Jean-Luc Godard Histoire(s) du Cinema 3 (a) Monnaie L'absolu

So here is chapter 3(a) of Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinema --- La monnaie de l'absolu as translated by me.
One note: The last few pages, a paean to the Italian language is written in the Italian language. I have set that portion in italics (thank you, Aldo Manutio and Francesco Griffo).

This is continued from Chapter 2(b):

http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/11/godard-jlg-histoire-du-cinema-vesalius.html

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Chapter 3 (a)

The Currency of the Uncompromising

for

Gianni

Amico

for

James

Agee

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it begins to be necessary

to draw

the attention of the governments of Europe

to a fact so small

that it seems those governments

have not yet glimpsed it

what fact

right here

a people is being murdered

where

in Europe

this fact, does it have any witnesses

one witness

the whole world

the governments, do they see it

no

nations have above them

something

which is below them

governments

at certain moments

this aberration breaks down

civilization

is in the people

barbarism

is in the governments

this barbarism, is it wanted

no

it is simply professional

what the human species knows

governments are not aware of

this pertains

to what governments

never see

except throught their myopia

the reasons of states

the human species look at

with a different eye

conscience

we are going to asonish

the governments of Europe

by teaching one thing to them

it is that crimes are crimes

it is that ir is no more allowed

for a government

than an individual

to be a murderer

it is that Europe is undivided

it is that all that is done

in Europe

is done by Europe

it is that

if a government of wild beasts exist

it has to be treated as a wild beast

it is that the hour that it is

quite near to us

here, under our eyes

they massacre

they incinerate

they plunder

they exterminate

they slit the throats of mothers and fathers

they sell young girls

and young boys

it is that

the children too small to be sold

they cleave with a saber stroke

it is that they burn families in their houses

it is that some city

Balak for example

is reduced in a few hours

from 9000 inhabitants to 1300

it is that

the cemeteries are strewn

with more cadavers

than can be buried

so that

to the living who hurled them carnage

the dead hurl the plague

which serves them right

we will teach

the European governments

this

it is that pregnant woman are being opened up

to kill the children

in their entrails

it is that there are

in public squares

heaps of female skeletons

bearing evidence of disembowelment

it is that

dogs in the street gnaw on

the skulls of raped young girls

it is that

all of this is revolting

it is that a gesture of the

European govenments would be enough

to prevent it

and that the savages

who commit these outrages

are terrifying

and that the civilized ones

who let them trespass

are appalling

the governments stammer

a response

they have already tried out this stuttering

they say

you are exaggerating

yes, you exaggerating

it wasn't in a few hours

that the city of Balak was exterminated

it was in a few days

they said two hundred villages were burned

there were only ninety-nine

what you called plague

that was only typhus

all of the women had not been raped

all of the girls had not been sold

some few escaped

they castrated the prisonners

but they also cut off their heads

which mitigated the deed

the child that was said to have been thrown

from pike to pike

had been, in truth,

only run through with a bayonet

et cetera, et cetera

but then, why had this people revolted

why a do not herd of men

let themself be possessed

like a herd of cattle

why

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

this way to talk

adds to the horror

caviling public indignation

nothing more miserable

the mitagation exacerbates

it is subtleness pleading for barbarism

let's call things

by their name

to kill a man in a tract of woodlands

that is called the forest of Bondy

or the black forest

is a crime

to kill a people

in this other woodlands

which is called diplomacy

is also a crime

greater

that is all there is to it

where will it cease

when will this calvary of this

heroic little nation be ended

then they tell us

you forget that there are questions

to kill a man is a crime

to kill a people is a question

every government has its question

we respond

humanity also has its question

and here is that question

it is greater

than India

England and Russia

it is the little child

in its mother's belly

the bible tells us

that before leaving on their journey

Lot's daughters

wanted to look back

one last time

and that they were turned into pillars of stone

now, you film only the past

I mean

that what happens

and there are silver salts

which fix light

no stories

when I invented stories

when I invent nothing

what these stories are about then

that of the battle of Borodino

and the end of the French domination

as told by Tolstoy

that of the battle of Bagdad

as told by CNN

the triumph of American TV

and its groupies

a German Erich Pommer

founder of Universal

today Matsushita Electronics

exclaimed

I will make the whole world cry

in their seats

can it be said that he succeeded

on one hand

it is the truth

that newspapers and TV networks

around the world

show us only death

and tears

but on the other hand

it is just as true

that those left watching television

have no more tears to cry

they have clean forgotten how to see

yes

which story do we want

to suppose we are worthy

of the Charterhouse

and crimes and punishments

this is what David O Selznick

demanded

I want Del Rio and Tyrone Power

in a love story

set against the background of the south seas

the story is of little importance

as long as its titled

bird of paradise

and for Del Rio for a finish to jump

into a volcano

I was alone

lost, as they say

in my thoughts

I had a book in my hand

Manet, by Georges Bataille

all Manet's women

seem to be saying

I know what you are thinking

no doubt because

until this painter

- and I know this from Malraux -

interior reality

remained subtler

than the cosmos

the celebrated and colorless smiles

of da Vinci and of Vermeer

say first off me

me

and then the world

and even the woman

in the pink scarf

of Corot

does not think

what Olympia

does think

what Berthe Morisot does think

what the bar-maid at the folies-bergere

does think

because the world in brief

the interior world

connects with the cosmos

and with Edouard Manet

modern painting begins

that means

cinematography

that means

forms which progress

toward words

most exactly

a form which thinks

that cinema was first made

for thinking

one will soon forget

but that's another story

the flame will be put out

permanently

at Auschwitz

and this thinking is well worth

a hill of beans

yes, I was alone

lost, as is said

in my thoughts

Emile Zola comes along

with his eternal camera

he concluded Nana with these words

to Berlin, to Berlin

then Catherine Hessling comes along

and forty years

and two wars after Zola

as if by chance

she took the train for Berlin

it was the co-production

with UFA

the last will be Quai des Brumes

but Goebbels will screw it all up

in his eyes

Michele Morgan does not have beautiful eyes

yes, alas

I was alone

thinking that there were still several

on this train

of 1942

one year before

the liberation of Paris

Viviane

Albert, Danielle, Suzy

Junie

while the maquis

of Glieres was going to fall

despite the support

that the youngest of

the dames

of the bois de Boulogne

bore it

with a murmur

there were still several

and probably

I am still alone

imagining that one of the visitors

of these sad nights

of '42

that Gilles

no, not Drieu's

visited Dominique

mistake Anne

and asked

then, do we take it or not

this train of '42

and that their heart beat

beat, beat

yes, I was alone that night

with my dreams

still fifty years later

and they celebrate the liberation of Paris

which means that television

since all government has become spectacle

organizes a grand spectacle

but they don't even decorate

Guy Debord

and since French cinema

has not freed itself from the Germans

or the Americans

there will be no one to film

the doughty and gentle Claude Roy

whose seized the CNC

this citaldel erected by Vichy

and the waves regrouped

by Japanese cameras

will once again

will forget

to bury the dead

as the poet had done

that poetry

should first be resistance

Ossip Mandelstam

evidently

knew

but, it is customary

to ignore the russians

today

all that to say

why

from '40

'44

was there no cinema of resistance

not that there were no films of resistance

on the left, on the right

here, there

but the only film

in the sense of cinema

which resisted the occupation of cinema

by America

in a kind of uniform manner

to make cinema

this was Italian film

this was not by chance

Italy had been the country

which had fought the least

which suffered a lot

but which had betrayed both

and had thus suffered

in no longer having any identity

and if it regained it

with Rome Open City

it was that this film was made

by people not in uniform

this was the lone time

the Russains made

films of martyrdom

the Americans made

films of advertising

the English did what they had always done

in cinema

nothing

Germany had no cinema

no longer any cinema

and the French made

Sylvie and the ghost

the Polish made

two films of expiation

Passenger and The Last Stop

and a memory film

Kanal

and then in the end

they welcomed Spielberg

then, never again

became

this always was

while with Rome Open City

Italy had simply

regained the right

for a nation

to look itself in the face

and along came

the stunning harvest of the grand Italian cinema

but the was one odd thing nevertheless

how had Italian cinema

been able to become so great

since all of them

from Rossellini to Visconti

from Antonioni to Fellini

did not record the sound

with the images

one answer only

the language of Ovid and Virgil

of Dante and of Leopardi

came through

in the images

language of the antique marble of a cathedral

language of the sword and the suffering of sorrow

language that calls from a tower at the sea

language of the sea which brings new faces

language of mountains exposed to all the winds

which speaks of white snow in orange groves

language serene sweet hospitable

language of labor and language for burden

in the market for cloth, jewelry and gold

language of barques and sea-side serenading

language of stars and smiles from afar

language ordered by a man from Florence

who spoke of the heavens to the architect

language new divine universal

our Italian language

language which speaks

of palaces and fountains

language of the inn with wine and prostitutes

language of charm in the courts and in love

language of love which is beatiful in feeling

language which sings along the Arno to the sea

ending at the sands of the American continent

language ideal, generous and sensual

our Italian language

and in an airplane

which flies over the tranquil Atlantic

over the polar course or that in the Antilles

a pink rose colored with blood

spin of the rose

pricks you and you are its lover

and a slender

who defeats in fashion

leads in a red auto

prestigious on the road

so mixed with light and like a headlamp

projected to the moon

the great Italian cinema

the great Italian cinema

language of opera

language of bel canto

which sings with violins

plays with its accent

language of space

and ended in English

of division is cold

and formulaic in French

language of peace

language of culture

of the international

avant-garde

language of mine, of yours

our Italian language

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chaoter 3 (b)continued at:
http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/12/jean-luc-godard-new-wave-nouvelle-vague.html


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