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Revisiting the Relevance of Conceptualism of Godard’s Film |
95www.jrfm.eu
2018, 4/2, 83–113
In addition, we should strive to revolutionize the scientific writings in the
same way Godard revolutionized the art of cinema, that is, by creating works
that implicitly question and criticize its trends and clichés while feeding on im-
provisatory imaginativeness and anarchically disobeying any established prin-
ciples and precepts, having no beginning or end in the classical sense of the
word, like Histoire(s) du Cinéma, but rather being mishmashes of impressions
and ideas that magically trigger the pathways to enlightenment in the viewer.
Godard’s Tout va bien (with Jean-Pierre Gorin, FR/IT 1972) was to a great extent
his protest against the brevity demanded of public commentaries, the reason
why the striking workers deliberately deliver irksomely long monologues to the
camera; similarly, my writings in which each sentence strives to be a universe
unto itself are also a revolt against the expressional vulgarity of the modern
Twitter age, wherein no elaborate unwinding of the threads of thoughts from
here to the Moon is given space to in public forums, wherein snappy news has
taken the place of lengthy social analyses, wherein daily communications come
with the incisiveness of a knife rather than with the softness for the soul of a
poem or a symphony that takes time to open, develop, and close, and wherein
the characteristically Americanized simplicity of sentences has fully eclipsed the
rollercoaster strings of words, with endless ups and downs and no end in sight,
that typified the works of Hegel, Kant, Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac, and many oth-
ers, alongside this very sentence that is just about to come to its end. Still, un-
like Godard, who openly admitted that he was a more skilled film critic than a
filmmaker,31 in the sense that he more efficiently shook the art of cinema than
human hearts with his cinematic works, the ideal I impose onto myself and dis-
31 Cavett 1980.
Fig. 7: Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard,
FR 1962): Interdisciplinary inclinations
that extend beyond the boundary of
natural sciences and into the sphere
of arts and humanities are seen these
days as acts of promiscuity in need
of severe reprimands by the scientific
authorities. In spite of their belief that
such ventures to the other side of the
globe of human knowledge must
compromise the quality of the science
that such adventurers are capable
of producing, the feeding of artistic
senses and the viewing of science from
socioeconomic, geopolitical, theological,
and other perspectives can be powerful
motivators to sustain its excellence.
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02
- Title
- JRFM
- Subtitle
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Volume
- 04/02
- Authors
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Editor
- Uni-Graz
- Publisher
- SchĂĽren Verlag GmbH
- Location
- Graz
- Date
- 2018
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Size
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Pages
- 135
- Categories
- Zeitschriften JRFM