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JEAN-LUC GODARD + JEAN-PIERRE GORIN: FIVE FILMS, 1968-1971

After finishing his film Weekend in 1967, Jean-Luc Godard shifted gears to embark on engaging more directly with the radical political movements of the era, and thus create a new kind of film, or, as he eventually put it: “new ideas distributed in a new way.” This new method in part involved collaborating with the precocious young critic and journalist, Jean-Pierre Gorin. Both as a two-person unit, and as part of the loose collective known as the Groupe Dziga Vertov (named after the early 20th-century Russian filmmaker and theoretician), Godard and Gorin would realize “some political possibilities for the practice of cinema” and craft new frameworks for investigating the relationships between image and sound, spectator and subject, cinema and society.

Included here are five films, all originally shot in 16mm celluloid, that serve as examples of Godard and Gorin’s revolutionary project:

Un film comme les autres [A Film Like Any Other]: An analysis of the social upheaval of May 1968 made in the immediate wake of the workers’ and students’ protests. The picture consists of two parts, each with with identical image tracks, and differing narration.
British Sounds, aka: See You at Mao: An examination of the daily routine at a British auto factory assembly line, set against class-conflict and The Communist Manifesto.
Vent d’est [Wind from the East]: A loosely conceived leftist-western that moves through a series of practical and analytical passages (“an organization of shots,” Godard called it) into a finale based around the process of manufacturing homemade weapons.
Lotte in Italia / Luttes en Italie [Struggles in Italy]: Not necessarily a film about the struggles in Italy — largely shot, in fact, in Godard and Anne Wiazemsky’s home at the time — this is a discursive reflection on a young Italian woman’s shift from political “theory” to political “practice” and, at the same time, a self-questioning of its own practice and theories.
Vladimir et Rosa [Vladimir and Rosa]: A searing and satirical comic-reportage on the trial of the Chicago Eight, featuring Juliet Berto and Godard and Gorin themselves.

These films, long out-of-circulation except in film dupes and bootleg video, here make their Blu-ray debut, providing a crucial glimpse of Godard’s radicalization, and of the aesthetic dialogue between him and Gorin that, in essence, served to invent a modern militant cinema. As Godard told an English journalist of the era, film is not a gun — but “a light which helps you check your gun.”

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
High-definition digital transfer
High-definition Blu-ray (1080p) and standard-definition DVD presentations
Original uncompressed monaural audio
Optional English subtitles
A conversation with JLG - Interview with Jean-Luc Godard from 2010 by Dominique Maillet and Pierre-Henri Gibert
100-page full-colour book containing English translations for the first time of writing by, and interviews with, Godard and Gorin, and more
More to be announced before release!

Well, technically not blu-ray debut except for British Sounds and Lotte in Italia, as there is a Japanese box set. But still, this is a very welcome English friendly set... and then there is the book, delicious.

Fantastic news.

An incredible announcement, so of course the first post was a "well, actually..."

The first response on Facebook to their "Which release are you most excited about?" post was "That's it?"

Unbelievable. Do these films have any fans on the board?

I am a big fan of these films. The book sounds great. Although I'm wondering, why no Pravda?

Fantastic announcement, I've been more than a little jealous of that Japanese box set. The book sounds terrific, but I do hope that the 'more' can include some archival footage such as Godard in America.

Superswede11 wrote:Unbelievable. Do these films have any fans on the board?

British Sounds is great, but A Film Like the Others is without question the worst thing Godard has ever done and is completely devoid of any merit whatsoever. Even the historical rigamarow can be better highlighted and appreciated by other, better films.

swo17 wrote:The first response on Facebook to their "Which release are you most excited about?" post was "That's it?"

Which is actually very usual.

Release of the year. I already have the French DVD box for these but will gladly upgrade

Superswede11 wrote:Unbelievable. Do these films have any fans on the board?

Hey, I didn't say the release was "fantastic news" because I hate the films!

Speaking of the board, former MoC producer (and CF.org alum) Craig Keller is producing the set for Arrow. He also worked on MoC's Godard releases like Une femme mariée, which gives an indication of the high quality we can expect from the 100-page booklet.

Well, that was their only Godard release (unless you count RoGoPaG).

I had to search the forum why I was thinking these films are with Criterion...

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11109&p=360386

Matt wrote:They'll make a main line set of the Groupe Dziga Vertov films. Released January 2018.

Matt was off by just a few months and Arrow Academy was started the year the post was made.

This is a dual UK/US release, for what it's worth.

knives wrote:

Superswede11 wrote:Unbelievable. Do these films have any fans on the board?

British Sounds is great, but A Film Like the Others is without question the worst thing Godard has ever done and is completely devoid of any merit whatsoever.

Un Film is actually one of the two I like on this set! But I'm glad they're all getting a release and getting a chance to revisit them in good quality.

nowhereisaplace wrote:I am a big fan of these films. The book sounds great. Although I'm wondering, why no Pravda?

A strange exclusion, I agree. Maybe they're saving it as a supplement to another future Godard release?

Sorry to spoil everybody's fun by making that impulsive remark in the first post. I only mentioned it because when Arrow announced Tout va bien (which was also part of that Japanese box set) two months ago, they did not indicate it was a blu-ray debut, and I thought at the time Arrow might be aware of the Japanese set and would go on to release the rest of the content from the set.

Anyway, I do appreciate the release and will support one of my favorite labels releasing works from one of my favorite directors.

domino harvey wrote:

nowhereisaplace wrote:I am a big fan of these films. The book sounds great. Although I'm wondering, why no Pravda?

A strange exclusion, I agree. Maybe they're saving it as a supplement to another future Godard release?

Too left wing.

domino harvey wrote:

nowhereisaplace wrote:I am a big fan of these films. The book sounds great. Although I'm wondering, why no Pravda?

A strange exclusion, I agree. Maybe they're saving it as a supplement to another future Godard release?

Craig Keller says that US rights to Pravda are elsewhere but they're trying to work it out.

I bet it's Olive, based on their other esoteric Godard choices. Hopefully they relinquish so we can have a full set

That's definitely the best guess though I wouldn't be surprised if it was with a zombie company like New Yorker instead.

Oedipax wrote:

Superswede11 wrote:Unbelievable. Do these films have any fans on the board?

Hey, I didn't say the release was "fantastic news" because I hate the films!

I think its more that they've been difficult films to see, at least in decent quality. I have a barely watchable decade-old YouTube rip of Wind From The East but otherwise this has been the 'lost era' of Godard, an era that has been built up to be as intimidating and inaccessible as possible (literally and figuratively) over at least the last twenty years that I've been curious about them. So I'm a little nervous (though I love the ranting of Letter to Jane and if any of these films are in that vein, I'd be fine with them!), but excited to finally get a chance to judge these works for myself rather than just secondhand. And that itself could potentially end up contextualising the 'early, popular' films even more as well, not to mention coming out of this period with Tout va bien.

Its also amusing to see this appear at this particular moment in the UK in which Jeremy Corbyn is seen as the epitome of a 'militant left winger with controversially dangerous views', to see what actual leftwing political radicals look like!

I'm very happy this getting a release like this for the reason mentioned above. With Arrow bringing out Tout va bien and (supposedly) La Chinoise, they are really diving into Godard's political work like no one else has (except for maybe Gaumont or that Spanish label that released some of his work). The work is really very good, Godard at his most abrasive but also thought provoking. The HD presentations are icing on the cake. Does Arrow have the rights to any more JLG?

OTOH, I would hope they weren't TOO like Letter to Jane (my least favorite Godard film).