Searching for alternatives: The evolution of the motif of work in Jean-Luc Godard's cinema in the years 1972–1982

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines how the representation of work changed in Jean-Luc Godard's films over the years 1972–1982. It considers three films: Tout va Men/Everything's All Right (1972), signed jointly by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself (1979) and Passion (1982). It argues that Godard presents in them characters who are unhappy in their work and search for alternatives, which proves very difficult. The three films are discussed in the context of the transformation that took place in the ‘wider world’ in the 1970s. They include, in Western Europe, the shift from Fordism to post-Fordism, marked by mass redundancies, factory closures and the decline of the workers' movement, the increase in immigrant labour, and the blurring of boundaries between blue- and white-collar workers, and in Poland, the rise of the Solidarity movement and imposition of martial law. The three films also possibly reflect Godard's gradual loss of interest in the topic of work, or his search for a new language to represent it.