Godard and Virno’s Linguistic Exodus

 

“Cause they spell mad problems from Watts to Harlem
And the bullshit won’t stop long as the world’s revolvin
And I recall when niggaz knew my pops had clout
But they didn’t know my sorry ass was gettin kicked out
And they was seein if I wanted to come bubble with them
And make my ends triple and double with them
And get in trouble with them, now memories of them
I wear em in my heart like a emblem
I doubt we’d ever be bigtime sellin dope coke or dust
It’s killin us, let’s take our people and make a exodus”

(Gang Starr – “My Advice 2 You”)

 

Jean Luc-Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966) is really one of the more complicated films that we have seen this semester.  In essence, we are viewing the dramatic intensification of the stylistic conventions that Godard used previous texts.  The sound, for instance, is arguably much more disruptive in this film than with any of his other works.  Furthermore, on a thematic level, this film evidences Godard’s continuing, perhaps increasing, preoccupation with the war in Vietnam.  In a short scene on the stairs outside the family’s apartment, the young boy holds a toy machine gun up to the camera.  Suddenly, the boy pulls the toy trigger, sending a series of orange rounds through the upper part of the plastic mechanism.  His father later emulates this very action while discussing Adolf Hitler.  In both cases, the sound that the gun makes is much louder than one initially expects.  In fact, it seems as though Godard has intercut the actual sound of machine gun fire into the soundtrack each time the toy gun is fired.  The plastic gun and image of the child is, quite obviously, contrasted with the loud ring of gun fire.  At the very least, there is room to read that both the young boy and toy weapon are representative of the relatively youthful soldiers experiencing the dread of war in Vietnam.  With the loud clack of machine gun fire, one is reminded that often, pulling a trigger has real and more severe consequences. 

 

Although there is room to read into the numerous stylistic conventions and thematic concerns that are present throughout Godard’s extended oeuvre, the emphasis he gives to language seems most crucial.  With Two or Three Things Godard voices an interest in how the written word functions in relation to images.  Whereas in earlier films, namely Les Carabiniers, Godard simply juxtaposes the written word with the moving image, Godard’s later texts become more explicitly concerned with certain theoretical components.  This is to say that he becomes more interested in the theory of the word.  In this film, such an interest finds meaning in both the monologue and dialogue that various characters deliver.  From the very onset, the audience’s attention is drawn to this thematic concern by the main character’s suggestion that we, “inhabit language.”  Then, furthermore, in reference to the omnipresent narrator, she argues that although one can describe what she does or how she does it, one might not be able to get at why she does it.  For Godard, even within the initial moments of the film, it is important to reconcile the word and image, two forms of representation that are often set in opposition to one another. 

 

With reference for today’s film, it seems that two related concerns arise in relation to the word or language.  The first issue that Godard seems to be concerned with is whether or not language has anything to contribute to the image.  In much of the dialogue that the main character delivers, she suggests that language is ultimately unable to account for much of what she does, thinks, or feels.  In one scene she states, quite blatantly, that words, “never say what I’m feeling.”  In other parts of the film, Godard makes allusions to what film might be able to represent that the word cannot.  In fact, there is really no shortage of statements regarding what the image can do with and without the accompaniment of text.  Though it is not really entirely clear what Godard’s specific conclusions are with regard for language, one can read (“read” being the operative word), that Godard is at least interested in creating texts that work at the seams of language and image.  Godard not only writes a lot of dialogue concerning the more theoretical components of such a discussion, but he also uses intertitles quite frequently, and even features a piece of writing for which words are consistently being crossed off.  For Godard, on quite a simplistic level, one can read that he is interested in how language might actually contribute to the process.

 

On another level, one can see that Godard is also concerned with the ways in which language confines characters.  This is to say that not only is Godard interested in what language can’t express, but that he is also interested in what it means to be confined or made miserable by language.  Here, again, one must turn back to the dialogue.  Early on, the protagonist drops her child off at a daycare (where, strangely enough, women are actually prostituting themselves for rent money), and decides to go shopping at a few clothing stores.  When the protagonist walks into one of the stores, she immediately explains that if she had to define herself, she would use one word, indifference.  Already, one can see that although Godard toys with the idea of words failing to adequately represent, he is also interested in what it means for a word or description to consume; Godard is interested, in a sense, in what it means for one word to encapsulate a person. 

 

On a greater scale though, it is interesting to read that Godard is commenting on language more generally.  In a strange sense, it seems that he views capitalism as necessarily being a condition of language.  His argument, which appears only momentarily, is that if the current system of language is somewhat detrimental, perhaps we need a new language.  Although it may be a little difficult to make this comparison, I’m interested in reading Godard’s film in conjunction with Paolo Virno’s work on the multitude.  More specifically, I’m interested in reading Godard’s suppositions concerning language in conjunction with Virno’s theories concerning grammar in Grammar of the Multitude and Multitude: between Innovation and Negation.  In these texts, Paolo Virno argues that what lies at the heart of any theory of politics and political institutions is a continuing discourse on human singularity.  This is to say that Virno is particularly interested in reading theories of political institutions as ultimately being related to various theoretical suppositions concerning that which differentiates man from non-human animals.  For Virno’s part, he argues that it is man’s capacity for language which initially encourages the development of political institutions, and thus, it must also be man’s capacity for language that allows man to break with the system.  Though Virno’s analysis is much more complex than this, encompassing nearly two books worth of material, one can read that Godard shares some similar concerns for language. 

 

The most important parallel between Godard and Virno is that both argue for a new system of language.  Virno, for his part, discusses the capacity that jokes, as a specific linguistic action, have for being highly innovative.  He argues that of the two types of jokes, the second has its equivalent in the Exodus; specifically the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt.  Here, Virno suggests that the best method of recourse in an oppressive system of grammar is not to rebel or obey, but rather, to leave the system as a whole.  Interestingly, one can read that Godard is alluding to something very similar in the clothing store scenes at the beginning of this film.  Though the terms are a little different, I’m interested in what this might mean for an interpretation of Godard’s film.  Is it possible that Godard is trying to constitute a new form of grammar or language in order to leave the oppressive binds of a particular system (political or otherwise)?  Might it be that Godard’s interest in language is prompted by the increasingly political nature of his texts? 

~ by 1jargoncomputer on November 25, 2008.