More Than Cinema: Jean-Luc Godard, A Letter to Freddy Buache

Bar Laika is very pleased to invite all to a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s A Letter to Freddy Buache (Lettre à Freddy Buache, 1982, 12 minutes) on Wednesday, September 28 at 9pm.

A police officer informs Jean-Luc Godard and his film crew that the only time they can stop on the side of the road is in an emergency. Godard tells the officer that they are indeed experiencing an unforeseen emergency since the sun will set shortly, after which they would be unable to capture the city’s image. This is a scene from Godard’s short film, addressed to the Swiss film critic Freddy Buache. The truth is that this essay film was never meant to be made. Godard was initially commissioned by the city of Lausanne to create a film commemorating the city’s 500th anniversary, but the filmmaker had refused to meet the conventional demands of the genre of expository documentary, and his film was rejected. What Godard was striving for was a more-than-human image of the history of his native city, an attempt that Gilles Deleuze dubbed constructivist, saying that Godard’s goal was to “rebuild Lausanne using colors, Lausanne’s speech, its indirect vision.” Following colors and contours that describe the terrain of Lausanne, Godard pushed the cinematic image towards abstract painting that exceeded the limits of what one expects from representational documentary. Both a refusal to compromise and a celebration of cinema, this essay film perfectly exemplifies Godard’s style, politics, and creative perseverance.

Let’s meet at Bar Laika to raise a glass to the master of cinema, JLG!

For more information contact laika@e-flux.com.

www.laika.bar