UPDATE: We now have a trailer.
EARLIER: I mentioned last week that Jean-Luc Godard’s “Scénarios” would be included inside this year’s Cannes Film Festival lineup. This afternoon, the fest confirmed its presence, but I had absolutely no idea that the film was shot the day before his assisted-suicide death in Switzerland.
Described as the “ultimate film by Jean-Luc Godard,” and much like most of his latter-career statements, it seems to defy description. Here’s how the Cannes’ press release describes it:
“Scenarios” is the title that Jean-Luc Godard chose to give to a final 18-minute gesture, made, literally, the day before his voluntary death. Furthermore, Jean-Luc Godard recorded a 34-minute film in which, mixing still images and moving images, halfway between reading and vision, he presented the Scenarios project.
Okay. I’ll be there for the screening. It’s the least I can do, to pay my respects to a man who quite literally changed the world of cinema with his films of the early ‘60s, and ‘70s.
We know that, prior to his death, Godard was working on two films: “Scénarios” and “Funny Wars.” The latter screened at last year’s Cannes. “Funny Wars” was shot on 35mm, 16mm, and Super 8 —while “Scénarios” appears to have made “more in a classic video style with some Super-8 images, not with 35mm.”
Godard’s closest collaborator, cinematographer Fabrice Aragno, has additionally stated that in “Scénarios,” Godard 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 a vaguely conventional “movie” has interested the legendary filmmaker. If anything, his films over the last 30 years have been experimental audio/visual collages, more interested in pictures, sounds, cuts, and de-saturation, a maddening barrage of dadaist statements.
Godard’s latter-day works all came with a well-recognized package of ideas and metaphors and images. Sometimes these collages gelled and other times they just didn’t. His last feature-length film was 2018’s “The Image Book” which I attempted to review for The Playlist, back in 2018. However, I must admit, I was a fan of 2014’s “Goodbye to Language,” a 3D experience that deeply resonated with me.
With that said, Godard should most be remembered for his earlier and seminal works which, again, attempted to reinvent the language of the medium, my favorites are “Breathless,” “Contempt,” “Weekend,” and “Vivre Sa Vie,”