Le Gai Savoir

Commissioned (in a moment of exceptional naiveté) by French TV, Le Gai Savoir was Godard's first 'radical' break with established methods of exhibition and distribution; the film was never televised, and has been seen only by political groups and film societies. Two militants meet in a darkened film studio to educate themselves in the ideological meanings of specific sounds and images: their work is essentially 'de-constructive', and it represents an important step in Godard's own return to a 'degree zero' of cinema. In Godard's own terms, the film is not atall revolutionary: it's a confused, idiosyncratic attempt at an analysis of the way things are, not yet a committed attempt to construct the way they should be.