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I haven't been part
of the distribution system for a long time
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and therefore
I am not where you think I still am.
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I have lunch at Cordelia's
and we share silence.
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I don't have my heart in my mouth anymore.
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I don't have my heart in my mouth anymore.
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"And even if nothing were as we had hoped,
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it wouldn't change our expectations."
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Places, everyone!
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- We're going to shoot the Nausicaa!
- Get on the Nausicaa, everyone!
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Everyone!
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Is the camera rolling?
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- Are they going to undress?
- Of course.
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Cinema is wonderful.
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We see women, they wear dresses,
they make movies, we see their asses!
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Godard is undoubtedly
the most famous of filmmakers.
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His name is not only
associated with his films,
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it's blended with cinema.
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Do you see my feet in the mirror?
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Yes.
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- Do you find them pretty?
- Very much so.
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And my ankles, do you like them?
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Yes.
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Do you like my knees too?
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Quiet, we're rolling! Quiet!
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Odyssey, 701, third!
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Action!
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With more than 140 films,
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to this day he has pursued
an absolute quest for cinema,
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an uncompromising quest
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made up of shifts, ruptures,
utopia and loneliness.
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He has taken every possible path.
He has been everything and its opposite.
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Whether you worship him or hate him,
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Godard is a legend
and we almost forgot the man.
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And yet, behind the legend,
there can only be a man.
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GODARD
CINEMA
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I'll introduce myself first.
I'm Macha Méril.
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Hello.
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CHAPTER 1
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That's very Godardian.
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He liked that
but we weren't looking into the camera.
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We were looking above,
like when you're at the cinema.
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He said: "You have to look like that".
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You know, there's one thing
you can't choose, it's your date of birth.
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I was 20 at the time
of the French New Wave.
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Are you going with me to Rome?
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It was an absolutely essential moment
that changed society and the world.
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- Why don't you ever wear a bra?
- Listen, don't talk like that!
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Well... I apologize.
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You have to go back to that time
when everything was new,
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the new cuisine,
the new architecture, the new novel.
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All of a sudden, in the cinema,
we were doing things
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as contemporary as what painters,
sculptors and architects were doing.
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Cinema, which comes from the theatre,
from the novel, a little traditional,
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all of a sudden became an art
at the level of others.
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That's really Jean-Luc,
that's really Godard.
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He is the New Wave after all.
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Godard is the heartbeat of the 60s.
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It is a catalyst
for the spirit of the times.
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If you want to know this first half
of the 60s, you have to go through Godard.
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Even if you're a sociologist,
even if you're not a film buff.
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If you want to know a little
about what was done,
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what was the subject of that time,
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the depth, we could say,
of that time,
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you have to watch Godard's films.
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The Jean-Vigo 1960 prize for feature films
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has just been awarded
to Mr. Jean-Luc Godard
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for "Breathless".
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00:05:06,423 --> 00:05:09,090
Do you think movie awards matter?
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Yes, because they attract, perhaps,
they draw attention to cinema
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to the detriment of other arts
that today I find less important,
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or arts that are "out of breath",
whereas cinema is not.
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If you don't like the sea,
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00:05:27,215 --> 00:05:29,090
if you don't like the mountains,
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if you don't like the city...
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fuck you!
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RATED R
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I have seen "Breathless"
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and I find that much effort is being made
to soil things and people unnecessarily.
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He usually tries to shock
middle class people, as usual.
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It was disgusting!
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I think it's really the cinema
that has shown the truth. Life as it is.
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What is a little terrible
is that I know young people
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and among them, I find some
among the characters in this film.
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It's a film that was made as a reaction
against everything that you didn't do,
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almost pathologically or systematically.
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You don't do a close-up
with a wide-angle lens. Well, we'll do it.
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You don't do a tracking shot by hand.
Alright, we'll do it.
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And it corresponded
to a desire to do what...
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To show that everything was allowed.
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With "Breathless",
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Godard immediately became
the emblem of the New Wave
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and totally revolutionized cinema.
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Rare are the first films
to have had such an impact
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and to have marked the history
of the seventh art to such an extent.
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It is a break in the history of cinema,
but it is very particular,
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because it is not done
on a monumental mode
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or on a mode of aesthetic affirmation.
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There is something
much more in contraband,
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much more risky.
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- What's "faire la tête"?
- Doing like this.
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There is an art of imperfection,
of casualness,
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which is very striking in him.
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I find this very, very good.
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- He wrote his dialogues every morning?
- Yes, every morning.
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When I signed for the film,
I was given only three small pages,
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where that just said
that he leaves Marseille,
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steals a car
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and wants to sleep with the girl again
but she doesn't want to.
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And in the end, he dies or he leaves.
And eventually we chose for death.
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Cinema can do anything.
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There are no rules yet,
you have to find them.
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This is what I claim.
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There are obviously
those famous jump-cuts,
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those shot cuts that he made
because the film was too long
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and that he had to shorten.
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I'm in love with a girl
with a very nice neck,
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very nice breasts...
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All of this is done
so that the spectator says to himself:
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"Ah yes, I'm at the cinema!
I don't forget that I'm at the cinema.
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I don't forget that it's a movie,
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that these are characters
and that's not reality."
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What's "dégueulasse"?
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He will suddenly become
a kind of cinematographic poet,
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since it is a question of highlighting
the cinematographic dimension of the scene
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rather than dwelling on a plot.
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Yes, the subject of Godard's cinema
is cinema.
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It is a permanent search
for what is cinema?
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What interests him is what cinema can,
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what only cinema can.
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And that's what also made his genius,
his permanent invention, in the 1960s.
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He always wanted to be apart.
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He wanted to follow his thought,
only his thought.
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Do you feel that in his youth,
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there were things that designated your son
to do the kind of films he did?
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No, his inheritance on both sides,
of his father and grandfather,
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is a fairly intellectual
and at the same time very literary legacy.
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It was in the fashionable neighbourhoods
of Paris that Godard was born in 1930.
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He grew up between France and Switzerland.
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His father, Paul, was a doctor
and his mother, Odile, worked for a bank.
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When I wrote "Godard par Godard",
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I asked him for a photo of his childhood
and he told me he didn't have any.
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So I didn't insist, he didn't have any.
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And I wrote in Les Cahiers du Cinéma
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an article entitled
"Has Godard ever been a child?"
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And I explained that it was impossible
to find a photo of Godard as a child.
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Godard said very little
about his childhood.
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But this sentence is revealing:
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"I remember being told
that I would be a lawyer.
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I was very argumentative.
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In French-speaking Switzerland, they say:
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'What a naughty boy,
he talks back all the time.'"
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My father is very unhappy
because there was a rupture.
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Because he left,
because he wanted to make films
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and that in the family,
it was considered...
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perhaps not quite in the family line,
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where you study, you become this or that.
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But he was considered
as a so-called artist and...
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He left for good. That is to say
that he no longer received any money.
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It was the call of cinema.
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It was a sufficient driving force
to make him leave.
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Godard refused his inheritance
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and the breakup with his family is severe.
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In 1954, his mother
tragically died in an accident.
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Godard is 24. His family didn't want him
to attend the funeral.
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Well, when I was at the Sorbonne
in propaedeutic, the first year,
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little by little
I became interested in cinema.
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00:11:04,298 --> 00:11:08,298
I discovered film clubs
and the Cinémathèque.
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00:11:08,382 --> 00:11:11,298
I met at the Latin Quarter film club,
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guys like Truffaut,
Rivette, Rohmer, Chabrol...
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00:11:16,423 --> 00:11:20,465
Truffaut, he looks like he's sixteen
and Godard has all his hair.
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It was at the beginning of the 1950s.
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00:11:23,257 --> 00:11:25,090
On the seats of the Cinémathèque,
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thanks to its founder,
the charismatic Henri Langlois,
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Godard and his fellow movie fans
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established the unusual idea
that cinema was an art in its own right.
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What has always struck me
is that the cultured and intelligent class
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does not yet accept cinema as an art.
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00:11:43,839 --> 00:11:45,439
We still see newspapers writing articles
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which, in fact, are asking
if cinema is really an art.
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There was also in him some sort of anger
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that was expressed by something rather
peculiar that we have to speak about.
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It's the fact that he stole.
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00:12:01,423 --> 00:12:02,757
He was kleptomaniac.
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He stole when he was a young man,
he stole from his friends.
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On these images
that were found very recently,
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Godard was 20 years old.
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In addition to playing a role in it,
he partly financed Jacques Rivette's film,
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thanks to the money
he stole from one of his uncles.
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And so there were legends.
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Well, he validated them.
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He ran off with the takings
of the Cahiers du Cinéma
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or he sold his grandfather's books.
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Well, little things like that to get by.
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It was by becoming a critic
at Les Cahiers du Cinéma
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that the young man
prepared his revolution.
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00:12:50,965 --> 00:12:52,715
When writing in the magazine,
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young critics
already feel like filmmakers.
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They have an idea in mind
that they will impose on the whole world.
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Through his direction,
202
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the author of the film is an artist
who expresses himself personally.
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During the 1950s,
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they criticized
the classic post-war cinema
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and wanted to destroy all "false legends",
as François Truffaut wrote.
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No creation without destruction.
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00:13:17,382 --> 00:13:20,173
At some point
it was also a political posture
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00:13:20,257 --> 00:13:24,257
and it joined an essential idea
of Godard's aesthetics.
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00:13:24,340 --> 00:13:25,465
Godard said:
210
00:13:26,715 --> 00:13:29,715
"We don't have the right
to start from harmony.
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00:13:30,423 --> 00:13:31,715
We must start from chaos
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00:13:32,757 --> 00:13:34,923
and we must clear harmony from chaos."
213
00:13:37,632 --> 00:13:39,673
"Through my education and training,
214
00:13:39,757 --> 00:13:42,673
I have a taste for paradox
and a spirit of contradiction,".
215
00:13:42,757 --> 00:13:44,298
Godard writes.
216
00:13:44,839 --> 00:13:47,340
This spirit of contradiction
is constantly at work in him
217
00:13:47,423 --> 00:13:49,923
and particularly
in the choice of his second film.
218
00:13:50,923 --> 00:13:54,048
"The new wave is criticized
for only showing people in bed,
219
00:13:54,132 --> 00:13:56,465
so I'm going to show people
who are in politics
220
00:13:56,548 --> 00:13:58,215
and don't have time to go to bed."
221
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:07,590
I feel I love cinema
less than I did a year ago,
222
00:14:07,673 --> 00:14:10,298
just because I made a movie
and it was popular.
223
00:14:10,382 --> 00:14:12,882
So I wish that my second
will be disliked a lot
224
00:14:12,965 --> 00:14:15,839
and that it will make me want
to do cinema again.
225
00:14:15,882 --> 00:14:19,340
- Now, people trust me completely...
- Does it bother you?
226
00:14:19,423 --> 00:14:22,715
So I hope to disappoint them,
so they won't trust me anymore.
227
00:14:22,798 --> 00:14:26,007
I'd rather work
with people I have to fight against.
228
00:14:26,757 --> 00:14:28,757
Filmed in Geneva in 1960,
229
00:14:28,839 --> 00:14:31,423
"The Little Soldier" tackles a real taboo
230
00:14:31,507 --> 00:14:32,840
the Algerian war.
231
00:14:35,465 --> 00:14:37,548
Godard is provocative.
232
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:42,798
By directly staging scenes of torture,
the film could not be more contemporary.
233
00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:44,482
It's above all
a film against "Breathless".
234
00:14:44,507 --> 00:14:47,548
Deep down he may already feel
a form of celebrity coming,
235
00:14:47,632 --> 00:14:50,590
and he breaks that right away
with a film that is going to be banned
236
00:14:50,673 --> 00:14:53,590
and which will not be viewable
for several years.
237
00:14:54,548 --> 00:14:56,507
The real subject of "The Little Soldier"
238
00:14:56,590 --> 00:14:58,790
is the barging in of Anna Karina
in Godard's filmmaking.
239
00:15:01,965 --> 00:15:06,048
When he was making Breathless,
he had seen me in an advertising.
240
00:15:06,132 --> 00:15:08,590
He had asked me to come to the office
241
00:15:08,673 --> 00:15:11,298
to do a little something in "Breathless".
242
00:15:11,382 --> 00:15:13,590
What impression did he make on you?
243
00:15:13,673 --> 00:15:18,090
He was a weird, shy man,
with those dark shades.
244
00:15:18,173 --> 00:15:19,839
He scared me a little.
245
00:15:20,798 --> 00:15:23,215
It's not like the others.
246
00:15:23,298 --> 00:15:25,940
What Godard was looking for at that moment
was someone who was a virgin,
247
00:15:25,965 --> 00:15:30,507
not in the strictly sexual sense
but in the cinematic sense.
248
00:15:30,590 --> 00:15:33,715
He wanted his Lilian Gish,
his Ingrid Bergman.
249
00:15:33,798 --> 00:15:35,132
He wanted his muse.
250
00:15:35,923 --> 00:15:41,090
- Where do you want me to stand?
- Anywhere. I don't care.
251
00:15:41,173 --> 00:15:43,423
Do what you want, I'll take pictures.
252
00:15:45,215 --> 00:15:47,882
Here, I'm going to ask you questions
and you will answer me.
253
00:15:47,965 --> 00:15:50,465
- You look scared. Why?
- I'm scared.
254
00:15:50,548 --> 00:15:53,382
I think it's like the Police
were questioning me.
255
00:15:54,382 --> 00:15:57,465
During the screen test, he looked at me,
he circled around me.
256
00:15:57,840 --> 00:15:59,632
Photography is the truth
257
00:15:59,715 --> 00:16:02,382
and cinema is the truth
24 times per second.
258
00:16:02,465 --> 00:16:04,423
He didn't say a word.
I didn't like that at all.
259
00:16:06,839 --> 00:16:09,007
He examined me from top to bottom.
260
00:16:09,090 --> 00:16:12,465
Right now, what are you thinking about?
Are you thinking about me?
261
00:16:12,548 --> 00:16:13,548
Yes.
262
00:16:13,965 --> 00:16:15,590
What do you think of me?
263
00:16:16,007 --> 00:16:17,382
Why don't you answer me?
264
00:16:17,465 --> 00:16:18,798
You really look scared.
265
00:16:20,132 --> 00:16:22,423
One evening, after dinner,
he handed me a card.
266
00:16:22,507 --> 00:16:24,382
He had written: "I love you.
267
00:16:25,007 --> 00:16:27,882
I'll be waiting for you at midnight
at the Café de Paris in Geneva."
268
00:16:28,882 --> 00:16:31,132
And at midnight,
I was there with my suitcase.
269
00:16:32,215 --> 00:16:33,715
I liked him.
270
00:16:35,507 --> 00:16:37,423
What did you provide him? Stability?
271
00:16:37,507 --> 00:16:39,839
He's not as shy now as he used to be.
272
00:16:39,882 --> 00:16:44,048
He used to slam doors.
He never said hello.
273
00:16:44,757 --> 00:16:48,757
- You taught him all that?
- I don't know but I gave him confidence.
274
00:16:59,048 --> 00:17:01,715
The wedding took place in 1961.
275
00:17:02,382 --> 00:17:05,048
He will film Anna in seven films.
276
00:17:05,632 --> 00:17:08,590
In the press, Anna Karina became.
277
00:17:08,673 --> 00:17:10,715
{\an8}"The bride of the New Wave".
278
00:17:10,798 --> 00:17:12,132
{\an8}It happens to me very often.
279
00:17:12,215 --> 00:17:14,007
I know what I want to say.
280
00:17:14,423 --> 00:17:17,882
I think before I say it to check
if that's what should be said.
281
00:17:18,840 --> 00:17:23,423
At the moment of saying it,
I'm no longer able to say it.
282
00:17:24,007 --> 00:17:26,923
A great passion,
surely that means something to you.
283
00:17:27,007 --> 00:17:28,965
It would be a shame if it didn't.
284
00:17:30,173 --> 00:17:32,423
Do you know he can laugh out loud
like no one else?
285
00:17:33,340 --> 00:17:35,839
He likes to do things right away.
286
00:17:35,882 --> 00:17:37,757
He never says:
"Tomorrow, I'm going to Rome."
287
00:17:37,839 --> 00:17:41,132
He says: "In five minutes,
I'll be on a plane, I'm going to London".
288
00:17:41,507 --> 00:17:43,965
Ok, we'll do one more. That's it.
289
00:17:44,048 --> 00:17:46,798
Very good, the more we have,
the better it is for me.
290
00:17:47,007 --> 00:17:48,132
Rolling!
291
00:17:56,965 --> 00:17:59,132
"Breathless", anarchy.
292
00:17:59,215 --> 00:18:01,548
"The Little Soldier", confusion.
293
00:18:02,298 --> 00:18:04,965
"A Woman Is a Woman", the musical.
294
00:18:05,382 --> 00:18:06,840
"My Life to Live", emotion.
295
00:18:07,173 --> 00:18:08,465
"The Carabineers", war.
296
00:18:09,382 --> 00:18:10,882
"Contempt", cinema.
297
00:18:10,965 --> 00:18:12,839
"Band of Outsiders", tenderness.
298
00:18:12,882 --> 00:18:15,715
He made an incredible number of films
in a very short time.
299
00:18:15,798 --> 00:18:17,007
He shoots nonstop.
300
00:18:17,090 --> 00:18:18,340
It's a series of movies.
301
00:18:18,423 --> 00:18:22,048
There's no time when you say:
"He's thinking, now he's..."
302
00:18:22,132 --> 00:18:24,172
I don't know.
It seems like he's always on the move.
303
00:18:24,298 --> 00:18:25,938
I don't even see in the history of cinema
304
00:18:26,007 --> 00:18:28,048
who could compare to him
from this point of view.
305
00:18:29,465 --> 00:18:32,882
Speed is very important. The tempo,
we could say the rhythm, is essential.
306
00:18:32,965 --> 00:18:35,965
It's the most important thing about him.
307
00:18:37,507 --> 00:18:39,007
Why do you make so many films?
308
00:18:39,090 --> 00:18:41,007
Why don't you take a break?
309
00:18:41,090 --> 00:18:44,048
Because I think I'd stop if I...
310
00:18:44,423 --> 00:18:48,173
Like the soldiers in the Russian War
who kept marching, and marching.
311
00:18:48,257 --> 00:18:51,839
And they knew that if they laid down,
they wouldn't get back up.
312
00:18:55,673 --> 00:18:57,507
Godard. Second.
313
00:18:58,882 --> 00:19:01,923
The sound was bad the first time,
it's the television.
314
00:19:05,048 --> 00:19:08,007
If none of his films achieved
the same success as "Breathless",
315
00:19:08,090 --> 00:19:12,757
very quickly his unique personality
seduced the cameras.
316
00:19:13,839 --> 00:19:15,965
How are your characters different,
317
00:19:16,048 --> 00:19:18,007
how do they stand out from the others?
318
00:19:18,090 --> 00:19:19,930
I would rather say
that they are normal people,
319
00:19:19,965 --> 00:19:22,798
and it's the people
who can tell the difference.
320
00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:25,882
I like to stand apart
and my characters do too.
321
00:19:34,340 --> 00:19:37,257
All his life, he made films
322
00:19:37,340 --> 00:19:39,132
and he made the legend
323
00:19:40,923 --> 00:19:43,923
of his work and his films, until now.
324
00:19:44,007 --> 00:19:46,632
Sometimes, I hear what he says
325
00:19:47,048 --> 00:19:50,507
and it's clear that he has always loved
creating his own legend.
326
00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:55,798
Where he creates a role like that,
totally unique.
327
00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:59,173
Rolling! Pierrot, 18/22, first!
328
00:19:59,840 --> 00:20:02,839
On "Pierrot le Fou", for example,
in all the interviews, he said:
329
00:20:02,882 --> 00:20:04,382
"I left, I had nothing.
330
00:20:04,465 --> 00:20:07,548
I had my two actors,
we didn't know where we were going."
331
00:20:07,632 --> 00:20:10,882
This is absolutely false.
This was a fully prepared film.
332
00:20:11,257 --> 00:20:16,632
It means that he himself
played the improvising genius.
333
00:20:19,298 --> 00:20:23,257
There was the private Jean Luc,
who was a very funny man,
334
00:20:23,340 --> 00:20:26,548
told lots of jokes
and did a lot of English humour.
335
00:20:26,632 --> 00:20:30,007
And then the public Jean-Luc
with his little hat, dark glasses
336
00:20:30,590 --> 00:20:32,298
and who said sentences.
337
00:20:32,382 --> 00:20:34,382
What is your greatest ambition in life?
338
00:20:34,923 --> 00:20:38,839
Becoming immortal and then die.
339
00:20:38,882 --> 00:20:43,298
And he always unsettled the person
340
00:20:43,382 --> 00:20:47,423
he talked to with a weird phrase,
which he shifted
341
00:20:47,507 --> 00:20:49,340
and blasted the interview.
342
00:20:49,423 --> 00:20:52,340
I'm a painter who does literature,
if you like,
343
00:20:53,757 --> 00:20:55,882
or I do literature, but with paint.
344
00:20:55,965 --> 00:21:00,090
He had a sort of a disconcerting nature
at first, but he amplified that.
345
00:21:03,007 --> 00:21:05,298
All these "enigmatic phrases",
346
00:21:05,382 --> 00:21:07,632
Godard also placed them in his films
347
00:21:07,715 --> 00:21:09,798
by whispering in the ear of his actors.
348
00:21:11,173 --> 00:21:14,548
First of all, we didn't have a script,
we didn't have a screenplay.
349
00:21:14,632 --> 00:21:17,882
I had an earpiece covered by my hair.
350
00:21:18,632 --> 00:21:20,965
All the actors had an earpiece,
351
00:21:21,798 --> 00:21:24,298
and he was directing us
from behind the camera.
352
00:21:24,382 --> 00:21:25,882
He said: "At that moment,
353
00:21:25,965 --> 00:21:31,798
you say to him these famous
philosophical-political phrases etc."
354
00:21:32,298 --> 00:21:36,673
Annie. I am very careful
crossing the streets.
355
00:21:38,132 --> 00:21:39,965
I am very careful crossing the streets.
356
00:21:40,048 --> 00:21:44,007
I think of the accident
before it might happen.
357
00:21:44,090 --> 00:21:46,423
I think of the accident
before it might happen.
358
00:21:46,507 --> 00:21:48,590
Except my life ends here.
359
00:21:49,048 --> 00:21:50,757
Except my life ends here.
360
00:21:52,257 --> 00:21:53,839
Unemployment.
361
00:21:53,882 --> 00:21:55,590
Unemployment.
362
00:21:56,340 --> 00:21:57,548
Illness.
363
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:00,423
Illness.
364
00:22:00,507 --> 00:22:01,673
Old age.
365
00:22:02,215 --> 00:22:03,507
Old age.
366
00:22:03,965 --> 00:22:05,257
Death, never.
367
00:22:05,798 --> 00:22:06,923
Death, never.
368
00:22:07,007 --> 00:22:12,048
It's terrifying because we're totally
depending on the earpiece.
369
00:22:12,132 --> 00:22:17,340
And we have texts in the earpiece
that are very, very complicated.
370
00:22:17,798 --> 00:22:20,507
No one today is able to know
what tomorrow's city will be like.
371
00:22:26,839 --> 00:22:30,632
Part of the semantic wealth
we had in the past will be lost,
372
00:22:30,715 --> 00:22:31,715
for sure.
373
00:22:31,798 --> 00:22:33,839
So, we were always listening,
374
00:22:34,423 --> 00:22:38,839
with a totally dumbfounded head,
we all had the same expression.
375
00:22:39,257 --> 00:22:43,507
And there, we were kind of robots
directed by an earpiece.
376
00:22:44,257 --> 00:22:46,590
It's not an autobiography,
377
00:22:46,673 --> 00:22:49,798
it's a kind of an unveiling of his being.
378
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,882
He reveals himself, he shows who he is,
and he reveals all of his states of mind.
379
00:22:54,298 --> 00:22:58,090
I dreamed that I was walking alone,
on the edge of a precipice,
380
00:22:58,173 --> 00:23:01,465
on a path where there was only room
for one person.
381
00:23:02,007 --> 00:23:05,340
I remember that there is a line
that I ask my mother
382
00:23:05,423 --> 00:23:06,690
in "Two or Three Things I Know About Her".
383
00:23:06,715 --> 00:23:09,048
My mother was Marina Vlady.
And I said to her...
384
00:23:09,132 --> 00:23:10,673
Mom, what is language?
385
00:23:11,215 --> 00:23:14,257
Language is the house where man lives.
386
00:23:15,298 --> 00:23:19,132
She didn't know, and neither did I,
that she was quoting Heidegger.
387
00:23:19,215 --> 00:23:20,298
So it was always him...
388
00:23:20,382 --> 00:23:24,007
It was his words, it was his personality
that we all expressed.
389
00:23:24,673 --> 00:23:27,298
What did they say in the...
I can't remember.
390
00:23:27,382 --> 00:23:30,048
I was talking about the sailor
and the little girl, right?
391
00:23:31,090 --> 00:23:36,215
Off the set, quotes from philosophers are
of no help to communicate with others.
392
00:23:37,548 --> 00:23:39,590
Jean-Luc had invited me to dinner once
393
00:23:39,882 --> 00:23:42,215
in a bistro
that looked a little like this one.
394
00:23:42,298 --> 00:23:44,090
That's the only time
he invited me to dinner.
395
00:23:44,173 --> 00:23:47,965
I think it was Coutard who said to him:
"You have to invite her to dinner once."
396
00:23:48,465 --> 00:23:50,465
So we had dinner,
397
00:23:50,548 --> 00:23:52,507
we ordered an egg mayonnaise.
398
00:23:54,257 --> 00:23:57,217
We remained quite silent face to face.
We had nothing to say to each other.
399
00:23:57,257 --> 00:23:59,632
That's because he is elsewhere.
400
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,798
He's been somewhere else for a while now.
401
00:24:04,590 --> 00:24:07,215
But maybe he was somewhere else
all the time,
402
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:10,590
and not quite among us.
403
00:24:11,882 --> 00:24:15,423
I think he has great friends,
people who love him, women who loved him.
404
00:24:17,257 --> 00:24:18,590
But he is pure spirit.
405
00:24:18,673 --> 00:24:22,757
He's a man who is not in the flesh.
406
00:24:25,965 --> 00:24:27,548
Why do you look sad?
407
00:24:29,007 --> 00:24:33,632
Because you speak to me with words
while I look at you with feelings.
408
00:24:34,882 --> 00:24:36,757
I can't have a conversation with you.
409
00:24:39,048 --> 00:24:41,173
You never have ideas, always feelings.
410
00:24:41,965 --> 00:24:44,882
As soon as we were happy,
he tried to harm us.
411
00:24:46,007 --> 00:24:49,132
One would have thought
he was irritated by happiness.
412
00:24:50,090 --> 00:24:55,590
I had met Anna Karina at a time
when she had not said much about Godard,
413
00:24:55,673 --> 00:24:57,798
about their relationship.
A little bit, but not much.
414
00:24:58,257 --> 00:25:00,007
She didn't hide that there had been
415
00:25:00,090 --> 00:25:02,882
very complicated moments
in their private lives,
416
00:25:02,965 --> 00:25:05,923
like suicide attempts, that sort of thing.
417
00:25:06,007 --> 00:25:08,548
The fact that she had had a miscarriage.
418
00:25:08,632 --> 00:25:10,090
She didn't say it all,
419
00:25:10,173 --> 00:25:12,857
but anyway, she said enough for us
to understand that it hadn't been easy
420
00:25:12,882 --> 00:25:17,007
and that she had also made him suffer,
that she had also suffered, that's all...
421
00:25:18,632 --> 00:25:21,465
The most disturbing were
his silences and his absences.
422
00:25:22,590 --> 00:25:25,007
He could keep quiet for several days.
423
00:25:27,423 --> 00:25:29,757
There is nothing to explain.
I don't love you anymore.
424
00:25:30,673 --> 00:25:33,632
Why? You still loved me yesterday.
425
00:25:35,382 --> 00:25:37,465
Yes, very much.
426
00:25:39,965 --> 00:25:42,965
Now it's over. I don't love you anymore.
427
00:25:52,007 --> 00:25:54,173
Regarding Jean-Luc,
428
00:25:54,965 --> 00:25:59,965
I think it was a very important time
for me.
429
00:26:00,839 --> 00:26:03,340
For Jean-Luc, I don't think it's over,
430
00:26:03,423 --> 00:26:07,298
because for those who liked the films
he made with me,
431
00:26:07,382 --> 00:26:09,048
it's something that remains.
432
00:26:15,673 --> 00:26:17,298
What is most important for me
433
00:26:19,090 --> 00:26:20,839
is to understand what's happening to me.
434
00:26:21,632 --> 00:26:27,298
It was when he had just separated
from Anna. He was very unhappy, I think.
435
00:26:27,382 --> 00:26:29,548
Or he was acting as being very unhappy.
436
00:26:29,632 --> 00:26:35,132
And artists, these men, at that level,
they invent their feelings, their...
437
00:26:35,215 --> 00:26:38,298
So, he wrote her letters every day.
438
00:26:38,382 --> 00:26:42,048
There was a friend named Patricia Finaly,
who took the letters...
439
00:26:42,965 --> 00:26:45,007
to Anna, and back.
440
00:26:45,465 --> 00:26:49,173
And me, I was a kind of a copy of Anna.
441
00:26:49,423 --> 00:26:52,215
- Cinema is great!
- We have fun with love scenes.
442
00:26:52,298 --> 00:26:55,507
The hands should be over there.
443
00:26:55,590 --> 00:26:59,798
This film is a special film
because I'm in all the shots.
444
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:02,715
If not me, there's a piece of me,
a knee or an eye.
445
00:27:03,548 --> 00:27:06,173
Like that, you can with a finger, stroke
his finger.
446
00:27:06,257 --> 00:27:07,465
His wedding ring.
447
00:27:08,590 --> 00:27:11,882
Like that, like that, yes, that's it.
448
00:27:12,757 --> 00:27:14,382
- No, just a finger.
- A finger.
449
00:27:14,465 --> 00:27:15,673
That's right.
450
00:27:15,757 --> 00:27:18,839
Alright, come on, let's do it like this.
Announce it, good God!
451
00:27:18,882 --> 00:27:20,242
A Married Woman, 7/15th, take one!
452
00:27:23,673 --> 00:27:27,007
Godard doesn't look at women
like other filmmakers,
453
00:27:27,715 --> 00:27:29,798
he always maintains a certain distance.
454
00:27:32,590 --> 00:27:36,839
It's a Calvinist film,
it's absolutely and tremendously cold,
455
00:27:36,882 --> 00:27:38,840
but that's what's troubling.
456
00:27:38,923 --> 00:27:42,215
He treated me
like an ornithological plate.
457
00:27:43,132 --> 00:27:45,340
The lab results are positive.
458
00:27:45,423 --> 00:27:48,465
You are about three months pregnant.
459
00:27:48,548 --> 00:27:52,715
In this film, we talk about birth-control
pill when the pill didn't yet exist.
460
00:27:52,798 --> 00:27:55,190
You could find it in Switzerland
and Belgium and cost a fortune.
461
00:27:55,215 --> 00:27:58,548
The scene with the gynaecologist,
the poor thing was a real gynaecologist.
462
00:27:58,632 --> 00:28:00,923
I bombarded him with impossible questions.
463
00:28:01,007 --> 00:28:04,673
"Sir, I have a lover, a husband.
I'm pregnant. Who is the father?"
464
00:28:05,382 --> 00:28:06,507
So, the guy...
465
00:28:08,507 --> 00:28:11,590
And so these were questions
that all women asked themselves.
466
00:28:11,673 --> 00:28:15,257
There is the question
about sexual freedom, it was starting.
467
00:28:15,340 --> 00:28:17,007
We were very careful.
468
00:28:17,090 --> 00:28:21,465
This question, he immediately understood
that it was crucial in the lives of women
469
00:28:21,548 --> 00:28:24,465
and that if we talk about emancipation,
we are only talking about that,
470
00:28:24,965 --> 00:28:26,590
owning our own body.
471
00:28:26,673 --> 00:28:28,632
Is physical pleasure wrong?
472
00:28:30,590 --> 00:28:32,715
Physical pleasure is not wrong,
473
00:28:34,590 --> 00:28:40,632
since it must normally lead
to this conception which is sought.
474
00:28:41,798 --> 00:28:46,507
He was rather misogynistic, if you ask me
about his relationship with women,
475
00:28:46,590 --> 00:28:48,590
I think he didn't like women very much.
476
00:28:48,673 --> 00:28:52,548
He worshipped them, which is worse
because that means he didn't like them.
477
00:28:52,632 --> 00:28:59,007
But that, he understood. He knew
that women were going to change.
478
00:29:00,590 --> 00:29:03,298
He had offered me
"The Lily Of The Valley".
479
00:29:03,382 --> 00:29:06,548
So when I went on vacation
before the shooting,
480
00:29:06,632 --> 00:29:11,715
I told him of an article about women
who prostitute themselves in big cities.
481
00:29:11,798 --> 00:29:13,839
I said to him:
"Did you read the article in L'Obs?"
482
00:29:13,882 --> 00:29:15,340
The newspaper "L'Observateur".
483
00:29:15,423 --> 00:29:18,715
He said no and we talked about it
on the way to the airport.
484
00:29:18,798 --> 00:29:22,465
We saw each other all the time
to prepare "The Lily Of The Valley".
485
00:29:22,548 --> 00:29:24,173
When I came back from vacation,
486
00:29:24,257 --> 00:29:26,839
he said to me, "We won't shoot
"Le Lys dans la vallée"
487
00:29:26,882 --> 00:29:29,507
but "Two or Three Things
I Know About Her"."
488
00:29:29,590 --> 00:29:31,340
And that's how it happened.
489
00:29:31,423 --> 00:29:37,340
She's a girl and we see her in the evening
at home, taking care of her children.
490
00:29:37,715 --> 00:29:42,923
And the next day, she leaves for Paris.
She does a bit of prostitution.
491
00:29:43,757 --> 00:29:46,048
- Don't look at me undressing.
- Why not?
492
00:29:46,132 --> 00:29:48,652
- I don't want you to.
- In two minutes you'll be totally naked.
493
00:29:49,423 --> 00:29:50,923
It's not the same.
494
00:29:51,007 --> 00:29:52,882
We did a screenplay based on a fact
495
00:29:52,965 --> 00:29:55,882
that was happening when we were shooting.
496
00:29:55,965 --> 00:29:57,590
It's happening today.
497
00:29:59,548 --> 00:30:03,007
Godard sets his film
in a rapidly changing Parisian suburb.
498
00:30:04,632 --> 00:30:06,472
Once again, he captured
the spirit of the times
499
00:30:06,632 --> 00:30:08,298
by pointing to what will soon be called
500
00:30:09,132 --> 00:30:10,840
"the consumer society".
501
00:30:14,298 --> 00:30:16,840
"Two or Three Things I Know About Her"
is really communist.
502
00:30:16,923 --> 00:30:20,215
In it there is a communist commitment.
We shot at La Courneuve.
503
00:30:21,132 --> 00:30:26,965
There was really the desire to make
a connection with social struggles,
504
00:30:27,048 --> 00:30:30,382
with the anger that was rising too
in "Two or Three Things I Know About Her".
505
00:30:31,882 --> 00:30:33,965
And then, he becomes much more critical.
506
00:30:34,048 --> 00:30:37,257
There are still a lot of things
around the Vietnam War in the film.
507
00:30:37,340 --> 00:30:38,423
It's not the same Godard.
508
00:30:38,507 --> 00:30:42,798
Everything he experiences
is also projected into art.
509
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:44,298
The Vietnam War.
510
00:30:47,298 --> 00:30:48,882
Starting with "Pierrot le Fou",
511
00:30:48,965 --> 00:30:51,257
Godard cannot help expressing
in every film
512
00:30:51,340 --> 00:30:54,673
his condemnation of American imperialism.
513
00:30:54,757 --> 00:30:57,715
We campaigned together
against the Vietnam War.
514
00:30:57,798 --> 00:31:00,048
One day, we were in a restaurant
515
00:31:00,132 --> 00:31:03,715
and a big American guy came in
with his cameras and all.
516
00:31:03,798 --> 00:31:05,298
He was over 6ft tall.
517
00:31:05,382 --> 00:31:09,632
And little Jean-Luc threw himself at him
saying: "Peace in Vietnam."
518
00:31:09,715 --> 00:31:11,132
And he was really...
519
00:31:11,839 --> 00:31:13,757
He was a revolutionary.
520
00:31:14,632 --> 00:31:17,507
We were doing demonstrations and all that,
we were right in it.
521
00:31:18,923 --> 00:31:24,548
He was a precious friend to me
and a sort of brotherhood for me, really.
522
00:31:24,839 --> 00:31:25,839
For me.
523
00:31:26,798 --> 00:31:30,840
For him, apparently, it was different
but I didn't understand that until later.
524
00:31:30,923 --> 00:31:34,839
And after we had this very Godardian scene
525
00:31:34,882 --> 00:31:37,839
when he asked me if I would marry him
and I said no.
526
00:31:39,839 --> 00:31:42,548
I was going to Romania to meet a lover.
527
00:31:42,632 --> 00:31:47,090
He said: "Don't answer now.
Answer when you're back."
528
00:31:47,173 --> 00:31:50,798
And the whole time, I thought:
"What happened?"
529
00:31:51,340 --> 00:31:52,548
And that was it.
530
00:31:53,590 --> 00:31:57,132
From the moment I said no,
he stopped talking to me.
531
00:32:08,632 --> 00:32:10,923
In just a few years,
Godard managed to embody
532
00:32:11,007 --> 00:32:13,548
the figure of the "author"
more than any other.
533
00:32:14,298 --> 00:32:16,757
François Truffaut wondered:
534
00:32:16,839 --> 00:32:19,798
"Will Godard soon be more popular
than the Pope,
535
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:22,465
that is to say just a little less
than the Beatles?"
536
00:32:25,798 --> 00:32:31,215
Godard will soon do everything to leave
this unprecedented place for a filmmaker.
537
00:32:32,590 --> 00:32:34,673
One day, I was eight years old
538
00:32:34,757 --> 00:32:38,632
and Jean-Luc arrived home
with a crate of the Little Red Book
539
00:32:39,132 --> 00:32:43,632
since he had gone to pick it up
at the Chinese Embassy in Paris
540
00:32:43,715 --> 00:32:46,007
which had just opened
thanks to General de Gaulle.
541
00:32:46,090 --> 00:32:50,423
And Jean-Luc, on the day of the opening,
went to get some Little Red Books.
542
00:32:50,507 --> 00:32:53,298
He put them down, then he took one out,
gave it to me and said:
543
00:32:53,382 --> 00:32:55,882
"Here, Christophe,
you'll explain it to your parents."
544
00:32:59,882 --> 00:33:01,840
CHAPTER 2
545
00:33:26,548 --> 00:33:28,839
This is Radio Pekin.
546
00:33:33,839 --> 00:33:35,923
One day in June 1966,
547
00:33:36,007 --> 00:33:39,757
I wrote a short letter to Jean-Luc Godard
addressed to Cahiers du Cinéma.
548
00:33:40,173 --> 00:33:42,007
I told him that I really liked
his last film,
549
00:33:42,090 --> 00:33:43,173
"Masculin Féminin".
550
00:33:43,882 --> 00:33:47,673
I told him that I loved the man
who was behind it, that I loved him.
551
00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:49,340
Yes...
552
00:33:51,298 --> 00:33:54,090
At the beginning of the film,
she's little girl,
553
00:33:54,173 --> 00:33:56,298
and by the end of it
she is still a little girl.
554
00:33:56,382 --> 00:33:58,090
He was proud to have me at his side.
555
00:33:58,757 --> 00:34:01,090
Proud to love, and to be loved
by a young student
556
00:34:01,882 --> 00:34:04,090
and on top of that an actress
for Robert Bresson.
557
00:34:05,673 --> 00:34:08,798
On the landing, there was an envelope
containing a book,
558
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,257
"Jean-Luc persecuted"
by the Swiss writer Ramuz.
559
00:34:12,340 --> 00:34:17,048
As usual, he used books
as a medium for messages.
560
00:34:17,132 --> 00:34:18,548
He changed the title.
561
00:34:19,173 --> 00:34:22,007
"Thanks to Anne,
Jean-Luc is no longer persecuted".
562
00:34:24,132 --> 00:34:26,048
France's most prolific filmmaker
563
00:34:26,132 --> 00:34:29,382
Jean-Luc Godard has just completed
a film called "La Chinoise",
564
00:34:29,465 --> 00:34:32,839
the story of a French student
who reads Mao Tze-tung.
565
00:34:33,257 --> 00:34:35,757
For a long time I had the idea
to make a film
566
00:34:35,839 --> 00:34:37,048
about students,
567
00:34:38,007 --> 00:34:41,923
who are the only people
with whom I feel I have a little affinity.
568
00:34:42,007 --> 00:34:44,840
I feel like an old student, if you will.
569
00:34:45,590 --> 00:34:48,423
I had wanted for a long time
to make a film
570
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:52,590
about the politicisation
or de-politicisation of students
571
00:34:53,382 --> 00:34:55,798
and to make a film about what I called
572
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,132
"the Robinsons of Marxism-Leninism",
so young people who, from the start,
573
00:34:59,215 --> 00:35:03,173
are influenced by the Red Book
and quotations from Mao Tze-tung.
574
00:35:03,632 --> 00:35:06,548
Revolution is an uprising,
an act of violence
575
00:35:06,632 --> 00:35:09,298
by which one class overthrows another.
576
00:35:09,382 --> 00:35:10,840
I am in philosophy class.
577
00:35:15,632 --> 00:35:17,839
Jean-Luc looked at me tenderly.
578
00:35:18,340 --> 00:35:21,507
"I ask you to tell me everything
you will see and hear at Nanterre."
579
00:35:22,423 --> 00:35:25,382
Apart from a few leaflets I brought back
without having read them,
580
00:35:25,465 --> 00:35:28,465
the few discussions
I tried to take part in
581
00:35:28,548 --> 00:35:31,340
were about Michel Foucault,
Althusser and Lacan,
582
00:35:31,423 --> 00:35:33,923
considered the only great intellectuals
of the time.
583
00:35:36,965 --> 00:35:39,382
At the time when he started "La Chinoise",
584
00:35:39,465 --> 00:35:43,298
it was after discovered
and deciding to make a film
585
00:35:43,382 --> 00:35:46,007
which documented the appearance
of a political current,
586
00:35:46,090 --> 00:35:48,173
the Union of Communist,
Marxist and Leninist Youth,
587
00:35:48,257 --> 00:35:51,423
a new pro-Chinese or Maoist group
588
00:35:51,507 --> 00:35:54,673
very much influenced
by the philosopher Louis Althusser.
589
00:35:57,007 --> 00:36:02,798
So it's a way of using
both fiction and a documentary
590
00:36:03,298 --> 00:36:06,548
to find out how to situate oneself
in the present.
591
00:36:06,632 --> 00:36:10,090
From a strategic point of view,
all enemies must be despised
592
00:36:10,173 --> 00:36:13,965
and from a tactical point of view,
fully take them into account.
593
00:36:14,215 --> 00:36:16,257
His political coming out is "La Chinoise",
594
00:36:16,340 --> 00:36:18,882
it's "La Chinoise" for us.
595
00:36:19,257 --> 00:36:22,423
There is something inexplicable.
596
00:36:23,007 --> 00:36:26,715
You are against capitalism, ok.
597
00:36:26,798 --> 00:36:30,048
You are against
the authoritarian regime...
598
00:36:30,132 --> 00:36:31,798
I have decided...
599
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:33,507
Of De Gaulle's France
600
00:36:33,590 --> 00:36:36,548
and you take as an alternative
601
00:36:38,007 --> 00:36:39,632
the Cultural Revolution.
602
00:36:40,298 --> 00:36:42,590
It's organised massacres.
603
00:36:43,590 --> 00:36:46,465
So how can we explain that Jean-Luc,
604
00:36:46,548 --> 00:36:51,548
of an incredible sensitivity
about the phenomena of society,
605
00:36:51,632 --> 00:36:54,965
was engulfed in this dogmatism?
606
00:36:57,590 --> 00:36:59,007
We were in the red white blue,
607
00:36:59,465 --> 00:37:03,215
a sentence of Mao lined up
in black letters on the back wall.
608
00:37:03,298 --> 00:37:06,257
"You have to confront vague ideas
with clear images."
609
00:37:06,340 --> 00:37:08,382
That goes for you, too, Coutard.
610
00:37:09,090 --> 00:37:10,798
His political radicalisation,
611
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,257
his increasingly affirmed
political commitment
612
00:37:14,340 --> 00:37:17,590
encouraged him to seek in the history
of the arts, not only of cinema,
613
00:37:17,673 --> 00:37:18,953
in the history of political arts
614
00:37:19,632 --> 00:37:22,340
what thoughts, what artistic experiences
615
00:37:22,423 --> 00:37:25,215
can nourish him in order to reinvent
616
00:37:25,298 --> 00:37:28,007
a political, revolutionary,
communist, Maoist cinema.
617
00:37:39,839 --> 00:37:43,340
I have the impression
that I am only beginning to tell stories.
618
00:37:43,423 --> 00:37:44,923
It's traditional cinema
619
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:48,465
that's not telling anymore.
620
00:37:49,423 --> 00:37:52,548
Next to "Doctor Zhivago",
I think I tell stories.
621
00:37:54,215 --> 00:37:56,423
He has a certain radicalism
622
00:37:56,507 --> 00:38:00,590
that allows him to perceive things.
623
00:38:00,673 --> 00:38:04,173
All of a sudden with Maoism,
with this structure of explanation,
624
00:38:04,257 --> 00:38:07,465
he has an explanation for the world.
625
00:38:07,839 --> 00:38:11,882
Last day of filming for Jean-Luc Godard
for his film "La Chinoise".
626
00:38:11,965 --> 00:38:14,548
- Shall we use the clapperboard?
- We'll come and call it a wrap.
627
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,298
He is going to hasten a sequence
628
00:38:17,382 --> 00:38:22,007
in which Jean-Pierre Léaud distributes
the Little Red Books to motorists.
629
00:38:23,882 --> 00:38:26,882
It's this desire,
at an intellectual's moment,
630
00:38:26,965 --> 00:38:30,257
to have, in German
we would say a "Heimat",
631
00:38:30,340 --> 00:38:31,715
a homeland.
632
00:38:31,798 --> 00:38:34,298
That's my hope.
633
00:38:39,465 --> 00:38:42,382
I, Romain Goupil, registered
with the Revolutionary Communist Youth,
634
00:38:42,465 --> 00:38:45,298
think that Godard must be condemned
for his film "La Chinoise".
635
00:38:45,757 --> 00:38:47,757
He betrayed Marxism-Leninism.
636
00:38:48,215 --> 00:38:50,715
Secondly,
he does not have the excuse of fiction.
637
00:38:51,173 --> 00:38:53,632
And third, he made activists
look like neurotic cases.
638
00:38:54,590 --> 00:38:57,007
I'm doing this interview,
I say bad things,
639
00:38:57,090 --> 00:39:01,715
really head on,
I'm very young, I am sixteen.
640
00:39:02,298 --> 00:39:05,839
I hated that movie, but anyway,
I still hate "La Chinoise".
641
00:39:05,882 --> 00:39:08,715
Except that I now find...
642
00:39:09,923 --> 00:39:14,465
a kind of madness in that film.
643
00:39:15,757 --> 00:39:17,507
"The Chinese at the embassy hated it.
644
00:39:17,715 --> 00:39:19,732
They told me that I knew nothing
about their country,
645
00:39:19,757 --> 00:39:22,298
their revolution
or the Little Red Book.
646
00:39:22,839 --> 00:39:25,715
They told me that my film
was the work of a reactionary moron
647
00:39:25,798 --> 00:39:28,815
and that if they had the power, they would
forbid me to call it La Chinoise,"
648
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:30,507
he said in a gloomy voice.
649
00:39:30,590 --> 00:39:31,839
I held back my desire to laugh
650
00:39:31,882 --> 00:39:34,382
because I understood
that his pain was sincere.
651
00:39:34,798 --> 00:39:36,840
"I'm so disappointed" he said.
652
00:39:37,632 --> 00:39:40,215
Today the aesthetics of cinema
653
00:39:40,298 --> 00:39:44,465
has become an aesthetic that must be
called capitalist and American
654
00:39:44,548 --> 00:39:47,382
since 90% of the films
made in the world
655
00:39:47,465 --> 00:39:49,257
are American films.
656
00:39:49,507 --> 00:39:51,048
So, as a...
657
00:39:52,340 --> 00:39:57,882
Filmmaker in the West, who makes films,
our problem is totally contradictory.
658
00:39:57,965 --> 00:40:00,465
We want to make revolutionary films
659
00:40:00,548 --> 00:40:03,632
but we are not
in a revolutionary situation,
660
00:40:03,715 --> 00:40:05,590
even outside of cinema.
661
00:40:05,673 --> 00:40:08,632
And besides, as a filmmaker,
662
00:40:08,715 --> 00:40:12,423
I'm forced to work all day
with people who hate me
663
00:40:12,507 --> 00:40:13,798
and whom I despise.
664
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:18,923
And yet I'm forced
to practice peaceful coexistence.
665
00:40:19,007 --> 00:40:20,298
All day at the Lido,
666
00:40:20,382 --> 00:40:23,882
I spend my time smiling at people
who aren't even...
667
00:40:25,048 --> 00:40:29,590
who aren't anything,
who shouldn't even exist
668
00:40:29,673 --> 00:40:31,715
or that I would send to prison.
669
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,382
He was a victim
of his Jean-Luc Godard aura.
670
00:40:38,465 --> 00:40:39,673
He suffered from it
671
00:40:39,757 --> 00:40:41,465
and I believe it was very deep.
672
00:40:41,923 --> 00:40:46,132
He suffers from being provocative,
673
00:40:46,215 --> 00:40:47,507
from being a rupture.
674
00:40:47,590 --> 00:40:51,340
But this rupture isolates him
and he suffers from this isolation.
675
00:40:54,839 --> 00:40:58,548
"Let's get married. Everything would be
so much simpler", Jean-Luc said.
676
00:40:58,632 --> 00:41:02,382
"If I propose to you, we'll be considered
engaged, and we'll be left alone."
677
00:41:02,715 --> 00:41:05,923
"Fine, but you have to ask
for my hand for real."
678
00:41:06,007 --> 00:41:08,090
"To whom?"
"To my grandfather."
679
00:41:08,173 --> 00:41:09,548
"To François Mauriac?"
680
00:41:10,757 --> 00:41:13,173
Jean-Luc was cute, so cute.
681
00:41:13,257 --> 00:41:14,965
He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand
682
00:41:15,048 --> 00:41:18,382
that was the spitting image
of Buster Keaton in "Seven Chances".
683
00:41:19,298 --> 00:41:22,465
Jean-Luc was a light, funny,
inventive and tender man,
684
00:41:22,548 --> 00:41:25,840
with whom I never got bored
and who continues to charm me.
685
00:41:27,215 --> 00:41:31,048
My mother told us that our marriage
was announced in Le Figaro.
686
00:41:31,882 --> 00:41:33,173
We were dumbfounded.
687
00:41:33,839 --> 00:41:35,298
As soon as we were in the street
688
00:41:35,382 --> 00:41:37,840
we were surrounded
by several photographers and journalists.
689
00:41:37,923 --> 00:41:39,673
They bombarded us with questions.
690
00:41:42,048 --> 00:41:43,048
Godard wrote:
691
00:41:43,839 --> 00:41:45,399
"I always wanted both at the same time,
692
00:41:46,007 --> 00:41:48,839
to make myself known
and keep a low profile."
693
00:41:49,923 --> 00:41:51,882
He felt less and less in his place.
694
00:41:51,965 --> 00:41:54,840
The cinema, by its organisation
and its production,
695
00:41:54,923 --> 00:41:57,757
was no longer compatible
with his revolutionary convictions.
696
00:41:57,839 --> 00:42:02,173
His anger grows and it's on the screen
that he will express it.
697
00:42:10,590 --> 00:42:12,923
For me, Weekend is the film that says:
698
00:42:13,007 --> 00:42:17,715
"Let's not forget our enemies,
the middle class. They are appalling."
699
00:42:17,798 --> 00:42:22,715
So it's a cry of rage
against middle-class cinema.
700
00:42:28,048 --> 00:42:31,548
Come here! Poor guy! You morons!
701
00:42:32,757 --> 00:42:35,839
Mireille Darc was presumably hired
for this reason,
702
00:42:35,882 --> 00:42:41,007
since she embodied this Lautner,
Audiard cinema that Godard hates.
703
00:42:41,090 --> 00:42:44,048
It's a film that's mean,
that's tough, that's...
704
00:42:46,382 --> 00:42:49,590
We are also evil characters.
705
00:42:49,673 --> 00:42:51,590
But it is very difficult
to tell this story.
706
00:42:52,132 --> 00:42:56,257
As with many of Godard's films,
when you try to recount them,
707
00:42:56,340 --> 00:42:59,840
you don't say much about the experience
you have when you watch them.
708
00:43:00,715 --> 00:43:02,215
It's about a middle-class couple
709
00:43:02,298 --> 00:43:04,340
and they obviously both cheat
on each other.
710
00:43:04,423 --> 00:43:09,132
Each would like for the other to die
over inheritance issues.
711
00:43:09,215 --> 00:43:10,423
The actor is like cattle.
712
00:43:10,507 --> 00:43:13,507
He tells them to go left or right,
to open this door, to do this or that.
713
00:43:13,590 --> 00:43:17,839
He is using us, which is very good because
you are going to see a Godard film.
714
00:43:17,882 --> 00:43:20,548
You are not going to see
such-and-such in a film.
715
00:43:21,173 --> 00:43:22,715
We think we know him at times,
716
00:43:22,798 --> 00:43:26,132
but in the end,
it's very difficult to talk about him
717
00:43:26,215 --> 00:43:28,590
because I don't know, we know nothing.
718
00:43:28,673 --> 00:43:32,715
We think we feel him at times and then,
two minutes later, he's so different
719
00:43:32,798 --> 00:43:36,715
that you feel you were wrong
about your impressions.
720
00:43:39,507 --> 00:43:42,839
One of the fun facts that was remembered
a lot about "Weekend"
721
00:43:42,882 --> 00:43:46,132
is that Godard did
what was presented at the time,
722
00:43:46,215 --> 00:43:48,340
as the longest tracking shot
in the history of cinema.
723
00:43:48,423 --> 00:43:50,507
I believe it was 300 yards long.
724
00:43:50,590 --> 00:43:55,965
Godard had to rent all the tracking rails
that were available
725
00:43:56,048 --> 00:43:58,882
from equipment rental companies in France.
726
00:43:58,965 --> 00:44:01,423
And so, no filmmaker in France
could do a tracking shot
727
00:44:01,507 --> 00:44:02,923
since he had rented all the rails.
728
00:44:03,007 --> 00:44:05,632
And hastening, of course,
to cut it in editing.
729
00:44:05,715 --> 00:44:08,257
So, there was no need
730
00:44:08,340 --> 00:44:09,923
to put 300 yards of rails,
731
00:44:10,007 --> 00:44:13,507
if it was to cut
this tracking shot in editing
732
00:44:13,590 --> 00:44:15,257
but Godard is a great punk.
733
00:44:17,132 --> 00:44:19,923
He is unruly, undisciplined,
734
00:44:21,048 --> 00:44:22,715
he will never walk in single file.
735
00:44:23,132 --> 00:44:27,423
Incidentally, there are very often
some queues in his movies
736
00:44:27,507 --> 00:44:31,173
and it's always the sign of oppression
to take his place in the queue.
737
00:44:32,798 --> 00:44:35,340
That is his critical sense of society.
738
00:44:35,423 --> 00:44:40,090
He sees the consumer society,
the so-called escape society.
739
00:44:40,173 --> 00:44:44,257
His sui generis hatred...
his hatred is always there.
740
00:44:45,757 --> 00:44:46,840
My bag!
741
00:44:47,632 --> 00:44:49,090
My Hermes bag!
742
00:44:51,882 --> 00:44:56,632
"We are driven by an infernal logic
that leads us straight to destruction."
743
00:44:59,923 --> 00:45:03,382
Another sentence contradicting that,
which I have always held onto:
744
00:45:03,798 --> 00:45:07,673
"If we, cinema people,
are still claiming the title of artist,
745
00:45:07,757 --> 00:45:12,007
we must not forget that it implies
the strict respect of this rule:
746
00:45:12,090 --> 00:45:16,715
there is no true morality that does not
involve a fierce resistance to tyranny."
747
00:45:19,923 --> 00:45:23,423
As if he had once again entered into
resonance with society,
748
00:45:23,507 --> 00:45:25,965
Godard will very quickly
have the opportunity
749
00:45:26,048 --> 00:45:30,007
to put into practice this "fierce
resistance to tyranny" apart from cinema.
750
00:45:30,382 --> 00:45:33,507
FEBRUARY 1968
751
00:45:35,507 --> 00:45:37,465
In Paris, there was a lot of unrest.
752
00:45:37,882 --> 00:45:41,590
On February 9, the president
of the Cinémathèque, Henri Langlois,
753
00:45:41,673 --> 00:45:44,215
was replaced by government decision.
754
00:45:44,715 --> 00:45:47,673
François Truffaut's telegram
said in essence:
755
00:45:47,757 --> 00:45:49,839
"Come home immediately, we need you".
756
00:45:49,882 --> 00:45:52,048
INTEGRITY, FREEDOM OF SPEECH
757
00:45:52,132 --> 00:45:53,340
NO COPS IN FILMS
758
00:45:53,423 --> 00:45:56,465
Things went very quickly
with Jean-Luc, Truffaut and Rivette.
759
00:45:57,090 --> 00:46:00,173
I was part of the demonstration
between Jean-Luc and François Truffaut,
760
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,548
impressed and dizzy
by their determination.
761
00:46:03,632 --> 00:46:06,465
I was hanging on a fence, a little above,
762
00:46:06,548 --> 00:46:08,340
to observe.
763
00:46:08,423 --> 00:46:10,548
Jean-Pierre Léaud read a statement.
764
00:46:12,298 --> 00:46:15,507
He thought he was at the Palais Bourbon
during the French Revolution.
765
00:46:16,090 --> 00:46:18,340
He was delivering this and that...
766
00:46:19,048 --> 00:46:22,215
The police charged for a moment,
so I intervened.
767
00:46:22,923 --> 00:46:24,173
The shock was violent.
768
00:46:24,257 --> 00:46:27,923
The police responded with their clubs
and the fight became general brawl.
769
00:46:28,007 --> 00:46:30,840
The Gaullist government
did not measure what it had done
770
00:46:30,923 --> 00:46:34,965
but to attack Langlois
was to attack a guiding light,
771
00:46:35,048 --> 00:46:36,965
a spiritual father.
772
00:46:37,923 --> 00:46:40,882
And it worked.
It was a victorious mobilisation.
773
00:46:47,632 --> 00:46:49,007
On May 6th,
774
00:46:49,090 --> 00:46:52,590
strikes and demonstrations broke out
in many universities in France.
775
00:46:52,673 --> 00:46:58,465
This is the first time we have seen this.
We are occupying the Sorbonne.
776
00:46:58,548 --> 00:47:02,632
It's the final fight...
777
00:47:02,715 --> 00:47:05,298
"How beautiful this youth is",
Jean-Luc euphorically said.
778
00:47:05,923 --> 00:47:08,723
He filmed the arrival of the demonstration
with a Beaulieu 16mm camera.
779
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:14,840
Strangers recognised him
and shouted at him:
780
00:47:14,923 --> 00:47:16,798
"Godard, are you with us?"
781
00:47:19,632 --> 00:47:21,882
Then began the races to escape the police
782
00:47:21,965 --> 00:47:24,882
during which I found out how scared I was.
783
00:47:24,965 --> 00:47:26,382
Jean-Luc wasn't afraid of anything.
784
00:47:27,507 --> 00:47:29,548
The violence of the police
was driving him mad
785
00:47:29,632 --> 00:47:32,382
and the rudeness of his insults
surprised many.
786
00:47:33,132 --> 00:47:35,215
He looked like a boxer
in an American film,
787
00:47:36,507 --> 00:47:38,632
a samurai in a Japanese film.
788
00:47:41,507 --> 00:47:43,427
The Cannes Film Festival
had started on May 10th,
789
00:47:43,923 --> 00:47:46,465
and the idea of interrupting it
was beginning to spread.
790
00:47:46,548 --> 00:47:50,632
It's a matter of showing,
with a delay of a week and a half,
791
00:47:50,715 --> 00:47:53,298
the solidarity of the film industry
792
00:47:53,382 --> 00:47:57,007
to the student and workers movements
that are taking place in France.
793
00:47:57,090 --> 00:48:03,757
The only practical way to do
that is to immediately stop...
794
00:48:08,798 --> 00:48:12,965
I'm talking about solidarity
with the students and the workers
795
00:48:13,048 --> 00:48:15,840
and you're talking to me
about tracking shots and close-ups.
796
00:48:15,923 --> 00:48:17,257
You morons!
797
00:48:26,798 --> 00:48:30,298
THE REVOLUTION
798
00:48:30,673 --> 00:48:32,590
Cinema 6, scene one, take one.
799
00:48:32,673 --> 00:48:36,090
Since his return from Cannes,
something sad emerged from him.
800
00:48:36,798 --> 00:48:39,590
Where had his enthusiasm
of the first couple of weeks of May gone?
801
00:48:41,215 --> 00:48:43,673
For me, what happened in May
802
00:48:43,757 --> 00:48:47,298
really opened my eyes.
803
00:48:47,382 --> 00:48:50,673
As a director, we were,
804
00:48:51,132 --> 00:48:55,090
if we accept to be that,
we were only a cultural product
805
00:48:55,173 --> 00:48:58,048
or required as such by the State,
tolerated by...
806
00:48:58,757 --> 00:49:01,923
Tolerated by the imperialist ideology.
807
00:49:02,007 --> 00:49:05,715
There are various forms of imperialism
and that's one of them.
808
00:49:05,798 --> 00:49:07,757
Cultural imperialism.
809
00:49:07,839 --> 00:49:10,257
Second clapperboard,
Cinema 6, scene three, take one.
810
00:49:10,340 --> 00:49:11,423
So what is the solution?
811
00:49:12,548 --> 00:49:16,840
The solution is to stop making films
812
00:49:18,340 --> 00:49:20,257
for imperialism.
813
00:49:20,340 --> 00:49:24,423
If you work for French TV
stop making films for them
814
00:49:24,507 --> 00:49:28,132
or just make movies that right now
they can't broadcast.
815
00:49:28,215 --> 00:49:32,715
Just keep shooting, that's what I'll do.
816
00:49:36,590 --> 00:49:38,465
This is a major rupture for Godard.
817
00:49:39,090 --> 00:49:42,048
He goes in search of a cinema
that doesn't exist yet,
818
00:49:42,132 --> 00:49:44,090
a cinema that will be made differently
819
00:49:44,173 --> 00:49:46,213
and that will be at the service
of social struggles.
820
00:49:48,839 --> 00:49:51,340
The constant awareness for Godard
821
00:49:51,423 --> 00:49:55,007
that the legacy of Langlois
is "cinema is an art"
822
00:49:55,965 --> 00:49:58,340
and it is therefore
a different activity from politics.
823
00:49:58,423 --> 00:50:00,382
And if you want to make political cinema,
824
00:50:00,465 --> 00:50:04,507
you have to invent how to create
a meeting point between the two.
825
00:50:06,839 --> 00:50:09,007
It was in this state of mind
that in June 1968,
826
00:50:09,090 --> 00:50:12,715
Godard began filming what he considered
to be his last "bourgeois film".
827
00:50:14,173 --> 00:50:18,673
Under the impulse of Mick Jagger,
the Stones sought, improvised.
828
00:50:18,757 --> 00:50:21,298
The movie was called "One Plus One".
829
00:50:21,382 --> 00:50:25,839
Jean-Luc found himself obliged
to film with them. He was devastated.
830
00:50:26,215 --> 00:50:27,340
"I didn't want to.
831
00:50:27,423 --> 00:50:30,090
I had completely forgotten
that damn contract I signed."
832
00:51:03,923 --> 00:51:05,382
I played Eve Democracy,
833
00:51:05,965 --> 00:51:08,382
a young woman harassed
by a television crew
834
00:51:08,839 --> 00:51:10,439
who wants to interview her at all costs.
835
00:51:16,173 --> 00:51:18,298
When I asked him what it would be about,
836
00:51:18,382 --> 00:51:21,632
he replied with this sentence
that I had already heard him say:
837
00:51:21,715 --> 00:51:24,090
"Democracy means slowly dying."
838
00:51:28,715 --> 00:51:34,673
Jean-Luc, from a certain point on,
did not believe in democracy.
839
00:51:34,757 --> 00:51:36,882
All that is not going to work
840
00:51:36,965 --> 00:51:40,173
and we are going more and more
towards the abyss.
841
00:51:43,923 --> 00:51:46,132
Jean-Luc wants to get nowhere.
842
00:51:46,215 --> 00:51:50,839
He wants to describe his despair
in front of a despairing world.
843
00:52:03,048 --> 00:52:05,632
At the end of the movie,
they executed Eve Democracy.
844
00:52:07,340 --> 00:52:10,757
Jean-Luc himself came into the shot
and sprayed me with haemoglobin.
845
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,840
They put me bleeding
on the board of a cinema crane
846
00:52:14,923 --> 00:52:16,548
which rose towards the sky.
847
00:52:16,882 --> 00:52:18,298
Last image of the film.
848
00:52:24,757 --> 00:52:26,923
The break with his past work
had to be complete
849
00:52:27,757 --> 00:52:29,173
and with no possible return.
850
00:52:30,590 --> 00:52:34,132
He wrote: "Middle-class people
created a world in its own image.
851
00:52:34,215 --> 00:52:36,507
Comrades, let's destroy this image!"
852
00:52:39,215 --> 00:52:42,257
Once I mentioned, we were together,
853
00:52:42,340 --> 00:52:44,132
"Breathless" or "Pierrot le Fou"...
854
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:46,423
I thought I was going to lose him.
855
00:52:47,132 --> 00:52:50,965
"Are you talking to me about this shit?
I'd like all these films to disappear.
856
00:52:51,048 --> 00:52:54,257
Why are there still the negatives?
Why they didn't burn the negatives?"
857
00:52:54,340 --> 00:52:56,673
He had a score to settle regarding a time
858
00:52:56,757 --> 00:52:59,715
when he thought he made
aesthetic concessions,
859
00:52:59,798 --> 00:53:01,982
he said they were political concessions,
but, that's nonsense.
860
00:53:02,007 --> 00:53:06,090
He thought he made concessions
in the story, in the screenplay.
861
00:53:06,173 --> 00:53:07,840
He fought against himself.
862
00:53:10,007 --> 00:53:11,007
At his request,
863
00:53:11,090 --> 00:53:14,882
we went to meet Dany Cohn-Bendit
at his home in Frankfurt.
864
00:53:14,965 --> 00:53:18,548
They had planned to make
a political western together,
865
00:53:18,632 --> 00:53:21,839
but they talked so much,
constantly interrupting each other
866
00:53:21,882 --> 00:53:24,507
that almost nothing came
of this first meeting.
867
00:53:24,590 --> 00:53:29,340
Yes, that's absolutely true.
It's a crazy and incomprehensible story.
868
00:53:30,590 --> 00:53:36,007
I don't know how I had the idea
of making a western with Godard.
869
00:53:36,507 --> 00:53:39,423
It was an idea,
it was a childhood fantasy.
870
00:53:40,965 --> 00:53:42,923
He had found an Italian producer.
871
00:53:43,007 --> 00:53:46,798
So we met in Rome
where we collectively discussed
872
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,090
the film we were going to make.
873
00:53:49,340 --> 00:53:53,757
Well, then, this is a general assembly.
The camera is available to everyone.
874
00:53:56,757 --> 00:53:59,382
Godard tried to make
"political films politically",
875
00:54:00,048 --> 00:54:03,423
and began by abolishing
the very notion of author.
876
00:54:04,423 --> 00:54:09,048
So he had to do with a painful
and complicated contradiction
877
00:54:09,132 --> 00:54:12,465
that is how to continue making films
without giving up
878
00:54:12,548 --> 00:54:14,340
on the requirement of cinema as art,
879
00:54:14,423 --> 00:54:18,257
orienting it in favour of the current
revolutionary movements
880
00:54:18,340 --> 00:54:20,257
and without being the boss on the set.
881
00:54:20,673 --> 00:54:24,673
Hold a general meeting because doing it
was still the best way to talk about it.
882
00:54:24,757 --> 00:54:29,132
Jean-Luc was a bit lost in this.
He was listening.
883
00:54:30,548 --> 00:54:34,839
For us, yes, it was a game
and for him, it was serious.
884
00:54:34,882 --> 00:54:37,423
This shooting will become a real chaos
885
00:54:37,507 --> 00:54:41,465
of confrontation
among the political currents.
886
00:54:41,548 --> 00:54:43,882
Daniel Cohn-Bendit
at the time, was an anarchist
887
00:54:43,965 --> 00:54:46,548
and refused
any professionalization of politics.
888
00:54:46,839 --> 00:54:50,715
Gian Maria Volonté who was close
to a somewhat heterodox current
889
00:54:50,798 --> 00:54:52,757
of the Italian Communist Party.
890
00:54:52,839 --> 00:54:56,839
And Godard, who brought
all his young Maoist friends from Paris.
891
00:54:56,882 --> 00:54:59,715
Cinematographically, nothing was created.
892
00:55:00,507 --> 00:55:02,882
Hence the call for backup
of Jean-Pierre Gorin.
893
00:55:02,965 --> 00:55:06,507
It's the Little Red Book...
894
00:55:06,882 --> 00:55:09,507
He is very ambitious,
he wants to make movies.
895
00:55:09,590 --> 00:55:14,090
He has direct militant experience
that Godard does not have.
896
00:55:14,173 --> 00:55:18,923
So it's a privileged dialogue
because Gorin has a cockiness
897
00:55:19,007 --> 00:55:22,132
that will never allow him
to be told off by authority.
898
00:55:22,215 --> 00:55:24,590
And that is what Godard is looking for.
899
00:55:24,673 --> 00:55:27,632
Therefore, he is looking for people
who have no problem
900
00:55:27,923 --> 00:55:30,590
dismissing him in a certain way,
901
00:55:30,673 --> 00:55:32,757
since that is what he wanted to do
with himself
902
00:55:32,839 --> 00:55:34,798
and with his own previous movies.
903
00:55:46,007 --> 00:55:49,548
And the arrival of Gorin
on the set of "East Wind",
904
00:55:49,632 --> 00:55:53,340
will originate the utopia
of founding a group, Dziga Vertov,
905
00:55:53,423 --> 00:55:56,673
of no longer signing the film
under the name of Godard,
906
00:55:56,757 --> 00:55:58,798
but of having a common flag.
907
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:02,507
The idea being that Vertov
must embody an additional degree
908
00:56:02,590 --> 00:56:04,798
of political and aesthetic radicalism.
909
00:56:05,839 --> 00:56:08,132
Jean-Luc Godard was an author,
910
00:56:08,215 --> 00:56:13,090
he's still is and he tries to fight
not to be an author and it's difficult.
911
00:56:13,173 --> 00:56:17,923
So you have to stop filming me now,
in close-up, just because I'm speaking
912
00:56:18,007 --> 00:56:20,007
you also have to film
the people who are listening,
913
00:56:20,048 --> 00:56:22,298
because we're trying to work as a group
914
00:56:22,382 --> 00:56:24,923
and working as a group is political work.
915
00:56:25,007 --> 00:56:27,340
We stopped talking
about cinema in general.
916
00:56:27,423 --> 00:56:29,340
We know that a film
is an ideological product
917
00:56:29,423 --> 00:56:31,048
and that it is part of a struggle.
918
00:56:31,340 --> 00:56:34,923
And we are on a certain side,
the revolutionary faction,
919
00:56:35,007 --> 00:56:37,965
it says absolutely everything
about our future activity.
920
00:56:38,048 --> 00:56:39,048
STRUGGLE
921
00:56:40,382 --> 00:56:43,840
But Dziga Vertov... this time, he told me.
922
00:56:43,923 --> 00:56:46,757
He sets up the editing table
and said: "Romain!"
923
00:56:46,839 --> 00:56:49,757
We voted to find out if the shot
was going to be edited or not.
924
00:56:49,839 --> 00:56:51,632
We voted by majority
925
00:56:51,715 --> 00:56:54,548
and so if the majority agreed,
I tossed the shot.
926
00:56:54,632 --> 00:56:57,923
So it's the complete opposite of cinema,
the opposite of Jean-Luc.
927
00:56:58,007 --> 00:57:00,590
Jean-Luc is a poet.
928
00:57:00,673 --> 00:57:04,798
Fortunately, each time he avoided
the pitfalls of political films.
929
00:57:05,173 --> 00:57:08,840
He passed by and made works of it.
930
00:57:08,923 --> 00:57:12,590
But there was a distressing black period,
but now who cares,
931
00:57:12,673 --> 00:57:15,840
it serves as testimony, that's all.
932
00:57:15,923 --> 00:57:21,298
We were doing a press conference
933
00:57:21,715 --> 00:57:27,882
because all of us were out on parole.
934
00:57:28,590 --> 00:57:31,590
The financing of these films
of the Dziga Vertov Group
935
00:57:31,673 --> 00:57:35,548
is only possible
thanks to the notoriety of Godard,
936
00:57:35,632 --> 00:57:40,090
that is to say by raising orders
of television channels in Europe,
937
00:57:40,173 --> 00:57:41,882
in the United States.
938
00:57:41,965 --> 00:57:45,507
So he plays on the ambiguity
that his author name
939
00:57:45,590 --> 00:57:49,257
gives him the material means to live
and make the group live
940
00:57:49,340 --> 00:57:52,798
and produce films
that must dissolve his author name
941
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:54,715
in the collective Dziga Vertov Group.
942
00:57:54,798 --> 00:57:57,382
What... what are we in, there?
943
00:57:57,507 --> 00:58:02,340
Well... we were...
in a context of suppression.
944
00:58:02,757 --> 00:58:04,007
He has to go...
945
00:58:04,632 --> 00:58:08,340
to the end of the militant madness.
946
00:58:08,715 --> 00:58:12,257
They make films...
It's not even for 100 people.
947
00:58:12,340 --> 00:58:13,715
It's for no one.
948
00:58:13,965 --> 00:58:18,423
Some leaflets, "Cinétracts" of 1968
to the films of Gorin,
949
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:22,798
they got into a myth of militant cinema
950
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:27,590
that is like the militant newspapers
that no one can read.
951
00:58:27,673 --> 00:58:32,882
And obviously, each time, the sponsors
see a Maoist political film coming
952
00:58:32,965 --> 00:58:35,757
and more often than not,
give up broadcasting it.
953
00:58:43,465 --> 00:58:45,340
The films of the Dziga Vertov Group
954
00:58:45,423 --> 00:58:48,465
will remain almost invisible
for several decades.
955
00:58:55,382 --> 00:58:58,965
It was when he was filming and creating
that I liked Jean-Luc the most.
956
00:59:00,382 --> 00:59:03,007
I whispered to him
that I was in love with a filmmaker,
957
00:59:03,090 --> 00:59:05,673
not an activist,
coupled with a political commissar.
958
00:59:07,923 --> 00:59:12,007
A large part of my problems with Jean-Luc
date from the arrival of Gorin.
959
00:59:12,090 --> 00:59:14,340
Gorin brought the worst to Jean-Luc,
960
00:59:14,423 --> 00:59:17,757
dragging him towards a cinema
which, profoundly, was not his.
961
00:59:18,048 --> 00:59:19,757
He created a void around him.
962
00:59:20,423 --> 00:59:21,798
I left for this
963
00:59:22,548 --> 00:59:25,465
because Gorin ended up living
with him instead of me.
964
00:59:27,257 --> 00:59:30,590
Our final separation came
after more than a year, almost two.
965
00:59:30,673 --> 00:59:33,715
It was extremely painful
for him and for me.
966
00:59:34,798 --> 00:59:38,007
The unfortunate end of our story
became commonplace and private.
967
00:59:38,715 --> 00:59:41,382
I ceased to be
a privileged witness of the time.
968
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:44,298
I won't write it.
969
00:59:52,715 --> 00:59:55,590
Godard completely dissolved
in the collective.
970
00:59:55,673 --> 00:59:57,173
He chose to disappear.
971
00:59:58,132 --> 01:00:00,507
What happens during the 1970s?
972
01:00:00,923 --> 01:00:03,007
This is a question
that comes up regularly.
973
01:00:06,132 --> 01:00:07,632
Out of sight,
974
01:00:07,715 --> 01:00:10,632
after the disintegration
of revolutionary utopias,
975
01:00:10,715 --> 01:00:12,465
he will find the way to a reinvention
976
01:00:12,548 --> 01:00:16,007
by questioning everything,
starting with himself.
977
01:00:19,715 --> 01:00:23,757
What's wrong with television
is that we're all alone.
978
01:00:25,007 --> 01:00:27,423
And yet, we're still three on television,
979
01:00:27,507 --> 01:00:31,382
the transmitter, the receiver
and the TV set,
980
01:00:32,298 --> 01:00:35,298
and we are still at -0.
981
01:00:35,382 --> 01:00:38,132
We are before the birth of television.
982
01:00:39,673 --> 01:00:42,673
CHAPTER 3
983
01:00:45,257 --> 01:00:48,632
Seven years later,
Godard will settle in Switzerland,
984
01:00:48,715 --> 01:00:51,757
in the village of Rolle,
close to where he grew up.
985
01:00:51,839 --> 01:00:56,090
He is one of the very first
to try to put video tools
986
01:00:56,173 --> 01:00:57,882
at the service of cinema.
987
01:00:58,465 --> 01:01:00,382
After collective hopes,
988
01:01:00,465 --> 01:01:03,048
comes the time of technological autarky.
989
01:01:03,965 --> 01:01:05,507
We always want to do that.
990
01:01:05,590 --> 01:01:10,215
At times I want to do this or that,
but not always that.
991
01:01:10,298 --> 01:01:12,465
I do research, I've never hidden it.
992
01:01:12,548 --> 01:01:16,673
I should be registered with the CNRS
but they always refused my application.
993
01:01:18,007 --> 01:01:21,257
I should be paid by Mr. Chevènement
to make movies,
994
01:01:21,340 --> 01:01:24,632
he should allocate a budget, I make a film
and I'll refund him every year.
995
01:01:24,965 --> 01:01:27,132
However, in cinema,
research is prohibited.
996
01:01:27,215 --> 01:01:30,590
It's funny because the viewer
is entitled to the pursuit of pleasure,
997
01:01:31,173 --> 01:01:34,507
but the research itself...
I never denied it.
998
01:01:34,590 --> 01:01:37,423
That's why I'd rather say I'm a scientist
and we laugh about it.
999
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:40,840
Godard has always been fascinated
by technique,
1000
01:01:40,923 --> 01:01:43,798
he has always liked to invent,
to discover...
1001
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:48,590
The technical discovery is something that,
with his complicity with Raoul Coutard,
1002
01:01:49,382 --> 01:01:52,423
gave rather incredible
moments of filmmaking.
1003
01:01:52,923 --> 01:01:59,298
And from the moment Godard
will settle alone in Rolle in 1977,
1004
01:01:59,382 --> 01:02:03,465
he will build in his house a real studio
1005
01:02:03,548 --> 01:02:07,423
where he will be able to satisfy
1006
01:02:07,507 --> 01:02:10,798
his fantasy of making movies by himself.
1007
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:12,173
It's a small thing,
1008
01:02:12,257 --> 01:02:16,340
but it's one of the most technologically
advanced places
1009
01:02:16,423 --> 01:02:18,007
in the film industry.
1010
01:02:18,090 --> 01:02:22,007
It's really a cutting-edge tool
that Godard has made for himself
1011
01:02:22,090 --> 01:02:26,298
and he will be able
to bring together images, closer,
1012
01:02:26,382 --> 01:02:29,840
like some kind of wizard
in his laboratory.
1013
01:02:30,590 --> 01:02:34,548
You see, that's it,
it's just that simple...
1014
01:02:35,507 --> 01:02:38,548
It's simple because there are
no more things, only machines.
1015
01:02:40,257 --> 01:02:44,673
Things, machine, see? Me, thing, well,
it's my relationship with a machine.
1016
01:02:45,715 --> 01:02:47,715
And then man-woman, thing-machine.
1017
01:02:49,715 --> 01:02:53,757
"Numéro Deux"
opens around this strange boss.
1018
01:02:53,839 --> 01:02:58,757
As he says: "I'm a boss and my workers
are the machines
1019
01:02:58,839 --> 01:03:01,048
and I'm in the middle of these machines
1020
01:03:01,132 --> 01:03:05,507
and it's my way of working now."
1021
01:03:10,173 --> 01:03:15,173
It's really a moment when Godard allows
himself for the first time in a long time
1022
01:03:15,257 --> 01:03:18,423
to say "I"
1023
01:03:18,507 --> 01:03:21,839
and this is what allows him
to start again,
1024
01:03:22,590 --> 01:03:27,173
rid of everything that had prevented him
from saying "I" for so long.
1025
01:03:27,257 --> 01:03:29,632
The "I" is anti-militant.
1026
01:03:30,465 --> 01:03:34,757
There is a guy who was called Jean-Luc,
then everyone gave him another name.
1027
01:03:34,839 --> 01:03:36,465
People said "Godard".
1028
01:03:37,132 --> 01:03:42,048
However, it was written "Jean-Luc"
and people read "Godard".
1029
01:03:42,632 --> 01:03:44,340
Who are the scammers?
1030
01:03:44,798 --> 01:03:48,882
The one who says "Jean-Luc"?
Or those who read "Godard"?
1031
01:03:49,965 --> 01:03:54,923
To get there, as often,
Godard burned all his boats.
1032
01:04:01,965 --> 01:04:06,298
On June 9th 1971, he was the victim
of a serious motorcycle accident in Paris.
1033
01:04:07,340 --> 01:04:09,465
"It was my civil war, my prison.
1034
01:04:10,090 --> 01:04:13,132
Someone was in the Vietnam War.
I was in hospital."
1035
01:04:14,007 --> 01:04:16,007
He almost died.
1036
01:04:16,090 --> 01:04:18,257
Multiple fractures of the pelvis,
1037
01:04:18,340 --> 01:04:21,048
his skin torn from the entire lower body.
1038
01:04:21,132 --> 01:04:24,590
He spent a week in a coma
at the Laennec hospital
1039
01:04:24,673 --> 01:04:27,840
with multiple operations,
pins in all directions.
1040
01:04:28,673 --> 01:04:31,132
Some pretty serious consequences.
1041
01:04:31,215 --> 01:04:35,048
And Godard was on the verge of letting go.
1042
01:04:37,839 --> 01:04:43,840
The accident of 1971 is the obvious,
almost cruel, physical sign
1043
01:04:44,382 --> 01:04:47,132
of Godard's political failure.
1044
01:04:47,215 --> 01:04:52,048
And it's also, in a way, the beginning
of a rebirth, a rebirth but as a couple.
1045
01:04:55,423 --> 01:05:01,298
And that, obviously, is something
that allows Godard to accept a new life
1046
01:05:01,382 --> 01:05:04,257
and to bear in a certain way
his loneliness as a creator.
1047
01:05:05,798 --> 01:05:10,590
It's the first time in his life
that Godard really needs someone.
1048
01:05:10,673 --> 01:05:14,840
Godard met Anne-Marie Miéville
just before his accident.
1049
01:05:15,007 --> 01:05:17,382
She took care of him
throughout his recovery.
1050
01:05:18,090 --> 01:05:20,215
Like him, she is Franco-Swiss.
1051
01:05:20,298 --> 01:05:22,798
Like him, she is politicised.
1052
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:26,215
She manages a bookstore in Paris
that defends the Palestinian cause.
1053
01:05:27,132 --> 01:05:30,548
Do you have the impression
at times that cinema is...
1054
01:05:31,298 --> 01:05:34,382
an art or an institution,
all kinds of things at the same time,
1055
01:05:34,465 --> 01:05:38,840
something to respect
when you're working or not?
1056
01:05:38,923 --> 01:05:42,882
Godard has always said
that he was very impressed right away
1057
01:05:42,965 --> 01:05:46,298
by the intelligence and the rigor
1058
01:05:46,382 --> 01:05:48,007
of Anne-Marie Miéville.
1059
01:05:49,548 --> 01:05:53,882
Anne-Marie Miéville
truly becomes Godard's interlocutor.
1060
01:05:53,965 --> 01:05:58,215
It's the only time that Godard manages
not only with a woman,
1061
01:05:58,298 --> 01:06:00,923
but with someone to talk,
1062
01:06:01,007 --> 01:06:04,882
to introduce a dialogue
like that over the long term.
1063
01:06:04,965 --> 01:06:07,465
I think it somewhat bothers you
to talk about Godard?
1064
01:06:07,548 --> 01:06:09,090
- Not at all.
- Not at all?
1065
01:06:09,173 --> 01:06:12,382
No, not at all. If we know how to leave it
in his place, no, not at all.
1066
01:06:12,465 --> 01:06:13,840
{\an8}I don't have to hide that in fact
1067
01:06:13,923 --> 01:06:15,839
I went to a kind of school.
1068
01:06:15,882 --> 01:06:18,923
I did both set photography and editing
1069
01:06:19,007 --> 01:06:21,840
as well as co-screenwriter
and co-director.
1070
01:06:21,923 --> 01:06:24,965
They say that he is a very demanding
director, very difficult on a film set.
1071
01:06:25,048 --> 01:06:26,465
Is that your opinion too?
1072
01:06:27,173 --> 01:06:28,423
Yes and no.
1073
01:06:32,298 --> 01:06:36,257
Once recovered in 1973,
Godard fled, accompanied by Anne-Marie.
1074
01:06:38,132 --> 01:06:40,757
He left the capital
to make himself scarce.
1075
01:06:42,257 --> 01:06:44,090
He headed for Grenoble
1076
01:06:44,173 --> 01:06:47,007
where he settled for three years
in a housing project in the new town.
1077
01:06:48,839 --> 01:06:51,048
It is a real exile that Godard
1078
01:06:51,132 --> 01:06:54,548
imposes on himself,
but it is an exile rather desired.
1079
01:06:54,882 --> 01:06:57,340
Both to flee and to be reborn.
1080
01:07:00,715 --> 01:07:03,173
Godard has really left everything behind.
1081
01:07:03,839 --> 01:07:08,798
He founded a new company in Grenoble,
Sonimage, his first audio-visual lab.
1082
01:07:09,882 --> 01:07:11,882
In Grenoble, we were called Sonimage.
1083
01:07:12,757 --> 01:07:14,965
We will do otherwise
with sounds and images.
1084
01:07:15,048 --> 01:07:17,257
We are going to make soup
with sounds and images
1085
01:07:17,340 --> 01:07:20,382
but we are going to try
to find other soup recipes.
1086
01:07:20,882 --> 01:07:24,382
A prisoner of war. Or a political exile.
1087
01:07:25,632 --> 01:07:27,090
A violent fire.
1088
01:07:28,507 --> 01:07:32,007
A story, a long story, Scheherazade.
1089
01:07:35,132 --> 01:07:38,048
I remember one day
we had a shooting problem,
1090
01:07:38,132 --> 01:07:40,215
we had a directing problem.
1091
01:07:40,298 --> 01:07:43,798
And at one point, Jean-Luc said:
1092
01:07:43,840 --> 01:07:46,548
If it was Renoir, what would he do?
1093
01:07:47,132 --> 01:07:49,548
Renoir would put the camera there,
1094
01:07:49,632 --> 01:07:53,215
a 50 mm lens at eye level
1095
01:07:53,298 --> 01:07:56,715
and have people enter from the right side
and exit on the left side.
1096
01:07:57,673 --> 01:08:00,632
If it was Hitchcock, what would he do?
1097
01:08:00,715 --> 01:08:03,090
If it was Lang, what would he do?"
1098
01:08:03,882 --> 01:08:05,173
And then he said:
1099
01:08:05,507 --> 01:08:07,590
"What would be
the opposite of all that?"
1100
01:08:08,257 --> 01:08:10,590
It's not easy to find
the opposite of all that.
1101
01:08:11,590 --> 01:08:13,798
But we went on a lot like that.
1102
01:08:14,590 --> 01:08:20,382
In fact, he always dreamed
of almost unattainable things.
1103
01:08:21,173 --> 01:08:26,090
He asked for them
as if it were a metaphysical horizon.
1104
01:08:27,048 --> 01:08:29,382
Maybe in a perfect world
1105
01:08:31,007 --> 01:08:33,090
things won't be called.
1106
01:08:34,215 --> 01:08:35,257
We will experience them.
1107
01:08:36,548 --> 01:08:40,965
And we will not be there to just say:
"We will experience them".
1108
01:08:41,048 --> 01:08:46,007
The last person who made
cinematic language evolve was Godard.
1109
01:08:46,298 --> 01:08:50,215
But on a mixing, editing table level.
1110
01:08:50,298 --> 01:08:55,257
Now with audiovisual,
with the video recorder,
1111
01:08:55,340 --> 01:08:57,839
Godard is going to be
the Griffith of cinema.
1112
01:08:57,882 --> 01:09:00,090
All morphogenesis comes from a conflict.
1113
01:09:00,173 --> 01:09:03,215
- What's morphogenesis?
- Any formation of forms.
1114
01:09:04,298 --> 01:09:09,923
He kept abreast of all the stuff
that came out in every company worldwide.
1115
01:09:10,007 --> 01:09:14,173
Camera, video companies...
He subscribed to everything.
1116
01:09:15,007 --> 01:09:16,798
Sometimes he drove us nuts.
1117
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:20,298
He was really terrible at soldering
but he wanted to solder cables.
1118
01:09:20,382 --> 01:09:22,340
He did a lot of terrible stuff
1119
01:09:23,007 --> 01:09:24,673
but he wanted to do it all the time.
1120
01:09:26,839 --> 01:09:28,340
A whiting.
1121
01:09:28,423 --> 01:09:30,839
Well no, it's the capitalist system.
1122
01:09:32,215 --> 01:09:33,757
A light bulb.
1123
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:36,048
No, a dream.
1124
01:09:41,590 --> 01:09:46,423
I was sixteen and a half, I was pregnant.
I was expecting a child.
1125
01:09:46,507 --> 01:09:50,548
- What do you call old age?
- Retirement. Old people's retirement.
1126
01:09:50,632 --> 01:09:53,923
If you make pictures of friends,
why wouldn't that make you satisfied?
1127
01:09:54,007 --> 01:09:56,298
Yes, I happened to make a film
about my friends.
1128
01:09:56,715 --> 01:09:59,382
We put in the usual fertilizer,
which is quite a lot.
1129
01:09:59,465 --> 01:10:01,465
Well, we've harvested
1130
01:10:01,548 --> 01:10:04,007
about a quarter of the grass
we're used to harvest.
1131
01:10:04,923 --> 01:10:07,798
The 1970s were marked by two major series
1132
01:10:07,840 --> 01:10:10,090
produced with Anne-Marie Miéville
for television.
1133
01:10:10,882 --> 01:10:13,590
Godard sets out
to meet his contemporaries,
1134
01:10:13,673 --> 01:10:15,840
whom he listens to and films at eye level.
1135
01:10:15,923 --> 01:10:20,923
He holds up a mirror to all those
with whom he shares the present time.
1136
01:10:21,007 --> 01:10:25,715
It's clear that I exist, but it would be
dark because it will be at night.
1137
01:10:25,923 --> 01:10:28,632
Even at night, it will be clear to you
that you exist.
1138
01:10:28,715 --> 01:10:29,798
Yes.
1139
01:10:30,923 --> 01:10:35,757
Are there things, can you give me
examples of obscure things in your life?
1140
01:10:36,465 --> 01:10:37,465
The night.
1141
01:10:38,965 --> 01:10:43,298
What moves me of Godard
is a form of generosity
1142
01:10:43,382 --> 01:10:46,632
in relation to the weakest, often,
1143
01:10:46,715 --> 01:10:49,257
or to the victims of History.
1144
01:10:49,340 --> 01:10:51,965
Godard was never
on the side of the powerful.
1145
01:10:52,048 --> 01:10:57,257
He has always been on the side of those
who are somewhat the losers in History.
1146
01:11:01,423 --> 01:11:06,007
It was not easy
to be close to him and Anne-Marie.
1147
01:11:06,757 --> 01:11:08,132
It's not easy at all.
1148
01:11:10,215 --> 01:11:14,673
Because it was necessary to provide them
a contradiction, all the time.
1149
01:11:15,548 --> 01:11:17,840
And so, after a while,
1150
01:11:18,798 --> 01:11:20,465
it was a soccer game every day.
1151
01:11:23,048 --> 01:11:26,173
Does the fact that I make images
instead of having children
1152
01:11:26,882 --> 01:11:28,882
prevent me from being a human being?
1153
01:11:32,923 --> 01:11:34,507
When you manage to get close to him,
1154
01:11:34,590 --> 01:11:39,882
you realise all the burdens
he carries with him,
1155
01:11:40,923 --> 01:11:43,048
his badly healed wounds.
1156
01:11:45,465 --> 01:11:46,882
And then at the same time,
1157
01:11:48,090 --> 01:11:49,340
when I think of him,
1158
01:11:49,423 --> 01:11:53,757
I think back
to his extraordinary childish smile.
1159
01:11:53,839 --> 01:11:56,632
Sometimes he has incredible smiles.
1160
01:11:57,340 --> 01:12:00,507
Or sometimes when you manage
to make him laugh, which is not easy,
1161
01:12:01,548 --> 01:12:04,173
then all of a sudden, he laughs
and it's a real laugh.
1162
01:12:04,257 --> 01:12:05,382
I loved his laughter.
1163
01:12:10,673 --> 01:12:12,423
Everything could have gone on like this,
1164
01:12:13,548 --> 01:12:17,298
but Godard never quite seems to be
where he wants to be.
1165
01:12:18,507 --> 01:12:23,048
In 1977, he leaves Grenoble
for the shores of Lake Geneva.
1166
01:12:23,923 --> 01:12:30,048
It's in Rolle, land of his childhood,
that a new desire will arise in him.
1167
01:12:38,298 --> 01:12:44,132
CHAPTER 4
1168
01:12:55,548 --> 01:12:57,465
I called him not too long ago
1169
01:12:58,257 --> 01:13:01,507
to let him know I was thinking of him
and to find out how he was doing.
1170
01:13:03,090 --> 01:13:06,590
And I was happy to hear him.
He was adorable.
1171
01:13:06,673 --> 01:13:09,882
I told him that I was probably
going to come to Lausanne
1172
01:13:10,257 --> 01:13:12,590
and that I would be glad to see him.
1173
01:13:13,048 --> 01:13:15,173
There was a long silence and then he said:
1174
01:13:15,257 --> 01:13:17,882
"No, no, I'd rather not, Nathalie."
1175
01:13:17,965 --> 01:13:19,798
I totally respected that.
1176
01:13:19,840 --> 01:13:22,132
This morning
I learned to feed the animals.
1177
01:13:22,215 --> 01:13:26,048
There was a calf with a hole in its back
and everything it ate came out from there.
1178
01:13:26,132 --> 01:13:27,382
For me, it's people.
1179
01:13:28,423 --> 01:13:29,423
What do you mean?
1180
01:13:29,465 --> 01:13:31,090
They have a hole in their mouth
1181
01:13:31,923 --> 01:13:33,548
and there are words coming out.
1182
01:13:34,590 --> 01:13:37,548
People often talk about the great director
1183
01:13:37,632 --> 01:13:40,548
and they often say things
that are hard to swallow, a little harsh
1184
01:13:40,632 --> 01:13:41,715
but I...
1185
01:13:42,590 --> 01:13:45,423
But he was always incredibly kind to me
1186
01:13:45,507 --> 01:13:49,465
and I was always very happy
when I worked with him.
1187
01:13:49,548 --> 01:13:52,173
I don't really know what
"Every Man For Himself" means
1188
01:13:52,257 --> 01:13:53,423
but I like the title.
1189
01:13:53,839 --> 01:13:56,840
"This is the second time that I feel like
I have my life ahead of me,
1190
01:13:56,923 --> 01:14:00,215
my second life in cinema
or the third, rather.
1191
01:14:00,298 --> 01:14:04,632
The first was when I wasn't making movies,
when I was going around it.
1192
01:14:04,715 --> 01:14:07,173
The second was from Breathless
1193
01:14:07,257 --> 01:14:09,632
up to the years 1968-1970.
1194
01:14:09,715 --> 01:14:14,548
And then there was the ebb or flow.
I don't know how to call it.
1195
01:14:14,632 --> 01:14:16,839
And the third is now."
1196
01:14:17,923 --> 01:14:20,007
That's "Every Man For Himself".
1197
01:14:20,090 --> 01:14:22,090
"Every Man For Himself"
Jean-Luc and life.
1198
01:14:22,173 --> 01:14:24,215
"Every Man For Himself"...
1199
01:14:24,298 --> 01:14:25,798
Like he said,
1200
01:14:25,840 --> 01:14:27,590
this is his second "first film".
1201
01:14:29,423 --> 01:14:31,840
He was very unsure of himself
1202
01:14:32,173 --> 01:14:35,382
when he said he wanted
to do a fiction again, he wanted to work.
1203
01:14:36,465 --> 01:14:40,132
And he actually thought
it wasn't going to happen.
1204
01:15:10,632 --> 01:15:14,048
It's because I don't have the strength
to laze around that I make films.
1205
01:15:14,882 --> 01:15:16,423
For no other reason.
1206
01:15:17,507 --> 01:15:20,548
This is the truest of all that I can say
about my business.
1207
01:15:20,632 --> 01:15:25,548
Undeniably, Dutronc is him,
he plays Paul Godard.
1208
01:15:25,632 --> 01:15:31,632
He says: "I am a finished man
but likely to start all over again".
1209
01:15:34,965 --> 01:15:39,715
At that time, he returned with the means
of television, with the means of video,
1210
01:15:39,798 --> 01:15:41,548
with the means of the electronic image,
1211
01:15:42,340 --> 01:15:46,215
to ways of writing
totally forgotten in cinema,
1212
01:15:46,298 --> 01:15:50,340
like slow motion, saccades, freeze frames
1213
01:15:50,423 --> 01:15:53,132
which suddenly gives an image
1214
01:15:53,215 --> 01:15:54,882
that is not cinematic,
1215
01:15:54,965 --> 01:15:57,048
but an image
of, I don't know, something else.
1216
01:16:09,340 --> 01:16:10,882
It's probably paint.
1217
01:16:10,965 --> 01:16:15,257
Besides, I remember, there was the critic
at the time, Pascal Bonitzer, who said:
1218
01:16:15,340 --> 01:16:17,673
"Every Man For Himself"
is not the "pen camera",
1219
01:16:17,757 --> 01:16:19,340
it's the "brush camera".
1220
01:16:31,215 --> 01:16:34,715
Each sequence was a small film.
1221
01:16:34,798 --> 01:16:37,840
When you prepare a film,
you strip the scenes
1222
01:16:37,923 --> 01:16:41,007
and then you organize the working plan
according to all the constraints.
1223
01:16:41,632 --> 01:16:46,298
I quickly understood that it was not going
to work like that at all,
1224
01:16:46,382 --> 01:16:48,923
that we had to take a sheet
1225
01:16:49,007 --> 01:16:52,548
and mark as much as possible what we were
going to try to do during the week.
1226
01:16:52,632 --> 01:16:56,965
And very quickly, the team only had
what was going to happen the next day,
1227
01:16:57,048 --> 01:16:58,048
if that.
1228
01:16:58,090 --> 01:17:02,840
As always with Godard, when there is
a date for the first day of shooting,
1229
01:17:02,923 --> 01:17:04,357
and in general,
we don't shoot the first day.
1230
01:17:04,382 --> 01:17:07,215
Then the second day we don't shoot,
neither the third day.
1231
01:17:07,298 --> 01:17:11,132
This is what happened in any case
for "Every Man For Himself".
1232
01:17:11,215 --> 01:17:14,507
But is it your program or mine?
Will you answer me, damn it?
1233
01:17:14,590 --> 01:17:16,548
- Listen, Denise.
- Is he going to answer?
1234
01:17:16,632 --> 01:17:18,757
- Is this fascist going to answer?
- Take it easy.
1235
01:17:18,839 --> 01:17:22,257
The fight, the rehearsals...
1236
01:17:22,340 --> 01:17:25,548
And there is a scene...
1237
01:17:26,298 --> 01:17:27,590
It's the elephant scene.
1238
01:17:28,048 --> 01:17:33,298
Nathalie Baye, the actress,
is cycling in a forest.
1239
01:17:33,382 --> 01:17:38,673
Her bicycle has a flat
and an elephant comes out of the forest,
1240
01:17:38,757 --> 01:17:40,757
takes her with its trunk.
1241
01:17:40,839 --> 01:17:43,882
It takes Nathalie Baye
and it leaves the shot.
1242
01:17:44,298 --> 01:17:48,965
There, we see, we will go and look
with the mahout.
1243
01:17:49,048 --> 01:17:53,382
And then the mahout speaks to Nathalie
to give her gestures.
1244
01:17:53,465 --> 01:17:55,757
Can you imagine Natalie Baye?
1245
01:17:55,839 --> 01:17:57,090
We shoot the scene. Rolling.
1246
01:17:57,423 --> 01:18:00,215
And he says: "Yeah, that's perfect.
It won't be in the movie."
1247
01:18:01,632 --> 01:18:05,757
But it will.
He must not work against the film.
1248
01:18:07,007 --> 01:18:09,923
At the Cannes screening
for "Every Man For Himself"
1249
01:18:10,007 --> 01:18:11,839
I was with Jean-Luc.
1250
01:18:11,882 --> 01:18:15,257
And when we left the theatre,
there were people who called him a genius.
1251
01:18:15,340 --> 01:18:17,673
But there were people
who were horrible to him
1252
01:18:18,132 --> 01:18:20,173
and called him names.
1253
01:18:20,257 --> 01:18:23,257
And I will always remember,
I took his hand like that.
1254
01:18:23,340 --> 01:18:25,798
I was angry
1255
01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:29,757
and very, very emotional.
1256
01:18:29,839 --> 01:18:32,757
I found it very, very hard.
1257
01:18:33,507 --> 01:18:35,132
The film was poorly received
1258
01:18:35,215 --> 01:18:37,298
and, against all odds,
the movie is a success.
1259
01:18:37,382 --> 01:18:40,340
Basically, it's a theory film
for the general public.
1260
01:18:40,423 --> 01:18:44,839
It's a lesson of avant-garde filmmakers
1261
01:18:44,882 --> 01:18:49,923
who joins the cinema
of the general public,
1262
01:18:50,007 --> 01:18:53,882
which is actually rare
in the history of cinema.
1263
01:18:55,257 --> 01:18:59,882
There he heavily insists about the fact
that he now works as a painter.
1264
01:18:59,965 --> 01:19:03,757
And the cinema does not recover
from the passage of Jean-Luc Godard
1265
01:19:03,839 --> 01:19:07,340
as the painting does not recover
from the passage of Picasso.
1266
01:19:07,423 --> 01:19:09,840
In fact, Godard's problem,
like all great artists,
1267
01:19:09,923 --> 01:19:15,007
is to make cinema, his art,
do something for which it is not made.
1268
01:19:18,090 --> 01:19:20,965
Films are made. The images are made there.
1269
01:19:21,632 --> 01:19:23,340
They are made when you can't see them.
1270
01:19:25,173 --> 01:19:28,007
The invisible, it's this,
it's what we don't see.
1271
01:19:28,715 --> 01:19:30,382
The incredible, it's this.
1272
01:19:31,757 --> 01:19:33,840
The incredible is what we do not see.
1273
01:19:34,298 --> 01:19:37,798
And cinema shows the incredible.
1274
01:19:42,632 --> 01:19:44,757
A new period is beginning for Godard.
1275
01:19:45,382 --> 01:19:47,107
He continues his visual
and narrative research,
1276
01:19:47,132 --> 01:19:50,215
but reintegrates
the classical production system.
1277
01:20:03,382 --> 01:20:07,257
It was in the early 80s
that he shot some of his major works
1278
01:20:07,340 --> 01:20:09,882
such as "Passion", with Hanna Schygulla.
1279
01:20:11,298 --> 01:20:13,465
You cannot fail to remember
1280
01:20:14,048 --> 01:20:16,382
everything you experienced with Godard
1281
01:20:16,465 --> 01:20:18,257
since he is so unique.
1282
01:20:18,715 --> 01:20:23,382
And that is really the real situation,
that I listen to this music?
1283
01:20:23,465 --> 01:20:27,132
He told me: "There will be a love scene
1284
01:20:27,465 --> 01:20:31,715
but I don't want it to be a love scene.
1285
01:20:33,715 --> 01:20:39,757
I would like Jerzy to take your head
1286
01:20:39,839 --> 01:20:42,007
and shake your head.
1287
01:20:42,090 --> 01:20:45,839
It can also sometimes be brutal.
1288
01:20:45,882 --> 01:20:48,257
Or else very caressing."
1289
01:20:49,298 --> 01:20:52,173
I said to myself, we say that love
1290
01:20:52,548 --> 01:20:54,632
makes you "lose your head",
1291
01:20:55,048 --> 01:20:56,965
maybe that's it.
1292
01:20:57,048 --> 01:21:01,090
It may be a very poetic transcription.
1293
01:21:06,340 --> 01:21:12,465
He assumes
that it's better not to eat your fill
1294
01:21:12,548 --> 01:21:14,340
and not to understand everything,
1295
01:21:14,423 --> 01:21:15,965
especially that.
1296
01:21:16,715 --> 01:21:18,048
Yes, he does.
1297
01:21:18,132 --> 01:21:23,548
Yes, because as soon as you think
you've understood, a window closes.
1298
01:21:24,048 --> 01:21:26,340
I understand...
1299
01:21:26,423 --> 01:21:28,632
I still don't understand you very well.
1300
01:21:29,839 --> 01:21:33,423
Maybe it's not so useful to understand...
1301
01:21:34,507 --> 01:21:36,048
It's enough to stand.
1302
01:21:37,257 --> 01:21:39,798
A worker is fired by her boss.
1303
01:21:41,007 --> 01:21:45,548
She falls in love with a foreigner
who is shooting a film in the region.
1304
01:21:46,257 --> 01:21:47,882
But the boss' wife
1305
01:21:48,423 --> 01:21:51,715
also falls in love with the foreigner
1306
01:21:52,257 --> 01:21:56,048
and he can't find a story for his film,
1307
01:21:56,132 --> 01:21:58,757
when there are so many around him.
1308
01:22:02,298 --> 01:22:05,632
He always used to complain.
1309
01:22:05,715 --> 01:22:08,673
No, no, nobody was...
1310
01:22:09,215 --> 01:22:11,340
Nobody was ever really with his film.
1311
01:22:11,423 --> 01:22:14,798
While everyone was really with his film.
1312
01:22:15,757 --> 01:22:22,007
So there were like childish wounds
that you could feel...
1313
01:22:22,465 --> 01:22:27,215
in him, but that you couldn't really...
1314
01:22:27,298 --> 01:22:30,257
Anyway, I would never have talked
to him about that.
1315
01:22:30,340 --> 01:22:33,632
But he loves pain too, I think.
1316
01:22:34,798 --> 01:22:40,215
And he likes to feel it, I think.
And he likes to give it too.
1317
01:23:15,590 --> 01:23:18,007
We are in an operation
1318
01:23:18,923 --> 01:23:23,423
where, we make the film, they are paid,
we are together,
1319
01:23:23,507 --> 01:23:26,465
we are a family, we eat together.
1320
01:23:26,548 --> 01:23:29,798
The film is over,
no one asks about me anymore.
1321
01:23:29,840 --> 01:23:32,590
Does anyone want to know
how I'm doing anymore?
1322
01:23:33,048 --> 01:23:35,882
Maybe vaguely about the film a week later,
if the editing goes well.
1323
01:23:35,965 --> 01:23:36,965
But no one cares.
1324
01:23:40,757 --> 01:23:43,715
This is how he functions, hyper bad faith.
1325
01:23:43,798 --> 01:23:48,548
And so, he is in a kind of isolation
that he creates himself,
1326
01:23:48,632 --> 01:23:53,548
which means that the only relationships
he has is when he's filming.
1327
01:24:06,923 --> 01:24:09,590
I know what I need.
It's because I'm all alone
1328
01:24:09,673 --> 01:24:11,132
and I don't see anyone.
1329
01:24:11,215 --> 01:24:14,715
And that I only see the cinema
to meet someone quickly.
1330
01:24:16,590 --> 01:24:20,882
If I'm in a waiting room at the station
and I'm all alone,
1331
01:24:20,965 --> 01:24:24,048
if a girl and a boy come in like that
and I want to talk to them.
1332
01:24:24,132 --> 01:24:27,007
The only way, a direct way, right now,
1333
01:24:27,882 --> 01:24:32,382
is hiring them for a film.
1334
01:24:32,465 --> 01:24:35,839
It's true. This way I can talk to them.
Otherwise, I can't.
1335
01:24:35,882 --> 01:24:39,132
I can't say: "Who is your mother?
Who do you love? Who is your boss?"
1336
01:24:39,215 --> 01:24:42,465
And besides, there is total silence
in the waiting rooms.
1337
01:24:49,298 --> 01:24:51,798
Hello, hello? I can't hear you.
1338
01:24:51,840 --> 01:24:53,632
Yes! Now I can hear you again.
1339
01:24:53,715 --> 01:24:58,965
It's interesting because the first film
I made was with Godard.
1340
01:24:59,048 --> 01:25:00,173
I was 14 years old.
1341
01:25:00,257 --> 01:25:02,632
- What class are you in?
- Year 9.
1342
01:25:02,715 --> 01:25:03,798
Are you a good student?
1343
01:25:04,882 --> 01:25:06,298
Well, I'm average.
1344
01:25:06,382 --> 01:25:08,048
What do you want to do later?
1345
01:25:08,132 --> 01:25:10,840
I want to make movies,
well, I want to be an actress.
1346
01:25:11,839 --> 01:25:16,048
The set of "Detective"
was a very intense experience.
1347
01:25:16,923 --> 01:25:19,423
For me, to communicate with him
was not a problem
1348
01:25:19,507 --> 01:25:21,632
but for someone it was impossible.
1349
01:25:21,715 --> 01:25:25,923
I saw it, I saw how difficult it was
for him and for them in return.
1350
01:25:26,007 --> 01:25:29,923
I saw how things were going
with Bruno Nuytten, it wasn't easy.
1351
01:25:30,007 --> 01:25:32,048
Bruno Nuytten was director of photography.
1352
01:25:32,132 --> 01:25:36,465
We have rarely seen many technicians
invest in production, I'm sorry.
1353
01:25:36,548 --> 01:25:39,965
We have rarely seen many technicians
inventing equipment.
1354
01:25:40,048 --> 01:25:42,340
Nagra was not invented
by a sound engineer.
1355
01:25:42,423 --> 01:25:44,548
You didn't invent Arriflex.
1356
01:25:44,632 --> 01:25:49,257
We have had a funny relationship
with you for five weeks.
1357
01:25:49,340 --> 01:25:51,965
Yes, and I also have
a funny relationship with you.
1358
01:25:52,048 --> 01:25:53,048
I know.
1359
01:25:54,298 --> 01:25:56,465
And you have a funny relationship
with the sun.
1360
01:26:01,382 --> 01:26:06,673
With Johnny, for example,
he was incredibly considerate and kind.
1361
01:26:06,757 --> 01:26:11,382
Anyway, as Johnny was very calm,
very happy to shoot with Godard.
1362
01:26:11,465 --> 01:26:13,298
He was calm and who was watching all this
1363
01:26:13,382 --> 01:26:16,465
because for him,
it was like a science fiction thing.
1364
01:26:16,548 --> 01:26:18,757
Godard, even by himself,
apart from his films,
1365
01:26:18,839 --> 01:26:21,173
is one of the people
who doesn't leave anyone indifferent.
1366
01:26:21,632 --> 01:26:23,673
It's either you hate him or you love him.
1367
01:26:23,757 --> 01:26:27,423
And in general, when you hate him,
I hated him sometimes during the shooting,
1368
01:26:28,007 --> 01:26:30,715
then he smiles at you
and you start loving him.
1369
01:26:34,298 --> 01:26:37,839
{\an8}If you're a bit humble and intelligent,
I think,
1370
01:26:38,173 --> 01:26:43,507
{\an8}you accept that you don't know anything
and that you always have to search.
1371
01:26:43,590 --> 01:26:48,673
{\an8}He puts himself in the position
of researcher and student.
1372
01:26:50,215 --> 01:26:53,965
That's why somehow he got along well
with Johnny,
1373
01:26:54,423 --> 01:26:56,965
with me,
with people who weren't in a state to say
1374
01:26:57,048 --> 01:26:59,023
"I know everything,
I'm a great actor, a great actress",
1375
01:26:59,048 --> 01:27:00,673
{\an8}a great actress",
1376
01:27:00,757 --> 01:27:01,965
{\an8}he hated that.
1377
01:27:02,048 --> 01:27:05,923
{\an8}He liked people
who weren't actually fully actors yet,
1378
01:27:06,007 --> 01:27:08,757
{\an8}not fully cinematographers,
not fully this or that.
1379
01:27:11,840 --> 01:27:14,465
He agreed to bear his name again,
1380
01:27:14,548 --> 01:27:17,839
to once again become for the world
Jean-Luc Godard, the great filmmaker.
1381
01:27:20,215 --> 01:27:23,632
His aura keeps growing.
1382
01:27:28,382 --> 01:27:30,632
He also exposes himself in his own films,
1383
01:27:30,715 --> 01:27:35,173
giving himself the role of filmmakers
in full doubt or of a mad inventor.
1384
01:27:38,132 --> 01:27:41,048
His characters oscillate
between burlesque and tragic
1385
01:27:41,132 --> 01:27:44,423
which make porous the border
between the reality of a man
1386
01:27:44,507 --> 01:27:45,840
and the fiction that this man
1387
01:27:45,923 --> 01:27:47,340
has made of his life.
1388
01:27:51,965 --> 01:27:53,857
People who don't have
all the cultural references
1389
01:27:53,882 --> 01:27:55,839
that may be necessary
to understand your films.
1390
01:27:56,757 --> 01:27:59,590
- We only talked about references.
- You did, not me.
1391
01:27:59,673 --> 01:28:01,798
Personally,
I grasp your film instinctively,
1392
01:28:01,840 --> 01:28:03,840
but I lack
a whole background of references
1393
01:28:03,923 --> 01:28:05,215
that people around you have.
1394
01:28:05,298 --> 01:28:06,738
You are lacking nothing, aren't you?
1395
01:28:08,507 --> 01:28:10,673
- I asked you something.
- Tell me what you lack.
1396
01:28:13,757 --> 01:28:15,048
In the film, I mean.
1397
01:28:17,923 --> 01:28:21,507
Jean-Luc Godard,
considered a revolutionary of cinema...
1398
01:28:21,590 --> 01:28:23,710
It is also the beginning
of international recognition.
1399
01:28:24,173 --> 01:28:26,548
In 1983 at the age of 53,
1400
01:28:26,882 --> 01:28:30,798
he received the Golden Lion in Venice
for his film "First Name: Carmen".
1401
01:28:33,257 --> 01:28:34,715
He made quite shocking films.
1402
01:28:34,798 --> 01:28:36,715
I know "First Name: Carmen",
1403
01:28:36,798 --> 01:28:39,798
{\an8}sexuality and all were very...
And he got a pie in the face.
1404
01:28:40,215 --> 01:28:45,132
A pie in the face from someone
who didn't appreciate
1405
01:28:45,215 --> 01:28:48,548
the nudity of the Virgin Mary
in his film "Hail Mary".
1406
01:28:51,840 --> 01:28:54,173
Where does Jean-Luc Godard stand today?
1407
01:28:54,257 --> 01:28:56,382
{\an8}He spoke in the media,
he went on talk shows
1408
01:28:56,465 --> 01:28:59,257
where they only talked about anarchists
1409
01:28:59,340 --> 01:29:00,590
{\an8}and crazy stuff.
1410
01:29:00,673 --> 01:29:04,423
Philippe, any text written by Mistic
has this force,
1411
01:29:04,507 --> 01:29:05,732
this violence in relation to the body.
1412
01:29:05,757 --> 01:29:08,340
And that's how the newspaper...
That's how it is.
1413
01:29:08,423 --> 01:29:11,839
Every audience member who enters
says the title of the film,
1414
01:29:11,882 --> 01:29:13,798
and says "Hail Mary".
1415
01:29:13,840 --> 01:29:16,882
At that point, he gets a ticket,
he gives the money and...
1416
01:29:18,173 --> 01:29:20,507
I'd rather talk to Vitez because...
1417
01:29:20,590 --> 01:29:21,923
{\an8}I understand.
1418
01:29:22,007 --> 01:29:25,215
{\an8}Otherwise, I'm going to say bad things
about you that it's not worth it.
1419
01:29:25,298 --> 01:29:26,590
{\an8}For no reason.
1420
01:29:26,673 --> 01:29:28,965
Absolutely, for no reason.
1421
01:29:29,632 --> 01:29:31,382
- Thank you, goodbye.
- Goodbye.
1422
01:29:33,548 --> 01:29:38,048
- Did they put foundation on you?
- No, I have it naturally.
1423
01:29:38,757 --> 01:29:39,757
It's my beard.
1424
01:29:39,798 --> 01:29:42,840
{\an8}There was something
with Marguerite Duras too, right?
1425
01:29:43,132 --> 01:29:47,298
Listen Jean-Luc, this disability you have,
maybe that's it.
1426
01:29:47,840 --> 01:29:49,923
Maybe that's what you have to endure.
1427
01:29:50,007 --> 01:29:52,340
They argued a little,
but at the same time, there was love.
1428
01:29:52,423 --> 01:29:54,757
It was complicated, it was weird.
1429
01:29:54,839 --> 01:29:56,923
He can be mean,
but there is still a lot of love.
1430
01:29:57,007 --> 01:29:58,840
I am not a human being.
1431
01:29:58,923 --> 01:30:03,715
I am being alive
and I follow myself as a human being.
1432
01:30:05,840 --> 01:30:06,965
Thank you, Isabelle.
1433
01:30:07,048 --> 01:30:10,298
{\an8}Of course, thanks to the professionals
in the profession, as I said.
1434
01:30:10,382 --> 01:30:12,007
{\an8}The "professionals in the profession".
1435
01:30:12,090 --> 01:30:17,007
And thank you, since I spoke of shadow
and light, to the invisible.
1436
01:30:17,340 --> 01:30:19,673
Thanks to Gaumont's switchboard operator.
1437
01:30:20,507 --> 01:30:22,187
There was this thing
where they always gave
1438
01:30:22,839 --> 01:30:25,590
the César d'honneur
to someone who was going to die.
1439
01:30:25,673 --> 01:30:28,382
{\an8}I think he spread the word
that he was sick.
1440
01:30:28,465 --> 01:30:29,882
{\an8}I really think so,
1441
01:30:29,965 --> 01:30:32,673
{\an8}to poke fun at them a little.
1442
01:30:32,757 --> 01:30:35,132
You, the eternal marginal of cinema,
right?
1443
01:30:35,215 --> 01:30:38,673
Yes, you know, the margin
is what holds the pages together.
1444
01:30:39,673 --> 01:30:41,193
{\an8}I think Godard is really an introvert.
1445
01:30:42,465 --> 01:30:44,840
Like he has this particular social thing.
1446
01:30:44,923 --> 01:30:48,257
I think people like that
are constantly creating,
1447
01:30:48,340 --> 01:30:49,507
otherwise they go nuts.
1448
01:30:50,132 --> 01:30:51,173
Anyone?
1449
01:30:53,048 --> 01:30:54,257
Is there anyone?
1450
01:30:55,673 --> 01:30:56,673
And...
1451
01:30:59,465 --> 01:31:01,548
There would be somewhere.
1452
01:31:03,882 --> 01:31:05,298
And here is the light.
1453
01:31:06,507 --> 01:31:10,007
Here are the soldiers. Here are
the bosses. Here are the children.
1454
01:31:11,132 --> 01:31:13,340
And here is the light. Here is the joy.
1455
01:31:14,215 --> 01:31:17,048
Here is the war. Here is the angel.
Here is fear.
1456
01:31:17,632 --> 01:31:18,839
And here is light.
1457
01:31:20,090 --> 01:31:22,839
Here is the universal wound.
Here is the night.
1458
01:31:22,882 --> 01:31:26,715
Here is the Virgin.
Here is grace and here is light.
1459
01:31:27,423 --> 01:31:29,715
And here is the light
and here is the light.
1460
01:31:30,548 --> 01:31:31,965
And here is the mist.
1461
01:31:32,840 --> 01:31:35,382
And here is the adventure.
And here is the fiction.
1462
01:31:36,548 --> 01:31:37,839
And here is the real.
1463
01:31:39,173 --> 01:31:41,590
And here is the documentary.
And here is the movement.
1464
01:31:43,173 --> 01:31:44,507
And here is the cinema.
1465
01:31:45,048 --> 01:31:46,632
And here is the picture.
1466
01:31:47,090 --> 01:31:49,632
And here is the sound.
And here is the cinema.
1467
01:31:50,632 --> 01:31:52,673
Here is the cinema. Here is the cinema.
1468
01:32:00,298 --> 01:32:05,090
Godard during his first period
did not talk about his childhood
1469
01:32:05,173 --> 01:32:06,882
or of childhood.
1470
01:32:07,132 --> 01:32:10,007
At this moment "JLG/JLG" arrives
and I see the photo
1471
01:32:10,715 --> 01:32:11,715
of Godard as a child.
1472
01:32:14,048 --> 01:32:16,007
The story of the photo
1473
01:32:16,090 --> 01:32:19,007
is as if, all of a sudden,
he was trying to understand
1474
01:32:19,090 --> 01:32:21,257
who he was and where he came from.
1475
01:32:23,590 --> 01:32:26,382
It usually starts like that,
1476
01:32:26,923 --> 01:32:28,340
death is coming.
1477
01:32:28,839 --> 01:32:30,548
And then we start to mourn.
1478
01:32:30,632 --> 01:32:33,048
And then we start to mourn.
1479
01:32:33,132 --> 01:32:35,798
But I did the opposite. First I mourned.
1480
01:32:36,132 --> 01:32:38,215
First I mourned.
1481
01:32:38,298 --> 01:32:39,673
But death did not come.
1482
01:32:39,757 --> 01:32:41,673
But death did not come.
1483
01:32:42,548 --> 01:32:46,548
That's undoubtedly why I had that somewhat
devastated look in the photo.
1484
01:32:46,632 --> 01:32:50,507
Which did not come
from a pair of slaps or a sprain.
1485
01:32:51,257 --> 01:32:57,215
No. I was already in mourning for myself,
my one and only companion.
1486
01:32:57,298 --> 01:33:01,257
I was already in mourning for myself,
my one and only companion.
1487
01:33:04,798 --> 01:33:09,340
I thought it looked like the picture
of the little boy from the Warsaw ghetto.
1488
01:33:10,340 --> 01:33:14,839
The difference between Godard,
a child in his rich environment,
1489
01:33:14,882 --> 01:33:18,840
and the little boy of the Warsaw ghetto
is seminal.
1490
01:33:19,340 --> 01:33:22,507
His father is French
and his mother is French,
1491
01:33:22,590 --> 01:33:26,048
but they were rather
on the side of Pétain.
1492
01:33:26,132 --> 01:33:29,590
Well, Godard says that they were
more on the side of collaborators.
1493
01:33:30,382 --> 01:33:34,173
There is some shame
even if he has nothing to do with it.
1494
01:33:34,257 --> 01:33:36,257
He will end up saying it:
1495
01:33:36,340 --> 01:33:39,423
"Yes I was very protected
1496
01:33:39,507 --> 01:33:41,707
and that's why I started
to take an interest in history.
1497
01:33:42,132 --> 01:33:44,423
That's why I looked for documents.
1498
01:33:44,507 --> 01:33:47,757
When I was a boy, I saw, knew nothing,
nothing was explained to me."
1499
01:33:56,090 --> 01:33:57,257
This return to his past
1500
01:33:57,340 --> 01:33:59,798
became the beating heart
of a vast undertaking
1501
01:33:59,840 --> 01:34:02,798
that Godard initiated
at the end of the 1980s,
1502
01:34:02,840 --> 01:34:04,507
"Histoire(s) du Cinéma".
1503
01:34:06,757 --> 01:34:07,798
He says to himself:
1504
01:34:07,840 --> 01:34:09,548
"I can tell my story
1505
01:34:09,632 --> 01:34:13,923
if I articulate it with the history
of cinema and the History."
1506
01:34:14,798 --> 01:34:16,257
The history of cinema.
1507
01:34:18,673 --> 01:34:19,798
The Gulag Archipelago.
1508
01:34:28,215 --> 01:34:32,173
In the 8 episodes of this large amount
of images and sounds,
1509
01:34:32,257 --> 01:34:34,923
Godard stages himself
as a demiurge creator.
1510
01:34:35,007 --> 01:34:37,965
His ambition is to make History visible
1511
01:34:38,048 --> 01:34:41,340
and, thanks to editing,
to transform the visible into knowledge.
1512
01:34:42,132 --> 01:34:45,548
You don't have to tell history,
you have to see it, you have to show it.
1513
01:34:45,632 --> 01:34:49,507
Telling history is literature,
it's a screenplay, and so on.
1514
01:34:49,590 --> 01:34:52,298
He said: "That's bad cinema.
1515
01:34:52,382 --> 01:34:56,173
I have stories, but I don't tell them,
I show them."
1516
01:34:57,673 --> 01:34:58,923
It really is an art of collage.
1517
01:34:59,007 --> 01:35:01,548
He asked many friends and collaborators
1518
01:35:01,632 --> 01:35:04,257
to bring him their most damaged tapes,
1519
01:35:04,340 --> 01:35:06,548
tapes that had lost their colour.
1520
01:35:06,632 --> 01:35:09,673
When they asked me
and I brought DVDs,
1521
01:35:09,757 --> 01:35:12,382
he found them too neat,
too clean, too good.
1522
01:35:12,465 --> 01:35:16,090
"Don't you have tapes
whose colour would be lost?
1523
01:35:16,173 --> 01:35:18,590
That you had recorded from television?"
1524
01:35:20,548 --> 01:35:26,382
If past history is to be told,
it must be told with the ruins.
1525
01:35:26,465 --> 01:35:31,965
So, for him, the ruins of cinema
are excerpts, fragments.
1526
01:35:32,048 --> 01:35:35,173
That's what's left of the movies.
It's the memory he has of it.
1527
01:35:35,965 --> 01:35:40,632
Only cinema can be legitimate
1528
01:35:40,715 --> 01:35:43,882
for telling a story
made up of nothing but ruins.
1529
01:35:48,465 --> 01:35:51,840
For me, "Histoire(s) du Cinéma"
is one of the major works of the century.
1530
01:35:52,132 --> 01:35:57,382
And maybe we have said enough about
the amount of work that it represents.
1531
01:35:57,465 --> 01:35:58,965
I don't know if there are many works,
1532
01:35:59,048 --> 01:36:02,423
even in the other arts,
that have had this importance.
1533
01:36:04,007 --> 01:36:07,132
To compose this total work,
1534
01:36:07,215 --> 01:36:12,798
Godard used fragments
from 495 films and 148 books,
1535
01:36:12,840 --> 01:36:17,423
to which he added newsreels,
photographs and paintings.
1536
01:36:18,757 --> 01:36:21,215
The work spreads over ten years.
1537
01:36:21,840 --> 01:36:25,132
The last episode of "Histoire(s)
du Cinéma" was completed in 1998,
1538
01:36:25,215 --> 01:36:28,507
almost a century after
the invention of cinema.
1539
01:36:39,507 --> 01:36:42,507
What is cinema? Nothing
What does it want? Everything.
1540
01:36:42,590 --> 01:36:44,590
What can it do? Something.
1541
01:36:58,965 --> 01:37:01,965
Then Godard
will gradually disappear again.
1542
01:37:02,048 --> 01:37:05,090
To put the work forward,
the man withdraws.
1543
01:37:08,090 --> 01:37:10,673
Comes the time of mystery
shrouded in melancholy,
1544
01:37:10,757 --> 01:37:14,215
the time of enigma,
the time of the hermit of Rolle.
1545
01:37:36,507 --> 01:37:38,173
At over 80 years-old,
1546
01:37:38,257 --> 01:37:41,965
he parted with his archives,
his machines, his books,
1547
01:37:42,048 --> 01:37:43,840
his film collections.
1548
01:37:43,923 --> 01:37:46,340
Once again, he wipes
the slate clean of his past,
1549
01:37:46,423 --> 01:37:50,048
as if he were still trying to lighten up
and start over again.
1550
01:38:09,840 --> 01:38:13,590
And even if nothing
was to be as we had hoped,
1551
01:38:13,673 --> 01:38:16,090
it wouldn't change our expectations.
1552
01:38:16,173 --> 01:38:19,673
The expectations
would remain a necessary utopia.
1553
01:38:19,757 --> 01:38:23,673
Later too, the expectations
would flare many times over
1554
01:38:23,757 --> 01:38:25,798
stifled by the stronger enemy.
1555
01:38:25,840 --> 01:38:27,923
They would constantly awake
1556
01:38:28,007 --> 01:38:31,798
and the domain of expectations
would be larger than our time.
1557
01:38:31,840 --> 01:38:34,257
They would extend to all continents.
1558
01:38:58,090 --> 01:39:01,798
And even if nothing
was to be as we had hoped
1559
01:39:01,840 --> 01:39:04,298
it wouldn't change our expectations.