Adieu au Langage: An Essay on Perception

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

- William Shakespeare¹

Jean-Luc Godard, undoubtedly, one of the synonyms of innovations and experimentations in the world of cinema brings Adieu au Langage,² a narrative essay film. The film raises innumerable issues related with human relations, human perceptions, politics, history, philosophy, language and conceptualizations, film making. The film is made in 3D and like many modern films lack the linear narrative structure. And like almost all Godard movies, it is very difficult to comprehend to the extent that many critics have bashed it. Godard portrays a kind of collage on silver screen, where you find characters talking; narrative voice putting philosophical comments, graffiti in background, camera angles, everything together; and everything portrays the complex sets of meanings.

            The present article discusses various codes developed by Godard in this movie, and endeavors to explain the percepts they create for the potential reader/audience.  The first section below discusses the storyline of the movie. Second section attempts to provide the background and explanation to the various questions and quotations raised by the Auteur in the narration of the film. Third section discusses the title of the movie. Fourth section focuses on the fragments presented, as a stylistic variation, in the movie, and the last section, ‘Adieu…’, raises some questions rather than providing any conclusions, because the answers are quite obvious to everyone of us.

The Storyline

The film incorporates two versions of a coupe having an affair which runs parallel, non-chronological. The stories are entitled ‘1 Nature’ and ‘2 Metaphor’. As Godard³ puts as a Synopsis of the movie, “The idea is simple / A married woman and a single man meet / They love, they argue, fists fly / A dog strays between town and country” and then adds, “A second film begins: / the same as the first, / and yet not / From the human race we pass to metaphor”. Ultimately, the husband of the woman comes and ruins everything. But, all these things do not take place in very ordered form. And above all, as mentioned above, the film is not just about these couples.

            Godard develops dichotomies for the narration. The ‘Nature’ and the ‘Metaphor’, the titles of the story happen to be the first dichotomy here. The lead male and female characters in both stories are another dichotomy. The dog Roxy stands against the humans, and plays an important part in establishing the structural perception of the narrative. “Nature”, the first story runs in summer, while “Metaphor”, the second tale is in winter. And this is the first film by Godard in 3D, which means surface and depth is yet another dichotomy.

The questions and quotations

The unfolding of the film is embroidered and made spectacular by various questions and quotations. The first movie, “Nature” commences with an inquiry, “Is it possible to produce a concept about Africa?” The question is captivating from many perspectives. ‘Africa’, the expression, already exists in the languages of the world. Saussurian structuralism says that the word is made up of Signifier/Signified, the signifier in this dichotomy is the concept, and the signified is the ‘mental image’⁴. The word Africa means the availability of ‘concept-Africa’. Then, why raise such a question? Another thing to consider in the question is the verb ‘produce’, they could have used ‘develop’ or ‘construct’ instead.   The verb ‘produce’ has a basic meaning of ‘create or manufacture a man-made product’, ‘cause to happen, occur or exist’⁵. This feature leads to already existing concept of Africa, the colonial perspective of tribal, undeveloped, imperfect and violent nature of the continent. We have always seen such an image of the place. While the film ask the question on the frame of a colorful flowers and green vegetation, emphasizing, and implying the nature associated with the country, an unusual gaze upon it. At the same time, it questions the current political and social volatility in the continent, which is unambiguously screened in documentary footage in the movie.

The second important and satirical question asked and answered was, “The thumb. What did it do?”Apparently, the question was asked in the background of a frame in which two characters are operating their smart phones with the help of their thumb, at the same time third character in the frame was checking the books. The question doesn’t come as a surprise, but as a satire. Today’s life is very much entrenched in the digital and virtual spheres, smart phones and social networks have taken over the real eye-contact communication, and here, the thumb plays and important part. Probably, such a smart mode of communication would not have taken place without the thumb! And with Godard, we can also contemplate about the ‘utility of thumb’!

The film also goes deep into the history, discussing some of the issues of Second World War and violence in the century after that. It starts with the question, “Does 1933 ring a bell?”, the film answers, “In 1933, a Russian, Zworykin invented television” and “Hitler was elected democratically.” And then the discussion moves on to the notions of republic and “Greater Germany”, concluded with the line, “We will wage peace as we waged war”, moving on to the appropriation of political philosophy and prophecies of Jacques Ellul.

This chain moves onto the citizen and state, returning back to Hitler and civil war after one or two universal statements, it runs, “Reacting implies that we react against the economic policies, against the police, against the welfare. We see the entire nation rise up against us.” The case true from the time immemorial, every fascist ruler has been backed by innumerable blind followers, who see only what they are asked to see without any logical reactions of their own. As a citizen, you are simply supposed to accept the policies lay down by this blind convention. The most logical of your propositions are also being seen as legitimate anti-national dictum, just because you are reacting ‘against’ certain policies, not ‘in favor of’ some humanitarian causes. And thus, every act of yours is seen from a category to a category; category is more important than the substance of the thought.

The discussion continues “Is society willing to accept murder as a means to fight unemployment?” There is no answer. But, religious, cast, linguistic, and national massacres are nothing but the instances of the same process. It lessens the number of potential employees, it also deviates the common mind away from the real question of human survival and the role of state. It leads to the evolutionary question of ‘survival of the fittest’, the cast, the religion, the language, the nation that survives is better than the other. The followers can wander with the wider and wilder self esteem.

The very philosophical question arises, “What is the difference between an idea and a metaphor?” The question doesn’t solicit the answer; rather it initiates a chain of questions in the minds of spectators. And this is what the aim of the work, not to solve but to instigate the issues in the minds of the spectators. Reflecting the McLuhanian concept of ‘extensions’

The film says, “What they call images are becoming the murder of the present.” If we see this statement in the wider context, not just in the context of the movie, we would rather think whether it is an idea or a metaphor.

Such interesting and intriguing questions are flaunted, and in the backdrop two parallel stories are running, ‘similar but different’. The characters wandering completely naked, clearly exhibiting their private parts but devoid of any face and hence any identity. It could be anybody, it could be me or you, seriously doubting everything around us, the entire status quo are denied, yet living the life as it comes.

The title

‘Adieu ou Langage’ is ambiguous statement.  In the French-speaking parts of Switzerland, to which Godard belongs, ‘adieu’ either means “Goodbye” or “Hello”. And hence the phrase gives two contrasting meanings. Theoretically and practically the two interpretations are complementary. No human society can ‘goodbye’ any language without a ‘hello’ to a new one. A group of people who were using language X, now for some reasons shifted/shifting to language Y. Without the accessibility of language Y, it is impossible. Some co-existence will also be there. And a new language is a new way of looking at the world, a new perceptual design, a point of view.

This is the first 3-D film by Godard, 3-D is a new visual language, which gradually replaces 2-D, this language has a better perception of depth which was not available in 2-D. Apart from this, it explicitly raises the issues related in the sense of perception. The bodies without face in the frame emphasize the dis-identification of human turning them into anonymous or material. It snatches the identity away from the human. It also helps removing judgments. It turns one into a creation of nature from a social animal with the baggage of identities. If we are successful in removing the identity tags, it would become easy to unlearn the prejudices which come with the concepts and identities.

The fragments

There are two fragmental scenes which are not anyway connected with the main story of either the dog or the couples. First scene shows Mary Shelley writing Frankestein, accompanied by Lord Byron and Percy B Shelley. While in the second scene, an anonymous couple is screened to paint with water colors and black ink. Both the scenes elucidate the meaning making process, a process of developing a new sign, a new perceptual object. Both of them have their own unique language, the system of codes. The scenes signify that the meaning making is an active process, which is also realized at the level of movie itself, because it is also a form of art, a code to communicate, a new language to communicate the ideas and a different way to look at the world and reality.

            Stylistically 3-D is a unique attempt to represent the depth in a literal sense. We always say that certain writer or artist’s work is very reflective, very deep, and very difficult to comprehend. But, it is very difficult to represent the depth, in a literal sense, on a page, a canvas or a screen. All these three dimensions are covered in these two fragments of the movie, a writer writing, a painter painting and a film-maker through his film make a clear statement about the representation of the depth. Goddard says in the movie, “What’s difficult is to fit flatness into the depth.” He doesn’t say, ‘What’s difficult is to fit depth into the flatness’, emphasizing on the idea that every work of art is unfathomable, we merely reach up to a certain level. He constantly reminds the audience that this is a movie. He shows the shadow of the camera, and crane in scene. The dialogues are choreographed in between the music. All these stylistic choices make the audience conscious about the crafted work, and meaning making process.

Adieu…

The phenomenological issues raised in the movie are something that every serious thinker of language and perception is concerned about. Is it possible to clearly define the boundaries of language? Can we mark where one language ends and the other begins? Do we always use the words strictly in their dictionary sense? Do names make any changes in the perceptions of the entities? Do we really bid ‘farewell’ to any language?

Notes:

1. William Shakespeare – “Romeo and Juliet”

2. Written & Direction: Jean Luc Godard. Running Time: 69 Minutes, Language: French

3. From the Tweets of Godard. It is also available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_to_Language (Retrieved on 19/04/2015)

4. cf. Saussure, Ferdinand de (2003) “From ‘Course in General Linguistics’” in From Modernism to Postmodernism (ed.) Lawrence Cahoone: 122-126. Oxford: Blackwell.

5. cf. English Wordnet – The Colordictionary. Online version.