A fost sau n-a fost? [2006)

It took me a long time. To come back to Romania. Country I’ve never visited. But in film.

I do not know which Romanian film I saw first. It may have been 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

It may have been The Way I Spent the End of the World.

You can read my praise for those two perfect films here on my site.

But let me just say that I am honored to finally review what I consider the third perfect Romanian film:

12:08 East of Bucharest.

The Romanian title translates directly as “It was or was not?”

Perhaps a little massaging would render the phrase more like “Was it or wasn’t it?”

And so what is this Hamletesque sentence driving at?

That is the question!

The revolution. The Romanian Revolution.

In a particular town (Vaslui) was there a revolution or wasn’t there?

While this may sound like a rather dry premise, let me assure you that director Corneliu Porumboiu proves himself to be a master on the order of his countrymen Cristian Mungiu and Cătălin Mitulescu.

Porumboiu is helped by the fantastic acting of three stellar performers.

Mircea Andreescu plays the character Emanoil Piscoci. Andreescu’s comic timing as the awkward Mr. Piscoci is one of the defining elements of this film.

Also indispensable is Ion Sapdaru as Professor Manescu. Sapdaru’s desperation and body language also make this film the timeless gem that it is.

Though we may not completely sympathize with his brusque character, Teodor Corban does an admirable job portraying the unifying (and polarizing) Virgil Jderescu.

Finally, I cannot leave out the small-but-pithy contribution of the excellent George Guoqingyun.

[we now interrupt this horribly boring review to bring you the point]

The point?

Black humor. Bleak humor. Dark humor.

The town…looks as shitty as my town. My neighborhood.

There aren’t any explosions. No CGI.

No superheroes. In fact, there’s not even a pretty girl with whom to fall in love.

That’s reality right there. Verismo.

As the snow falls on Vaslui I feel the same desperation I feel on a daily basis.

The cracked concrete of the apartment buildings. The sad roofs. From above.

The band is a little out of tune. Desafinado. I love them.

This film isn’t like the oblivion of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. It doesn’t have a blooming flower of hope in its heart like The Way I Spent the End of the World.

But it shares with those films a country and a particular way of looking at the world. Show the bad stuff.

The difference here is, “Show the bad stuff…and then laugh a little.”

A little.

It will still make you cry.

No, it’s not a calculated Italian confection.

This is a beautifully sloppy film.

It’s films such as this which make me push on–which make me keep writing. I keep hoping.

Porumboiu…your crappy world gives me hope in my crappy world. Thank you.

-PD

4 Comments

Game of Death II [1981)

And now we ostensibly enter the schlock of true B-movie Brucespoitation. Eight years after his death, producer Raymond Chow and distributor Golden Harvest were still trying to milk money from the cutting-floor scraps of their cash cow. But someone kept things fairly interesting: director See-Yuen Ng.

Though there is little to no continuity between Game of Death and Game of Death II, both films share a watchable quality which teeters on the edge of this viewer’s incredulous ennui. Put simply, this film is better than it has any right to be. Which is not to say this is a great (or even good) film.

The most hilarious midnight movie aspects are the contrasts between film fidelity and definition circa 1973 (the actual footage of Lee) and 1981 (the footage of everyone else). I almost feel sorry for director Ng for the sleight-of-hand editing and shooting necessary to even attempt this picture. Back to the film stocks not matching…much of that is also evident in the lack of deft color correction. Occasionally a background matches and we must hand it to the technicians who found just the right shade of puke green to provide a shred of matching in the shot-reverse-shots.

Fortunately for all involved, Lee’s character meets his demise about halfway through the film. It’s smooth sailing from there regarding the different eras of film stock.

This film is not without messages. Some, apparently, have not been interpreted the same by all viewers. Whereas I distinctly heard the Ginza district of Tokyo mentioned as Lee’s (and his on-screen brother’s) destination, English Wikipedia tells us that the action moves to Korea. Of course, the astute spectator who added this bit of plot synopsis to the aforementioned site seems to have been oblivious that another contributor has Lee active before the end of the paragraph (the initial contributor giving away Lee’s character’s death along with the Korea location). So to clarify, Lee does not resurrect during the course of the film.

Roy Horan plays a significant role as a raw-venison-eating, deer’s-blood-drinking, bearded kung fu nut. As the name implies, Horan’s character is of white European lineage (not Chinese). There is a subtle undercurrent which implies that Lee’s friend (and consequently his own character as well) died for teaching kung fu to non-Chinese. This, of course, has some parallels in Lee’s actual life story.

For all of the professional attributes in this film, the “lion” attack (obviously a human in a lion costume) does not pass muster. It is, again, the stuff of midnight movies. Perhaps they were over budget by that point…

Tong Lung is actually pretty darn good as Lee’s brother (the hero of the film) Bobby Lo.

I won’t give away the ending, but suffice it to say that a multinational organization turns out to be the ultimate culprit of the two film murders in question. There are all sorts of strange strings waiting to be pulled here…fake deaths, the aforementioned cartel (this particular multinational is illegal in nature), etc.

The most interesting takeaway (take out?) was the revelation (somehow…perhaps due to the less than enthralling screen drama) that one political entity would have stood to gain from the actual Lee’s real life death. That entity would be China. Made before Hong Kong rejoined the PRC, Bruce Lee’s films and fame might have posed a significant threat to China in that (had he lived) he might well have been a unifying figure which could have fired the flames of revolution for those residents of HK not particularly excited about joining a country with such a totalitarian approach to dissent. But then again, any country which blocks the Internet (not counting Hong Kong and Macau) has far less to worry about. No information dissemination, no 21st-century speed of dissent. And it would just happen that today was July 4th…

-PD

6 Comments

Numero deux [1975)

Back. Return return. Long absence.

Unrestful battle to the death with corporate finance.

And Jeannot mentions Georges. Beauregard?

Yes, almost certainly.

And so politics becomes sex. But sex remains politics. The two phenomena simultaneously.

Like dependent events and statistical fluctuations.

Ah, statistics…

Not the fun stuff of batting averages. No, we mean correlations and covariance and stultifying minutiae.

And that’s where the money comes from.

Godard after 45 years had finally finished with Paris. Done. Fin.

Il y a equals = Grenoble?

A new era with Anne-Marie Miéville. Sonimage. Mon ton son image son.

Wordplay cures illnesses.

The glissando of sliding meaning.

Slippage.

I want to write film criticism as if I am writing a viola sonata. Everything is possible.

Amazingly…amazingly…Wikipedia gives a synopsis.

Thank you kind soul…kind, fastidious soul.

Is it the same in France? Numero deux est la merde?

Yes, Godard finds a way to shock…again. Like Salò, but in a mundane grocery store of quotidian pain.

Wordplay and illnesses.

Is it Sandrine Battistella?

Is it Pierre Oudrey?

Are the child actors the best players in this film (in the tradition of Bresson)?

And Alexandre Rignault. The old man? I am too lazy. It is already a service. Mon beau souci.

The anarchy of breasts.

Both enjoy in different ways.

Pain is not simple.

It was this point at which Godard became a true revolutionary. With his army surplus jacket. Inconsequential.

Having survived the revolution. The upheaval. To live on into the era of Bruce Lee kicking Chuck Norris’ ass.

We see briefly.

But mainly we see fatigue. The fatigue of Beethoven. Facile technician. Adjusting color timing instinctively. Habit.

Sometime you must take a break from James Bond to question the fundamental things.

White people problems, they say.

No, I see the same in true cultures…in China…in Africa.

Unique modes of expression. Unlearning.

The greatest service is to convey the feelings of the film. If these feelings harmonize with the dissonance of your pathetique lives, then you are like me. Searching for small miracles.

Actors cannot touch non-actors. Praise be to actors who appear to have no technique–who appear to be non-actors.

Either way. Doesn’t matter. Matters.

-PD

14 Comments

Ici et ailleurs [1976)

God, the horror of struggle

in Palestine Godard filmed

the sadness of conditions

with such beauty of technique

ingenuity of filmic form

And then came the editing. Back to France.

It was his film and her film. Anne-Marie Miéville.

Someone with whom he could discuss film.

No more actresses. A life partner.

And an agitator. Critique yourself.

Of course Marx offered useful tools. But there is more than Marx.

And the universe expanded. You must turn to the images.

Why is the actress not acting? And why is that beautiful?

Above and beyond (aside from) the fact that she is beautiful.

Just one. Anne-Marie points it out. The way things are done.

Early computer console script glowing green and blinking. Always blinking.

Someone has captured the wrong image. In the diffusion the stronger image has been diffused.

It was Hitler. Israel. Golda Meir in some sort of act of allegiance.

And Godard’s obsession with finding the double s in nature. kiSSinger, for instance.

The anger of the filmmaker. Who bombed the editing studio? Certainly not Arabs.

Certainly not. Find the true history. Only one filmmaker was truly brave and crazy. Godard.

Must be both to be this brave.

The wrong frame again. “It’s silly to die for an image.” But not silly to accept death for the survival of your community.

Of course. Of course. Bravery. Simple.

A sad, pathetic Palestinian village. And how did they come to be pinned in thusly?

Like livestock.

But the true beauty is cautious. Scared. Yes. Tentatively walking the perimeter.

An image which will live a thousand years in the hearts of every serious soul who sees it.

Nameless.

Nothing shocks as much as the bloody face in Amman. More than the Holocaust. That the root cause could continue.

A transference of power abuse. The short step to fascism. Leaving out a few crucial details. Voila.

The man in Amman. Dead. Text flashing backwards. Mirrored. On top of front-facing font. Palimpsest.

Expired.

Perhaps there was a bad translation somewhere. Muselmann in the camps. Not guardspeak.

We don’t know. I don’t.

Perhaps.

You say for money, to take an unpopular stand. A pittance. Film stock. Plane tickets.

But they did finally recognize that they were borrowing a revolution. Because making one was too costly.

At home. France. Texas. Ici. And the endless possibilities of ailleurs. Elsewhere. And here. Here.

They only meant to send a statement. Probably. And the film sat for five years. 1970-1975.

But some images are too beautiful. Too powerful. Too important. Indelible.

Godard never forgot. Anything. The camps. Palestine. Ghettos. Prisons. 1789.

Only art speaks.

Study and respect. Change your world.

I have ordered the images from room service. And Google has only given me a popularity contest.

Click and vote. Perhaps.

For film to destroy your soul so beautifully and so hard.

Ah, now I can’t even talk like everyone else.

A hard-earned style which jettisoned pretense long ago.

Almost fashionably dead. To the doubters.

Mais, sanguine!

-PD

10 Comments

Cine-tracts [1968)

A beginning, middle, and end. Not necessarily in that order.

I skipped ahead because I forgot about the Internet.

I disappeared.

And now to write on the sad, hopeful history of change.

To write about the slums of Paris. There will be slums.

I am not making much sense unless you have read me before.

I can assure you that it is not a put-on.

No, I cannot string together two sentences.

Does that make me stupid?

Of course not.

It’s negotiable. Relative. Subjective [ahh…].

This, then, is a film review. All articles on this site take advantage of this form in one way or another.

Adherence is a matter of self-calibration.

I have found the form for me. Which is to say, it depends on the film.

And so what is Cine-tracts?

Try the purge function. Check the deletion log.

Not a very straightforward answer.

Well, these were some short, silent films made by various directors in response to the events of May 1968 in Paris.

The reason I didn’t review this “film” earlier is that I forgot to check the ether for free content.

It’s a bit dodgy. You never quite know what you’re getting.

On any account, I found about 75 minutes of these cine-tracts and watched the whole, soundless lot.

Jean-Luc Godard’s touch was apparent. Whether or not Jean-Pierre Gorin was involved at this early stage, I am too lazy to check. Chris Marker is said to have participated. That certainly seems plausible given that the mode of creation involves still photos rather than moving pictures.

Ah, but the pictures do move. Or rather, the camera’s motion creates an illusion that the still pictures are moving. Indeed, their relationship to the camera is changing. Distance. Perspective. Renaissance. Light. Shadow.

These cine-tracts play like what they likely were: short, encouraging films for the students and workers who were rebelling against the times.

There are some ingenious directorial devices here and there, but generally the message (both literal and symbolic) takes precedence over imagination and invention. To be sure, the filmmakers involved were politically engaged and apparently zealous in their dedication.

And so now it is hard to recall that Spring of ’68. I was not there. I have tried to put myself there. Because many important currents converge in Paris 1968.

Is it inappropriate to called Cine-tracts a Godard film? Perhaps. But the opposite end of the spectrum would deprive us of this diary-like glimpse into the auteur’s mind. You want to understand Adieu au langage? Start here. Or continue here. Even end here.

There is no shame in being poor. Scarcity has made it difficult. A small concern. Not definitively growing.

The key to understanding Cine-tracts is to be found in everyday life. Poor, sad routine. Run-down dross of capitalism. The ass of capitalism looks strikingly like the ass of communism.

Donkey. Camel. BMW.

Yes, the world markets are sensitive to bullshit. And each magnified ramification comes home to the poor Joe. Average Joe. And Jane.

Joe and John Doe and Jane Smith can’t seem to escape the high school algebra problem in which they are frozen like insects.

Joe Schmoe. A very prestigious family.

And therein lies the problem. A bunch of nobodies. All they can offer is a peach. Or a glass of water. Or a near-worthless coin.

There’s no movement to join. Will you start a movement? In real politics (not the pap which passes for such in the houses of congresses) the only victory is death. Man does not want to hear an uncomfortable message. Your type has already, long ago, been profiled. You don’t fit in this world. There is no future for you. As even Orwell seemed to intimate in 1984, a Winston Smith who lives must compromise.

And so what happened to Godard? What happened to the fire of May 1968–that zeal which seemed inextinguishable? What happened to the hippies? What happened to the revolutionary socialists of the ’60s? Did they merely switch drugs?

To conflate the participants of May 1968 in Paris with American hippies is problematic. Are there similarities and commonalities? Sure! But the cultural backgrounds of the two groups were quite different. This difference persists. France and the U.S.A. are further than opposite sides of a common coin.

From the standpoint of language, I am probably more qualified to comment on American hippies (though I am much too young to have first-hand knowledge). A gross simplification would seem to indicate that the idealism of the American counter-culture gave way to a nihilism (and finally to assimilation and general diametric abandonment of youthful principles).

But history is always open. That spark…that archetype of socialism…that magical motif can be applied to any political movement…in that history may be all but written, yet it is never more than a pathetic extension of the actuarial tables. The only insurance of life is to live while alive.

-PD

7 Comments

British Sounds/See You at Mao [1969)

Bloody fucking bollocks!

I’ve wanted to say that for a long time. I’ve said it before. But it looks better in writing.

It has a sort of permanence to it. Yet we never know.

Why the non sequitur expletive? Because this film is a brilliant expletive ~~deleted~~.

Long ago…in a galaxy…in OUR galaxy, as a matter of fact,

there were some clever blokes (?) who called themselves the Dziga-Vertov Group.

Chief among them, of course, was Jean-Luc Godard.

But it is telling that he wanted his celebrity subsumed by something greater than himself.

Ach, Gott! Fuck this. I have caught myself slipping into a routine voice.

A routine voice will tell you nothing about this film.

And so we come to the crux of this experiment: struggle.

Film is a struggle between images and sounds.

In a Godard film, even images struggle amongst themselves in a feeding frenzy.

It is a manifestation of a mind trying to process the unfathomable complexity of the world.

In the film under review, it is especially the sounds which cannibalize one another.

But this is not new in Godard films. Always, ALWAYS…there is a plethora of content.

Like a honey ant ready to explode.

[ ] Space left intentionally blank.

Analogous to paragraph.

If you are thinking poetry,

you are not far off.

We miss the mark daily. It is not a Christian confession.

There is not a way to look over the summary to this film on Wikipedia.

In that sense, I am offering a service.

Yet, I am giving you a very subjective, personal impression of this film.

I write film criticism which strives to harmonize with each individual film under consideration.

In other words, each film must be reviewed differently.

There really isn’t, despite a tendency to the contrary towards generalization, such thing as

a film like all the rest.

Yet I have my patois. My schtick.

Take it or leave it.

Only know that the message is under continually scrutiny.

Self-criticism of film criticism in a controlled system seeking to explain it all.

If you are looking for the answer to the question,

“Who’s in control?,”

the answer is,

“No one’s in control.”

I’m sure my friends at the CIA will agree with me on this.

To clarify, I have no friends at the CIA (that I know of).

Speaking sequentially and descriptively with deference to “plot” is useless here.

We have lost the plot. [Thank God!]

And so a guitar can change he world.

And some extremely-advanced students can change some Beatles lyrics (months after The White Album was released).

You must struggle in the mud. Mud and blood. Le sable et le sang. Rimbaud.

I failed miserably.

And she was hoisted into the air on a Panavision boom.

Nude ascending a staircase.

This just in…THREE LEVELLERS SHOT BY CROMWELL IN BURFORD…

ORIOLES DEFEAT WHITE SOX IN BOURGEOIS VACUUM

Ah,…now I am weeping for the revolution…or for the auteur.

But the auteur has given us a lasting oeuvre.

Was Truffaut’s only English-language film Fahrenheit 451?

It matters. Here. …et ailleurs.

I am weeping for the old auteur…before he’s even gone.

And next I will view but not review.

Solely my own experience. To remember where I started. (which is basically where I am at this very second)

I have not moved an inch.

It is essential to see British Sounds. To hear British Sounds.

As an English speaker. In April 2015. You won’t even need the Italian subtitles.

They are telling us we are losers. THEY they.

I have no message. “Too many messages.” –Harry Partch

I am just floating on the waves of free association.

Go on: call me an amateur.

A lover , not a fighter…who didn’t claw his way up to gargle in the rat-race choir.

He lives. Let me check.

He lives.

Regardless.

And we have no way of communicating with our fellow man. The life sucked out of the 21st century.

This is by design.

“Separation is the alpha and the omega of the spectacle.” –Guy Debord

I present the conspiratorial view of history applied to cinema.

Paranoid nonfiction. I have never read Dick.

Quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. The difficulties.

Such a quintessentially British euphemism.

The Troubles. Northern Ireland.

We know nothing. It’s not as easy as shot/reverse/shot.

It’s like the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).

KGB calling it a CIA false flag.

Need we remind the perceptive reader of world history that Dr. Ewen Cameron was being paid by the CIA to carry out hideous psychiatric experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute on the grounds of McGill University in Montreal as part of Project MKUltra over a period of time which overlapped with the activities of the FLQ? That is established fact and not a conjecture with which the KGB had any connection.

And so the question becomes, as Godard and co-director Jean-Henri Roger ask, [to paraphrase] “Is Marx the best weapon with which to confront the situation before us?”

Baltimore is haunted by the past (capitalism). China is haunted by the present (vestigial communism). In America there is no present moment (minus the times when reality erupts within the spectacle). In China there is no past. Not really. It is forbidden. Communism requires the primacy of the present moment. History is history. Gone. Capitalism requires the continuation of the past. Inheritance. Both suffer from the status quo. Capitalism is no longer capitalism…and communism is no longer communism. The great irony is that monopoly capitalism and totalitarian socialism are no longer easily distinguishable (if they ever were). Why more people don’t seek out the power elite of this two-sided conspiracy coin is beyond me.

Fear. Fear prevents us. Only the dispossessed have what is called courage. Rage. Courage.

-PD

2 Comments

Sympathy for the Devil [1968)

To reach a moment of genius. The genius must rethink. Through many blind alleys and breezy revolutions. Rehabilitated.

To speak of clever things. No. It does not explain this moment in time. Police vs. blacks. Continuation crime.

To quote Juvenal or Sallust. You have no recourse in the moment. You will have your name dragged through the mud.

And so we apologize. We are sorry that we weren’t more harsh. A final gob of spit before being shot once and for all.

A film by Jean-Luc Godard which achieves genius just as it is diverted.

Punched the producer in the face.

The revolution of everyday life. Vaneigem.

To speak of the actors would do injustice.

Anne Wiazemsky. Red flag. Black flag. And the wind of god. On the beach. The paving stones.

We have got it backwards because we don’t speak English.

Keith Richard. Sans s.

And my favorite drummer Charlie Watts.

And now we have let routine take over. Just as we asserted a revolutionary principle.

Through our fingers like sand. Run, run, run…little kitty. Machine guns for all.

Makes sense to whom? Makes no difference. Sense.

A review. A summary. A dissection.

An affront. An attack. An absolute about-face.

And so in 2015 we can only speak of Snowden.

We can only speak of extraordinary rendition.

We can comb the news like Matt Drudge.

He knows where his Red Sea is parted. Which side his bread is buttered. On.

We can rattle the cages like Alex Jones. Rattle rattle. Police gone wild.

We can blame everything on the Jews like Wayne Madsen. What a poor aspect of great criticism.

Mostly we can find the remnants of SMPTE for the devil at globalresearch.ca

Hot link. A sausage of…something. Upton Sinclair Lewis.

We can thank Michel Chossudovsky because we first knew him in print.

Like Webster Tarpley.

When books have disappeared, we will know that the technological age is upon us.

And so as something of an expert I admit that I know nothing.

It leaves me mystified. No more bands. No more groove.

Prisoners to click tracks.

The metronomic underground must assert like Radiohead hippies.

Godard would have preferred Beatles.

It’s ok. History proves him not wrong.

And I would be doing you a disservice if I condescended.

I must regard you as one mind with myself. Even if false, it leads to the path of truth.

We’re a humble website ready to lay down our arms…rather, our lives.

We are not revolutionary. Merely students. Research on globalization.

-PD

6 Comments

La Chinoise [1967)

Even geniuses make mistakes. That’s how I thought I’d begin. And then…viewing again. It is like “Heroin” by The Velvet Underground. Was Lou Reed, the songwriter, promoting the use of this drug in the song of the same name? Not necessarily. It boils down (no pun intended) to something I learned in economics: positive vs. normative.

And so, we have a film by Jean-Luc Godard which is very difficult to sum up. On the surface it is easy. The Situationists called Godard a Swiss Maoist (a sort of double insult). Even in that, they were only part right. Yes, Godard today lives in Rolle…in the canton of Vaud: Switzerland. But he was born in Paris. He didn’t move to Switzerland until he was four years old. Of course, he would return to Paris for university (and eventually to make a name for himself as critic and director). Actually, it was a back and forth: la France, la Suisse, la France, la Suisse…like a tennis match.

Back to my point: this film does not necessarily “prove” that Godard was a Maoist. But was he? And what would that mean? Let’s investigate.

First, I should mention that I have read four books about Godard, one more which is a book-length interview, an additional collection of his writings, and finally an actual book by Godard which was published by Gallimard. Of the first category, two were biographies (by Richard Brody and Colin MacCabe respectively).

In my opinion, a short review of Jean-Pierre Gorin and the Dziga Vertov Group are needed.

First Gorin. Wikipedia (in English) is typically terse when it comes to Jean-Pierre. For our purposes, it is enough to say that Gorin is nowhere called a Maoist in this short entry.

Next…Dziga Vertov Group. Again, no one is called a Maoist in this similarly curt Wiki reflection. The closest thing is a non-hypertext mention of the film(s) British Sounds/See You at Mao.

This may seem like laziness on my part (and it is), but it is important to note that the “Dziga Vertov” period of Godard’s oeuvre is the most unknown (and, one might say, mysterious). This would be roughly 1968-1972.

And so we are brought to the man at issue himself: Mao.

What ideas are pertinent? Anti-imperialism. The Long March. The People’s Republic of China. The Great Leap Forward. 45 million dead? The Cultural Revolution.

One must wonder whether it is a coincidence that the Dziga Vertov Group disbanded the same year Nixon visited China: 1972. Was this seen as weakness by Maoists?

Let’s recalculate: 40 million dead? 70 million?

Just as in the Holocaust, how much about China’s “dark side” was known outside of the country during Mao’s tenure? For young idealists, the concept of radical revolution might have an appealing luster, but when deaths are counted in millions and tens-of-millions the appeal should (must!) become appalling.

What were the nature of these deaths? Mao bragged about burying alive 46,000 scholars. One thing is certain: there is a persisting battle between those who seek to rehabilitate the tarnished image of Mao and those who perhaps feel that the extent of atrocities for which he was responsible has not yet fully been made evident to the world at large.

Mao is a strange figure…to whom just about every superlative and, equally, insult has been applied. Just as in a criminal investigation, we must scrutinize the sources and their authors with cui bono: what do they stand to gain by promulgating such theories?

Were 3 million tortured to death during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962)? If even one was tortured to death, isn’t that too many?

Yes. We do not hold torturers and terrorists to be our heroes. They forfeit our respect at that point…no matter how great their theories are. It is solemnly inexcusable.

No, rather we uphold the nonviolent masters: Gandhi and King. Obama is no King (nor king). The end does not justify the means. We who torture lose our humanity. We are only torturing ourselves.

And so even Nixon himself was a Maoist in a cynical, Machiavellian way. Anything to counter what Reagan would later normatively call “the evil empire.” Yes Mao, it is still the imperialists who are the true axis of evil in this young century. But China is learning how to project its influence. It would be wrong to call the China of today anti-imperialist.

Enough about Mao. That is the freedom we have…at this late moment…to still express such a thought.

Godard’s dalliance with Maoism didn’t last long (in terms of his career as a whole).

Perhaps it was Dostoyevsky. No doubt Paul Nizan. Most importantly it was the ravishing Anne Wiazemsky. Godard was doubtless smitten…you can tell by the camera’s loving gaze. He would have gone to the end of the earth for her. A revolutionary goddess!

Veronique Verkhovensky. Her eyes are wild in their tranquility. She is no paper tiger. Juliet Berto is the brunette…Wiazemsky the redhead. Such a beautiful revolutionary group!

Henri Shatov. He endures the brunt of human stupidity here. No, he cannot entice Juliet to abandon the radical cell as they dive headlong into terrorism.

Kirilov adds a dash of Peter Max color before his inevitable demise.

Will the Maoists in power continue to struggle on two fronts (ISIS and Ukraine) while fronting like sucker MCs? Yeah, oops: Nemtsov and Nisman worked for you…32 was 23 (if 6 was 9).

Francis Verkhovensky. Like Jimmy Stewart in Rope. Should we contact Arthur Lee or Althusser in regards to all those little red books of Aden Arabie? I’m inclined to believe that Love is all you need.

-PD