I’ve been crossing off entries on my film scholar list of shame as I discover that Netlix has on them on DVD. Fortunately, it’s been a fun task. Tout Va Bien (dir. Godard and Gorin) was far more fun than I’d anticipated, given the number of things I’d read touting its Brechtian, anti-narrative techniques. Or maybe, the other examples of analytical Brechtian cinema I’ve seen which rip off Godard (Kluge, Fassbinder, Glauber Rocha) are by now so numerous that what seemed outrÃ(c) in 1972 seems to me at least to be quite normal — and wonderful.
The politics hold up less well. I don’t expect that the film will appeal much to those not versed in — or not caring about — internecine strategy/philosophy debates on the Left. In particular Godard seems to be searching for the proper role of the intellectual given the climate of Maoism rampant on the French left then. Given that most today in the US (and Europe?) find Maoism highly problematic to say the least and that the revolutionary moment of May 68 seems quite distant, there won’t be much sympathy around for the film’s revolutionary project. The striking workers just come across as jerks, frankly.
But I shouldn’t put people off the film — after all the leftist intellectuals we’re talking about here are Yves Montand and Jane Fonda, and it’s delightful fun to watch Godard/Gorin play with their star images. Whereas Z took Montand as leftist martyr, here the film pokes fun at his seriousness in much the way Contempt poked fun at the 60s art film.
Furthermore, Godard’s Marxism leads him to construct a narrative balancing multiple political viewpoints in tension. This is analytical filmmaking at its finest and just because the historical moment of France 1968/72 seems remote from 2005 US doesn’t mean that we couldn’t use a similar narrative of economic life that resists the anti-analytical impulses of narrativity.
Finally, the DVD comes with a bonus, Godard/Gorin’s short Letter to Jane, which takes her famous Hanoi photograph as the basis of a rumination about Jane Fonda’s activism. The first ten minutes are nearly parody — I can’t begin to describe — but stick through it, because what follows is a sharp semiotic reading of photojournalism, star image and American leftism. A useful reminder that conservatives don’t have a monopoly on resenting celebrities with causes.
“No reverse shot is possible.”
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