Ana Lomtadze: In response to “Is This Really the Way to Remember The Wave?”

Thanks for the wonderful blog-post![1] Indeed, the period of late 1950ies and 60ies – the time of the French and other New Waves – was a unique precedent all over the world, in which cinema occupied a particular space for the convergence of politics, social movements, and theories. Recognized as an ideological apparatus, cinema provided a space for deconstruction of reality, reflection and resistance. So, the question of how we remember and rethink the FNW in 2013 is of crucial importance. The original blog-post talks about the trend in popular culture to over-romanticize the FNW by using its traits (“Wave iconography, with shots against walls, cafes, and, of course, plenty of cigarette smoking”) as signs of something hip and cool. And yet these signs become “pure placeholders”, while the FNW – superficial and commodified.

I would like to discuss another contemporary trend in relation to FNW, which might be unknown to some of the Western audiences. Unlike what one may expect, in my home country Georgia, the FNW and its prominent devotee, Jean-Luc Godard are quite famous. However, the slight reference to Godard in a conversation has in itself become a sign of coolness and ‘hipster’-ness, and thus, of pretension and elitism. About two years ago, an amateur Georgian group of comedians called “daviti da agmasheneblebi” shared a video on youtube, titled “ Godard”[2]. In the video a group of men sit around a table with stern faces, smoking and discussing Godard, except that all they do is actually conjugate his last name and here and there throw in a couple of empty phrases, such as “oh yes, Godard…of course…so interesting…his views…oh well, of course…I will repeat myself again, that Godard….well, Godard!…”. The video ends by men standing up with their hands up in the air, as if praying to Godard, the idol, repeating his name over and over. It is surely quite funny and witty, and probably reveals some truth about certain type of ‘artsy’, elitist crowd that uses big names or words just for the sake of using them. Though different in style and content, this youtube video is similar to the Icona Pop music clip discussed in the original blog-post  – at the end of the day, neither of them does justice to the FNW. If the former makes the FNW inaccessible, the latter almost turns the entire movement along with France/Paris into fetishes.

The two trends are certainly unfortunate as the FNW was in fact ideologically against both elitism and the mainstream pop culture/Hollywood of the time that served (and still serves) the purpose of (capitalist) brainwashing. After all, the FNW as such, and Godard in particular, (though also Agnes Varda and Chris Marker from the Left Bank) were essentially leftist. Indeed, I find the “punk movement” analogue, from the original blog-post, very apt.

I understand that any revolutionary movement runs the risk of being elitist and perhaps, it has been such in some cases. But labeling Godard elitist is just too easy. Frankly, no matter whether you are a film theorist, a cinephile or just another Earthly spectator with little experience of cinema, it is most likely that you will not understand Godard’s film (particularly the later ones, such as “Film Socialisme”), or at least, not all of it. However, difficulty is not enough of a reason to discard the FNW; Jean-Louis Comolli – one of the influential figures of the FNW as both a filmmaker and an editor-in-chief of Cahiers du Cinéma from 1966 to 1968[3]  – reminisces in his book, “Cinema, the Counter-Spectacle”, a type of cinema that conceives of and constructs a spectator, who is not only able to see and hear, but also capable of seeing the limits of seeing and hearing the limits of hearing[4]. The cinema that Comolli describes is, in its essence, confrontational and inventive in form, which is exactly how Godard’s individual and collaborative work (“Dziga Vertov Group”), particularly since 1967, can be described. Just because it puts more strain on your brain, such cinema is not inherently elitist. Rather, it serves critical and emancipatory purposes. Significantly, you don’t need a degree in Film Studies or, for that matter, a college degree, to be able to be affected by intelligent films, to reflect and question. And you certainly don’t need to be able to fix the meaning of every single scene.

Finally, here is one last thought: Peter Wollen claims: “It [counter-cinema] can only exist in relation to the rest of the cinema. Its function is to struggle against the fantasies, ideologies, and aesthetic devices”.[5] The FNW or any counter-cinema can never become the mainstream, but can only exist as an alternative – there lies its vulnerability, but also its strength and creativity.