If I am remembering clearly — and my head is filled with so many densely layered words and images, it is hard to unpack them — the first image in Film Socialism, the new movie by Jean-Luc Godard, is of two red-headed parrots, side by side on a tree limb. The parrots are among a handful of animals that appear in the movie, which had its press premiere on Monday morning at the Cannes Film Festival, including a pair of hilariously talkative cats (whose meows are, in turn, parroted by a young woman watching them on a laptop), as well as a llama and a donkey. Surrounding these animals is a menagerie of talking, quoting, babbling human beings, speaking in French, German, Russian, English and Arabic, among other tongues.
Wittily, perversely, contrastingly, the final words in the movie are “no comment,” which appear in large English letters like a declaration, bringing this 1 hour and 41 minutes of sights and sounds to an abrupt close. Godard, 79, was scheduled to appear at a press conference after the screening, but made good on these last words by not showing up. Though the rumor that he would be a no-show had circulated before the screening, several dozen journalists trooped to the press room to see if a representative might appear with an explanation. Nothing. Not even a note. No comment.
According to the French newspaper La Liberation, Godard sent a fax to the festival’s director, Thierry Fremaux, saying that “problems of the Greek type” (“des problemes de type grec,” perhaps referring to Greece’s financial crisis) had prevented him from attending and that he would go to his death for the festival, but not one step more: “Suite a des problemes de type grec, je ne pourrai etre votre oblige a Cannes. Avec le festival, j’irai jusqu’a la mort, mais je ne ferai pas un pas de plus. Amicalement. Jean-Luc Godard.”
Any new Godard movie is a noteworthy occasion, and this initial screening was packed with an audience primed for difficulties of some kind. On Friday, British newspaper The Independent reported that the movie’s English-language subtitles would be in what was characterized as “Navajo English,” to replicate the fractured words spoken by Hollywood-style American Indians in Westerns (and in the sitcom F Troop): “If a character is saying, ‘Give me your watch,’ the subtitle will read, ‘You, me, watch.’” In the 1950s, Godard worked in the Paris publicity office for 20th Century Fox and knows how to stir things up.
My thoughts on the movie — which looks as if it were shot in both low-grade video and high-definition digital — are tentative and, for now, brief. Structurally, it can be divided into three sections, the first set on Mediterranean cruise ship on which the mostly white passengers eat, mingle and gamble. Among the travelers are several men and women, as well as a teenage girl and younger boy, who speak to one another and themselves in largely untranslated languages. As promised, the English-language subtitles are sparse, with words sometimes joined together or widely spaced: “nocrimes noblood”; “German Jews black”; “impossible story”; “Kamikaze divine wind”; “right of return.” Every so often, Patti Smith appears, singing in a cabin and strolling on deck or below with an acoustic guitar.
The second section is set in and around a small gas station and adjoining house, where two women, a white journalist, perhaps, and a black camera operator, are lurking around the garage owners, a French family of four. (An exterior wall is emblazoned with the name J.J. Martin.) Here, the discussion turns to the liberte, egalite, fraternite, and with these ideals the French revolution is invoked.
The third section turns to different places: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hell As (more on that in a moment), Naples and Barcelona. “Hell As” refers to Hellas, the Greek word for Greece, but might also be a punning reference to the French word for alas — helas — and an earlier Godard film, Helas Pour Moi, which retells the myth of Amphitryon and Alcmene. Along the way, Jews, Hollywood and the Holocaust are referred to.
Obviously, it will take many more viewings of Film Socialism, an improvement in my French and many more fully translated subtitles before I can begin to get a tentative grasp on it. Such are the complicated pleasures of Godard’s work: However private, even hermetic, his film language can be, these are works that by virtue of that language’s density, as well as the films’ visual beauty and intellectual riddles, invite you in (or turn you off). I imagine it will be awhile before the movie travels to the US, but if you want to prepare, I suggest you look at an interview with Godard from Telerama.fr that includes this quotation from the movie: “Les Americains ont libere l’Europe en la rendant dependante,” which translates as “the Americans liberated Europe by making it dependent.”
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
China’s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan last year as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade. Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources, but had failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still an empty one, for now. Xi Jinping’s (習近平) determination to annex Taiwan under what the president terms “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and stridently promised to bring it under Communist party (CCP) control,
In Taiwan’s politics the party chair is an extremely influential position. Typically this person is the presumed presidential candidate or serving president. In the last presidential election, two of the three candidates were also leaders of their party. Only one party chair race had been planned for this year, but with the Jan. 1 resignation by the currently indicted Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) two parties are now in play. If a challenger to acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) appears we will examine that race in more depth. Currently their election is set for Feb. 15. EXTREMELY
On Sept. 27 last year, three climate activists were arrested for throwing soup over Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery. The Just Stop Oil protest landed on international front pages. But will the action help further the activists’ cause to end fossil fuels? Scientists are beginning to find answers to this question. The number of protests more than tripled between 2006 and 2020 and researchers are working out which tactics are most likely to change public opinion, influence voting behavior, change policy or even overthrow political regimes. “We are experiencing the largest wave of protests in documented history,” says
RSS