Dobre kino może robić tylko niesforne dziecko, czyli dwie filozoficzne uwagi o wczesnych filmach Jean-Luca Godarda

Abstract

GOOD MOVIES CAN ONLY BE MADE BY AN UNRULY CHILD, OR TWO PHILOSOPHICAL COMMENTS ON GODARD’S EARLY FILMS

This article focuses on the analysis of and commentary of the early Jean-Luc Godard’s films ― Á bout de souffl e [Breathless] 1960, Pierrot le fou 1965 and La Chinoise 1967 ― in modern philosophical contexts: from Schiller to Agamben. At the beginning of this essay, I present the basic theoretical political and philosophical assumptions of Godard’s cinematic oeuvre. In this aspect I am focusing on the criticism of the French culture of the fifties’ Zeitgeist, especially the conservative policy of general Charles de Gaulle. For Jean-Luc Godard post-war France and French were simply boring ― that is why he decided to make movies. His early films are primarily testimony of fun and games with the accepted conventions: the culture, customs and politics. Making a movie, the French director just wants to have fun. In the second ― theoretical ― part of the text, I reconstruct two original philosophical perspectives of interpretation associated with the work of Giorgio Agamben and Friedrich Schiller. First, I present the strategy of profanation, which I confront with the characters of Godard’s films. Then I analyze the concept of “game” from Friedrich Schiller’s Letters. Jean-Luc Godard is a complicated director: first he was the original child of his time, and later — unfortunately, only the slave of his own thoughts.