“Cinema is only industry of escapism because it is the only place where memory is slave” *
Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinema… One of the cinematic manifestations for cinephilic love… I really don’t know how I can start but I know to use words. And yes, I’ll use the words and sentence-fragments as speeches like he did in his Histoire(s) du Cinema but with a huge difference: There is no image in here. There won’t be image-fragments in whatever I’ll do. Thus, I’m on the opposite side. I can only deal with the words. I left images to Godard.
According to Plato, the Ancient Greek philosopher, basically and simply, there are two worlds: The world, namely, the visible world which appears to our senses and fills with error; and the world called intelligible world which has perfect realms, namely forms. The world appearing to our senses is the image of the world of forms. The things we see are only mere images of forms. Furthermore, there is an allegory in order to tell the difference of these two worlds: Some men living in a cave where they’ve been chained by from their childhood and they cannot move. There is kind of wall in front them and an elevation behind them that people carry something and the other animals walk on; and there is a fire behind these beings. Thus, the chained persons only see the wall and they can see neither the other walking beings nor fire; they can only see the shadows of the walking beings projected on the wall. When they see a shadow and hear a voice, they assume that the sound is coming from the shadow. For these chained persons, the only reality is the shadows formed on the wall. They are in the cave and assume that the images that they see are real. Likewise, for Godard, the idea of cinema is the same as what the chained people regard reality, namely, shadow on the wall which is the image of the reality. Also, for him, the reality that we named for anything that we sense is was always already image so thus what’s left for cinema is the image of images. That is why he articulates Histoire(s) du Cinema in terms of experiencing “image of images”.
According to Godard, the world of image of images is the spirit of the forms; it is interiority of work of art (Ranciere 2006). The interiority combines artistic forms with shared form of life. The history, at first, is a shared “thing”. Thus, any image-form can be associated with other shared images and the number of combination of images can be made. It means that experience of them is the history, itself. In this sense, as an image, anything belongs to cinema and individual experience of forms of images can be named under history. According to Ranciere, history is the mode of shared experience where all experience are equivalent and where the signs of any one experience are capable of expressing each other (p.178) and so the dictum is on the scene: Everything speaks. This means that any sensible form can signify any sensible form of collective experience and it is open to relationship with other forms. That expression of history is the transformation of Histoire(s) du Cinema to the language. However, Godard wouldn’t like this transformation since he is the one who is only deal with the images. His images talk in the cinematic language i.e. in the audio-visual expression. That indicates that why he challenges the language and meaning and tries to save himself from chains of language. Thus, he turns his face to the video art by Histoire(s) du cinema since he mentions that essence of cinema should be present. However, by mentioning cinema’s betrayal, Godard tried to emphasize that cinema has already became tyranny of the words rather than record of images. His turning to video can be understood in this sense since video has instant feedback and also, by means of its feedback, it is surely known that anything that happens is recorded. As regards to recorded images, cinema is seen that it is the place where memory is slave since you can combine any image with any other images that you’d like to combine as long as your memory allows you to do. Also, Godard says that “Cinema, like Christianity, is not founded on historical truth, it supplies us with a story and says: Now believe”. He does not disallow historical truth and I really do understand what he means by this expression: Yes, he means image of images, yes he means personal cinematic history in the sense of arbitrary integration and combination of different images and their re-combination in any other forms of images (Like he did in Histoire(s) du Cinema, take one shot from a notifiable cinema work of century and add other image from other work) In addition to that, yes, it really shows us the memory is the slave of it. Also, in dialectical perspective, this slave seems to depend on its master; in fact, its master cannot exist without slave. It means that images depend on the memory. The memory remembering images creates the other images. It makes any history of cinema i.e. any history of “image of images” personal history of “image of images”. In this sense, Godard really breaks new ground in the “history of cinema” and draws his ways to the video which is seen objective recording of “truth”. It is the new way to try to unfold the truth. Yes, it is the Later Godard who has seen this new technique but we also know that he was one of the masters of French New Wave in the years between 1960 and 1968. As a new wave director, Early Godard has tried to tell us there is no reality on the screen and we can see only the images; however, even he plays with images by using tracking shots or long shots (e.g. Week End) he wouldn’t escape territory of language since he has used the speeches to show image of “reality” in the sense of criticizing capitalism, exploitation of women and tendency to the gun. Thus, his cave, at least, his early cave, was surrounded by words not by images.
* Histoire(s) du cinema: Une Historie seule [Chapter (1(b)] (Jean Luc Godard, 1989)
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