Jean-Luc Godard

More Snippets VIII –
Jean-Luc Godard


(Source: Film Socialisme)

(Source: Film Socialisme)

A Jean-Luc Godard Micro-Snippet

If this picture-exhibition-sequence has been shot as well aboard of the Costa Concordia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia), as much of Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialism of 2010 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_Socialisme) was shot, I don’t know. But it is worth watching how Godard treats words and images (seemingly) separately here to generate a rather absurd mini-sequence grounded by the filmmaker’s deep, deep vitriolic sarcasm.

As the sequence in the picture cabinet develops we begin to listen to a sort of radio feature. A rather blasé sounding voice is saying »eh, l’Italie. Ça nous a, eh, un petit peu trop occupé depuis deux mille ans. Eh. Pour tous les Français la peinture c’est l’Italie. Tous les voyages de noces se font en Italie. Ce sont des musées italiens. Alors que, eh…, eh…, la peinture allemande de la Renaissance, eh, est pour moi quelque chose d’extrêmement passionant, parce que…«
And this is as much as the old gentleman (who, in fact, or supposedly, is an ageing war criminal) can endure. We see him leaving on right, saying, also rather sarcastically »Merci pour ces renseignements!« (which, according to Godard experts, seems to be also a Claude Simon-quotation), and as the old man has left, another one (who is following the supposed ageing war criminal) enters, and the seemingly only banal picture-cabinet on the Costa Concordia turns into a theatre of memory and the scenery of persecuting war criminals, while the rather snobbish voice from the radio feature that was juxtaposed to the pictures within the cabinet still resounds in its snobbishness (combined with art historical commonplace).
We imagine that the invisible directing hand in all this is being positioned far, far under the sea, from where not only the sharks among the swarm can be watched, but also everything that is going on in this theatre of memory, aboard on a ship and thus situated (as many other things) on a ship that subsequently has become known because of its average.

»Merci pour ces renseignements!«

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