Le ciné-fils, by Jean-Luc Godard

A piece of trivia to start the blog, but nevertheless interesting. Originally published in Libération in 1992, this was Godard's obituary for Serge Daney, the great film critic whose translated works you can find in English at sergedaney.blogspot.com.

And so the dialogue is finished. The exchange is over between us and the real, our guide having left, once more going further than we’re able. The academics and the profiteers will lay wreaths as in the days of Romy, Georges de B., Henri, etc.

Once, before France collaborated with Walt Disney, one would say “mister” when one spoke of those who delivered justice when the law was unjust: the metteurs en scene. Mister Serge Daney was a valiant defender of the real: subtle, solid with theory, and ready for any of the attempts at resurrection that make a film. From the despicable laws of Lynch, Palme-d’Ored at Cannes, to the tender poem of the mother Dovjenko ignored by the Politburo; from the craftiness of a Kubrick to the integrity of a Boetticher or the saintly humiliation of the Antigone of Straub/Huillet/Brecht/Holderlin/Sophocles, all were welcomed and respected; the men of the film were absolved by the humanity of the cinematograph.

He remains the true judge of the just weight of words and things, because he presided over our instruction in the proof of the shame of the polished suedes in the cheap L’Amant*. No need of amnesty for the whores, this wrong having been punished by the very fact that the judge dis-covered it.

We thus come full circle: Denis, Charles, Elie, André, André again, Serge. What France alone has been able to give to the world, requiring nothing in return: a critical eye that we all saw recently for the last time, one night in a club near the Etoile, speaking in time with the rhythm of a lack of oxygen. It’s now up to us to look deep within ourselves, to accept and to understand whether we have also loved.

*Godard’s referring to Daney’s description of a cut near the beginning L’Amant which centers around Tony Leung Ka-Fai’s shoes – a cut Daney identifies as one of the more complacent (and easily spotted today) metonymic gestures of an “orphaned cinema.” You can read the article here: home.earthlink.net/~steevee/Daney_lover.html

Originally published in Liberation, 13-14 June 1992, reprinted in Jean-Luc Godard par Jean-Luc Godard (Tome 2: 1984-1988) by Cahiers du Cinéma, 1998.