A Companion to Jean-Luc Godard ed. by Tom Conley, and T. Jefferson Kline (review)

This anthology offers thirty-three diverse and informative essays written by a cross-section of Godard scholars from around the world. The chapters follow a roughly chronological order, starting with an excellent account by Jean-Michel Frodon of Godard as critic in the 1950s, and ending with a reading of Film socialisme (2010) by Irmgard Emmelhainz, who incorrectly speculates that this might be Godard’s last film. Unfortunately, this collection was published just as Godard’s surprising and revelatory use of 3D in Les Trois Désastres (2013) and Adieu au langage (2014) appeared. Obviously it is impossible to cover every facet of a filmmaker as prolific as Godard, whose combined output to date of features, shorts, videos, and television productions numbers over a hundred. Nevertheless, the coverage is slightly uneven. While films such as Une femme est une femme (1961), Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle (1967), and JLG/JLG – autoportrait de décembre (1995) have two essays dedicated them — not to mention Le Mépris (1963), which has three — important works including Alphaville (1965), Made in USA (1966), Prénom: Carmen (1983), Détective (1985), King Lear (1987), Soigne ta droite (1987), Nouvelle Vague (1990), Hélas pour moi (1993), and For Ever Mozart (1996) barely get a mention, if at all. Scattered in between essays concerned with the films themselves are welcome treatments of theoretical and thematic aspects of Godard’s work, including an account of Godard’s influence on Bernardo Bertolucci by Fabien S. Gérard, an explication of Godard’s reflections on the Second World War and the Holocaust by Philip Watts, Douglas Smith’s reference to Godard’s often conflicting affinity for both realist and abstract modern art practices, and Thomas Odde’s charting of Godard’s cinematic use and abuse of oil companies in the 1960s. Godard’s concern with the cinematic representation of history in works such as Allemagne année 90 neuf zero (1991), The Old Place (1999), Notre musique (2004) and his magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988–98) is the main focus of the latter third of the anthology. However, the highlight of this collection is pre-eminent Godard scholar Michael Witt’s ‘On and Under Communication’, an excellent account of Godard’s little-seen collaborative video and television work with Anne-Marie Miéville in the 1970s under the name Sonimage. Most illuminating here is Witt’s skilful delineation of Sonimage’s embrace of Claude Shannon’s communication theory, as outlined in his Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949). While Miéville’s contribution is highlighted, it is surprising, in an anthology as lengthy and detailed as this, that there are no essays specifically concerning Godard’s collaboration with his first wife Anna Karina, or his second, Anne Wiazemsky. There is also a noticeable lack of criticism from a feminist point of view, save Martine Beugnet’s ‘Commerce and the War of the Sexes’, which rather strangely concentrates on Godard’s influence on the films of Laetitia Masson. These minor quibbles aside, it is undeniable that Tom Conley and Jefferson Kline have compiled a significant resource that belongs on the shelf of every Godard scholar.