Take One (Jul-Aug 1971)

Raymond Chandler Mao Iseslung & lout Va Bien. Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, working collectively as the Dziga Vertov Film Group, are clearly in the vanguard of the ever-growing group of filmmakers that sees film-as-politics as the only game in town. Two years ago, they agreed to a lengthy interview exploring their political ideology as it pertained to filmmaking — an interview that appeared in TAKE ONE, Vol. 2, #10, and has been reprinted (in expanded form) in Double Feature, published by Outerbridge and Lazard. This interview proved to be of utmost importance to us, as writers, as well as to a number of political filmmakers who were working, in their Own way, toward the same goal as Godard/Gorin. (See Michael Shedlin’s interview with Haskell Wexler elsewhere in this issue.) Since the original interview, Godard and Gorin have been working as steadily as their shaky financial situation would allow — and under the shadow of Jean-Luc’s serious motorcycle accident, from which he is still recovering as of this writing. They did a film for Grove Press, Vladimir and Rosa, have nearly finished an English version of Struggle In Italy (to be released by New Yorker Films), and have just completed a big-budget, 35mm film, intended for general release and starring Jane Fonda and Yves Montand: Tout Va Bien. Tout Va Bien raises a number of crucial questions about the role of the political filmmaker in reaching a large audience, and for this reason we were delighted when JeanPierre turned up in Berkeley in June, 1972. Although he seemed rather exhausted, he found the time and energy for two long interview sessions in which we discussed not only Tout Va Bien, but the changes the Dziga Vertov Group has undergone in the last two years. By the time the tape started rolling, we were well into a discussion on the possibilities of using videotape for purposes of instant replay and self-criticism: EE OEE I Some people are already using video for that purpose. A person whom nobody likes in the United States, but who is still a great movie maker, is Jerry Lewis. He works a lot with video. (The interviewers are momentarily unable to cope:) Oh no, not you too... | mean, of all the filmmakers... He is a great filmmaker, at least for Jean-Luc and me, as well as for many other people in France. He’s the last real filmmaker you have, and he is going to be recognized here, sooner or later. Could you explain why you think he’s a great filmmaker? He’s the last of a long line of great filmmakers. He’s got his own peculiarities, but he’s in the direct line of the whole comic tradition in American movies. In a sense, he makes rather experimental and scientific films — in the way he plays with the sound and the image, the way he deals with the cutting, the way he constructs his plots. Which Way To The Front?, his most recent film, is almost mathematical if you look into it deeply. Jean-Luc has seen it five times. But his jokes are stupid. We are very surprised that all the people we talk to in America have the same reaction. It seems that Europeans are more able to appreciate his style of filmmaking. The socalled “straightness” of Jerry Lewis, as seen in a Brechtian way, and all the things that pertain to the American way of life, seem very funny and satirical to us. I’ve always suspected that Europeans like Jerry Lewis because they held Americans in such contempt, and saw Jerry Lewis as representing us perfectly. | think he should be seen as a very strong critic of the American way of life. For years he has done that, far more effectively than any other filmmaker. Maybe he’s just better with subtitles, like Edgar Allen Poe. Well, the translation is not so good. But still, the general public in France considers him no more than an entertainer, in the bad sense of the term. It’s really a shame for him to be considered a ‘“‘kid entertainer’ — | can’t conceive of anything more boring for a kid. His films should be frightening for kids. But there is a general critical movement that recognizes the things he does. You should see Ladies Man, for instance, which is a really great film. Leaving Jerry Lewis for the moment, you were going to tell us how Tout Va Bien was conceived. It's a project that had a long evolution. At the beginning, there was the need to make a film that would be more widely seen. This was one of the basic political/aesthetic problems. We wanted to do a movie that would be released on a large scale — a traditional movie made through the traditional system of production and distribution. Isn't that quite a change from the way you were thinking two years ago? | don’t think so. One of the basic errors that people have made about us (and it’s not their fault, because we gave them the material to make that error) is thinking that we were going underground. But you can’t say you’re going underground when you're dealing with people like Grove Press, or London Weekend Television, or State Television in Italy. That's inside the system. | don't see any way to go outside it. Well, anyway, Tout Va Bien... In the beginning, the script was called ‘“Doctoress Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde.” It was an attempt to take a well known myth — which is the perfect form of the reactionary myth — and subvert it. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is about a guy whose will to know, and:to go deeply into science, leads him to become a monster. The moral is: ‘Don’t change, because if you change you’re going against mighty laws of nature, and you'll be punished.’”’ So we attempted to use »that myth to make a film in which Dr. Jekyll’s transformation into Mr. Hyde would be a good thing — and his great problem would be to keep from becoming Jekyll again. That was the basic structure, but while in the traditional tale Dr. Jekyll’s discovery was a potion that he drank, for us the potion would be class struggle. The film was to be about that political/social/ideological transformation in which /A\n Interview with Jean-Pierre Gorin by Michael Gaodwin & Naomi Wise