Take One (Mar-Apr 1970)

In March, 1970, we heard that Jean-Luc Godard was coming to the United States for a brief lecture tour. We were very anxious to speak to him, and called Grove Press to check it out. Grove was most cooperative in arranging an interview for us, and we settled on an afternoon in April, when Godard would be in Berkeley at the tail end of the tour. Then, on other business entirely, Naomi and | found ourselves in New York City a few days before Godard was to arrive. We had been thinking about the interview, and had decided that it would take at least an afternoon just to get it started; we needed more time for the major piece we had in mind. So we called Kent Carroll at Grove again, told him we were in town, and asked if it would be possible to see Godard when he got in. We explained that, if he would let us, we wanted to follow him around with a tape recorder for a few days. Kent said it was cool with him, but Godard had been known to be ‘‘difficult’ with reporters, and it would have to be cleared with him first. We were happy to let it go at that. A few days later, we called Kent to see how things were progressing. He told us that Godard had arrived, was Leacock Pennebaker studio, didn’t want to see us, but he (Kent) would keep working on it. | said OK, hung up, and whipped uptown to try sneaking into Pennebaker’s. | got as far as the receptionist, who was_ friendly but very firm. | probably would have done better speaking directly to Penny--whom we've since come to know as a very in-front gentleman--but at the time we didn't know him, and didn’t try. Instead, | went downstairs and called Kent again. ‘‘Godard will see you,’ he told me. ‘‘He hasn’t agreed to the interview, but at least he’s willing to talk to you. How fast can you get up to Penny's?” | told him | was just across the street, and it would take me about 45 seconds. 8 up at the DZIGA VERTOV: AN INTRODUCTION by MICHAEL GOODWIN | was directed down a corridor and into a small editing room. Godard and Gorin were sitting in front of an editing table, looking at footage from One A.M. and smoking funny French cigarettes. They nodded to me, and went back to the film. When the reel ran out a few minutes later, we moved down the hall to an other room. | laid out our proposal as well as | could (which wasn’t very well--| was pretty nervous), and Godard said no. He seemed _ preoccupied, and spoke so softly that it was hard to make out what he was saying. | explained that we werent into a superstar personality trip, but wanted to explore his ideology, cinematic and political, in more depth than an afternoon would allow. He thought that was OK, but didn’t want us recording his conversations indiscriminately. “You will ask questions and we will answer” he said. ‘That is sufficient, and we can do this in Berkeley.’’ We went around a few more times. | turned on the tape recorder. Godard told me to turn it off. | turned it off. Finally, they agreed to meet us for dinner and | got out before they could change their minds. Dinner was rough. We went to a German restaurant near their hotel in Greenwich Village, and | ate Wienerschnitzel with one hand while | held the microphone with the other. It was a good session, | suppose (it’s the first session in the interview as edited), but we spent a lot of it feeling each other out. When it was over, we agreed to meet again in Berkeley, and Naomi and | split. The next morning, Kent called me. “Can you go up to Penny's? Jean-Luc wants to see you.”’ An hour later, Godard and Gorin were explaining to me that they had reconsidered their objections to an extended interview, and would do a few more sessions with us before they left on the tour. “After all,’ said Godard, “we are here to speak with peo-. ple, and if the people are, more or less, friends....”’ In all, we did three sessions in New York. We met them again in Berkeley, a week later, and spent most of two days with them. Tom Luddy was there, which helped a lot, as he and Godard are friends; we were able to keep tape running most of the time. By the time Godard and Gorin had left, we found ourselves with nearly fifteen hours of tape; we decided that the only valid way to deal with the mass of material was to edit and organize it collectively. | Consequently, | transcribed most of the tapes word-for-word, and then Naomi, Tom and | went over the transcriptions. Once we had agreed on the material to be retained, Naomi and | edited for syntax and occasionally incorrect choice of words. When that was done, all three of us went over the interview again, comparing the edited version with the original transcription to make sure, in those cases where we had made changes, that we had retained Godard and _ Gorin’s exact meaning. At this point, Greil Marcus read the manuscript and suggested that we include some analytical and connecting material, which we did. Greil also took part in a number of lengthy discussions of the piece, and we would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for his various comments and editorial suggestions. ib aw. i1/ aA