My first post (A.K.A. "Sorry Marco for going overboard!")
Olivier Assayas’ Something in the Air, while narrowed in on the subject of 1968 and its effects on French revolutionary youths and youth artists, is - as the kids’ minds are - all over the place. One might wonder while watching the film why these group of young adults participate in these revolutionist events, since they only end up fleeing them anyway, but the truth is that they just want to be artists, and all of this violence and turmoil around them is what helps shape and inspire their partisan art, whether they want it to or not. Assayas, in an interview with Tom Hall for Hammer to Nail, describes what he was trying to convey in being a youth in France in the late 1960s, and how troubling, yet formative it was, saying “They [the youth] are absorbing things, they have trouble hierarchizing [sic] them, mostly because they are at an age when they have to define themselves. You have to find your path and they are trying; if you want to represent that, you have to present their confusion. So, the film has much more to do with the chaos.” Being a youth during this time, as Assayas showed in the film, was more troubling and taxing than being a youth nowadays, as you had to choose whether you wanted to stand alongside your home country and revolt with them, or escape said beloved country to pursue interests and passions that you found to be more important. Now, going off onto a small tangent using my own film/music geekery, I found it interesting and reaffirming to see that most of the film was soundtracked by late 60s American and British artists, who were also important during the time of 68 and beyond. From Syd Barrett’s “Terrapin”, played during the scene in which Gilles and Laure stroll throughout the forest, to Nick Drake’s “Know”, played as Gilles looks through a book of pornographic images and then proceeds to paint them. And the scene in which Gilles paints Christine in the nude could be said to have inspired the scene in 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Colour in which Emma draws Adèle in the nude. It probably did not in fact draw inspiration from Something in the Air, and I’m probably grasping at straws now, but oh well. The film ends in a manner that can be described as “cute”, as we see Gilles standing in line for a night of experimental cinema, which then shows what we can assume to be a film that Gilles made. It’s an obvious assumption to make seeing as that while in London Gilles studied up on cinema through literature and his own experience on sets. Sorry for going overboard, it’s my first post so I’m sure I’ll be able to condense my thoughts in the future. I am curious to hear what you guys (my classmates) thought of the film, and as a starting point, consider this quote from the film, in which Christine’s filmmaker friend says “You can’t make entertainment in revolutionary times.” Do you agree with that statement? Do you feel that in times of revolution art, and more specifically film, should document what is really going on in the present moment as oppose to fiction? For example, in 1967, Jean-Luc Godard releases the political film The Chinese which to some degree documented the revolutionary ideas brewing just before 1968. Meanwhile, Godard’s friend and fellow Jean-Pierre Léaud enthusiast François Truffaut releases Stolen Kisses, which does not bring up any revolutionist ideas, etc. Taken what Peter Wollen says in France During the 1960s as another starting point: “During the course of the 1960s, nouvelle vague humanism, as represented by François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, ceded to topical films with a sharp political edge, with Jean-Luc Godard leading the way. Again, sorry for writing too much!
John, you bring up a key issue that will be recurring theme throughout a lot of the films and ideas in 1968 (and throughout all of film history), namely how to utilize cinema in the wake of global revolutions. In fact this question is what led to the fallout between Godard and Truffaut. Luckily I took Dr. Abel’s summer class on 1968 so I have a fair understanding of what to expect from this debate. Take Something in the Air for example – this movie is highly accessible, one that I would take a date to. It’s easy to watch in that it doesn’t take much concentration to understand. I would not, however, take a date to A Grin Without a Cat. It’s a movie I’d watch if I was feeling intellectually motivated being chalk full of montage and theory that I need to really focus in order to catch some of the points, especially when the audio is almost incomprehensible at times. They are radically different films, yet their conclusions are nearly identical. When Gilles and Christine go to the screening of the Laos film, the filmmakers say that “revolutionary syntax” would not be understood by the Average Joe that is used to going to the cinema for entertainment and therefore isn’t helpful in mobilizing the revolutionary class. Later though, Gilles argues that new ideas require new techniques, which subvert the “language of the enemy.” The question is never resolved in the film or in the real world. It’s been around since Battleship Potemkin and will probably exist throughout the rest of film history or until the capitalist process completely does away with unmarketable innovation in the arts. The idea that leftist avant-garde or even narrative films that are formally and politically radical would be considered “bourgeois” seems counterintuitive. According Assayas, “at the time, anything connected to fiction or self-expression was considered ‘entertainment’” (Porton, 10) and classified as a part of the “petty bourgeois” (8). Godard’s La Chinoise and Weekend could then be dismissed as anti-revolutionary based on their aesthetics. But it all boils down to how revolutions should be engaged, which “the New Left plunged into incomprehensible internecine squabble about” (Sinker, 65). Revolution depends on a united mass of intellectuals and workers. Imagine if everyone just accepted each other and made films.
I think you're definitely onto something w/r/t the film's relationship to, um, film. And, the film's status as a spiritual autobiography in which Gilles serves as a stand-in for a young Assayas reveals a lot about both the director's aesthetic theory and his opinion of the revolutionary movements of the 1960s New Left.
In the scene you mentioned, Gilles is very much on the side of the esthete, going so far as to bring up the documentary's style in another conversation with the filmmakers. When he doesn't rejoin them in Italy, it's clear that he's held back because he does not respect them as artists. His argument is simple: a film about the revolution should be a revolutionary film.
Gilles does not explicitly repeat this argument, but later scenes serve as a nonverbal reiteration of his view. When Gilles debates his father about the quality of the Maigret novels, he is again on the side of the artistic avant-garde; his claim echoes Ezra Pound's, 'Make it new,' in its disdain for recycled, formulaic fiction and lazy prose. It's the last scene, though, that sets Gilles' relationship to aestheticism in stone: he waits in line at an English experimental cinema, reading a paperback Guy Debord. Debord was a Situationist writer and filmmaker and, like Gilles, an anti-authoritarian Marxist.
If Gilles is Assayas, though, we're missing a vital piece of the puzzle. When did the revolutionary lover of experimental film go straight? Because 'Something in the Air,' as Collin noted, is incredibly accessible and 'easy to watch.' It's beautifully shot, features an amazing cast of classically attractive French people, and pulls its soundtrack from the annals of English and American folk; in a phrase, the thing oozes 'petty bourgeoise.' The only answer I can think of, based on my limited experience w/the Marker film [1977] and the Assayas [2012], would be that Assayas still believes that revolutionary ideas require revolutionary syntax; this particular revolution, though, is over.
Benjamin, I think your final statement that ‘this particular revolution, though, is over,’ is definitely what Assayas is getting at with the end of his film. Though Gilles still frequents an avant-garde cinema and reads Debord, he has been forced to move on with life. He may continue to entertain revolutionary thoughts in his private life, but in order to move forward in the world he takes a job working on a B-movie whose only concern is entertainment, the antithesis of avant-garde or revolutionary aesthetics. Richard Porton also notes the debates of syntax present in the film and recognizes its own mainstream aesthetics. “Oddly enough, despite Assayas’s enthusiasm for the Situationist tradition that fuses a passion for both experimental art and antiauthoritarian left politics, there is nothing in the least inaccessible or hermetic about Something in the Air.” Though he introduces this idea, in his interview with Assayas, he never confronts him with a direct question on the matter. Assayas discusses the views of the characters in the film on classical versus revolutionary aesthetics, but he never explains his own decision to direct a film that is easily digestible to all audiences. Porton quotes one particular critic of Assayas who concludes the film mimes, “The most glamorous aspects of youthful radicalism in order to craft a deeply conservative film, whose form does not bear the slightest trace of the revolutionary politics it portrays.” Porton also points out, as Collin did, that this argument has been going on since the films of Eisenstein and the Russian Revolution. Maybe you’re right Benjamin, that Assayas believes that revolutionary aesthetics were the best way to spurn revolutionary action in the late 60s, but now he believes different means are necessary. As he states in his interview with David Thompson, the young people of our generation are much different than those of the ’68. Even when looking for actors he found difficulty finding those that could relate to the period. “They were pretty focused on the clothes and the music. When we started dealing with the politics of that era, and the nuances of the politics, they were lost, they didn’t care.” Perhaps this in part explains Assayas use of conventional aesthetics. Our generation is not as accustomed to the avant-garde in Assayas eyes. His goal with Something in the Air could have been to introduce ’68 to a new generation, to help them understand it, and, with understanding the current generation could entertain revolutionary thought and conversation and discuss what modern action would look like and what it could achieve.
John, I like the comments you made about the chaotic nature of the film and how it, in many ways, is all over the place, just like the kids. This made me realize something about the film that I overlooked due to the “mature”, or perhaps more serious, situations and events that were portrayed: these characters are just kids. The film starts with their final days of high school where they are already focusing all of their energy on the revolution. I think the feeling of the film being all over the place, as you pointed out, has a lot to do with how old these characters are. The high school and “college” years are hard enough with simply trying to find meaning, figuring out what to do with your life, dealing with relationships, etc., but on top of that, these kids have become involved in an attempt to literally bring about the change of an entire nation. So, I think that a key issue that can be overlooked in the film, as well as in the actual lives of the protestors and revolutionaries in ’68, is the presence of multiple struggles (this is something that Jess mentioned as well). It is not simply a struggle between the activists and the government, but a struggle between the activists and their peers, their friends, their families, and themselves. In his interview with David Thompson concerning The Devil, Probably, Assayas explains, “When I saw the film again, it just struck me so cruelly that what I was rejecting was not the movie, it was myself. The person I had been at the time. Because the characters in the film, specifically the central character, are really the closest to whatever I was at that age that I've seen in a film. But at the time I did not want to see that!” As Assayas admits, there is more going on than simply a collective struggle against the government and all those struggles and uncertainties add up to make a film that seems to be “all over the place”. Similarly, the readings on France in the 60’s discuss the many different groups and factions that were present at the time. It was very surprising to me how many different names and acronyms of various groups there were and how similar they were to each other. It got to the point where I could not keep track anymore. But, they were still, in some way, different from each other. In one of the later scenes in the film, Gilles and Jean-Pierre meet up with their other friend in a cafeteria where Jean-Pierre and the other friend express a changing of views and ways of going about their “activism”, wanting to become more violent with their actions. Gilles replies somewhere along the lines of “If it works.” I think this sequence illustrates the confusion- and possibly even the growing doubt- of Gilles, and others like him, as to whether their efforts will really matter or bring about change, especially with so many similar, yet separate groups struggling for similar causes. After this point, as others have brought up, Gilles seems to change the direction and focus of his life, showing the “passing” of the revolution for him specifically and how he chose to deal with a different struggle in the end.
John and Dom, I quite like how you touch on Assayas’ portrayal of the especially chaotic life of teenagers during the film’s time period and was also struck by Gilles’ struggle to carve out his identity despite pressure from different political viewpoints. Dom, I particularly like your selection of the “If it’s worth it” scene as an example of different political viewpoints brushing up against each other and agree that it conveys Gilles’ growing doubts as well as the incredible stress put on him (and all French youth at the time) by the adherents of different factions. As the scene progresses and his classmates steadily put more effort into committing Gilles to their stance, the camera compliments their efforts by continually pulling in towards the trio. By the time the camera stops moving, the pressure and uncertainty that Gilles feels becomes visually apparent through a close up framed through his comrades. In his interview with Richard Porton, Assayas articulates this as he claims that “there is no such thing as a fulfilled teenager. You have a lot of anger and it’s difficult to find your own path” (11). The way that Gilles feels such anger towards the establishment (be it in the form of the government or his own father) and is unable to fruitfully channel it into a politically transformative effort is really emblematic of both the struggle following the events of ’68 and the struggle of being a teenager and creating an identity. Despite the agendas of the Trotskyites and the Maoists who wanted to mold the revolutionary effort into something that complimented and conformed to their view of the world, May ’68, as Assayas explains in an interview with David Thompson, “just happened, no one had any control over it—all of a sudden there was a breach and everyone rushed in, and it was for reasons that are still unclear today” (26).
Wonderful points are being made, and one made by Collin held a special significance, but in a different light. The scene discussing the aesthetics in correlation to the context of film making seemed a key issue. This piece is dealing with the yearning to explore the medium of cinematography in a time which was offering so much to show. Nevertheless, due to the recent making of the film, I was interested in viewing the film as a memory rather than a narrative. Anytime we try to depict something from the past it is important to accept the tinting created by time bias and the romanticism of the past. In the interview “My Generation,” by David Thompson, Olivier Assayas touches briefly on this malleability of vision and changing of perspective. When asked about Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably (1977), he comments, “I had the utmost respect for Bresson, but this one, my God… It was all about stuff we were rejecting, which we did not want to deal with anymore, it was the old world. When I looked at the film again away from that context, five or 10 years later, I realized that it was the best depiction of what the Seventies were about” (28). While the film does a fantastic job at depicting the struggles of a generation that missed the revolution by a few years, but refused to be left out, I wondered about the bias lens they were looked at from. The beginning sequence depicting the chase scene between students and policemen shows the brutalizing violence usurped to defenseless bodies. The students run. They are not the ones leading the violence. The one moment a student strikes back, it is to defend a fellow, fallen student. His defense is excused and accounted for. While it might be true that the circumstances did not play in favor of rebelling students, it is important to question the polarization of the students as completely benign. The soft cinematographic shots, the attention to details which exemplified the student’s innocence and vulnerability, the emphasis put in their carefree love, the camera shots and lighting which favor their positive attributes attest for a glorification of Assayas’ look into the past. Perhaps a victim of memory distortion, he seems to create a universe where the students are free to roam, explore, vandalize, exploit, and rebel with minimal consequences. It is hard to face our own flaws, and especially easy to minimize them when re-examined. I don’t think the bias of the lens is rightful or erroneous—simply, it is vital when remembering to be aware of the problematic distortions time creates in us, our views, and our perspective.
Aside from the wonderful discussion that precedes my comment, today’s class discussion and the short film “La Reprise du Travail aux Wonder” narrowed my focus from the working force as a whole, to women and their supposed roles that held strength throughout the revolution or lack thereof. In “La Reprise…” we saw a strong woman, fighting for what the entire revolution was meant to represent. Yet, the men, as was discussed in class, threw her ideas beneath them in such a way that was reminiscent of how men used to treat what they believed to be “female hysteria”. This very treatment led me to think further on the representation of the many women in Assayas’ Après Mai, and if these roles should be divided into the black and whites of “strong” or “weak”.
This very topic however is difficult to categorize, and blame or praise Assayas in some ways, as in his interview with David Thompson he confirms that the film has many autobiographical elements to it, even the character of Christine (Lola Créton) is, by Assayas’ word, almost an exact replica of a young woman of his past, journey and all. However, you can look at the roles played the characters Laure (Carole Combes) and Leslie (India Menuez) as two different women, or perhaps the same women, just with different paths. Assayas states that Laure is the vision of the 70’s girl lost to drugs, citing 60’s ‘it’ logo as the vision for the character. In a way it is refreshing that this young woman, who is significant in Gilles’ love life, is never dependent on the roles of the men in her life. She leaves Gilles due to familial change, but before this she is quite brutally honest in voicing her opinion of his art, his passion. Later in the film, we see her with a new man, but not tied down in any form, another refreshing surprise for a character that I had expected to revolve around Gilles and other men.
The character of Leslie, playing the part of the “free American spirit” of the 70’s, does not rely on Alain (Felix Armand) to change her life either. Yet, like Laure, her character is not made of feminist points, but others, Leslie’s seemingly being that of ignorant cultural appropriation that is quite popular throughout white American and European culture. In fact, that only mention of feminism comes back to Christine, when a filmmaker she has been living with jokingly labels all feminists as lesbians, adding a derogatory taste to both categories and dismissing any true notion of revolution the filmmaker had before. Should all three of these women not better represent the feminist ideals that are almost absent, or should the autobiographical story be left as a vision of Assayas’ life, not a visual representation of something greater? Perhaps the feminist revolution I so desperately seek from the film is like the greater revolution of the time, wanted from the people, but not acted on, lingering upon society.
Alannah, you bring up a great point about the film’s feminism and its (lack of) intersectionality with regards to issues like race and cultural appropriation. There are a few moments in the film that seem to be glaring critiques of the blatant insensitivity the white Westerners have towards racial and multicultural issues. As Assaya states in his interview, Leslie plays the part of the “free American spirit” of the time period. During the scene when everyone sits outside listening to a man play “Ballad of William Worthy,” Leslie tells Alain, “I study sacred dance. Dance that has to do with religious or magic rituals. In the West, we’ve lost touch with the mystical origins of dance. But in the Orient, they still dance for the gods.” Leslie is certainly a free spirit, opting to spend time in Italy rather than back home studying “sacred dance.” But her rhetoric is problematic from a cultural and racial standpoint. To begin with, using the word “Orient” to describe Eastern countries is both antiquated and pejorative. John Kuo Wei Tchen, director of the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute at NYU states, “with the anti-war movement in the 60s and early 70s, many Asian Americans identified the term ‘Oriental’ with a Western process of racializing Asians as forever opposite ‘others.’” (http://journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/archives/livewire/archived/oriental_rugs_or_people/)
Leslie's use of that term, along with words like “magic rituals” and “mystical,” is problematic and is perhaps indicative of the greater revolutionary movement’s neglect and insensitivity to issues of race and cultural appropriation.
Additionally, at one point in the film, during the scene when Gilles shares lunch with his father, we see Gilles wearing a t-shirt that says “I’ve got a black belt in keeping it real.” This is a reference to the American Blaxploitation films that were being made around the same time. Is he wearing the shirt ironically? Is he a fan of these Blaxploitation films? As a French citizen, would he have had a firm enough grasp on American history and culture to fully understand the significance of his t-shirt, especially in the broader context of the revolution? I’m not sure it sits right with me.
In Thompson’s article, Assayas describes “free love” as a convenient distraction for young revolutionaries from achieving their goals (26), and it seems the film’s “romantic” scenes, as well as other non–revolutionary activities, question how dedicated the student protesters are to their revolutionary cause. Although the general strike’s organization was large, 9 million as stated in class, exactly how many students were truly for the cause and how many were “riding the wave” because there’s certainly a number of students who would occupy the streets or attend special events and meetings simply to participate in the social environment. When watching this film, I kept thinking of a very different film, Stuart Hagmann’s The Strawberry Statement (1970), where the main character, Simon, joins the revolution solely to meet girls, but as the film progresses and the plot requires him to “care” about the revolution, he miraculously has a change of heart and is a full–fledged “freedom fighter.” Like Something in the Air, Grin Without a Cat implies that social organization, by showing the different revolutionary movements in a global scale, is simple. The main students in Something in the Air, for example, easily balance their political objectives with their educational and social priorities with little to no conflict. Grin Without a Cat also tends showing the effects of revolutionary organization such as massive protests, rallies, and speech to provide a quicker summation of each global event’s outcome, yet it implies, through its historical distance, that the political awakening and organization seem to come naturally. Relating back to The Strawberry Statement, a film made only a few years after 1968, the film ends abruptly with a freeze frame of Simon in mid–air as he jumps at a group of policemen, leaving his fate and the student protests in question, as if the conflicts were still perpetual beyond the film’s narrative, which is ironic considering the film was released one month after the Kent State massacre which effectively ended a majority of nationwide anti–war protests; a much more violent film in comparison to Something In The Air which only shows a brief moment of police brutality near the beginning. As one student described, the film is very nostalgic, a positive recollection of the events. The films is aesthetically very bright with warm colors and the final montage of Laure walking in the open fields resembles something out of a contemporary pharmaceutical commercial.
Throughout Something in the Air (Après mai) (Olivier Assayas, 2012), the constant contrast between the older and younger revolutionaries is central. From the opening scene, where a grey-haired professor dispassionately reads a revolutionary text from the past as the dark-haired male lead carves the anarchy A into his desk, the conflict between the “current” participants and their predecessors is placed squarely in the forefront of the viewer’s mind. As the plot progresses and more characters are introduced, the majority of them are more experienced and (slightly) older revolutionaries. The bearded man in glasses (the one with the camera) who takes our main characters to the collective and the other relatively older man in the van tell the youths to “watch what [they] read.” While this statement could be construed as a helpful warning, the earlier presence of criticism from adults who participated in the earlier revolution hints otherwise; I am primarily referring to the scene before the main characters feel the heat caused by their explosions of revolutionary spirit and leave for Italy wherein another revolutionary berates the students, stating, “Don’t use our mimeograph to print your filth” (likely what his elders would have told him a decade prior). These interactions can more readily be seen as examples of the differing ideologies between the openly active students and the more mature, changing-things-from-within-the-system active of the older generation. The latter are veterans of the movement and its ideology, and have seen the effects of the revolution they wrought. Conversations with the students are, again, didactic, which is emphasized by the camera cutting back and forth between the two groups so only one viewpoint and set of revolutionary experiences is on screen at a time. When the shot is wider, the students are positioned separately from their forebears; they may be sitting at the same table, but they are not on the same side. A notable example of this is directly after the aforementioned discussion in the van. The camera pans right, to the students listening and sitting on chairs, while the extrapolations of the adults – who form a cramped, if united, front around and next to the wooden kitchen table – continue on as the younger audience is silent as plans are laid out. Another, earlier instance is the interesting bit with the principal and Jean-Pierre, the student who left his school ID on the scene after the group covered several walls of the school with political/revolutionary slogans and posters. The principal is surprisingly forgiving of Jean-Pierre’s actions, implying that he likely was a revolutionary himself in his younger years, a thesis that is granted more weight by the lack of pressure on the student to reveal his compatriots. Everyone is tied to the revolution – past and “present” and even our present – and its beliefs affect everyone involved, regardless of whether and how they are active.
First post:During the film, one of the main questions that kept running through my head that I thought was interesting to the topic of the film was, “why did Something in the Air (2012) need to be made?” It an interesting point to bring up, Why did director Olivier Assayas feel that he need to make a film about France’s political turmoil during the late 1960’s. Certainly there have been other films that have documented this moment in history, what purpose does this film serve. Well, it was not that the documentation of France’s ’68 turmoil was non-existent but Assayas argues that “one the reasons that people have a shaky grasp of May ’68 is that is was, as you said, influenced by anarchist ideas . . . The French communist party and the communist-dominated trade union killed May’68. The anarchist elements of May ’68 were the most important part of the mix. And those ideas have survived.” Assays Argument about how the anti-anarchist left has been ignored by history has some strong points. Many examples like the petit bourgeoisie and anti-anarchistic left does not get covered much in history nowadays because the French communism was so prevalent back in those days. Even in A Grin Without a Cat (1977), a film which I think has some intriguing things to say, does not really dive into the other acts of the Petit bourgeoisie rebellion too much because it is focus on the terror and violence all around the world. What Something in the Air (2012) is trying to do is that I think is interesting is confirming on A Grin without a Cat’s (1977) proclamation while confounding on its own ideas. All in all, the reason why I believe Assayas made this film is because he wants to inform people about the truth. We tend to remember things the way we want to remember them and not think about any other interpretations. Assayas needed to make this film for the sake of the history of franc ’68.
Neither “A Cat Without A Grin” nor “Something In The Air” are literal translations of the original French titles of the films. A Cat Without A Grin was originally called “Le Fond De L’air Est Rouge” which translates to “The essence of the air is red.” This is a play on a French expression “Le fond de l'air est frais” or “there is a chill in the air.” This change in title does not alter the meaning to an unrecognizable degree. Both the Carrol reference and the French pun refer to a presence that does not ever become manifest or tangible. This presence is of course the fever of 68, the leftist fervor that swept through the world but never actually brought about the radical changes it strived for. “Something In The Air” is called Après Mai in French, which means “After May,” which refers to the peak of the 68 fervor, at least in France, when the economy of France virtually stopped when more than 11,000,000 people went on strike. Now, why this change from “After May” to “Something In The Air?” As many in class have admitted, young Americans are not particularly knowledgeable of 68 and “After May” wouldn’t stir up the same kind sentiment for us as it would with French audiences. But, “Something In That Air,” seems to be a direct reference to “Le Fond De L’air Est Rouge,” as if the title were asking the audience to think about these two films together. Both the documentary and the drama, are in a sense, at least to me, attempting to convey similar perspectives on the 1968 movements. Although, the documentary was far more diversified, global, with the inclusion of many historical political figures, and the drama followed around only a handful of French students and took place during a relatively brief period of time, both films try to display the confusion, the revolution within revolution, the disorder of the time, the something in the air. I also think it’s no mistake that Marco screened these films consecutively.
An artist equals free expression. Youth in this culture used cinematic videography as a means of free expression. Stated in the film by Gilles, an artist is a vessel for communication and means of expression. “Something In the Air” gives the viewer an underrepresentation of the accounts towards the youth liberation movement of France, and the students struggle for independence and self worth. I must point out that I viewed this film with an ethnocentric ideology. Cultural revolution does scare us as Americans. There has always been the freedom of choice to stand up for your beliefs in this country, but you can very easily become an outcast amongst peers by doing so, and this is especially true in high school settings. Institution is what these kids fear and I 100 percent back them on there movement. Its important to note that the films these students were going to see in theaters had a sort of a state agenda to them. “Be good and you will be rewarded in heaved, all else will go to hell” one of the films was encouraging. This kind of state propaganda had a heavy influence on the older generations as they clearly opposed. One shop owner didn’t want that “filth” as he called it, printed in his store. These students are taking on the core beliefs by their older generations, which were instilled through state social reform generations before them. “Dissolution", which means dismissal of an official body, and other messages portraying their desire for change is what the kids had vandalized on their school. The film gives great detail and emphasis on youth culture by using cinematic effect such as shots of "Youth to worried about future” graffiti. These kids were actively participating and continuing the movement that had started in 68’. In no way were they late to joining the movement. At the height of 68’, they could have been just entering high school or been around that age. Gilles mentioned he lives only in his fantasies. This is parallel with that of this artistic ability and desire for filmmaking. Also, printing propaganda to distribute amongst other students such as their flyer, and magazines help to fuel his fantasies. This movement is important to the students, the main reason Jean-Pierre didn’t give up his friends for the graffiti. Near the end of the film I find it interesting that Gilles burns his best work. Gilles’ is clearly struggling with finding a political identity that is true to him, so I see it as the single greatest symbol of freedom in the film and a statement of autonomy.
As I was reading these comments and discussions, I was also thinking about how intimate and personal the film shows of just a small amount of people, trying to revolt while expressing the hardships of living through a revolution. This could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you were trying to learn from the film. GIlles, the main character, is just one of the people, internationally, trying to make an impact during '68. Focusing on one person or a small group of people to make the story more relatable to current day audience seems like the goal that Assayas, but to people who haven't heard about 1968 and the significance, won't know any actual information. The story that the film is telling us, doesn't tell us many things about the actual revolution. What it does show us, are reactions to the events and the way these kids were dealing with it. We had a teen who was persecuted for vandalism of the high school, one who starts to see the effects of the revolution on the people around, and one teen who is faithful to the cause throughout the entire film. I think that the different actions and reactions to the events throughout the film, are very realistic to what may have happened to people during '68. I'm sure many people that were once passionate about the revolution, until they took a step back and looked around and couldn't recognize what was going on. The realism, even if it didn't really show many major events that were held in France, is very accurate to how people acted.
A lot of people seem to be commenting on the Assayas’ attempt to inform the general public of what really occurred in this revolutionary period in terms of how the youth were revolutionary in France through this semi-autobiographical piece. While the revolutionary ideas and practices of all of the characters in Something in the Air play a central roll, I think that Assayas does an excellent job more subtly demonstrating why the revolution was not a complete success. Beside the surface of the revolutionaries featured not actually being a part of the working class attempting to create a more egalitarian society, we are shown that these characters, for the most part, do not remain revolutionaries forever. Like it has been mentioned several times already, these are just kids who are looking for a way to identify themselves. One of the starkest comparisons shown in the film of how times change and how characters are seeking identity to me was the two shots of Gilles handing out flyers. In the beginning of the film we see him handing out revolutionary fliers and newspapers to the other students very passionately, and at the end of the film we are shown Gilles handing out fliers for a mainstream film. He could not maintain the identity of the revolutionary. The dialogue that signaled the turning point was when Gilles was at a café with Jean-Pierre and the news paper editor and when talking about the car destruction that they want to do they say to Gilles, “Don’t ask what you’ll risk, but if you’ll be true to yourself.” Gilles would not have been true to himself had he have kept with the revolutionary lifestyle.
While I do agree with you that a major point that Assayas makes is to show that the revolution was unsuccesful, I don't think that Gilles is a very clear example of its failure. He does end up working for a horrifyingly tacky mainstream film, and he does of course pass out the fliers, but more importantly, the film ends with him at an experimental theatre. As Assayas states in one of the readings, this was the place where he finally felt that the counterculture and cinema could meet. This is where it makes sense.
Gilles was "untrue" to himself prior to this moment when he was working on the mainstream movie, not at the experimental film. Here, when the experimental film fills our screen and where the woman literally waves us toward her, the film foretells a switch in Gilles' path. The end of Something in the Air is the beginning of Gilles experience with a more solid sense of self-identity.
There are a lot of things to talk about with a film like this, but the main thing I would like to address is, what I felt, a theme of futile rebellion efforts. Starting first with the character of Laure, her rebellion efforts took on the form of drugs and partying, but to quote the band Cake's song Rock and Roll Life Style "Your self destruction doesn't hurt them". Her life style did wind up hurting her however, she is upstairs when a fire ensues, leaving her with no choice but to jump.
Looking at rebellion more literally, the students all have a disdain for the bourgeoisie, ironically however, they are all destined to become the very thing they hate. At the end of the film we see Gilles passing out fliers for a mainstream film, which is in my opinion, the exact opposite from how he stared out in the beginning of the film.
What Olivier Assayas did within Something in the Air is include a series of moments and scenes that were both unsettling and uncomfortable. The first moment which drove my attention to this oddly subliminal-like discomfort was the newspaper photo of a bloodied face that Gille looked at only minutes into the film. From then on Assayas linked together scenes that almost contradicted one another in terms of emotional response. One minute we see Gille and Laure parting for what seems to be the last time, the next a darkly lit room where Gille is using a sledgehammer to smash some substance in a bucket - the crunching noise eliciting a panicky reaction from myself - or Gille and Christine kissing in the movie theater while in the background the man on film sings about going to hell. We might see a beautiful scenery of the beach and the water and a few moments later see mummified bodies or drawings of awkwardly sexual images. Even when they started to speak English in some scenes I was left in a very stressed state. It’s all very off-putting; these moments don’t fit together, but they work in a way to keep the audience interested and uncomfortable. But I suppose this style mimics the tension and inability to find peace that revolutionary youths felt during this time. Whereas they were not able to remain tranquil once their involvement in the revolution began, the viewer also has a hard time attempting to remain comfortable.
And don’t even get me started on Jean-Pierre’s red Afro: absolutely terrifying.
The parallel between the struggle for revolution and the struggle of defining oneself are vividly realized. Gilles' inner conflict is something that most people can relate to in some small way. It can be disheartening to watch people so readily express themselves and speak for causes larger than any one person, while you struggle with not just the means of expressing yourself, but finding exactly what it is you want to express at all. In the early scenes of the film, the students bicker over what it is that they are most upset about and Gilles is just happy to rebel. However, as the film goes on, his friends who helped define him go their own ways. I feel this mirrors the feelings of most people in the aftermath of 1968. Many people left with needing to process the ways the revolutionary movements affect them.
In the film Something in the Air a group of teenagers set out to try and continue the revolution ’68. They try to fuel the fire by free press and putting there messages and expression out into the world by art. Some canvases are bigger than others, such as sides of buildings. In there pursuits to change the world they end up changing themselves. As they move forward they meet new people that share there same ideals about revolution. Although these people agree with most things and are trying to better themselves and the policies around them they do not agree on everything. This is shown in a brief yet powerful scene when Christine ( Lola Créton ) is talking to her new friend and possible boyfriend. The full extent of their relationship is not clear. The scene starts with Christine in the office finishing up her work. She then leaves to do some shopping for the house, then when she gets home she starts to clean. This already is setting up what is soon to be revealed to the audience. During this time of political and social change some issues are still not taken seriously by all. The whole day Christine is shown doing “womanly” duties. She is answering the phones in the office, she cooks, she cleans, she does it all. Then when she finally talks to her new friend she talks back to him in a way and he says, “have you been talking to those lesbians again” she comes back at him saying, “they’re not lesbians, they’re feminists”. That one line is such a powerful point in the film. Even though these people say they are trying to change these issues, the men are still completely shut down to the ideas of what women can do. They act as though they are open to all the different possibilities that ’68 has provided for them, yet reject the idea of something as simple as a woman speaking her mind.
In this film I couldn't help but feel that the focus was more on artistic representation and growth, or a “Memory” like mentioned during Olivier’s interview, of what is was like to be an artist, than an expression of revolt and revolution. Although the desire to be involved in a revolution, and the opposition of the bourgeoisie is there I felt like the film was just that, a desire. Granted it does take place in the years following the revolution, I felt that the characters were more talk rather than action, aside from the run in with the security guards, and I was more drawn to the artistic references in the movie along with it aesthetics. Gilles specifically, I felt represented change and revolution through his art. The progression of his personal work from the beginning to the end of the movie, I felt was an indicator in personal change and development of self. In one of the first scenes that we see Gilles creating art he is making pieces that reference American Abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock whose art was relatively culturally accepted in America amongst other places and often described as “safe” by artists involved in movement that followed his, such as Andy Warhol, who later created pieces out of urine to mock the alleged simplicity of Pollock’s work. In the middle of the movie Gilles uses the fresco’s he viewed as an initiative to start working with the human figure, makes some generic figurative pieces, then begins making more exploitative figurative ink drawings that reference the work of French artist Louise Bourgeois, who was known for her vulgar, exploitative, and sometimes violent paintings of Women. The content and motivation behind Gilles work moves from being easy and quiet at the beginning of the movie whereas towards the end of the movie, his work represents a comfort in expression and questioning of political correctness.
When I first viewed Something in the Air last summer, I was baffled by the way the film was made. In a movie filled with revolutionary ideas and revolutionary art, why wasn't the film itself made in a similar form? If Gilles, the character with whom Assayas identified, was so insistent upon "not speaking the enemy's language," why did Something in the Air speak that language? I didn't find the film to be revolutionary in its form at all. However, after a second viewing, I saw the film quite differently. The characters in the film did not, as I previously had read them, thoroughly understand what was going on around them. As Assayas states in his interview with Hammer to Nail, "They are absorbing things…they are at an age when they have to define themselves. You have to find your path and they are trying; if you want to represent that, you have to present their confusion. So, the film has much more to do with the chaos." The film doesn't speak the conventional language of the enemy, but rather it speaks a language of chaos and confusion. I argue this by quickly observing some tiny examples of the many different film making styles that are shown from scene to scene. For instance, when Gilles reads the letter Laure sends him, she pops up on screen, framed by daisies. This is the only time a whimsical shot like this occurs. When Gilles attends a meeting before his departure to Italy, the camera darts frantically from one angry student the next in a documentary styled filmmaking. This shaky and quick paced movement does not remain the style through the entirety of the film though. Several times the camera takes its time and pans slowly through the scene. For example, when we're first introduced to Leslie, the camera slowly pans around the back of her head and drifts to each of the drugged out teens. Usually a film states the style it chooses to be and sticks to it throughout the film regardless of the content. However, in Something in the Air, the camera acts based on the feeling of the moment. Like the students, it isn't self-identified which adds to the chaos and confusion that film presents in that time period.
I believe this movie does a great job of presenting the events of 1968 in a way that most everyone can understand and relate to. It does this by telling the events through the view point of a youth, Gilles, in revolt. Whether you are a teenager, or an adult we all have experienced that time in our lives. Those teenage years in which we are trying to discover who we are, and what we truly desire in this world. For many, discovering yourself is only achievable through independence and freedom. However, one can only achieve freedom or independence if they break free or revolt against the institutions that are trying to make them conform to societal norms, whether that be your parents, your school, or the government. For many of us, revolting against these institutions to express ourselves meant becoming a part of some sort of counterculture. Gilles (Assayas) was no different. He, along with many other French youths in 1968, took to the counterculture of revolutionaries. For the youth in France in 1968, particularly Gilles in this movie, independence and freedom was achieved through artistic expression. You can see Gilles’ struggle to find himself take place throughout the movie. I believe one example of Gilles trying to discover himself is his different relationship with women. Possibly, this could be showing the viewer Gilles trying to discover himself through another form: love. However, it is very clear Gilles’ main avenue of self-exploration is through artistic expression. This is evident throughout the movie as he expresses himself through many different art forms: first painting, then graffiti and then print (flyers, magazines) and then finally through film. Towards the end of the movie, Gilles discovers himself through film. I think the ending scene symbolizes Gilles finding himself. In an interview by David Thompson, Assayas has this to say about the closing scene: “It’s kind of symbolic in a way, because to me it’s a place where movies met counterculture, and there was no equivalent in France. It made the connection between counterculture and what was at the time not yet called independent filmmaking. It provides the solution in a certain way to whatever Gilles or myself is looking for in cinema, it embodies it.” (Thompson,6)
My first post (A.K.A. "Sorry Marco for going overboard!")
ReplyDeleteOlivier Assayas’ Something in the Air, while narrowed in on the subject of 1968 and its effects on French revolutionary youths and youth artists, is - as the kids’ minds are - all over the place.
One might wonder while watching the film why these group of young adults participate in these revolutionist events, since they only end up fleeing them anyway, but the truth is that they just want to be artists, and all of this violence and turmoil around them is what helps shape and inspire their partisan art, whether they want it to or not.
Assayas, in an interview with Tom Hall for Hammer to Nail, describes what he was trying to convey in being a youth in France in the late 1960s, and how troubling, yet formative it was, saying “They [the youth] are absorbing things, they have trouble hierarchizing [sic] them, mostly because they are at an age when they have to define themselves. You have to find your path and they are trying; if you want to represent that, you have to present their confusion. So, the film has much more to do with the chaos.”
Being a youth during this time, as Assayas showed in the film, was more troubling and taxing than being a youth nowadays, as you had to choose whether you wanted to stand alongside your home country and revolt with them, or escape said beloved country to pursue interests and passions that you found to be more important.
Now, going off onto a small tangent using my own film/music geekery, I found it interesting and reaffirming to see that most of the film was soundtracked by late 60s American and British artists, who were also important during the time of 68 and beyond. From Syd Barrett’s “Terrapin”, played during the scene in which Gilles and Laure stroll throughout the forest, to Nick Drake’s “Know”, played as Gilles looks through a book of pornographic images and then proceeds to paint them. And the scene in which Gilles paints Christine in the nude could be said to have inspired the scene in 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Colour in which Emma draws Adèle in the nude. It probably did not in fact draw inspiration from Something in the Air, and I’m probably grasping at straws now, but oh well.
The film ends in a manner that can be described as “cute”, as we see Gilles standing in line for a night of experimental cinema, which then shows what we can assume to be a film that Gilles made. It’s an obvious assumption to make seeing as that while in London Gilles studied up on cinema through literature and his own experience on sets.
Sorry for going overboard, it’s my first post so I’m sure I’ll be able to condense my thoughts in the future. I am curious to hear what you guys (my classmates) thought of the film, and as a starting point, consider this quote from the film, in which Christine’s filmmaker friend says “You can’t make entertainment in revolutionary times.”
Do you agree with that statement? Do you feel that in times of revolution art, and more specifically film, should document what is really going on in the present moment as oppose to fiction? For example, in 1967, Jean-Luc Godard releases the political film The Chinese which to some degree documented the revolutionary ideas brewing just before 1968. Meanwhile, Godard’s friend and fellow Jean-Pierre Léaud enthusiast François Truffaut releases Stolen Kisses, which does not bring up any revolutionist ideas, etc. Taken what Peter Wollen says in France During the 1960s as another starting point:
“During the course of the 1960s, nouvelle vague humanism, as represented by François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, ceded to topical films with a sharp political edge, with Jean-Luc Godard leading the way.
Again, sorry for writing too much!
John, you bring up a key issue that will be recurring theme throughout a lot of the films and ideas in 1968 (and throughout all of film history), namely how to utilize cinema in the wake of global revolutions. In fact this question is what led to the fallout between Godard and Truffaut. Luckily I took Dr. Abel’s summer class on 1968 so I have a fair understanding of what to expect from this debate.
DeleteTake Something in the Air for example – this movie is highly accessible, one that I would take a date to. It’s easy to watch in that it doesn’t take much concentration to understand. I would not, however, take a date to A Grin Without a Cat. It’s a movie I’d watch if I was feeling intellectually motivated being chalk full of montage and theory that I need to really focus in order to catch some of the points, especially when the audio is almost incomprehensible at times. They are radically different films, yet their conclusions are nearly identical.
When Gilles and Christine go to the screening of the Laos film, the filmmakers say that “revolutionary syntax” would not be understood by the Average Joe that is used to going to the cinema for entertainment and therefore isn’t helpful in mobilizing the revolutionary class. Later though, Gilles argues that new ideas require new techniques, which subvert the “language of the enemy.” The question is never resolved in the film or in the real world. It’s been around since Battleship Potemkin and will probably exist throughout the rest of film history or until the capitalist process completely does away with unmarketable innovation in the arts.
The idea that leftist avant-garde or even narrative films that are formally and politically radical would be considered “bourgeois” seems counterintuitive. According Assayas, “at the time, anything connected to fiction or self-expression was considered ‘entertainment’” (Porton, 10) and classified as a part of the “petty bourgeois” (8). Godard’s La Chinoise and Weekend could then be dismissed as anti-revolutionary based on their aesthetics. But it all boils down to how revolutions should be engaged, which “the New Left plunged into incomprehensible internecine squabble about” (Sinker, 65). Revolution depends on a united mass of intellectuals and workers. Imagine if everyone just accepted each other and made films.
I think you're definitely onto something w/r/t the film's relationship to, um, film. And, the film's status as a spiritual autobiography in which Gilles serves as a stand-in for a young Assayas reveals a lot about both the director's aesthetic theory and his opinion of the revolutionary movements of the 1960s New Left.
DeleteIn the scene you mentioned, Gilles is very much on the side of the esthete, going so far as to bring up the documentary's style in another conversation with the filmmakers. When he doesn't rejoin them in Italy, it's clear that he's held back because he does not respect them as artists. His argument is simple: a film about the revolution should be a revolutionary film.
Gilles does not explicitly repeat this argument, but later scenes serve as a nonverbal reiteration of his view. When Gilles debates his father about the quality of the Maigret novels, he is again on the side of the artistic avant-garde; his claim echoes Ezra Pound's, 'Make it new,' in its disdain for recycled, formulaic fiction and lazy prose. It's the last scene, though, that sets Gilles' relationship to aestheticism in stone: he waits in line at an English experimental cinema, reading a paperback Guy Debord. Debord was a Situationist writer and filmmaker and, like Gilles, an anti-authoritarian Marxist.
If Gilles is Assayas, though, we're missing a vital piece of the puzzle. When did the revolutionary lover of experimental film go straight? Because 'Something in the Air,' as Collin noted, is incredibly accessible and 'easy to watch.' It's beautifully shot, features an amazing cast of classically attractive French people, and pulls its soundtrack from the annals of English and American folk; in a phrase, the thing oozes 'petty bourgeoise.' The only answer I can think of, based on my limited experience w/the Marker film [1977] and the Assayas [2012], would be that Assayas still believes that revolutionary ideas require revolutionary syntax; this particular revolution, though, is over.
Benjamin, I think your final statement that ‘this particular revolution, though, is over,’ is definitely what Assayas is getting at with the end of his film. Though Gilles still frequents an avant-garde cinema and reads Debord, he has been forced to move on with life. He may continue to entertain revolutionary thoughts in his private life, but in order to move forward in the world he takes a job working on a B-movie whose only concern is entertainment, the antithesis of avant-garde or revolutionary aesthetics. Richard Porton also notes the debates of syntax present in the film and recognizes its own mainstream aesthetics. “Oddly enough, despite Assayas’s enthusiasm for the Situationist tradition that fuses a passion for both experimental art and antiauthoritarian left politics, there is nothing in the least inaccessible or hermetic about Something in the Air.” Though he introduces this idea, in his interview with Assayas, he never confronts him with a direct question on the matter. Assayas discusses the views of the characters in the film on classical versus revolutionary aesthetics, but he never explains his own decision to direct a film that is easily digestible to all audiences. Porton quotes one particular critic of Assayas who concludes the film mimes, “The most glamorous aspects of youthful radicalism in order to craft a deeply conservative film, whose form does not bear the slightest trace of the revolutionary politics it portrays.” Porton also points out, as Collin did, that this argument has been going on since the films of Eisenstein and the Russian Revolution. Maybe you’re right Benjamin, that Assayas believes that revolutionary aesthetics were the best way to spurn revolutionary action in the late 60s, but now he believes different means are necessary. As he states in his interview with David Thompson, the young people of our generation are much different than those of the ’68. Even when looking for actors he found difficulty finding those that could relate to the period. “They were pretty focused on the clothes and the music. When we started dealing with the politics of that era, and the nuances of the politics, they were lost, they didn’t care.” Perhaps this in part explains Assayas use of conventional aesthetics. Our generation is not as accustomed to the avant-garde in Assayas eyes. His goal with Something in the Air could have been to introduce ’68 to a new generation, to help them understand it, and, with understanding the current generation could entertain revolutionary thought and conversation and discuss what modern action would look like and what it could achieve.
DeleteJohn, I like the comments you made about the chaotic nature of the film and how it, in many ways, is all over the place, just like the kids. This made me realize something about the film that I overlooked due to the “mature”, or perhaps more serious, situations and events that were portrayed: these characters are just kids. The film starts with their final days of high school where they are already focusing all of their energy on the revolution. I think the feeling of the film being all over the place, as you pointed out, has a lot to do with how old these characters are. The high school and “college” years are hard enough with simply trying to find meaning, figuring out what to do with your life, dealing with relationships, etc., but on top of that, these kids have become involved in an attempt to literally bring about the change of an entire nation.
DeleteSo, I think that a key issue that can be overlooked in the film, as well as in the actual lives of the protestors and revolutionaries in ’68, is the presence of multiple struggles (this is something that Jess mentioned as well). It is not simply a struggle between the activists and the government, but a struggle between the activists and their peers, their friends, their families, and themselves. In his interview with David Thompson concerning The Devil, Probably, Assayas explains, “When I saw the film again, it just struck me so cruelly that what I was rejecting was not the movie, it was myself. The person I had been at the time. Because the characters in the film, specifically the central character, are really the closest to whatever I was at that age that I've seen in a film. But at the time I did not want to see that!” As Assayas admits, there is more going on than simply a collective struggle against the government and all those struggles and uncertainties add up to make a film that seems to be “all over the place”.
Similarly, the readings on France in the 60’s discuss the many different groups and factions that were present at the time. It was very surprising to me how many different names and acronyms of various groups there were and how similar they were to each other. It got to the point where I could not keep track anymore. But, they were still, in some way, different from each other. In one of the later scenes in the film, Gilles and Jean-Pierre meet up with their other friend in a cafeteria where Jean-Pierre and the other friend express a changing of views and ways of going about their “activism”, wanting to become more violent with their actions. Gilles replies somewhere along the lines of “If it works.” I think this sequence illustrates the confusion- and possibly even the growing doubt- of Gilles, and others like him, as to whether their efforts will really matter or bring about change, especially with so many similar, yet separate groups struggling for similar causes. After this point, as others have brought up, Gilles seems to change the direction and focus of his life, showing the “passing” of the revolution for him specifically and how he chose to deal with a different struggle in the end.
John and Dom, I quite like how you touch on Assayas’ portrayal of the especially chaotic life of teenagers during the film’s time period and was also struck by Gilles’ struggle to carve out his identity despite pressure from different political viewpoints. Dom, I particularly like your selection of the “If it’s worth it” scene as an example of different political viewpoints brushing up against each other and agree that it conveys Gilles’ growing doubts as well as the incredible stress put on him (and all French youth at the time) by the adherents of different factions. As the scene progresses and his classmates steadily put more effort into committing Gilles to their stance, the camera compliments their efforts by continually pulling in towards the trio. By the time the camera stops moving, the pressure and uncertainty that Gilles feels becomes visually apparent through a close up framed through his comrades. In his interview with Richard Porton, Assayas articulates this as he claims that “there is no such thing as a fulfilled teenager. You have a lot of anger and it’s difficult to find your own path” (11). The way that Gilles feels such anger towards the establishment (be it in the form of the government or his own father) and is unable to fruitfully channel it into a politically transformative effort is really emblematic of both the struggle following the events of ’68 and the struggle of being a teenager and creating an identity. Despite the agendas of the Trotskyites and the Maoists who wanted to mold the revolutionary effort into something that complimented and conformed to their view of the world, May ’68, as Assayas explains in an interview with David Thompson, “just happened, no one had any control over it—all of a sudden there was a breach and everyone rushed in, and it was for reasons that are still unclear today” (26).
DeleteWonderful points are being made, and one made by Collin held a special significance, but in a different light. The scene discussing the aesthetics in correlation to the context of film making seemed a key issue. This piece is dealing with the yearning to explore the medium of cinematography in a time which was offering so much to show. Nevertheless, due to the recent making of the film, I was interested in viewing the film as a memory rather than a narrative. Anytime we try to depict something from the past it is important to accept the tinting created by time bias and the romanticism of the past. In the interview “My Generation,” by David Thompson, Olivier Assayas touches briefly on this malleability of vision and changing of perspective. When asked about Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably (1977), he comments, “I had the utmost respect for Bresson, but this one, my God… It was all about stuff we were rejecting, which we did not want to deal with anymore, it was the old world. When I looked at the film again away from that context, five or 10 years later, I realized that it was the best depiction of what the Seventies were about” (28). While the film does a fantastic job at depicting the struggles of a generation that missed the revolution by a few years, but refused to be left out, I wondered about the bias lens they were looked at from. The beginning sequence depicting the chase scene between students and policemen shows the brutalizing violence usurped to defenseless bodies. The students run. They are not the ones leading the violence. The one moment a student strikes back, it is to defend a fellow, fallen student. His defense is excused and accounted for. While it might be true that the circumstances did not play in favor of rebelling students, it is important to question the polarization of the students as completely benign. The soft cinematographic shots, the attention to details which exemplified the student’s innocence and vulnerability, the emphasis put in their carefree love, the camera shots and lighting which favor their positive attributes attest for a glorification of Assayas’ look into the past. Perhaps a victim of memory distortion, he seems to create a universe where the students are free to roam, explore, vandalize, exploit, and rebel with minimal consequences. It is hard to face our own flaws, and especially easy to minimize them when re-examined. I don’t think the bias of the lens is rightful or erroneous—simply, it is vital when remembering to be aware of the problematic distortions time creates in us, our views, and our perspective.
ReplyDeleteAside from the wonderful discussion that precedes my comment, today’s class discussion and the short film “La Reprise du Travail aux Wonder” narrowed my focus from the working force as a whole, to women and their supposed roles that held strength throughout the revolution or lack thereof. In “La Reprise…” we saw a strong woman, fighting for what the entire revolution was meant to represent. Yet, the men, as was discussed in class, threw her ideas beneath them in such a way that was reminiscent of how men used to treat what they believed to be “female hysteria”. This very treatment led me to think further on the representation of the many women in Assayas’ Après Mai, and if these roles should be divided into the black and whites of “strong” or “weak”.
ReplyDeleteThis very topic however is difficult to categorize, and blame or praise Assayas in some ways, as in his interview with David Thompson he confirms that the film has many autobiographical elements to it, even the character of Christine (Lola Créton) is, by Assayas’ word, almost an exact replica of a young woman of his past, journey and all. However, you can look at the roles played the characters Laure (Carole Combes) and Leslie (India Menuez) as two different women, or perhaps the same women, just with different paths. Assayas states that Laure is the vision of the 70’s girl lost to drugs, citing 60’s ‘it’ logo as the vision for the character. In a way it is refreshing that this young woman, who is significant in Gilles’ love life, is never dependent on the roles of the men in her life. She leaves Gilles due to familial change, but before this she is quite brutally honest in voicing her opinion of his art, his passion. Later in the film, we see her with a new man, but not tied down in any form, another refreshing surprise for a character that I had expected to revolve around Gilles and other men.
The character of Leslie, playing the part of the “free American spirit” of the 70’s, does not rely on Alain (Felix Armand) to change her life either. Yet, like Laure, her character is not made of feminist points, but others, Leslie’s seemingly being that of ignorant cultural appropriation that is quite popular throughout white American and European culture. In fact, that only mention of feminism comes back to Christine, when a filmmaker she has been living with jokingly labels all feminists as lesbians, adding a derogatory taste to both categories and dismissing any true notion of revolution the filmmaker had before. Should all three of these women not better represent the feminist ideals that are almost absent, or should the autobiographical story be left as a vision of Assayas’ life, not a visual representation of something greater? Perhaps the feminist revolution I so desperately seek from the film is like the greater revolution of the time, wanted from the people, but not acted on, lingering upon society.
Alannah, you bring up a great point about the film’s feminism and its (lack of) intersectionality with regards to issues like race and cultural appropriation. There are a few moments in the film that seem to be glaring critiques of the blatant insensitivity the white Westerners have towards racial and multicultural issues. As Assaya states in his interview, Leslie plays the part of the “free American spirit” of the time period. During the scene when everyone sits outside listening to a man play “Ballad of William Worthy,” Leslie tells Alain, “I study sacred dance. Dance that has to do with religious or magic rituals. In the West, we’ve lost touch with the mystical origins of dance. But in the Orient, they still dance for the gods.” Leslie is certainly a free spirit, opting to spend time in Italy rather than back home studying “sacred dance.” But her rhetoric is problematic from a cultural and racial standpoint. To begin with, using the word “Orient” to describe Eastern countries is both antiquated and pejorative. John Kuo Wei Tchen, director of the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute at NYU states, “with the anti-war movement in the 60s and early 70s, many Asian Americans identified the term ‘Oriental’ with a Western process of racializing Asians as forever opposite ‘others.’” (http://journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/archives/livewire/archived/oriental_rugs_or_people/)
DeleteLeslie's use of that term, along with words like “magic rituals” and “mystical,” is problematic and is perhaps indicative of the greater revolutionary movement’s neglect and insensitivity to issues of race and cultural appropriation.
Additionally, at one point in the film, during the scene when Gilles shares lunch with his father, we see Gilles wearing a t-shirt that says “I’ve got a black belt in keeping it real.” This is a reference to the American Blaxploitation films that were being made around the same time. Is he wearing the shirt ironically? Is he a fan of these Blaxploitation films? As a French citizen, would he have had a firm enough grasp on American history and culture to fully understand the significance of his t-shirt, especially in the broader context of the revolution? I’m not sure it sits right with me.
In Thompson’s article, Assayas describes “free love” as a convenient distraction for young revolutionaries from achieving their goals (26), and it seems the film’s “romantic” scenes, as well as other non–revolutionary activities, question how dedicated the student protesters are to their revolutionary cause. Although the general strike’s organization was large, 9 million as stated in class, exactly how many students were truly for the cause and how many were “riding the wave” because there’s certainly a number of students who would occupy the streets or attend special events and meetings simply to participate in the social environment. When watching this film, I kept thinking of a very different film, Stuart Hagmann’s The Strawberry Statement (1970), where the main character, Simon, joins the revolution solely to meet girls, but as the film progresses and the plot requires him to “care” about the revolution, he miraculously has a change of heart and is a full–fledged “freedom fighter.” Like Something in the Air, Grin Without a Cat implies that social organization, by showing the different revolutionary movements in a global scale, is simple. The main students in Something in the Air, for example, easily balance their political objectives with their educational and social priorities with little to no conflict. Grin Without a Cat also tends showing the effects of revolutionary organization such as massive protests, rallies, and speech to provide a quicker summation of each global event’s outcome, yet it implies, through its historical distance, that the political awakening and organization seem to come naturally.
ReplyDeleteRelating back to The Strawberry Statement, a film made only a few years after 1968, the film ends abruptly with a freeze frame of Simon in mid–air as he jumps at a group of policemen, leaving his fate and the student protests in question, as if the conflicts were still perpetual beyond the film’s narrative, which is ironic considering the film was released one month after the Kent State massacre which effectively ended a majority of nationwide anti–war protests; a much more violent film in comparison to Something In The Air which only shows a brief moment of police brutality near the beginning. As one student described, the film is very nostalgic, a positive recollection of the events. The films is aesthetically very bright with warm colors and the final montage of Laure walking in the open fields resembles something out of a contemporary pharmaceutical commercial.
Throughout Something in the Air (Après mai) (Olivier Assayas, 2012), the constant contrast between the older and younger revolutionaries is central. From the opening scene, where a grey-haired professor dispassionately reads a revolutionary text from the past as the dark-haired male lead carves the anarchy A into his desk, the conflict between the “current” participants and their predecessors is placed squarely in the forefront of the viewer’s mind. As the plot progresses and more characters are introduced, the majority of them are more experienced and (slightly) older revolutionaries.
ReplyDeleteThe bearded man in glasses (the one with the camera) who takes our main characters to the collective and the other relatively older man in the van tell the youths to “watch what [they] read.” While this statement could be construed as a helpful warning, the earlier presence of criticism from adults who participated in the earlier revolution hints otherwise; I am primarily referring to the scene before the main characters feel the heat caused by their explosions of revolutionary spirit and leave for Italy wherein another revolutionary berates the students, stating, “Don’t use our mimeograph to print your filth” (likely what his elders would have told him a decade prior). These interactions can more readily be seen as examples of the differing ideologies between the openly active students and the more mature, changing-things-from-within-the-system active of the older generation. The latter are veterans of the movement and its ideology, and have seen the effects of the revolution they wrought.
Conversations with the students are, again, didactic, which is emphasized by the camera cutting back and forth between the two groups so only one viewpoint and set of revolutionary experiences is on screen at a time. When the shot is wider, the students are positioned separately from their forebears; they may be sitting at the same table, but they are not on the same side. A notable example of this is directly after the aforementioned discussion in the van. The camera pans right, to the students listening and sitting on chairs, while the extrapolations of the adults – who form a cramped, if united, front around and next to the wooden kitchen table – continue on as the younger audience is silent as plans are laid out.
Another, earlier instance is the interesting bit with the principal and Jean-Pierre, the student who left his school ID on the scene after the group covered several walls of the school with political/revolutionary slogans and posters. The principal is surprisingly forgiving of Jean-Pierre’s actions, implying that he likely was a revolutionary himself in his younger years, a thesis that is granted more weight by the lack of pressure on the student to reveal his compatriots. Everyone is tied to the revolution – past and “present” and even our present – and its beliefs affect everyone involved, regardless of whether and how they are active.
First post:During the film, one of the main questions that kept running through my head that I thought was interesting to the topic of the film was, “why did Something in the Air (2012) need to be made?” It an interesting point to bring up, Why did director Olivier Assayas feel that he need to make a film about France’s political turmoil during the late 1960’s.
DeleteCertainly there have been other films that have documented this moment in history, what purpose does this film serve. Well, it was not that the documentation of France’s ’68 turmoil was non-existent but Assayas argues that “one the reasons that people have a shaky grasp of May ’68 is that is was, as you said, influenced by anarchist ideas . . . The French communist party and the communist-dominated trade union killed May’68. The anarchist elements of May ’68 were the most important part of the mix. And those ideas have survived.”
Assays Argument about how the anti-anarchist left has been ignored by history has some strong points. Many examples like the petit bourgeoisie and anti-anarchistic left does not get covered much in history nowadays because the French communism was so prevalent back in those days.
Even in A Grin Without a Cat (1977), a film which I think has some intriguing things to say, does not really dive into the other acts of the Petit bourgeoisie rebellion too much because it is focus on the terror and violence all around the world. What Something in the Air (2012) is trying to do is that I think is interesting is confirming on A Grin without a Cat’s (1977) proclamation while confounding on its own ideas.
All in all, the reason why I believe Assayas made this film is because he wants to inform people about the truth. We tend to remember things the way we want to remember them and not think about any other interpretations. Assayas needed to make this film for the sake of the history of franc ’68.
Neither “A Cat Without A Grin” nor “Something In The Air” are literal translations of the original French titles of the films. A Cat Without A Grin was originally called “Le Fond De L’air Est Rouge” which translates to “The essence of the air is red.” This is a play on a French expression “Le fond de l'air est frais” or “there is a chill in the air.” This change in title does not alter the meaning to an unrecognizable degree. Both the Carrol reference and the French pun refer to a presence that does not ever become manifest or tangible. This presence is of course the fever of 68, the leftist fervor that swept through the world but never actually brought about the radical changes it strived for. “Something In The Air” is called Après Mai in French, which means “After May,” which refers to the peak of the 68 fervor, at least in France, when the economy of France virtually stopped when more than 11,000,000 people went on strike. Now, why this change from “After May” to “Something In The Air?” As many in class have admitted, young Americans are not particularly knowledgeable of 68 and “After May” wouldn’t stir up the same kind sentiment for us as it would with French audiences. But, “Something In That Air,” seems to be a direct reference to “Le Fond De L’air Est Rouge,” as if the title were asking the audience to think about these two films together. Both the documentary and the drama, are in a sense, at least to me, attempting to convey similar perspectives on the 1968 movements. Although, the documentary was far more diversified, global, with the inclusion of many historical political figures, and the drama followed around only a handful of French students and took place during a relatively brief period of time, both films try to display the confusion, the revolution within revolution, the disorder of the time, the something in the air. I also think it’s no mistake that Marco screened these films consecutively.
ReplyDeleteAn artist equals free expression. Youth in this culture used cinematic videography as a means of free expression. Stated in the film by Gilles, an artist is a vessel for communication and means of expression. “Something In the Air” gives the viewer an underrepresentation of the accounts towards the youth liberation movement of France, and the students struggle for independence and self worth. I must point out that I viewed this film with an ethnocentric ideology. Cultural revolution does scare us as Americans. There has always been the freedom of choice to stand up for your beliefs in this country, but you can very easily become an outcast amongst peers by doing so, and this is especially true in high school settings. Institution is what these kids fear and I 100 percent back them on there movement. Its important to note that the films these students were going to see in theaters had a sort of a state agenda to them. “Be good and you will be rewarded in heaved, all else will go to hell” one of the films was encouraging. This kind of state propaganda had a heavy influence on the older generations as they clearly opposed. One shop owner didn’t want that “filth” as he called it, printed in his store. These students are taking on the core beliefs by their older generations, which were instilled through state social reform generations before them.
ReplyDelete“Dissolution", which means dismissal of an official body, and other messages portraying their desire for change is what the kids had vandalized on their school. The film gives great detail and emphasis on youth culture by using cinematic effect such as shots of "Youth to worried about future” graffiti. These kids were actively participating and continuing the movement that had started in 68’. In no way were they late to joining the movement. At the height of 68’, they could have been just entering high school or been around that age. Gilles mentioned he lives only in his fantasies. This is parallel with that of this artistic ability and desire for filmmaking. Also, printing propaganda to distribute amongst other students such as their flyer, and magazines help to fuel his fantasies. This movement is important to the students, the main reason Jean-Pierre didn’t give up his friends for the graffiti. Near the end of the film I find it interesting that Gilles burns his best work. Gilles’ is clearly struggling with finding a political identity that is true to him, so I see it as the single greatest symbol of freedom in the film and a statement of autonomy.
As I was reading these comments and discussions, I was also thinking about how intimate and personal the film shows of just a small amount of people, trying to revolt while expressing the hardships of living through a revolution. This could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you were trying to learn from the film. GIlles, the main character, is just one of the people, internationally, trying to make an impact during '68. Focusing on one person or a small group of people to make the story more relatable to current day audience seems like the goal that Assayas, but to people who haven't heard about 1968 and the significance, won't know any actual information. The story that the film is telling us, doesn't tell us many things about the actual revolution. What it does show us, are reactions to the events and the way these kids were dealing with it. We had a teen who was persecuted for vandalism of the high school, one who starts to see the effects of the revolution on the people around, and one teen who is faithful to the cause throughout the entire film. I think that the different actions and reactions to the events throughout the film, are very realistic to what may have happened to people during '68. I'm sure many people that were once passionate about the revolution, until they took a step back and looked around and couldn't recognize what was going on. The realism, even if it didn't really show many major events that were held in France, is very accurate to how people acted.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people seem to be commenting on the Assayas’ attempt to inform the general public of what really occurred in this revolutionary period in terms of how the youth were revolutionary in France through this semi-autobiographical piece. While the revolutionary ideas and practices of all of the characters in Something in the Air play a central roll, I think that Assayas does an excellent job more subtly demonstrating why the revolution was not a complete success. Beside the surface of the revolutionaries featured not actually being a part of the working class attempting to create a more egalitarian society, we are shown that these characters, for the most part, do not remain revolutionaries forever. Like it has been mentioned several times already, these are just kids who are looking for a way to identify themselves. One of the starkest comparisons shown in the film of how times change and how characters are seeking identity to me was the two shots of Gilles handing out flyers. In the beginning of the film we see him handing out revolutionary fliers and newspapers to the other students very passionately, and at the end of the film we are shown Gilles handing out fliers for a mainstream film. He could not maintain the identity of the revolutionary. The dialogue that signaled the turning point was when Gilles was at a café with Jean-Pierre and the news paper editor and when talking about the car destruction that they want to do they say to Gilles, “Don’t ask what you’ll risk, but if you’ll be true to yourself.” Gilles would not have been true to himself had he have kept with the revolutionary lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree with you that a major point that Assayas makes is to show that the revolution was unsuccesful, I don't think that Gilles is a very clear example of its failure. He does end up working for a horrifyingly tacky mainstream film, and he does of course pass out the fliers, but more importantly, the film ends with him at an experimental theatre. As Assayas states in one of the readings, this was the place where he finally felt that the counterculture and cinema could meet. This is where it makes sense.
DeleteGilles was "untrue" to himself prior to this moment when he was working on the mainstream movie, not at the experimental film. Here, when the experimental film fills our screen and where the woman literally waves us toward her, the film foretells a switch in Gilles' path. The end of Something in the Air is the beginning of Gilles experience with a more solid sense of self-identity.
There are a lot of things to talk about with a film like this, but the main thing I would like to address is, what I felt, a theme of futile rebellion efforts. Starting first with the character of Laure, her rebellion efforts took on the form of drugs and partying, but to quote the band Cake's song Rock and Roll Life Style "Your self destruction doesn't hurt them". Her life style did wind up hurting her however, she is upstairs when a fire ensues, leaving her with no choice but to jump.
ReplyDeleteLooking at rebellion more literally, the students all have a disdain for the bourgeoisie, ironically however, they are all destined to become the very thing they hate. At the end of the film we see Gilles passing out fliers for a mainstream film, which is in my opinion, the exact opposite from how he stared out in the beginning of the film.
What Olivier Assayas did within Something in the Air is include a series of moments and scenes that were both unsettling and uncomfortable. The first moment which drove my attention to this oddly subliminal-like discomfort was the newspaper photo of a bloodied face that Gille looked at only minutes into the film. From then on Assayas linked together scenes that almost contradicted one another in terms of emotional response. One minute we see Gille and Laure parting for what seems to be the last time, the next a darkly lit room where Gille is using a sledgehammer to smash some substance in a bucket - the crunching noise eliciting a panicky reaction from myself - or Gille and Christine kissing in the movie theater while in the background the man on film sings about going to hell. We might see a beautiful scenery of the beach and the water and a few moments later see mummified bodies or drawings of awkwardly sexual images. Even when they started to speak English in some scenes I was left in a very stressed state. It’s all very off-putting; these moments don’t fit together, but they work in a way to keep the audience interested and uncomfortable. But I suppose this style mimics the tension and inability to find peace that revolutionary youths felt during this time. Whereas they were not able to remain tranquil once their involvement in the revolution began, the viewer also has a hard time attempting to remain comfortable.
ReplyDeleteAnd don’t even get me started on Jean-Pierre’s red Afro: absolutely terrifying.
The parallel between the struggle for revolution and the struggle of defining oneself are vividly realized. Gilles' inner conflict is something that most people can relate to in some small way. It can be disheartening to watch people so readily express themselves and speak for causes larger than any one person, while you struggle with not just the means of expressing yourself, but finding exactly what it is you want to express at all. In the early scenes of the film, the students bicker over what it is that they are most upset about and Gilles is just happy to rebel. However, as the film goes on, his friends who helped define him go their own ways. I feel this mirrors the feelings of most people in the aftermath of 1968. Many people left with needing to process the ways the revolutionary movements affect them.
DeleteAh, I apologize for the tiny post. I mixed up my schedule and didn't give myself a lot of time to write. I will do better next time!
DeleteIn the film Something in the Air a group of teenagers set out to try and continue the revolution ’68. They try to fuel the fire by free press and putting there messages and expression out into the world by art. Some canvases are bigger than others, such as sides of buildings.
ReplyDeleteIn there pursuits to change the world they end up changing themselves. As they move forward they meet new people that share there same ideals about revolution. Although these people agree with most things and are trying to better themselves and the policies around them they do not agree on everything.
This is shown in a brief yet powerful scene when Christine ( Lola Créton ) is talking to her new friend and possible boyfriend. The full extent of their relationship is not clear. The scene starts with Christine in the office finishing up her work. She then leaves to do some shopping for the house, then when she gets home she starts to clean. This already is setting up what is soon to be revealed to the audience.
During this time of political and social change some issues are still not taken seriously by all. The whole day Christine is shown doing “womanly” duties. She is answering the phones in the office, she cooks, she cleans, she does it all. Then when she finally talks to her new friend she talks back to him in a way and he says, “have you been talking to those lesbians again” she comes back at him saying, “they’re not lesbians, they’re feminists”.
That one line is such a powerful point in the film. Even though these people say they are trying to change these issues, the men are still completely shut down to the ideas of what women can do. They act as though they are open to all the different possibilities that ’68 has provided for them, yet reject the idea of something as simple as a woman speaking her mind.
In this film I couldn't help but feel that the focus was more on artistic representation and growth, or a “Memory” like mentioned during Olivier’s interview, of what is was like to be an artist, than an expression of revolt and revolution. Although the desire to be involved in a revolution, and the opposition of the bourgeoisie is there I felt like the film was just that, a desire. Granted it does take place in the years following the revolution, I felt that the characters were more talk rather than action, aside from the run in with the security guards, and I was more drawn to the artistic references in the movie along with it aesthetics. Gilles specifically, I felt represented change and revolution through his art. The progression of his personal work from the beginning to the end of the movie, I felt was an indicator in personal change and development of self. In one of the first scenes that we see Gilles creating art he is making pieces that reference American Abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock whose art was relatively culturally accepted in America amongst other places and often described as “safe” by artists involved in movement that followed his, such as Andy Warhol, who later created pieces out of urine to mock the alleged simplicity of Pollock’s work. In the middle of the movie Gilles uses the fresco’s he viewed as an initiative to start working with the human figure, makes some generic figurative pieces, then begins making more exploitative figurative ink drawings that reference the work of French artist Louise Bourgeois, who was known for her vulgar, exploitative, and sometimes violent paintings of Women.
ReplyDeleteThe content and motivation behind Gilles work moves from being easy and quiet at the beginning of the movie whereas towards the end of the movie, his work represents a comfort in expression and questioning of political correctness.
When I first viewed Something in the Air last summer, I was baffled by the way the film was made. In a movie filled with revolutionary ideas and revolutionary art, why wasn't the film itself made in a similar form? If Gilles, the character with whom Assayas identified, was so insistent upon "not speaking the enemy's language," why did Something in the Air speak that language? I didn't find the film to be revolutionary in its form at all. However, after a second viewing, I saw the film quite differently. The characters in the film did not, as I previously had read them, thoroughly understand what was going on around them. As Assayas states in his interview with Hammer to Nail, "They are absorbing things…they are at an age when they have to define themselves. You have to find your path and they are trying; if you want to represent that, you have to present their confusion. So, the film has much more to do with the chaos." The film doesn't speak the conventional language of the enemy, but rather it speaks a language of chaos and confusion.
ReplyDeleteI argue this by quickly observing some tiny examples of the many different film making styles that are shown from scene to scene. For instance, when Gilles reads the letter Laure sends him, she pops up on screen, framed by daisies. This is the only time a whimsical shot like this occurs. When Gilles attends a meeting before his departure to Italy, the camera darts frantically from one angry student the next in a documentary styled filmmaking. This shaky and quick paced movement does not remain the style through the entirety of the film though. Several times the camera takes its time and pans slowly through the scene. For example, when we're first introduced to Leslie, the camera slowly pans around the back of her head and drifts to each of the drugged out teens. Usually a film states the style it chooses to be and sticks to it throughout the film regardless of the content. However, in Something in the Air, the camera acts based on the feeling of the moment. Like the students, it isn't self-identified which adds to the chaos and confusion that film presents in that time period.
I believe this movie does a great job of presenting the events of 1968 in a way that most everyone can understand and relate to. It does this by telling the events through the view point of a youth, Gilles, in revolt. Whether you are a teenager, or an adult we all have experienced that time in our lives. Those teenage years in which we are trying to discover who we are, and what we truly desire in this world. For many, discovering yourself is only achievable through independence and freedom. However, one can only achieve freedom or independence if they break free or revolt against the institutions that are trying to make them conform to societal norms, whether that be your parents, your school, or the government. For many of us, revolting against these institutions to express ourselves meant becoming a part of some sort of counterculture. Gilles (Assayas) was no different. He, along with many other French youths in 1968, took to the counterculture of revolutionaries. For the youth in France in 1968, particularly Gilles in this movie, independence and freedom was achieved through artistic expression. You can see Gilles’ struggle to find himself take place throughout the movie. I believe one example of Gilles trying to discover himself is his different relationship with women. Possibly, this could be showing the viewer Gilles trying to discover himself through another form: love. However, it is very clear Gilles’ main avenue of self-exploration is through artistic expression. This is evident throughout the movie as he expresses himself through many different art forms: first painting, then graffiti and then print (flyers, magazines) and then finally through film. Towards the end of the movie, Gilles discovers himself through film. I think the ending scene symbolizes Gilles finding himself. In an interview by David Thompson, Assayas has this to say about the closing scene: “It’s kind of symbolic in a way, because to me it’s a place where movies met counterculture, and there was no equivalent in France. It made the connection between counterculture and what was at the time not yet called independent filmmaking. It provides the solution in a certain way to whatever Gilles or myself is looking for in cinema, it embodies it.” (Thompson,6)
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