John Menick Blog

For whatever reason, Bright Lights film journal decides to publish its online content like a print journal, which means quarterly, and which also means avid fans such as myself only check in a few times a year. (At least give us some weekly content!) Issue 52 is out, and Robert Keser’s article on Godard’s Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma is worth a look. It also jogged a memory of the film’s premier in New York a few years ago.

I saw Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma at the opening of the MoMA’s renovated theater, with a packed, invite-only crowd. In other words, the place was filled with in-the-know arts professions, people, you would assume, who have seen a Godard film, and maybe even a late Godard film. Evidently not. Granted, this was the second screening of the night, and most of the room was roasted on free booze. I also have to say that the film was liberally translated, meaning that the translators, oh, got around to translating every fifth or sixth line of voice-over whenever they felt like it. (I don’t speak French — not even close –but even I could catch random omissions and mistakes in the subtitling.)

The crowd was livid. They booed and hissed to such an extent a Cannes Festival audience would have been embarrassed. People were wailing at the screen and leaving in packs. An entire row of people in the arts sitting in front of me, professionals who, say, curate really dry shows of conceptual art (and who will go unnamed), left after a few minutes. It was not the easiest film in the world to watch, but it was by no means Michael Snow, and by no means torturous. And, I remind you: it was playing at the MoMA.

The point is not to call out the New York art world as a pack of philistines. Nothing could be more obnoxious and out of place. However, I’ve been attending art house screenings in New York for twelve years, and no film has elicited such a reaction from any crowd, let alone one from the art world. (OK, maybe one.) I felt as if I was witnessing a minor version of a Modernist scandal, something akin to Stravinsky’s first performance of Le Sacre du printemps. (Sans fistfights.) If anything, it showed that Godard was on to something, and was able to make a film that actually drew lines through its audience. Needless to add: the theater was mostly empty by the time the film ended.

Related: Bright Lights links to Jonathan Rosenbaum’s review of Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma.

PS: Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma brought up a related question for me: what rights management issues does the film raise? To charge Godard or Thom Anderson for the usage of this appropriated material would be outrageous and unworkable, but as the Times mentioned recently, not totally unthinkable. Both filmmakers’ work easily falls under the heading of ‘criticism,’ and the fair usage of the material would be defensible, but is this kind of work threatened by Hollywood?