Gestural Intermediality in Jean-Luc Godard’s First Name: Carmen (1983)

Abstract

Abstract Although the intermediality of Jean-Luc Godard’s films of the 1980s has been extensively analysed, especially the tableaux vivants in Passion (1982), little has been said on the intermedial dimension of gesture in the director’s work of this period. The article investigates how the gestural flows in Godard’s First Name: Carmen (Prénom Carmen, 1983) interrelate heterogeneous forms, meanings, arts, and media. The interconnection between the gestures of the musicians who are rehearsing Beethoven’s late string quartets and the lovers’ gestures, inspired by Rodin’s sculptures, gives cohesion to the hybrid aesthetics of the film. Gesture is the element which incorporates, develops, and sets in motion the features of the other arts, not only by creating an in-between space that forges links between media, but especially by exhibiting the process of making itself. Indeed, the relationship between the performing, musical, and visual arts is made visible in the exhibition of the corporeal effort of making (whether it be making music, film, or love) that tends to open the boundaries separating the different arts. The aural and visual qualities of gestures communicate between themselves, generating rhythms and forms that circulate in the continuous flow of moving images. By fostering the analogy between the gesture of carving, of performing music, and of making film, Godard highlights what unites the arts in cinema, while feeding on their differences.