Programme
Tout va bien
Mariano Paz will introduce a screening of Tout va bien by Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, a provocative and iconoclastic film that is as much a critical exploration of politics and class as it is of the language of cinema and the star system.
The first, fantastically inventive stage of Jean-Luc Godard’s career ended with the flaming apocalypse of Weekend (1967) and the events of May ’68, in which he participated both as a demonstrator and (anonymous) filmmaker. Over the next five years, he would strive to reinvent movies again, both on his own and with erstwhile student activist Jean-Pierre Gorin, as the Dziga Vertov Group. His mantra: “The problem is not to make political films but to make films politically” (J. Hoberman, Tout va bien Revisited, The Criterion Collection).
Starring Yves Montand and Jane Fonda, Tout va bien marks Godard’s return to shooting films in France after 1968, and is his last collaboration with Gorin. Released in 1972, it is an attempt by the filmmakers to distance themselves from the hermetic qualities of their earlier works for the Dziga Vertov Group, making a more accessible and commercial film while, at the same time, engaging with a Marxist critique of contemporary society and reflecting on the legacy of May ’68. In fact, the aim of the film, according to Gorin, was to “consider the class struggle in France four years on from 1968.”
About Mariano Paz:
Mariano’s interests are focused on dystopia, politics and society in Latin American popular culture. In particular, his research to date has explored the representation of science and technology in Argentine films, genre cinemas in Latin America (including the fantastic and science fiction), non-naturalistic cinemas and literature in Argentine culture, and the representation of the city in Latin American cinema.