WELCOME TO OUR NEXT SCREENING
Jean-Luc Godard's
LA CHINOISE
(France | 1967 | 92 mins | M adult themes)
Wednesday 10 September, 7.30PM, University of Otago’s Castle 1 Lecture Theatre**
In co-operation with the Institut Francais and the Embassy of France
Godard’s pop-art masterpiece embraces and parodies the revolutionary spirit of a group of middle-class students determined to overthrow the establishment by any means necessary.
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| | “La Chinoise is one of Godard’s most important and visually astounding works. A five-member Maoist cell (including nouvelle vague luminaries Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, and Anne Wiazemsky) spends summer vacation in a Parisian apartment discussing the Chinese Cultural Revolution and plotting an assassination. Though clearly sympathetic to their rejection of bourgeois ideology, Godard portrays the members of the cell as bunglers, revisionists, and poseurs: when Wiazemsky finally gets around to a terrorist act, it seems accidental, thoughtless, without affect or effect. Shot in pulsing primaries (especially |
red), scored with Stockhausen, Schubert, and Vivaldi, and paced with breakneck wit, La Chinoise is, given its dire subject, oddly ebullient” (TIFF Lightbox).
“Brilliant dialectical farce, distinctly disquieting as well as gratingly funny… Dazzlingly designed as a collage of slogans and poster images, it was widely attacked at the time for playing with politics. But Godard was well aware what he was doing… and his film stands as a prophetic and remarkably acute analysis of the impulse behind the events of May 1968 in all their desperate sincerity and impossible naïveté” (Tom Milne, Time Out) |
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FURTHER REVIEW
"Jean-Luc Godard’s engagement with left-wing politics had been evident in his films for some years. His views had become increasingly radical, dominated by his opposition to the Vietnam War, to American influence in politics, economics, and culture, and, above all, to the Hollywood cinema… [At this time] a small but growing number of Communists believed that the Chinese leader Mao, rather than the Soviets, was now the only authentic guarantor of “Marxism”… Godard brought together five young people, each of whom played a role derived from their own lives. So Anne Wiazemsky plays a student at Nanterre University involved in radical politics; Jean-Pierre Leaud an ambitious young actor; Juliet Berto a girl from the provinces... All give fine, committed – and in the case of Leaud – charming performances, that go some way to counteracting their more absurd pontifications. |
Another distinctive element of the film’s style is Godard’s frequent breaking of the fourth wall. His own voice can be heard offscreen on several occasions asking the actors questions. He also leaves the slate in a number of shots, and uses a second camera to film cameraman Raoul Coutard filming the action. This reflects the influence of Brecht whose thinking had been a factor in Godard’s approach to his work for years but was never as explicit before as it is here. The actors repeatedly address the viewer directly... in a manner reminiscent of Brecht’s theatre. Godard acknowledges his allegiance to the German in the scene where Jean-Pierre Léaud’s character stands at a blackboard covered with the names of a number of playwrights including Sartre, Racine, Cocteau, Goethe, Sophocles, Chekhov, Pinter and Shakespeare. One by one he rubs away the names until only one remains: Brecht" (New Wave Film). |
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–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Finally, watch critic Mark Kermode review La Chinoise... ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
ABOUT THE DUNEDIN FILM SOCIETY
ADMISSION
Free to members.
TO JOIN
To purchase a Half Season membership:- complete a membership form from our website and pay by online bank transfer (06-0942-0696013-00);
- or join at the door before any screening (cash only).
- you can also join at the OUSA office reception at the University of Otago (cash only).
Alternatively, you can purchase a Three-Film sampler ($25), which can be also be shared to bring two friends to one screening. The sampler does not expire and can be used over multiple years.
Membership includes generous discounts at Rialto Cinemas (from Monday to Friday); and FREE entry to the 2025 screenings of all other affiliated New Zealand Film Societies. Each member is entitled to ONE FREE GUEST ADMISSION to a single screening.
**To get to the Castle 1 Theatre: walk up between the University of Otago’s Arts building (Burns) and Information Services building (Central Library), on Albany Street.
WE WELCOME YOUR FEEDBACK!... on this screening, or any other Dunedin Film Society showing, on dunedinfi...@gmail.com –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– |
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