content of images is destructed and fragmented. Jean-Luc Godard who set him as a worker bring up the politics of everyday life. There is more direct and personal self-reflectivity becomes dominant in <JLG/JLG> Godard always keeps the attitude of mixing genres and destructs them, which is based on on systematic and destructive critical point of view. Especially Brechtian idea is found on his documentary style and usage of TV images, and on the interruption of narrative flow, fictional approach to documentary. 12 He also combine the montage of cinema verite and element of mise-en-scene, furthermore, and explore negation which resides in the form of mise-en-scene as well as montage which intervene the transparent relation between object/model in front of camera. The reason he used the technique of cinema verite was to use it for radical experimentation. 13 Godard made it possible that a certain systematic meaning occurred by abstracting the social relation from the images and reminding the position of consumer. The requirements for subjectivity and object of the utterance should be clarified always and the question he raises made us to be intruding the method in our life.
References 로버트 스탬/ 오세필 & 구종상 역 <자기 반영의 영화와 문학>, 한나래, 1998 (Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Stam) MacCabe, Colin Myles, <Jean-Luc Godard: A Life>, Bellour, Raymond and Bandy, Mary Lea edited, Jean-Luc Godard: Son+Image 1974-1991, The Museum of Modern Art, 1992. Dubois, Philippe, <Video Thinks What Cinema Creates: Notes on Jean-Luc Godard's work in video and telelvision> Bellour, Raymond and Bandy, Mary Lea edited, Jean-Luc Godard: Son+Image 1974-1991, The Museum of Modern Art, 1992. Bellour, Raymond, <(Not) Just an Other Filmmaker>, Bellour, Raymond and Bandy, Mary Lea edited, Jean-Luc Godard: Son+Image 1974-1991, The Museum of Modern Art, 1992. MacCabe, Colin, with Eaton, Mick and Mulvey, Laura, Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics, Indiana University Press Bloomington, 1980. Silverman, Kaja, <The Author as Receiver>, October 96, the MIT Press, Spring 2001. Ferguson, Russell edited, Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Monacelli Press, New York, p.68
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Gilles Deleuze, Three Questions About "Six Fois Deux“ , Raymond Bellour, Mary Lea Bandy 편저. Jean-Luc Godard: Son + Image 1974-1991. The Museum of Modern Art. 1992. p.40. 본래 "Trois questions sur Six fois deux,"라는 제목으로 Cahiers du Cinema, no.271
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Ibid, p.49. Colin MacCabe, Mick Eaton, Laura Mulvey. Godard: Images, Sounds, Politics. Indiana University Press Bloomington, 1980, p.112.
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ABSTRACT Self-reflectivity of Jean-Luc Godard's films: focusing on <Tout Va Bien>, <Numero Deux>, <JLG/JLG> Kim, Gye-joong part-time lecturer/ Konkuk University programmer/Experimental Film & Video Festival in Seoul Jean-Luc Godard is the one of the most influential film-maker of the whole history of cinema. He has never stopped working on creating new concept of cinema, which should, assumingly, he claims, reveal the 'real' reality of the totality of production and aesthetics of itself. Throughout his almost 50 years of highly prolific and continuous productions, the persistent idea he's been pursuing might be defined as cinema of self-reflexivity. I selected and arranged three films that could represent a few shifting moments of his strategy on self-reflexivity. The one of his early films, <Contempt> continues its narrative strategy, 'a film within a film' structure, on <Tout Va Bien>, <Numero Deux> represents an essential period of his trial with video production in the context of cinema. The de-composed video images generated by analogue technology suggest the issues on multilateral interpretation of meaning of photographic or moving image and also reveal the mechanism of image making process. <JLG/JLG> has very different approach to its trope, which was produced in much later time approximately when he was investigating the position of 'author' more consciously. He takes very heavy the task on de-constructing the multiple layers of his selfness as an author/director/actor/writer/addresser/addressee, etc. They reside in the same virtual body, JLG, however, mutually functions each other in his film. Keyword: Jean-Luc Godard, Self-reflexivity