Jim Emerson's Scanners Blog

Jean-Luc Godard invents totally new
distribution and exhibition paradigm

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From an interview with JLG at Cinemasparagus, regarding the director's preferred distribution and exhibition method for his latest (and allegedly last) feature, "Film socialisme," which premiered a few days ago at Cannes and which can be seen in its entirety, backwards and compressed into 67 seconds, above:

I really would have liked to have a boy and a girl be involved, a couple who had the urge to show things, who were kind of involved with the cinema, the sort of young people you might meet at small festivals. They'd be given a copy of the film on DVD, then be asked to train as skydivers. After that, places would be randomly chosen on a map of France, and they'd parachute down into those locations. They'd have to show the film wherever they landed. In a café, at a hotel... they'd manage. People would pay 3 or 4 euros to get in -- no more than that. They might film this adventure, and sell it later on. Thanks to them, you get a sense of what it means to distribute a film. Afterwards, only you can make the decision, to find out whether or not it's able to be projected in regular theaters. But not before having investigated everything for a year or two. Because beforehand, you're just like me: you don't know what the film is, you don't know what might be interesting about it. You've gone a little outside the whole media space.

(translation: Craig Keller; tip: girish)

2 Comments

It would be nice to think that Godard still represents this kind of idealism. Unfortunately, the tone of the rest of the interview belies the spirit of those words.

I think at this point it's safe to say it's become impossible to tell a parody of Godard from the real thing.

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