Mitra Farahani was at MOMA to present her latest project. She’s also the producer of, what was supposed to be, Godard’s final film, “The Image Book.” However, MOMA has written that she’s also credited as the producer of Godard’s “forthcoming film,” titled “Scénario.”
Rejoice! A new Godard is maybe coming, most probably at Cannes? Even if you’re not a fan of Godard’s later works, for which I partly am, you’ve got to be excited by the prospect of a posthumous film from the French master.
On 09.23.22 I wrote of the possibility that one or both films Godard was working on might see the light of day.
We know, according to Godard’s closest collaborator, cinematographer Fabrice Aragno, the films in question are titled “Funny Wars” and “Scénario,”
“Funny Wars” was shot on 35mm, 16mm, and Super 8—35mm shot black-and-white, the other two color—while “Scénario” appears “more in a classic video style with some Super-8 images, not with 35mm.”
Aragno additionally stated that Godard specifically wanted to go back to his origins. “He said you know this Chris Marker film “La Jetée”? Maybe we can do something like that”.
It’s been a long time since traditional or even vaguely conventional “movies” had interested the legendary filmmaker. If anything, his films over the last 20 or so years have been experimental audio/visual collages more interested in pictures, sounds, cuts, and de-saturation, a maddening barrage of dadaist statements. That’s why, if Godard didn’t complete “Funny Wars,” and “Scénario,” nobody will likely be able to finish them.
However, it looks like “Scénario” might be finished. Whatever Godard meant in going back to his “origins,” we might finally as maybe he has a posthumous surprise in store for us at next year’s Cannes. It could be his final trick in a historic oeuvre of tricksterism.
“Hope,” Na’s first film in ten years — his last one being the exemplary “The Wailing” —is a gloriously messy, blood-soaked sci-fi epic that may become a cult classic despite—or because of—its polarizing nature.