Jean-Luc Godard "Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma"

When, in 1977, Henri Langlois died suddenly, he left unfulfilled a commitment to lecture at the University of Montreal in Canada. Jean-Luc Godard was called in to take up the relief. Through seven "voyages" (two lectures to a "voyage"), Godard compared one of his films to other films in the history of cinema. The lectures were published in 1980 as "Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma". Godard left this project feeling that the history of film was best told in images and and he was lead into the "Histoire(s) du Cinema" project. That book appears to have never been translated into English. What follows is the syllabus for that course.

First journey
Fallen Angel -- Otto Preminger
A Bout de souffle -- Jean-Luc Godard
&
M -- Fritz Lang
Le Petit soldat -- Jean-Luc Godard

Second journey
Nana -- Jean Renoir
The Passion of Joan of Arc -- Carl Theodore Dreyer
Greed -- Eric von Stroheim
Vampyr -- Carl Theodore Dreyer
Carmen Jones -- Otto Preminger
Vivre sa vie -- Jean-Luc Godard
&
The Man with a Camera -- Dziga Vertov
The Bad and the Beautiful -- Vincente Minnelli
La Nuit Americaine -- François Truffaut
Le Mépris -- Jean-Luc Godard

Third journey
Faust -- F W Murnau
Rancho Notorious -- Fritz Lang
La Belle et la bête -- Jean Cocteau
L'Année dernière à Marienbad -- Alain Resnais
Alphaville -- Jean-Luc Godard
&
Nanook of the North -- Robert Flaherty
The Flowers of Saint Francis -- Roberto Rossellini
Persona -- Ingmar Bergman
Une Femme mariée -- Jean-Luc Godard

Fourth journey
Sunrise -- F W Murnau
You Only Live Once -- Fritz Lang
Rebel Without a Cause -- Nicholas Ray
Ugetsu Monogatari -- Kenji Mizoguchi
Pierrot le fou -- Jean-Luc Godard
&
Sous les toits de Paris -- René Clair
Pickpocket -- Robert Bresson
La Fille de Prague avec un sac très lourd -- Danielle Jaeggi
Masculin Féminin -- Jean-Luc Godard

Fifth journey
Les Vampires -- Louis Feuillade
Underworld -- Joseph von Sternberg
The Postman Always Rings Twice -- Tay Garnett
Made in U.S.A. -- Jean-Luc Godard
&
Potemkin -- Sergei Eisenstein
L'Age d'or -- Louis Bunuel-Salvador Dali
Mr Deeds Goes to Town -- Frank Capra
Le Chinoise -- Jean-Luc Godard

Sixth journey
Dracula -- Tod Browning
Germany Year Zero -- Roberto Rossellini
The Birds -- Alfred Hitchcock
Week End -- Jean-Luc Godard
&
Arsenal -- Alexander Dovchenko
La Règle du jeu -- Jean Renoir
Europe 51 -- Roberto Rossellini
Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle -- Jean-Luc Godard

Seventh Journey
Top Hat -- Mark Sandrich
Brigadoon -- Vincente Minnelli
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones -- Rollin Binzer
New York New York -- Martin Scorcese
One Plus One -- Jean-Luc Godard
&
The Last Patrol -- John Ford
Alexander Nevsky -- Sergei Eisenstein
Open City -- Roberto Rossellini
Les Carbiniers -- Jean-Luc Godard

Histoire(s) du Cinema -- Chapter 4(b) Part Two

continued from
chapter 4(b) Part One
http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/12/godard-langlois-celan.html

.

.

.
Introduction
to
a
veritable
history
of
cinema
the only
the true
.
.
chapter 4 (b)
Part One
The Signs Among Us
for
Anne-Marie
Miéville
for
myself
.
.

The text in red and italicized that this sections begins with is from Paul Celan's poem "Todisfugue" and in German in the original. It is from the "Paul Celan - die Todesfuge" site. The two passages in white that are italicized are in English in the original.

.
.
he writes it
when it grows dark
to Deutschland
your golden haired
Margarita
he writes it
and steps out
of doors
and the stars
are all sparkling
his whistles
his hounds to come close
his whistles
for his Jews into rows
has them shovel
a grave
in the ground
he commands us
to play up
for the dance
when
one knows
what number
of deaths
and not of deaths
symbolic
or pantomimed
but of real deaths
that pay for the advent
of one single life
one no longer cares
in any ordinary
sense
only life
refills itself
to the point
of detonation
which gives
its only sense
of this life
irreducible in every sense
it is in living

the combination

of all the powers

of the body

that life ceases

questioning

itself

and admits

itself

as pure answer

an event

which no longer even has

a need to proclaim

its assent

to itself

in order to be the greatest

of assents

nothing can

address

this relationship

of the body

to the world

the degree zero

of the other

rests

from when one articulates

the word man

but what is
Europe dying of

Dostoyevsky

born in autumn

dead in winter

but why

was he fascinated

by the martyrdom

of an innocent child

by a brute

because there need be

a russian people

in waddling

these political slaves

need to be admired

for their moral freedom

it need be that these brutes

in the hell of drunkenness

and of massacres

might be just the same

rich in an unconsciousness

which has no longer any equal in Europe

it need be that this people

capable of anything sometimes

as cruel children

and who are asleep

the rest of the time

in a frightful impotence

it must however be

that these are the only people in Europe

who still have a god

quiet down

Cassandra
as we have not

awoken

from what

for love

of what

curtain-raiser

do we strip ourselves

of our dreams

how do dare

at awakening

bear them

into the light

oh

in the light

each of us

bears

around him

the invisible dreams

the music

raises us all

to

this line of light

you know

which flickers

under the curtain

when an orchestra

tunes

its violins

the dance begins

so our hands

clasp

and separate

we look

into oblivion

one at the other

our bodies

graze

discreetly
each avoids

awakening

the other

from the dream

not let him

regain

the darkness

strip the night

of the night

which is not

the day

as

we love each other

this meanwhile is

what I love

in general

about film
a saturation

of magnificent signs

which are bathing

in the light

of their absence

of explanation

that's not said

that's not said

that's not said

that is written

Flaubert, no

Pushkin

Flaubert

Dostoyevsky

it is written Flaubert

Dostoyevsky

it is composed

Gershwin, Mozart

it is painted

Cezanne, Vermeer

it is filmed

Antonioni, Vigo

young lady

young lady

what is it

young lady

I took the shortcut

top speed

to tell you

a secret

yet one

but

what is it

the beacon lights

are out

the beacon lights

some people can sing

some can't

impossible

impossible

yes

but history

in the end

what is it

right at the end

Malraux

we sensed totally

that the game

belonged

to a domain bleaker

than the political

domain

Braudel

as we measure

the crowd of those

who deny their misery

the number of these hearts

who wish to be

themselves

to live their lives

in spite of everything
as if our life
was our own
alas
at our disposition
and this ass-wipe
Cioran
nothing of what
we know
remains
unexpiated
we pay
dearly
sooner or later
no matter what
the courage of thought
or indiscretion
of the spirit
and the young
Peguy
ah history
a somber fidelity
for the things
fallen
I warned you
witness means martyr
that it does
there
right there
do you see
Peguy
it says
today
they appeal
to the judgment of history
it is the modern appeal
it is modern
judgment
poor friends
they take me
for the judge
and I am
only the script

girl

they have raise for us
a casement
it says
we live
in a system
where we can
do everything
save for history
of what is done
where we can
achieve everything
save for
the history
of that achievement
do you see
Peguy
it says
night falls
always
an image
is not powerful
because it is brutal
or fantastic
but because
the association of ideas
is universal
universal
and accurate
I am given a name
history
and a first name
Clio
what would it have been
had it not been
a matter of text
but of movement
itself
of an idea
of reality
of life
handling
in both hands
the present
the future
and the past
a king can
conclude his reign
but one will never conclude
the history
of that reign
when philosophy
paints its grayness
in the grayness
the appearance of life
finally becomes aged
we can not revive it
with gray on gray
only know it

go
schuss, schuss
Marguerite
Germaine
happy non-birthday
Margarete
Milena
isn't it so
Djamila
I did not think
about death
there is no death
there is only
who is going to die

nothing is
as useful
as a text
and nothing is
as useful
as a word
in a text
we had nothing
save for the book
to put
in the book
so it will be
when it has to be
in the book
in the book
to put reality
and in the second degree
when it is necessary
to put

into reality
reality
that it still happens
my friend
night falls
vacations end
I must have a day
to make
the history of a second
a year
to make the history
of a minute
I must have
a lifetime
to make
the story of an hour
I must have an eternity
to make
the story
of a day
we can do everything
save for
the history
of what we do
the privilege
is for me
to film
and live
in France
as an artist
nothing like
a country
which descends
every day
by degrees on
the path
of its inexorable decline
nothing better
than a rland
ever more provincial
directed
by rotating teams
of the same incapables
dishonest
and all corrupted
from their support
of a regime
of complete and permanent
corruption
what
is preferable
to these accommodations in a domain
where justice appears
as the worst bazaar
what artist
would not dream
of such a nation
the fourth economic power
worldwide
they tell us
while its denial
is sleeping in front of our door
waiting
for a rcoin
to quiet
a little
the distress
of those who are hungry
yes
it is of our time
that I am
the fleeing enemy
yes, the totalitarianism
of the present
such that it is applied
mechanically
each day more oppressively
on the planetary level
this faceless
tyranny
which effaces all of us
for the exclusive profit
of the organization
systematic
of time unified
in the instant
this tyranny global
and abstract
from my point of view
fleeing
I try
to oppose myself
because

I try
because I try

in my compositions

to show

an ear which is listening

to time

and also try

to make it understand

and so to surge

into the future

death being already

included in my time

I can

in fact

only be the enemy

of our time

since this undertaking aims

exactly

for the abolition of time

where I see in this state

only a life

worthy to be lived

when one century

is slowly fading

into the next century

some individuals

are modifying the old

means of

survival

into new means

these are

these last

that we call

art

the only thing

which survives each epoque

is the form of art

which it creates

no activity

will become

an art

before its epoque

be terminated

afterwards

this art will disappear

it was thus that

the art of the 19th century

film

gave the 20th century existence

which in itself

little existed

men

and women

once believed

in the prophets

now

they believe

in the man

of state

nothing

is more contrary

to the image

of the loved being

other than that

of the state

whose reason is opposed

to the sovereign value

of love

the state is not at all

or it has lost

the power to embrace

before us

the totality of the world

this totality

of the universe

given

at the same time

to the outside

in the loved being

as object

to the inside

in the lover

as subject

film

thus feared

nothing

from others

nor from itself

it was not

in the shelter

of time

it was the shelter

of time

yes, the image

is happiness

but near it

nothingness lies

and all the power

of the image

can be expressed

only by paying call on this

maybe it should

be added again

the image

able of denying

nothingness

is also the regard

of nothingness on us

it is light

and it is

immensely heavy

it shines

and it is

this diffuse thickness

where nothing

appears

Emily Dickinson

the most ephemeral

of moments

possesses

an illustrious

past

But first

Elpenor came

our friend Elpenor

unburied, cast

on the wide earth

limbs that we left

in the house

of Circe

unwept, unwrapped

in the sepulchre

since toils

urged other

pitiful spirit

if a man

if

a man

crossed through

paradise

while dreaming

that he received a flower

as a proof

of his passage

and at his awakening

he found

that flower

in his hands

what is there to say

well

I was

that man
.
.an

Jean-Luc Godard Histoire(s) du Cinema 4 (b) Part One

continued from
chapter 4(a) Part Two
http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/12/jean-luc-godard-hitchcock.html

.
.

.Introduction
to
a
veritable
history
of
cinema
the only
the true
.
.
chapter 4 (b)
Part One
The Signs Among Us
for
Anne-Marie
Miéville
for
myself
.
.

man
man
has in his poor heart
places
places
which do not exist
yet
and where
pain
enters
in order that
that they would be
that they would be
and I understand
better
why I met with
so many problems
beginning
just now
I know very well
now
what was the voice
which I should have wanted
to precede me
to bear me
to invite me
to speak
and which itself dwells
in my own discourse
I know
what was
so petrifying
in starting
to speak
since I was starting
in this place
where I once listened to him

and where he no longer is
himself
to hear me
oh that
guessing the moment
the loneliest
of nature
my melody
complete and unique
rises
into the night
and redoubles
and does
everything that it can
and speaks the thing
which is the thing
and falls back down
and re-echos
and brings grief
oh
alone of sobbing
and re-echos
and falls again
according to the task
that is assigned it
sometimes I hear
men
telling stories
sometimes
I hear
men telling stories
of the pleasure
that they took
with this one
or that one
oh
it is not
coarseness
the words sometimes
very precise
no
but I do not know
I wanted
to tell them
let's see
let's see
it was something else
something else

there are no words
for that
it can not be recorded

in the sentences
or rather
if I begin
a sentence
thinking that I have there
on the tip
of my tongue
the scene
the moment
the color
the undone dress
this clarity
on the body
of the woman
a shoulder
strap which slips down
and this feeling
of fear
mixed with hatred
in her
her arms
the lost head
the disorder
which reveals itelf
in the memory
I have not
truly forgotten
but it's going
if I force
the memory
all of a sudden
I understand
what is happening to me
I imagine
there it is
I no longer remember
I imagine
well, now
it is day
I think
you are deaf
Rachel, cruel
but I have
what I wanted
you have nothing
at all
to love
one needs a body

without Simon
you would not exist
you don't enter the homes

of others that way

that is not quitecorrect
this is what is correct
in 1932
the Dutchman, Jan Ort
is studying the stars
which are splitting away
from the milky way
soon
as foreseen
gravity attracts them
to draw back
by observing the position
and the speed
of these repatriated stars
Ort was able to calculate
the mass of our galaxy
it was his surprise
to discover
that visible matter
represented only
50 per cent
of the mass necessary
for the deployment
of such as that force
of gravity
where passed thus
the other half
of the universe
the phantom matter
was born
omnipresent
but invisible
do not go
gentle

into that good night
it is the time when
in the countryside
we suspect
the barking of dogs
in the dead of night
the time when
multicolored parachutes
laden with guns
and cigarettes
fell out of the sky
in the light of fires
in clearings
or on plateaus
the time of cellars
and these desperate screams
which the tortured shout
with childlike voices
the great battle
of the shadows
has begun
enter here
Jean Moulin
with your terrible procession
with those who died
in the cellars
not having talked

like you
and even those
who maybe
more monstrous
after having talked
in a sense
you see
fear is all the same
the daughter of God
redeemed on the night
of good friday
she is not beautiful to see
no
sometimes taunted
or cursed
renounced by all
and however
do not fool yourself
she is at the bedside
of those at death's door
she intercedes
for man

and now
that night
rising in the night
every night
weak light
in the room
from there
null mystery
from the window

no
almost null
it does not exist
null
still pure
like a negative
called Ilford
Kodak or Fuji
still in one piece
also
and it is enough
to breath
forcefully on it
to draw it tight
whatever would be
the name of the breather
Hitchcock
Langlois
Vigo
yes
let us link together
an attractive montage
of ideas
with no points of suspension
we are neither
in a detective story
nor Celine
that one
let's leave him
literature
he rightly merits
to suffer
and to re-enlist
book by book
in the regiments
of language
us
with film
that is something else
and first life
which is not new
but difficult to speak about
we can scarcely but
live it
and die it
but to speak about it
oh well
there are books
yes
but about film
we haven't books
we have only music
and painting
and those also
you know this well
live together
but do not speak to each other
so
film
maybe you understand
a little now
why
what to say of it
because life
is the subject
with 'scope
and color
as attributes
if we have broad ideas
life
I should say
a beginning of life
a little bit
like the story
of Euclid's parallels
that is the beginning
of geometry
there have been
other lives
and there will be others
enough to think
of the blossom which is broken
of the lions
that were hunted with bows
of the silence of a spa
in the north
of Sweden
but the live
of others
discomforts
always
for the strongest of reasons
thus life
quite alone
that I had much wanted
to pin down
to make it admired
or to reduced
its fundamental elements
to interest students
the inhabitants
of the earth in general
and the spectators
of films
in particular
in brief
the life quite alone
which I had much wanted
to hold prisoner thanks to
panoramas
of nature
fixed shots
on the dead
images short
and long
of sounds loud
and feeble
of actors
and actresses free
or slave
and who knows what
but life flounders around
more arrantly than Nanuck's
fish
slips
between our fingers
like the memories
of Monica Vitti
in the red desert
of the suburbs
of Milan
all eclipsed
and here
I take advantage
to tell you that
as if by chance
the only
great problem
of film
seems to me to be
where and why
to commence a shot
and where
and why
to end it

.
.
.

Histoire(s) du Cinema -- Chapter 4(a) part II Method of Alfred Hitchcock

continued from:
http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/12/jean-luc-godard-control-of-universe.html

.
.
.

.Introduction
to
a
veritable
history
of
cinema
the only
the true
.
.
chapter 4 (a)
The Control of the Universe
Part II
An Introduction to the Method of Alfred Hitchcock
.
.

we have forgotten
why Joan Fontaine
leans over
the edge of the cliff
and what it was
that Joel Mc Crea
went to do
in Holland
we have forgotten
for what reason
Montgomery Clift kept
an eternal silence
and Janet Leigh
stopped at the Bates Motel
and why Theresa Wright
is still devoted
to Uncle Charlie
we have forgotten
what Henry Fonda
is not
completely guilty
and why exactly
did the American government
employ Ingrid Bergman
but
we remember
a handbag
but
we remember a bus
in the desert
but, we remember
a glass of milk
a windmill's blades
a hairbrush
but
we remember
a row of bottles
a pair of glasses
a musical score
a bunch of keys
because with them
and through them
Alfred Hitchcock succeeded
right there where had failed
Alexander, Julius Caesar
Napoleon
to take control
of the universe
maybe
ten thousand persons
have not forgotten
Cezanne's apples
but there are millionsand millions
of spectators
who will remember
the lighter
in Strangers on a Train
and if Alfred Hitchcock
was the only
accursed poet
to meet success
it is because he was
the greatest
creator of form
in the 20th century
and that these forms
tells us
in the end
what is there at the bottom
of things
now, what is art
if not where
form becomes style
and what is style
if not man
so it is a braless
blonde
tailed by a detective
who fears the void
who furnishes us
proof
that all of this
is only cinema
in other words
the infancy of art
at the outset
it felt
only a few things
and it thought
that it knew everything
later on
taken wholy
by doubt, distress
fear
faced with the mystery
of life
it begins to flutter about
and now
that it feels everything
it thinks
it knows nothing
but nevertheless
from nonchalance
to anxiety
from the loving recording
at the beginning
to the hesitant but basic
form
at the end
it is the same central force
which has steered
cinema
we follow it from inside
from form to form
with shadow
and ray
which lurk about
illuminating this
obscuring that
elevating a shoulder
a face
a raised finger
an open window
a forehead
a baby
in a crib
what plunges
into the light
is the echo
of what engulfs the night
what engulfs
the night
plunges into the invisible
which plunges
into the light
thought, look
word
action
connect this brow
this eye, this mouth
this hand
to the volumes
scarcely glimpsed
in the shadows
of the heads and the bodies
bent around
a birth
a living death
or a death
even
and maybe most of all
when he had
for an implement
of work
only black and white
even then
he handles the world
as a ceaseless drama
that the day
and the darkness
model
delve into, convulse
hush up
and make born
and die
as bidden by his passion
his sadness
by the hopeless desire for eternity
and by the absoluteness
which overwhelms
his core
an automobile headlight
a face asleep
a darkness which comes alive
beings leaning
over a cradle
where all the light is falling
a man executed
against a dirty wall
a muddy road
hugging the sea
a bend in the road
a dark sky
a ray of sun on a meadow
the empire of the wind
discovered in a cloud
there are only black lines
crossing
a beige canvas
and the tragedy of space
and the tragedy of life
contort the screen
in their fire
cinema alone
has seen
that if each one
is at their task
the masses are organized
alone
following an impeccable
harmony
where light falls
where it need
and disregards
where it need not
because it is necessary
to light one point
in the scene
and to let shadow
would reign elsewhere
it is alone
in having been
always present
in all
that it looked at
the only one which could have
permitted itself to mix
mud
with the glowing of eyes
to introduce fire
to cinders
to make a rose
shine
on the shroud
or a pale sky
as fresh
as a rose
its humanity
is really incredible
it is fateful
like a lament
wrenching
like love
dramatic
like the exchange
indifferent and unending
between all that is being born
and all that
is dying
in following
our walk towards death
on the trail of blood
which marks it
cinema does not cry
over us
it does not comfort us
since it is
with us
since it is
we, ourselves
it is there
when the cradle lights itself
it is there
when the young girl
appears to us
leaning out the window
with her eyes
which know not
and a pearl
between her breasts
it is there
when we have undressed her
when her taut torso
quivers
at the throbbing
of our lust
it is there afterwards
when she is old
her face
is sunk in
and her hands shriveled
tell us
that she does not hold it against
life
for having done her
harm
it is there
when the women
opens her knees for us
with
the same motherly feeling
that she has
in opening her arms
for the child
it is there
when the fruit
falls from her
one, two, three
how many times
in her life
it is still there
when we are old
when we look ahead fixedly
towards the side of the night
which is coming
and it is there
when we dead
and when our cadaver
passes the shroud
into the arms of our children
there it is
I am yours
which I am
which I am
who wants
to be remembered
must entrust himself
to oblivion
and this chance that it is
complete oblivion
and to
this beautiful chance
which then becomes
memory
.
.
.
Continued at:
http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/12/godard-langlois-celan.html

Histoire(s) du Cinema -- Chapter 4(a) Control of the Universe Part I

.

.

.

.Introduction
to
a
veritable
history
of
cinema
the only
the true
.
.
chapter 4 (a)
The Control of the Universe
Part I

for
Michel
Delahaye
for
Jean
Domarchi
.
.

murmured
in a voice soft
and faint
speaking of great things
of important
astonishing
of profound
and fitting things
in a voice
soft and faint
the threat of thunder
the presence of the uncompromising

in the call of a robin
in the fine detail
of a flute
and the fragility of its pure sound
the sun suggested
amid
a half smile
oh quiet voice
and a kind of murmur
in an immeasurably pure French
which had not grasped the words
heard at a distance
should have known that it spoke of nothing
for an ear
reassured
but this contrast and this music
this voice
barely wrinkled the air
this whispered power
this perspectives, these discoveries
these abysses
and these imprecise maneuvers
this smile dismissing the universe
I muse also only to cease
at the silken noise
alone and low-key
of a fire smoldering
while giving form to the room
and which tells itself
or tells me
almost for itself
the spirit is true
only when it manifests its presence

and in the word manifest
there is hand
love is the fulfillment
of the spirit
and love of your fellow man
is an act
that is to say an outstretched hand
not
a draped sentiment
an ideal
which happens on the road to Jericho
in front of a man
stripped by brigands
police, propaganda
state
that is the hand
that is the name of the tyrant god
that the proudful reason of men
knew how to create in his image
when the word
is destroyed
when it is no longer
the gift
that one makes to another
and that engages something
of his being
it is human friendship
that is destroyed
such is anxiety of peoples
it is not material
at first
it is this anxiety
of the heart and of the spirit
which is born of the death of friendships
I do not believe
in mysterious voices
but I do believe in the appeal of deeds
let us consider the times
the places where we live
the precise situation
which was made for us
and the appeal which it resulted in
and after that
let us judge
today's Europe
in this Europe
two kinds of nations
those that are called
old
and those that are called
modernized
those which have kept
a certain number of possibilities
but which do not know well enough what to do
with this liberty which they brag on
and those
which have made or undergone since the wars
a revolution of the masses
and which have freedom of opinion
that is to say
the freedom to complain
but without deep passion
and where poverty is on its doorstep
but you could say that the is nothing left
to do except to wait
misery
last argument
last basis of the community
modern
it is the background
of all our dramas
our thoughts
our actions
and even our utopias
being very clearly understood
that the essential is not
what the dictator thinks
is not material urgency
but a higher truth
which is the truth
at the height of a man
and I might add
at the tip of his fingers
it is the great time for thought
to become again what it is
in reality
dangerous for the thinker
and reshaping of the real
there where I create
I am authentic
wrote Rilke
some think. it is said,
others act
but the true condition of man
is to think with his hands
I will not speak adversely
of our tools
but I would like them to be usable
since it is true, in general
that the danger is not in our tools
but in the weakness
of our hands
it is no less urgent
to specify
that a thought which is abandoned
to the pace of its clockwork
becomes proletarian
I mean
that such a thought
no longer lives its creation
others mold the man
I reveal
whom these others are
we now know it
they are the laws
born
out of the abandonment of thought
where are those responsible
they are not the parties
they are not the classes
nor the governments
they are the men
one after another
yes, I am one of them
up to my ears in anger
torn apart
by the insurmountable irony
if not, I would not be crying out
but silence
is not conferred on man
by his own effort
silence and pitiable intelligence
are the work of forgiveness
it is your business
not mine
to reign over absence
a poet said
true violence
is the deed of the spirit
all creative act contains a threat
real
for the man who dares it
it is in tis way that a work
moves the spectator or the reader
if the thought refuses to weigh on
to become violent
it exposes itself to submit fruitlessly
to all the brutality
that its absence unlooses
we will sometimes be tempted
to wish that in France
the activity of mind
became again
a jailable offence
that would make it
a little serious
to free spirits
the locus of all decision
which does create
is the individual
from whence it follows
that all the unrest in the world
is nothing more
than a certain question
which is addressed to me
and is made clear in myself
only at the instant
it binds me to act
the partisans of "us"
made an error
regarding the individual
the contradictions of the world
figure in the fundamental
equation
of all existence
"x" is an individual
an element-creator
an incalculable freedom
man
as much as he is man
is rightly a creator
but a creator created
is an expectance
that we are saved
but this expectance is true
for the time destroys the deed
but
the deed is the judge of time
though the acrobat
is in the grip
of the most unstable equilibrium
we make a wish
and this wish is
strangely double
and null
we wish
that he fall
and we wish
that he hold on
and this wish is necessary
we can not
not form it
in all contradiction
and sincerity
this is that it depicts naively
our soul
in the same instant
it senses that the man will fall
ought to fall, is going to fall
and in itself
it consumes the fall
and defends itself
by desiring what it foresee
he has already fallen
for it
it does not believe its eyes
its gaze will not follow him
on the rope
will not push him lower
at each instant
if he had not already fallen
but she sees
that he is keeping hold
and she must agree
that there are thus reasons
making him keep hold
and appeals to these reasons
begging them to last
sometimes, the existence
of all things
and of ourselves
appears to us
in this sort
first, images
but those
of which Saint Paul spoke
which are a death
.
.
.
...
ccontinued at
http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/12/jean-luc-godard-hitchcock.html

Jean-luc Godard Histoire(s) du Cinema 3(b) A New Wave

Voila chapter 3(b) of Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinema --- Un Nouvelle Vague (A New Wave)
This continues from:
http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/11/jean-luc-godard-histoires-monnaie.html

Note: "The River" is the film from 1929 directed by Frank Borzage

The text in italics is in English in the original. It is roughly a quote from Shakespeare's King Lear.

.
.
Introduction
to
a
veritable
history
of cinema
the only
the true
Chapter 3(a)
A
New
Wave
for
Frederic C
Froeschel
for
Nahum
Klieman
.

.
Monsieur
have you any knowledge
of the ten historic propositions
of the old testament
no
Scholem's text contends
that a tradition exists
regarding the truth
and that the tradition is communicable
I laugh
for the truth which is questioned here
by us
has all manner of attributes
but certainly not one
of being communicable
then what are you talking about
I do not see
you say it very well
I do not see
and nevertheless I have seen it
no
understood
yes, I will say that
meanwhile
in all the countries in which there are men
who fight
for a society
where one will not be enslaved
by money
you can not understand that, you
one does not live to earn money
if, listening to you
I begin to understand it
but from that point
where it would be
an obsession
you never think of something else
of love
no, never
perspective was the original sin
of western painting
Niepce and Lumiere
were its redeemers
and when I admire a film
they say to me
yes it is very beautiful
but it is not cinema
I then asked myself
what is it
I come to eliminate nothing
but to perfect
on the contrary
you can not serve
equally god
and money
when you give alms then
your left hand does not know
what your right hand is doing
so that your alms thus
remain secret
and your father
who always
sees your secret deeds
would know to repay you for it
and you will be judged
as you judge others
that it will be granted to you
to enforce justice
in complete equity
for it is with the measure
that you are going use to measure
that you will be measured
here this ought to be
the daily prayer
but come help me, good Lord
le grisbi
oh return to the native country
oh return of the one
who no longer needs
to be a guest
oh when thus
was the end going to emerge
where
was it going to appear
when
was the curse
going to be broken
and was their a last degree
in the amplification
of silence
it seems to the individual
yes
but how much
how much sobbing
for the air of a guitar
but evil exists still
the voice of man
blended into the fabric of the universe
provides
no answer
it seemed
almost
that there ought not to be any answer
before the day
as if everything, anew
was only an expectation
an expectation of the daystar
as if no longer next to this
anything else
was legitimate
it was because for one last time
night summoned its powers
to conquer the light
but it will be from the back
that the light is going to strike the night
and at first, very gently
as if it did not wish to alarm it
the whispering
that man has noticed
a long time ago
o so long ago
well before man existed
the whispering
recommences
the last lesson
of Fernand Braudel
he spun no yarns
as Etienne Jules Marey
had asked him
the holy man picked up the trail
and took the measure of
the identity of France
the identity of cinema
the identity
of the new wave
one night
we went over
to Henri Langlois'
and then
there was the light
it's that, right?
the true cinema
was even for our provincial eyes not
the face of Madame Arnoux
in the dreams
of Frederic Moreau
cinema, we knew it
by Canudo
by Delluc
but without ever having seen it
it had no relationship
with the films of saturday
those of the Vox, the Palace, the Miramar
the Varietes
for those films were
for everyone
not for us
save for us
since the true cinema
was the one that could not be seen
was only that one
it was, it was
Mary Duncan
wasn’t it
Jean George Auriol
but one would never see
The River
and we had to like it
blindly
and inside out
idem
for the crowds in October
and for those in Que Viva Mexico
isn't that right
Jay Leyda
idem
for the streetcars
in Sunrise
isn’t that right
Lotte Eisner
because forgotten already
proscribed still
invisible always
such was our cinema
and this remains for me
and Langlois confirmed it for us
his exact words
the image is first off of the order of redemption
attention, that of the real
thus we were, more
dazzled than than El Greco in Italy
and Goya in Italy
and Picasso before Goya
we were, without a past
and the man of the Avenue de Messine
gave us the gift of a past
metamorphosed into the present
in the depths of Indochina
in the depths of Algeria
and when he screened L’Espoir
for the first time
it was not the Spanish Civil War
that jolted us
it was the brotherhood of metaphors
she’s gone for ever
I know
when one is dead
and when
one lives
lend me a looking-glass
our only error then was to believe
that it was a beginning
that Stroheim had not been
murdered
that Vigo had not been
covered with mud
that the four hundred blows would continue
when they would flag
and thirty years later
it had to be admitted
that if the will had been beaten
it had to be admitted
that this had to be
because this was not through will
but through weakness
and maybe, right?
it rest for me
to know at last
that the force of weak interaction
the fourth wall of the house of the world
according to the physicists
that this weak force
is also that of art
and of its babe in arms
cinematography
what is this museum
of T-shirts
new wave, Audrey
new wave
and Daumier, what relationship with the new wave
we’re closing
we’re closing, children
you can ask a guard
does this please you
yes, there are some interesting things
I am not of that mind
you see with no end photos of works
but none of people
it was that, the new wave
the politique des auteurs
by the auteurs
the works
your friend is right, miss
first the works
then the men
Thus you haven’t any heart, mister
you can film work
miss, not hearts
I don’t know, its the time of the unemployed
mister
and so who is without work
miss
it is time which has
too many hands
and not enough heart
yes, a time without heart
but not without work
when an epoque is sick
and has no work
for all hands
it is a new exhortation
that is addressed to us
the exhortation
to work with our hearts
in place of
working with our hands
and I do not know the epoque
not yet
which had employment
for all hearts
nevertheless
Becker
Rossellini
Melville
Franju
Jacques Demy
Truffaut
you knew them
yes, these were my friends







http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/2006/12/jean-luc-godard-control-of-universe.html