Jean-Luc Godard’s early films reflect the increasingly political nature of their maker and the volatile cultural upheavals of the 1960s. By the time Godard used 1967’s Weekend as a kiss-off to commercial cinema, he had already covered topics like the Algerian and Vietnam wars, America’s post-World War II presence and influence throughout Europe, and the increasing commodification of all facets of life under capitalism. Yet the anti-Gaullist riots of May 1968 galvanized an already radical filmmaker to approach his profession, itself a product of American capitalist industry, from a socialist angle. Teaming up with Maoist student Jean-Pierre Gorin, Godard formed the collective Dziga Vertov Group, so named for the Russian constructivist theorist and director, and set about creating a series of films that break apart the formal rules of cinema for the purposes of remaking existing film language and subject matter around socialist ideals.
Arrow Academy has bundled five of these films — Un Film Comme les Autres, British Sounds, Le Vent d’Est, Vladimir et Rosa, and Lotte in Italia — and together they represent some of the most difficult work of Godard’s notoriously thorny career. Where the director’s classic work mixed formal experimentation with genre deconstructions and impish satire, these films opt for socialist-realist asceticism and foregrounded political theory. If Godard previously weaved his increasingly radical politics into nominally mainstream films, these were works meant to educate, aimed squarely at university students dealing with the fallout from May ‘68 and the Vietnam War.
This lavish box set by Arrow Academy is a fulsome tribute to a film-making collective that dared to expand the boundaries of what cinema could be.
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