Le Gai savoir (1969)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Film Review

The film that marked Jean-Luc Godard's definitive break with mainstream cinema in the 1960s and defined his future direction for the next decade and beyond was this daring experimental work.  Le Gai savoir was originally commissioned by the French television company ORTF as an adaptation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Emile.  Once they saw the initial footage which Godard had shot, the ORTF pulled out of the project, but allowed the director to finish the work with his own resources.

Just as Rousseau's novel led to a wholesale reform of the education system in France, Godard was probably hoping that his film would have a radical impact on the future of cinema.  Whilst few have followed Godard's cause, the film is significant because it rationalises the director's philosophy of filmmaking in a way that few, if any, of his other films manages to.  The interaction of sound and image, and how these play upon our imagination and establish links between the world of fantasy and the world of everyday experience, are some of the themes which the film explores.  In this pot-pourri of artistic overload abound the familiar Godard-esque references to imperialist consumerism and extreme left-wing politics, no doubt influenced by the events of May 1968.

Film Synopsis

In a deserted television studio two artistic militants come together to exchange their ideas about television, cinema and politics.  Patricia is a child of the Cultural Revolution, Émile the great-great-grandson of the Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Both object to today's use of the spoken word as a weapon employed by those in power to control and mislead the masses.  For communication to be effective and overcome the tyranny of language it must rely on more abstract forms of expression.  Film is an essential part of this, Patricia and Émile agree.  Cinema has so much potential as a medium in which to express the revolutionary spirit of the age, but it must be deployed in a completely new way, it must return to the drawing board and reinvent itself, if it is to have any value.