Godard, Revolution and Representation

Considering Jean-Luc Godard's Ici et Ailleurs (1974) as an 'in-between' point of view consisting of the "complex interweaving of spatio-temporalities and histories of 'us' (France) and 'them' (Palestine)", Emmelhainz goes on to claim that due to our existence in a multicultural realm of global in-betweenness and the closing gap between here and elsewhere by the media and the technologies of co-presence, such an in-between is no longer possible.[1] If we consider France and Palestine as symbols for "the West" and "the Orient", as the concepts defined by Edward Saïd in his works dealing with Orientalism, it would be almost naïve to believe that due to advancements in technology or raised awareness of global multiculturalism, such an 'in-between' would no longer be possible. If anything, what these developments would have caused is an even greater opportunity for the existence of such an in-between, if not the existence of many such in-betweens. While Emmelhainz might see the great divide between the east and west that would have existed in 1974 (a full four years before Saïd's seminal book was published) to be in less need of bridging by such a work as Godrad's Ici et Ailleurs in the present, one might argue that it is now, more than ever, that we are in need of such an 'in-between'. While it is true that advancements in media and technology give us the possibility of increased awareness, it also proportionally raises the possibility of a greater divide. As such, Godard's film can be seen as taking on a newfound importance and relevance. While in practice it presents us with the specific issues of a pre-Black September Palestinian revolution and a family in 1974 France, when taken in a broader sense, the film can be paradigmic of a plethora of situations, not restricted to Palestine or France, and as such can achieve some measure of universality. That being said, the film itself is still very much concerned with the Palestinian revolution as explored by Godard, so in this case, the matter of the specific is as important as the generic, with one complimenting the other and vice-versa. Considering this, I intend to show that Ici et Ailleurs doesn't only provide a look at the specific issue of the Palestinian struggle before Black September, but also makes a broader comment on the nature of representation, perception and the changing ideological perspectives in the aftermath of the massacre, which in turn provides a framework for articulating the issue while remaining true to its nature.

To do so, I shall first begin with a look at the form, content and thematic of the film, concentrating on both the audiovisual (image/sound) and textual (narration / dialogue / intertitles / other text appearing in film) elements used to develop some of the more prevalent themes throughout the work. As the film, in many cases, draws attention to itself and to the (filmic) medium in general, it is important to observe not only how this is done, but also how this is used to develop some of the themes that it explores. Following, I will observe how the form and themes support Goddard's view of not only the Palestinians' struggle, but also of how this struggle raises awareness of the particularities (flaws/benefits/techniques) of filmic (and other) mode(s) of representation.

To begin, one can explore some of the themes and the way they are supported by the form and content of Godard's Ici et Ailleurs. Emmelhainz draws attention to the French word "ET" (AND) that is carved out of Styrofoam and placed on a pedestal throughout the film, deeming it as "Godard's way out of the dialectic and of transforming Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein's dialectical montage by inducing an interstice in the chain of images, positing differences between unities without opposing them, or presenting them as sublating contraries".[2] Here, the visual representation of the verbal conjunction "AND", is not only used to link two unrelated images, thus breaking the Vertov/Eisensteinian dialectical montage of collision, which would apply had the different images not been separated by the third image of the word "ET", but also to create "differences between unities", separating two similar images. In addition to this visual linking, the fact that the object in question is a physical representation of a part of speech (the conjunction), further serves to create the textual link between the meanings of the two images separated by the word. By doing this, we no longer interpret an image of Richard Nixon[3] (United States president at the time), separated by a Styrofoam "ET" from an image of Leonid Brezhnev[4] (Soviet Union Communist party General Secretary at the time) as a mere linking of two images, but we further ascribe it the textual meaning of linking the two opposing heads of state. Of course, the fact that shortly before the film's release, Nixon and Brezhnev opened a new round of negotiations with Nixon's visit to Moscow in '72 and Brezhnev's visit to Washington in '73, gave the linking of the images using the word "AND" so much more significance. It now read "Nixon AND Brezhnev". Further, considering both superpowers' interests in the middle east, with the (official or otherwise) US's support of Israel and the USSR's support of the PLO[5], the image of the two supposedly opposed superpowers' leaders together would have called into question their respective support of the opposing factions in the region.

Emmelhainz's notion of a "chain of images" linked by a visual conjunction, no doubt echoing the voice-over narration which mentions the "uninterrupted chain of images, enslaving one another"[6] in Gordard's film, is further used to develop Godard's theme of combining images and sounds to form associative chains. As Bogue notes, this chain "assigns us our place"[7] in the "chain of events on which we have lost all power"[8]. Further, Bogue points out that the French word for chain ("chaîne") "has associations … with consumer and media culture – travail à la chaîne: assembly-line work; chaîne: [TV] channel"[9]. These linguistic associations with the word chain, linking it to mindless, robotic work and an almost "zombie-like" TV consumer media culture, are not only echoed visually in Godard's film (with the family watching TV, various shots of TV screens and the father's job loss) but are also the subject of debate in the film's critique of the associational qualities of film and media in general.

Bogue points to the juxtaposition of the Palestinian fighters and the French family watching TV which, according to him, "invites a propagandistic reading of this relation as one of an authentic, active and natural culture versus a media-saturated, passive, consumerist culture, just as the alternating stills of Hitler and Golda Meir suggest a facile equation of the two figures"[10]. Indeed, this suggested facile equation managed to generate just this kind of invited propagandistic reading of this relation: Loshitzky sees Godard's work in Ici et Ailleurs as a "naïve idealization of the PLO… accompanied by an anti-Israel position equating the Israeli retaliations against Jordan … with Nazi atrocities"[11]. She further goes on to characterize the use of the image of Israeli prime minister at the time, Golda Meir, combined with a voice-over of a Hitler speech as "verging on anti-Semitism", deeming the entire film and Godard's other political films as "extremely naïve … dogmatic" and infantilic in their approach to the East/West conflict. She continues by referring to the previously discussed associational linking as a "simplistic and horrifying equation" and further refers to the "simplistic and monstrous equation" of associating the capitalist system to the "Nazis' mass murder of Jews"[12]. Ignoring Loshitzky's political inclination and her (arguably) justified dismay at what she perceived to be a blatant and simplistic associational technique for propaganda, one can't help but note that the illustration of this issue in the film managed, at least in this case, to convince Loshitzky of the issue's purported veracity, thus proving Godard's point.

But as Bogue and the narrator in Godard's film both state, it is "too simple and too easy to simply divide the world in two,"[13] "too easy or too simple to say simply that the wealthy are wrong and the poor are right"[14] and that "there are no more simple images, only simple people, who will be forced to stay quiet, like an image."[15] The simplicity of association and equation of two images is instead "exposed" in Ici et Ailleurs, which shows the ease with which form can take meaning and invite a simple, direct reading, instead of a multiplicity of meanings and readings thereof. If anything, Loshitzky's critique of Godard's film is only a testament to this fact, and her simplistic reading only serves to further prove Godard's point. Having said this, one must recognize that this very interpretation, while allowing for a broader spectrum of readings and interpretations with respect to Ici et Ailleurs, can fall in the same "trap" of assigning it one absolute meaning, regardless of how open it might be, and we must recognize that such a reading must also include interpretations in the vein of Loshitzky's for it to retain at least a portion of its validity.

However, Drabinsky reminds us that Ici et Ailleurs is as much about "the fate of a certain kind of representation, under certain conditions, spatial and temporal – as it is about the political events documented."[16] According to him, Godard's act of filmmaking is "fractured by the unsaid image of death."[17] The dead Palestinians in Godard's film ("almost all the actors are dead"[18]) represent the Other, which is both "produced by a system of representation and what escapes from it."[19] The concept of the Other, the "elsewhere", is that which is produced (images of dead Palestinians) by the specific system of representation (in this case - film) but escapes from it (the Other is never "truly" represented). The fact that Godard "comes to name that Other" causes the image to fail and produces separation[20]. As such, in Ici et Ailleurs, "sound and image work and fail to work in important ways, and in that sense become a philosophical language abused by staggered movements and non-movements of [their own appearance]," rendering Godard's cinema "a philosophical language against presence, coincidence, dialectics, and any coherence of representation."[21] Further, is this representation of the Other, in Godard's own "philosophical language", directed at an audience with the intention to be assimilated or with the intention of making this audience aware of its mode of representation?

This, in turn, begs the question of whether or not we (as spectators) are the possible spectators for these films, "are we really that minority to whom these images are addressed?"[22] Are we meant to consume the image of the Other, of the dead Palestinians from "elsewhere", or does that make us complicit with the French family that is juxtaposed with these very images of the Other? Daney attempts to provide several tongue-in-cheek answers to this question, asking if Godard's film should be presented to "the general public eager for sensation (Godard + Palestine = scoop)? To the politically aware anxious to be confirmed in its orthodoxy (Godard + Palestine = good cause + art)? To the PLO who invited him, allowed him to film and trusted him (Godard + Palestine = weapon of propaganda)?"[23] None of the options are satisfactory, however, and it is ultimately Toubiana that points out that what Ici et Ailleurs asks us to do is "to disentangle the notion of spectator activity, of the spectator at work, to make our vision sharper – avoiding the pitfalls of semiology, the distortions of any would-be scientific approach – so as to recover the true logic of the cinema which consists in looking and doing, in listening and recognizing images and sounds, working all the while on our own account."[24] It is indeed this spectator, "working all the while on their own account" that would seem to be the most able to raise to the awareness of the constructed nature of meaning through representation and above a readiness of assimilation with an ideological framework.

Finally, "the film offers an implicit rethinking of images through their isolation, their disconnection from conventional chains and their reconnection in unorthodox series", through "stills of documentary footage of Palestinian corpses, worker's demonstrations and Holocaust victims interjected in unexpected patterns throughout the film" separated by "AND", it eventually leads to this "rethinking of the meaningful differences that pertain to the violence that extends from the Russian revolution to the present" to the point that at the close of the film, "the circle of soldiers in quiet conversation and the French family watching TV has lost its clear ideological bearings."[25] Ultimately, the spectator no longer sees a clear contrast between the French family and the Fedayeen, nor do they see the associational linking of Golda Meir and Hitler's speech or Nixon and Brezhnev. As discussed, while Ici et Ailleurs does present the spectator with this mode of representation, it ultimately does so for the purpose of making them aware of it. Further, this awareness is instead intended to show how easily these images can be presented in order to invoke a certain reaction or ideological reading thereof. Here, the spectator can (or at least should) also see that while these images, sounds and words are used to illustrate this point, they can also (and are also) used to convey the political events which they document, encouraging the spectator's rethinking of both the images and the way they are presented, instead of an "all-too-easy" readiness of assimilation through an ideological framework (although not denying the possibility of such a reading). In conclusion, Ici et Ailleurs provides not only the specific account of the Fedayeen prior to Black September, but also the broader issue of the choice of representation for this subject which applies to a wide range of issues beyond the specific one presented in the film. As such, Godard gives a kind of universal quality to the subjects of his film, forever ascribing to their image a meaning that can be sustained across time, geography and culture, and, one can only hope, is but a humble and appropriate memorial in their honour.

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[1] Emmelhainz, Irmgard. "From Third Worldism to Empire: Jean-Luc Godard and the Palestine Question." Third Text 23, no. 5 (September 2009): 655.

[2] Ibid. 651

[3] Ici et Ailleurs. Directed by Jean Luc Godard, 1974, (00'14'34")

[4] Ibid. (00'14'40")

[5] Golan, Galia. " The Soviet Union and the PLO since the War in Lebanon." Middle East Journal 40, no. 2 (Spring 1968):285.

[6] Ici et Ailleurs, 1974 (00'35'57")

[7] Bogue, Ronald. "Search, Swim and See: Deleuze's Apprenticeship in Signs and Pedagogy of Images." In Deleuze's way: essays in transverse ethics and aesthetics, (Burlington, VT, USA; Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 65

[8] Ici et Ailleurs, 1974 (00'37'37")

[9] Bogue, 2007, 65

[10] Ibid., 66

[11] Loshitzky, Yosefa. "A New Turn: The Collaboration with Miéville." In The radical faces of Godard and Bertolucci. (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 49.

[12] Ibid. 50

[13] Ici et Ailleurs, 1974 (00'14'36")

[14] Ibid., (00'14'50")

[15] Ibid., (00'35'30")

[16] Drabinski, John. “Separation, Difference, and Time in Godard’s Ici et ailleurs” SubStance #155, Vol.

37, No. 1, 2008. 152.

[17] Ibid,. 152.

[18] Ici et Ailleurs, 1974 (00'09'04")

[19] Reynaud, Bérénice."Introduction" In Cahiers du cinéma: volume four, 1973-1978 : history, ideology, cultural Struggle, edited by David Wilson and Bérénice Reynaud, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 38

[20] Drabinski, 2008, 155

[21] Ibid.

[22] Toubiana, Serge."A matter of chance" In Cahiers du cinéma: volume four, 1973-1978 : history, ideology, cultural Struggle, edited by David Wilson and Bérénice Reynaud, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 108

[23] Daney, Serge."Theorize/Terrorize (Godardian Pedagogy)" In Cahiers du cinéma: volume four, 1973-1978 : history, ideology, cultural Struggle, edited by David Wilson and Bérénice Reynaud, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 121

[24] Toubiana, 2000, 109.

[25] Bogue, 2007, 66

REFERENCES

Bogue, Ronald. "Search, Swim and See: Deleuze's Apprenticeship in Signs and Pedagogy of Images." In Deleuze's way: essays in transverse ethics and aesthetics, 53-68. Burlington, VT, USA; Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2007.

Daney, Serge. "Theorize/Terrorize (Godardian Pedagogy)." In Cahiers du cinéma: volume four, 1973-1978 : history, ideology, cultural Struggle, edited by David Wilson and Bérénice Reynaud, 116-123. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000.

Drabinski, John. "Separation, Difference, and Time in Godard’s Ici et ailleurs." SubStance #115, 37, no. 1 (2008): 148-159.

Emmelhainz, Irmgard. "From Third Worldism to Empire: Jean-Luc Godard and the Palestine Question." Third Text 23, no. 5 (September 2009): 649 - 656.

Ici et Ailleurs. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Gaumont, 1974.

Golan, Galia. "The Soviet Union and the PLO since the War in Lebanon." Middle East Journal 40, no. 2 (Spring, 1968): 285-305.

Loshitzky, Yosefa. "A New Turn: The Collaboration with Miéville." In The radical faces of Godard and Bertolucci, 49-53. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

Reynaud, Bérénice. "Introduction." In Cahiers du cinéma: volume four, 1973-1978 : history, ideology, cultural Struggle, edited by David Wilson and Bérénice Reynaud, 1-44. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000.

Toubiana, Serge. "A matter of chance." In Cahiers du cinéma: volume four, 1973-1978 : history, ideology, cultural Struggle, edited by David Wilson and Bérénice Reynaud, 105-110. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000.