A number of dominant film critics who were under the spell of the auteur theory considered Godard the only true film genius to have appeared since WW II.

Among those who created the French New Wave, the last globally significant film movement, Jean-Luc Godard certainly held a special place. He earned it not only because of his great talent but also because he was the most consistent antagonist of the dominant mainstream cinema’s bourgeois esthetics. The basic aspirations of the New Wave were always present in Godard’s films: the author’s commentary or attitude emphasized over realistic portrayal, autobiographical elements and quotes, genre patterns of Hollywood films, which were transformed through the renewed heritage of French poetic realism, and artistic motifs designed to radically alter art and society as a whole. A number of dominant film critics who were under the spell of the auteur theory considered Godard the only true film genius to have appeared since WW II. This undoubtedly exaggerated attitude did not survive changes in the critics’ tastes, but Godard’s personal and highly original history of film, showing in Tuskanac, may provide additional arguments to the supporters of the aforementioned thesis.
“The best way to watch these films is to enter the images without any names and references in your head. The less you know the better,” says Godard to the viewers of his monumental film series Histoire(s) du cinema. It is primarily based on quotes (mostly film inserts) and organized by complex associations with many layers of meaning, which are often hard to grasp. At first glance, it is an unusual history of film, which according to Godard should be created from film itself and only with film means. It should not describe all that has happened throughout the century of cinema. Moreover, film should be redefined as the dialectics of editing, sound and images, fiction and reality. However, it is much harder to define the author’s intentions than to translate the title of his work, which by itself is not an easy task. Histoire in French means history, but also story, and the s in the brackets denotes plural. Therefore, in English we could translate the title Histoire(s) du cinema literally into Film (His)Stories.
Godard was generally very fond of utilizing multiple layers and clashes of meaning, as evidenced by the fact that his series about film history (in spite of its title) has no story, but instead builds the meaning on Eisenstein’s editing of attractions. The editing was pushed to the far edges of human perception; there are cutaways and superimpositions not only in every scene, but also in every second of the film. There are constant alternations and superimpositions of scenes of the author sitting at a typewriter with scenes from many famous films, documentary clips of important historical events, and titles that are reminiscent of the era of silent films. The sound consists of the sound of a typewriter, author’s monologues, sound recordings from famous film authors and actors, sounds from famous films (which are not always connected to the images on screen) and the (occasionally loud) musical backdrop. Godard structured this work on the principles of jazz improvisation, experimenting with all kinds of film expressions and drawing the viewer into the essence of his work. Those lucky enough to find their way through this stream of strong emotions, impacts and feelings will discover that Godard’s intentions reach for a plane above immediate impressions of film history. Moreover, we discover that Godard himself takes a special place in film history, that he questions not just film history but the history of world in general and proves his statement, “Movie theatres show films and people see that the world exists.”
If every artist is a Deity inside the world that he creates, then Godard took a step further and tried to become God in the world that exists only because film shows it. His intention was to prove that he was a true genius in his medium. Unsurprisingly, he did not succeed in reaching and convincing the general audience. His Histoire(s) du Cinema, initially planned as a TV series, encountered many challenges appearing on TV screens and reaching bigger audiences. On the other hand, this piece of work toured every international film festival and caused very different reactions among this specialized and elitist audience. Whatever anybody may think about this most ambitious film by Godard, nobody can deny that it is the most interesting film experiment of all time. That certainly makes it worth seeing!

(Tomislav Kurelec)