Revolutionary Film-Maker Jean-Luc Godard Shamelessly Smeared
Posted by Mike E on November 3, 2010
by Mike Ely
The New York Times has given a worldwide forum to a false accusation aimed at the remarkable and beloved film-maker Jean-Luc Goddard — just as he is about to be honored with an Oscar for his life’s work.
The charge is that he is an anti-Semite — and it is made without serious evidence, other than his principled and consistent opposition to Israel and its theft of Palestinian land.
Here is the operative paragraph from the New York Times correspondent Michael Cieply:
“Over the last month, articles in the Jewish press — including a cover story titled “Is Jean-Luc Godard an Anti-Semite?” in The Jewish Journal — have revived a simmering debate over whether Mr. Godard, an avowed anti-Zionist and advocate for Palestinian rights, is also anti-Jewish. And this close examination of his posture toward Jews has put a shadow over plans by the academy to honor him at the Nov. 13 banquet.”
In fact there is nothing to suggest that Godard is anti-Jewish. He is, however, an opponent of Israel and a supporter of Palestinian rights. He is also politically radical — with deep personal roots in the Maoist high tide in France during May 1968. And the charge of anti-Semitism is not substantiated. One prominently mentioned newspaper, The Jewish Journal, writes a cover (!) article with that screaming headline: “Is Jean-Luc Godard an anti-Semite?” and then cannot find anything firm to justify their attack, answering themselves in the small print with “a categorical ‘maybe yes or maybe no.’”
The rest of their smear pieces talks about the roots of his “alleged anti-Semitism” without ever documenting that he has any. Including discussions of conflict in his family with an anti-Jewish and collaborationist grandfather, about whom Godard said “I am anti-Zionist, he was anti-Semitic.”
The method is exactly the same as the one used by Fox to promote belief that Obama is a Muslim terrorist –here are official press “reports” on rumors (noted and repeated without feeling the need to debunk the lie).
Take a second and read the kind of twisted prose used to smear him. Here is raw innuendo dominating a sentence that reports on Godard’s hatred of the Holocaust, and of French collaborators with the Nazis:
“Given his family background and pro-Palestinian activism, it would not be surprising if Godard were also a Holocaust denier. But, on the contrary, he is fixated on the murder of 6 million, including some 77,000 Jews living in France, and one of his main charges against Hollywood is that Jewish studio heads could have prevented the Shoah by producing a number of anti-Nazi films in the 1930s.”
Note: His opposition to the Holocaust is portrayed as an unexpected anomaly (when in fact it is integral to revolutionary politics in France and elsewhere). And Godard’s criticism of pre-war film-making is twisted to suggest he is blaming Jews for their own suffering. No reference or context is provided for the assertion that Godard aims his criticism specifically at Jewish studio heads.
There is, as is well known, significant criticism to be made of Jewish Judenrat councils that sometimes helped suppress resistance in the ghettos of occupied Europe. Such criticism is neither anti-Semitic nor unjustified. But again, it is impossible to evaluate Godard’s alleged remarks, since they are characterized but not shared.
Or this discussion from the same article (which I have actually seen someone raise as “proof” of his supposed anti-Semitism):
“The leitmotif running through Godard’s own work is the superiority of “images” as against ‘texts’ or narratives, or, as he puts it, ‘the great conflict between the seen and the said.’
“He faults, for instance, Claude Lanzmann’s monumental nine-hour film, ‘Shoah,’ for its use of personal narratives by survivors and others, and proposes that the Holocaust can only be truly represented by showing the home life of one of the concentration camp guards.
“Who is to blame for the Jewish preference of text over image? It is Moses, Godard’s ‘greatest enemy,’ who ‘saw the bush in flames and who came down from the mountain and didn’t say, ‘This is what I saw,’ but, ‘Here are the tablets of the law.’ ”
“For the untutored layman, unfamiliar with the methods and passions of movie making, this and other Godard pronouncements can take on an Alice-in-Wonderland quality.”
Do we really have to explain why a reference to Jewish religious texts — the Talmudic tradition and the remarkable textual engagements within Jewish culture — is not anti-Semitic?
Third Rail for Culturally Executing Supporters of Palestinians
What this smear represents (on the part of the New York Times and the originating article) is a double assertion:
First, that anti-Zionism should be functionally treated as anti-Semitic bigotry. Israel is to be equated with Jewish people, and a political sympathy for Palestinian rights should be treated as an ancient murderous hatred of Jewish people (and the Palestinians should, once again, be simply disappeared and delegitimized in that process).
Second, support for Israel should be treated as a kind of “third rail” of politics and culture. Anyone opposed to Zionism (i.e. opposed to the existence of Israel as an artificial ethnic state on land ethnically-cleansed by force) should be treated as a pariah — denied honors, respect, public acclaim, and acceptance — no matter what their accomplishments or field. Supporting Israel’s existence should, in short, be a requirement of participation in public and civilized life, and denial of Israel’s right should be a one-say ticked to outlaw status, personal ruin and isolation.
This should not be tolerated. Godard is a remarkable filmmaker with a lifetime commitment to revolutionary change. He should be defended.
His latest film, “Socialism,” was screened at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 29 and Oct. 8.
The following excerpt from Godard’s La Chinoise, Omar’s talk to his comrades, is used as the preface (here) of Kasama’s 9 Letters to Our Comrades:
Visual snapshots from a trailer promo for Goddard’s early work in the midst of France’s upheavals (La Chinoise — about small groups of young Maoists in Paris):
schalom libertad said
Mike E,
Your article makes the repeated claim that there is absolutely no basis for the charge of antisemitism on the part of Godard. But readers might wonder why you completely avoided the most obvious charge against him, the one from the New York Times article you yourself cited, yet avoided mentioning — his statement about Hollywood, usury, debt, and the Jews. I pasted it below so you can give it another shot.
From the New York Times:
b_y said
to defend godard against criticism of his alleged anti-semitism amidst his well-documented problematic statements about jews (in relation to finance, and aesthetics) misses the point. godard should be taken to task on those matters, but a question in reply should be raised about why he has been the focus of such intense public criticism regarding attitudes that are quite common and entrenched among european protestants of his generation regardless of their political orientation.
to refute the conflation of anti-zionism with anti-semitism does not require ignoring the problematic discourse and unwelcome alliances those politics have inherited. just as praising godard for his unparalleled cinematic innovation and example as a committed intellectual need not require ignoring problems he is struggling with and does not shy away from examining through his work regarding gender and anti-semitism.
Mike E said
I said that the articles gave no evidence for the charge that he is an anti-Semite.
As for the snippet you quote: This is a statement (like several in the piece) that obviously taken completely out of its context context. The meaning of “debt” (in this discussion of cinema) and the discussion of “the image” of Central Euroean Jews (in this discussion of visual images) are incomprehensible without their context.
This snippet is like everything else in this piece, an innuendo. Any reference to Jews, images of Jews, historic occupations of European Jews (forced into usury and urban commerce by anti-Semitic laws), etc. are assumed to be anti-Semitic — but is credible only to the gullible or to those who (a priori) are already convinced (of the false proposition) that anti-Zionism is merely a disguised form of anti-Semitism.
If you want to argue that any discussion of Jewish people and finance is anti-semitism (regardless of its content or context), or that any discussion of cultural differences in aesthetics is (ipse facto) racist, then make that argument.
For example: someone remarked to me (the other day) that Jewish, Polish and German people lived entwined in the region from the Oder to the Ukraine — experiencing many of the same macro-events (invasions, rural life, rise of cities, etc) — and yet aesthetically and culturally developed very different sensibilities. Was that a reactionary remark? Is the very observation of different sensibilities (among different peoples) itself intolerable?
And if not, don’t we need the context and content of a particular discussion of sensibilities before condemning it (and its author)?
And further, what is the tip point, where a lifetime of wonderful and creative work should be discarded and discreditied? Is an assumption (by a European artist) that different peoples have different sensibilities enough to discredit his work and life as racist? How does that work?
In the article we are examining, even his statement explicitly taking distance from the anti-Semitism of his grandfather is twisted in this piece to imply that because Godard comes from a family with an anti-Semite, his anti-Zionism must be just a sophisticated and secular version of an old hatred.
Does it not matter that Godard has explicitly taken distance from anti-Semitism, that even his attackers say he is fascinated with understanding and exposing the Holocaust, that he has entered debates about how to expose the evil of its perpetrators (and their banality)? Why not? Does that not shape our evaluation of whether he is an anti-Semite or not?
Read the article, line by line, because it becomes clear how every quasi-fact is twisted to give the author’s impression. And after two or three of those instances, doesn’t it discredit each of the following vague characterizations?
The truth is that Godard is not an anti-Semite (by any stretch of the imagination) and he is being smeared.
And if you want to claim otherwise, give a real discussion — give his views on Jewish people, his defense of their persecution, his embrace of Euro-Christianity’s prohibitions. Godard is an articulate man, his views are sometimes complex and (like many French intellectuals) sometimes obscure. But if you want to charge a serious person with racism, then produce the racism… not some vague metaphorical discussion of images and debt in cinema. Not snippets of complex discourse wrenched from context and meaning.
schalom libertad said
Here’s a longer quote than the one from the NYT article if you really want to respond to the charge against Goddard:
(source)
Mike E said
You plop a quote without bothering to explain the meaning you draw from it.
First, what is your view of the role of Jewish artists in the great innovations of cinema? Is it literally racism to suggest that Jewish people played a creative role in Godard’s medium? Did Jewish people not bring innovation and sensibilities to many fields of culture in the U.S. (comedy for example, vaudeville, film-making, and more).
As for the idea of debt, visuals and images: Your view of such passages is (apparently) without any sense of irony or metaphor. Or knowledge of the widespread use of such irony in European discussion.
My personal approach to such things (given sensibilities in the U.S. and easy misunderstandings within a multicultural society) is to be clear and explicit in the discussions of nationality. But the cultural discussions of Europe are much more metaphorical, and assume (with great ease) the idea that different nationalities have created different cultures and sensibilities. (And if you go from German cinema to French cinema, you can get a sense of why.)
Are you implying that Godard literally believes that Jewish people are cursed because Moses brought words not pictures? And if you don’t think he believes that literally, then what is your point in reposting the NYT passage?
Are you arguing that someone should be ostracized professionally because of such allusions? That the U.S. film industry should go on record as condemning him as a bigot — for what exactly? For the passages you posted here?
Is that how you judge a life and a work?
schalom libertad said
More can be found on the topic in the main reference of the NYT article, “Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard,” by Richard Brody — a google books search produces some samples.
Mike E said
School us. Please don’t just allude to evidence, or post snippets without analysis. Please don’t just say “more can be found.” More what?
Because that approach implies these snippets speak for themselves, or that nothing here requires analysis and explicit comparing of conclusions.
There is one allegation that Godard said said the words “sale Juif” (“dirty Jew”). Do you have information on the veracity of this claim or the context? (I unfortunately do not.) I am (by nature) skeptical of claims of one-off verbal comments (since such things are easily faked or misrepresented) — but the circumstances alleged may be revealing.
I’m of the opinion that serious charges need serious evidence.
If our evaluation of Godard is wrong, make your case. And argue whether he should be condemned, professionally, publicly, for the comments you share. If we have different sensibilities about what constitutes anti-Semitism, then let’s explore it.
B_Y writes about “his well-documented problematic statements about Jews (in relation to finance, and aesthetics).”
And I urge you to share them — so we can all judge. And so we can also explore what each of us means by anti-Semitism and the limits of discourse on such matters.
b_y said
and then what, Schalom Libertad? i’m curious.
after reading brody’s book, and discovering more documentation of alleged anti-semitism, how would you suggest we respond to godard’s work? do you suggest that his political commitments or the movements themselves be discredited as manifestations of anti-semitism?
b_y said
mike,
i’m referring to the quote Schalom Libertad referenced above, in addition to examples cited in richard brody’s book. i think godard has a sharp sense of irony and understanding of contradiction operating in his work, and that’s precisely why i used the word “problematic”. because i think his work is a brilliant example of a political and aesthetic commitment to engaging problems in ways that produce or open new problems and questions in resistance to the violence of silencing and exclusion produced by tidy resolution. to acknowledge godard’s common prejudices and how his work struggles with an enduring question about the figure of the jew in european culture, in my mind, does not make him any less exhilarating as an artist or thinker nor does it demand suspicion about his political affinities.
Mike E said
B_y: thanks for responding. But problematic seemed to imply to me that you had concluded that his comments were a problem (i.e. it implied verdicts).
Which “common prejudices” are you alluding to?
How exactly does his work struggle “with an enduring question about the figure of the Jew in european culture”?
I’m thinking we should make these questions explicit — and see where it leads us. Not assume we mean and understand the same things.
How should one deal with “the figure of the Jew in European culture” in your opinion?
Some seem to be assuming that merely ascribing a national cultural aesthetic to European Jews is inherently anti-Semitic. Or that everyone should be forbidden to discuss the aesthetics of different national cultures.
Radical Eyes said
Mike E writes:
“Or that everyone should be forbidden to discuss the aesthetics of different national cultures.”
Or at least that anti-zionists should be so forbidden.
Mike E said
ACtually, I have been in discussions where it was mentioned that any discussion of this kind in regard to historically oppressed peoples (African Americans, Jewish people, etc.) should be ostracized (“verboten” was the word, ironically) because it would inevitably lead into reinforcing the racist stereotypes that justify that oppression.
b_y said
mike, i’ll try to answer your questions briefly and in order.
by “common prejudices” i’m referring to the casual anti-semitism that is common although not universal among french protestants particularly. but i’m interested in the agenda behind why godard’s alleged prejudice is used to discredit his politics, and why he’s been cast under such scrutiny when many contemporaries with similar attitudes are left untouched. i’m interested in why someone like schalom libertad would come in to assert godard’s anti-semitism, and why that person would duck out of the conversation when the question about the aesthetic and/or political stakes of that allegation are raised.
ici et ailleurs, every man for himself, histoire du cinema, in praise of love and notre musique are the films that i am most familiar with where godard presents the figure of the jew as an antagonist or metaphor. prominent female roles in godard films have repeatedly been circumscribed to the role of the prostitute as a narrative device, and yet films like numero deux and six fois deux present a sophisticated critique of patriarchy and women’s reproductive labor in the capitalist nuclear family.
for me, the value of godard’s work is not tested by whether one is able to identify his complicity in repeating harmful tropes that are common to his time and culture, but the example he’s set in the ruptures or problems he’s produced and new forms of questioning his work has opened, and perhaps more importantly their stakes.
schalom libertad said
Mike E,
I find your post dishonest because in it you claim that the NY Times article made a baseless charge, yet you explicitly avoided the most serious evidence given in that article for the charge that Godard harbors anti-Jewish feelings.
One does not have to agree with the NY Times article in order to recognize that your post is dishonest, and that you are using Godard’s anti-zionism to shield him from the possibility of having expressed antisemitic statements.
If you really think there is *no* evidence to support the view that he has expressed antisemitic sentiments, then accept the challenge and refute the evidence. If you want the original source, I pointed you to the google books search of “Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard,” by Richard Brody, to find out more.
Mike E said
There are numerous examples of where this campaign takes anti-Israeli politics as evidence of antisemitism — for example here in the Daily Beast in regard to Godard’s support for the actions of Palestinian guerrilla groups or here in American Thinker where his equating of Golda Meir with Hitler is presented as an obvious sign of antisemitism. (Same talking points here.)
There is in the original Jewish Journal piece (as I mentioned above) there is a highly tendentious deduction from a discussion of the importance of visual art, where Godard complains about the dominance of text over images — and jokes (apparently) about how Moses actually saw God — but came down that mountain with written tablets, not some vivid graphic record of the encounter. The assumption that this is antisemitic involves taking this discussion out of its context, and ignoring that European intellectual exchanges come riddled with such irony, humor and allusion.
Or (in the case of some discussion) the fact that there was an antisemitic remark (made by a character within one of Godard’s films, “Une Femme Mariee” (1964) is given as proof that Godard himself is antisemitic. (It reminds me of the book-banning school boards or ministers that label Mark Twain a white racist, because one of the main characters in Huck Finn is sometimes called “N*gger Jim” –when in fact it was one of the first appearances by a rounded and honored African American character in American fiction.)
On Brophy’s Anecdote
There is an anecdotal allegation (in two recent biographies) that Godard once (1968) spoke an anti-Jewish slur in private conversation, and that this caused the breakup of his important collaboration with François Truffaut (see Forward). I have not been able to go back and excavate the actual discussion in Brophy’s biography, but if someone is willing to post appropriate passages here it would be valuable.
But, for the moment, I’d like to note that this breakup seem well-documented (including with open letters), seemed initiated by Godard not by Truffaut, and revolved around explicit artistic differences. The claim that the break was over a remark appears over twenty years after Truffaut’s 1984 death.
Meanwhile the Cahiers du Cinema film critic Bill Krohn reportedly explains that the remark was part of a reference to Jean Renoir’s powerful and famous indictment of French anti-Semitism “La grande illusion.” (This by the way was also noted in the Jewish Journal in a regular column called “Hollywood Jew.” The same column also notes:
What we have (if you read the public campaign against Godard) are charges and misrepresentations presented as “evidence” — which is the essence of a smear campaign. In which, his public statements do not seem to uphold the allegations, and the private anecdote is just that, a private anecdote whose meaning is impossible to specify.
The issue here (as so often) is what constitutes evidence and what such alleged evidence reveals. Switching the focus to me above (with a charge of dishonesty) while refusing to discuss the actually allegations and their credibility, is an unfortunate method that speaks for itself.
If there are examples that you see as evidence of Godard’s antisemitism present them (there may well be facts in this controvery that the rest of us are unfamiliar with yet!) and help us understand your reasoning and deductions.
Liza said
Mike-
Thank you for this informative article. I think there are too few of this sort in the main stream press, which consistently equate anti-zionism and acknowledgement of Palestinian human rights abuses on the part of Israel with anti-semitism. That is a paranoid and exhausted critique meant to foreclose any critical discussion of Israel’s policies. Nice to read an intelligent and historically contextualized analysis of this common and incorrect equation in practice.
Capiche said
A necessary article. It is a smear job, and there for the “chill factor”.
Two thoughts to add: questioning and criticizing the meaning of Moses should be considered no more Anti-Semitic than questioning and criticizing the role of Jesus or Mohamed should be considered anti-Christian or anti-Islam. It is a necessary part of an open society discussing history, culture, and the role of belief.
And I suppose its worth reminding everyone that Moses is very much a part of both the Christian and Muslim traditions.
Nando said
Capiche: Part of the picture is that Godard was not actually “criticizing Moses” in the sense of making a moral judgment on the actions of a historical figure. He was making a metaphorical point that people often see amazing things, but respond by talking about it. He was making a point in favor of visual communication. Godard (as an atheist) obviously doesn’t believe Moses actually saw god. He is talking about his distance from text-heavy traditions in Euro-culture — and arguing for embracing the power of visual languages. It is a metaphor using allusion and references common in European intellectual traditions (and inclding some wit).
The fact that some people see it as literally an attack on Moses (!) because of how he supposedly handled his encounter with his god just shows they don’t know what Godard is talking about (or anything about the mode of discourse he is part of).
There is a tired and sometimes cynical literalism to the fundamentalist, the attack dog, and the unimaginative.
gary said
Nando, please let’s not concede the idea that Moses was an “historical figure.”
There is no evidence that such a person existed, that Hebrews were ever enslaved or otherwise engaged in Egypt, or that they wandered in Sinai for 40 years. The whole idea doesn’t make any sense when you consider how small the Sinai Peninsula is.
Moses is a myth, at best a legendary figure representing some tribal leader.
Scott ffolliott said
“The New York Times has given a worldwide forum to a false accusation aimed at the remarkable and beloved film-maker Jean-Luc Goddard — just as he is about to be honored with an Oscar for his life’s work.”
It sells papers
Hard times have fallen on the New York Times.
“The New York Times confirmed last night that it had reached an agreement to take an $250m (£171m) investment from a group of companies controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú to offset crippling debt.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/20/new-york-times-confirms-carlos-slim-deal
Beholden to Carlos Sims and a tattered reputation from their being scribes of the Bush Administration and the Pentagon, one finds little difference between the National Inquirer and the New York Times save the font size.
FrencStudent said
Godard is a great film maker, but he was a great communist too.
Just watch the “The Chinese girl”.
FrenchStudent said
P.S.: I think Godard isn’t a real communist anymore, he’s a revisionnist. But “La Chinoise” is really interesting, a great film about maoism and a critical point of view about student’s intellectualism.
And for those who are interested, “La Cause du Peuple” is back this year!
You can find it in PDF file on the webcsite of the PCMF Drapeau Rouge, I think (French Communist Maoist Party – Red Flag).
Scuse me for my english by the way.
Radical Eyes said
This recent interview with Godard was posted on Counterpunch as the “Website of the Day”
http://landscapesuicide.blogspot.com/2010/11/everything-or-nothing-2.html
Radical Eyes said
Relevant excerpt from the above linked inerview
Q: Once again, there is a debate in Jewish newspapers about whether or not you are an anti-Semite. Does this hurt you?
G: That’s nonsense! What does ‘anti-Semite’ mean? All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean. The expression was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII. It is inexact and means nothing.
Q: You once said you were a ‘Jew of cinema’. What does this mean?
G: I want to be together with everyone else, but stay lonely. I wanted to express this contradiction.
Q: The Jews have inhabited your intellectual universe since the late sixties. Is there a certain reason for this?
G: When the Holocaust happened, I was 15 years old. My parents kept it a secret from me, despite belonging to the Red Cross. I only found out about it much later. Even today I still feel guilty, because I was an ignoramus between the age of 15 and 25. I am sorry I couldn’t stand up for them. Today, in my own thoughts, I would like to have a critical look at them. I am generally interested in the ‘other’. It’s the same thing with blacks. First, they were colonised, and later everyone acted as if they were just as we are. Of course, a black person can wear glasses and a watch, but this doesn’t make us the same.
Q: In Film socialisme it is said that although Hollywood was founded by Jews, everyone is looking in the same direction. Do Jews stand for diversity?
G: For commerce. The big studios were founded by Jews from central Europe, especially from Germany. Why did they go to Hollywood? Because they could get access to the American financial sector. The Jews were neither authorized to be bankers or doctors, nor lawyers or professors. That’s why they concentrated on something new: cinema. The Jews also came to an arrangement with the mafia quite quickly. But if you say this, immediately you are accused of being an anti-Semite, even though this is not true. People don’t see the images — one should have a closer look at the people who founded Las Vegas.
schalom libertad said
that interview makes goddard look even worse.
“All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean.”
To argue in such a way is to believe in “races”, which any real scholar (or person with common sense) knows is the biggest load of (dangerous) crap.
Then, we see that Godard knows nothing about history, when he writes “The expression [anti-semitism] was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII.” Historians — and anyone who can read wikipedia — knows that the term was already founded in the late 19th century. It was founded by people who wanted to give jew-hatred a modern sound, and modern form.
Then Godard reveals that he really doesn’t give a shit about antisemitism, when he writes: “It [anti-semitism] is inexact and means nothing.”
And it appears he also has some stupid things to say about blacks, when he writes: “First, [blacks] were colonised, and later everyone acted as if they were just as we are. Of course, a black person can wear glasses and a watch, but this doesn’t make us the same.” Sounds like he is saying “they” are “not civilized.”
You continue reading and it just gets worse.
rykart said
Godard is an anti-Semite. Richard Goldstone is an anti-Semite. Human Rights Watch are anti-Semites. Amnesty International are anti-Semites. Bt’Selem are anti-Semites. Sara Roy is an anti-Semite. Amira Hass is an anti-Semite. Gideon Levy is an anti-Semite. Ilan Pappe is an anti-Semite. Desmond Tutu is an anti-Semite. Nelson Mandela is an anti-Semite. Hedy Epstein is an anti-Semite. The members of the Freedom Flotilla are all anti-Semites.
So is anyone else who dares to point to Israel’s stomach turning crimes and abominations against innocent people.
Sure. That’s REAL credible.