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Encounters with Godard Ethics

Aesthetics Politics SUNY series


Horizons of Cinema Williams
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ENCOUNTERS
WITH GODARD
Also in the series

William Rothman, editor, Cavell on Film


J. David Slocum, editor, Rebel Without a Cause
Joe McElhaney, The Death of Classical Cinema
Kirsten Moana Thompson, Apocalyptic Dread
Frances Gateward, editor, Seoul Searching
Michael Atkinson, editor, Exile Cinema
Paul S. Moore, Now Playing
Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann, Ecology and Popular Film
William Rothman, editor, Three Documentary Filmmakers
Sean Griffin, editor, Hetero
Jean-Michel Frodon, editor, Cinema and the Shoah
Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Constantine Verevis, editors, Second Takes
Matthew Solomon, editor, Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic
Imagination
R. Barton Palmer and David Boyd, editors, Hitchcock at the Source
William Rothman, Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze, Second Edition
Joanna Hearne, Native Recognition
Marc Raymond, Hollywood’s New Yorker
Steven Rybin and Will Scheibel, editors, Lonely Places, Dangerous
Ground
Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis, editors, B Is for Bad Cinema
Dominic Lennard, Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors
Rosie Thomas, Bombay before Bollywood
Scott M. MacDonald, Binghamton Babylon
Sudhir Mahadevan, A Very Old Machine
David Greven, Ghost Faces
ENCOUNTERS
WITH GODARD
Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics

JAMES S. WILLIAMS
Cover image: A still from Éloge de l’amour (2001) by Jean-Luc Godard featuring
Edgar (Bruno Putzulu) and “Elle” (Berthe) (Cécile Camp). We have exercised due
diligence in attempt to secure rights for the cover image from Éloge de l'amour. If
you are the rights holder, kindly contact SUNY Press.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2016 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever


without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY


www.sunypress.edu

Production, Eileen Nizer


Marketing, Kate R. Seburyamo

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Williams, James S., 1963–


Encounters with Godard : ethics, aesthetics, politics / James S. Williams.
pages cm. — (SUNY series, horizons of cinema)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Includes filmography/discography.
ISBN 978-1-4384-6063-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-6064-2 (e-book)
1. Godard, Jean-Luc, 1930– —Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
PN1998.3.G63W55 2016
791.4302'33092—dc23 2015021626

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents

Illustrations Credits

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Encountering Godard

1. The Politics of Violence and the End(s) of Art: Speaking (for) the
Other in La Chinoise (1967)

2. The Signs in Our Midst: European Culture and Artistic Resistance


in Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988–98)

3. Beyond the Cinematic Body: Digital Rhythms and In/human


Breakdown

4. Silence, Gesture, Revelation: The Ethics and Aesthetics of


Montage in Godard and Agamben

5. Music, Love, and the Cinematic Event

6. Crossing the Darkness: Metaphor, Difference, Dissymmetry in


Notre Musique (2004)

7. Entering the Desert: Giving Face in Film socialisme (2010)


8. Soft and Hard/Back to Back: Erotic Encounters between Voice
and Image in the Zone

Coda: Cinema after Language

Notes

Works Cited

Select Filmography/Discography

Index
Illustrations Credits

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1 La Chinoise (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)


Figure 1.2 La Chinoise (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
Figure 1.3 La Chinoise (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
Figure 1.4 La Chinoise (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
Figure 1.5 La Chinoise (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
Figure 1.6 La Chinoise (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
Figure 1.7 Masculin Féminin (Argos Films-Arte France
Développement, 2004)
Figure 1.8 Sympathy for the Devil (Fabulous Films Ltd, 2006)
Figure 1.9 Éloge de l’amour (Optimum Home Releasing, 2002)
Figure Internet source: http://www.diagonalthoughts.com/?
1.10 p=1930 (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
1.11 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
1.12 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
1.13 2007)
Chapter 2

Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,


2.1 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.2 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.3 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.4 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.5 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.6 2007)
Figure 2.7 Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.8 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.9 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.10 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.11 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.12 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.13 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2.14 2007)
Chapter 3

Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,


3.1 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
3.2 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
3.3 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
3.4 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
3.5 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
3.6 2007)
Figure 3.7 Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
2007)
Figure Hélas pour moi (Optimum Home Releasing, 2007)
3.8
Figure Hélas pour moi (Optimum Home Releasing, 2007)
3.9
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
3.10 2007)

Chapter 4

Figure Keep Your Right Up! (Soigne Ta Droite!) (Facets Video,


4.1 2001)
Figure Keep Your Right Up! (Soigne Ta Droite!) (Facets Video,
4.2 2001)
Figure Keep Your Right Up! (Soigne Ta Droite!) (Facets Video,
4.3 2001)
Figure Keep Your Right Up! (Soigne Ta Droite!) (Facets Video,
4.4 2001)
Figure Keep Your Right Up! (Soigne Ta Droite!) (Facets Video,
4.5 2001)
Figure Re Lear (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc, 2009)
4.6
Figure 4.7 Keep Your Right Up! (Soigne Ta Droite!) (Facets Video,
2001)

Chapter 5

Figure Prénom Carmen in Jean-Luc Godard vol 2 (Warner, 2005)


5.1
Figure Lettre à Freddy Buache in Jean-Luc Godard. Documents
5.2 (Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2006)
Figure Je vous salue, Marie (Gaumont Vidéo, 2010)
5.3
Figure Je vous salue, Marie (Gaumont Vidéo, 2010)
5.4
Figure Passion/Nouvelle Vague (2 DVD edition) (Cahiers du
5.5 Cinéma, 2005)
Figure Passion/Nouvelle Vague (2 DVD edition) (Cahiers du
5.6 Cinéma, 2005)
Figure 5.7 Passion/Nouvelle Vague (2 DVD edition) (Cahiers du
Cinéma, 2005)
Figure Éloge de l’amour (Optimum Home Releasing, 2002)
5.8
Chapter 6

Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)


6.1
Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
6.2
Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
6.3
Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
6.4
Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
6.5
Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
6.6
Figure 6.7 Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
6.8
Figure Ici et Ailleurs (Olive Films, 2012)
6.9
Figure Notre Musique (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
6.10

Chapter 7

Figure Internet source:


7.1 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.2 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.3 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.4 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.5 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.6 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.7 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.8 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Internet source:
7.9 http://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue-
30-spring-2012-godard-is/entering-the-desert-the-book-of-
film-socialisme/ (Accessed 1 May, 2015)
Figure Film socialisme (Wild Side Vidéo, 2010)
7.10
Figure Film socialisme (Wild Side Vidéo, 2010)
7.11

Chapter 8

Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,


8.1 2007)
Figure La Chinoise (Optimum Home Releasing, 2005)
8.2
Figure Soft and Hard in Jean-Luc Godard Ensayos (4 DVD
8.3 edition) (Intermedio, 2011)
Figure Soft and Hard in Jean-Luc Godard Ensayos (4 DVD
8.4 edition) (Intermedio, 2011)
Figure Soft and Hard in Jean-Luc Godard Ensayos (4 DVD
8.5 edition) (Intermedio, 2011)
Figure Slow Motion (Artificial Eye, 2006)
8.6
Figure 8.7 Internet source: http://www.beirutartcenter.org/parallel-
events.php?exhibid=124&statusid=3 (Accessed 1 May,
2015)
Figure Armide in Aria (Special Edition) (Second Sight Films,
8.8 2009)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
8.9 2007)
Figure Re Lear (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc, 2009)
8.10
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
8.11 2007)
Figure Histoire(s) du cinéma (4 DVD edition) (Gaumont Vidéo,
8.12 2007)
In short, Godard’s prodigious, multiform work solicits from me,
indeed demands, a wide-ranging, multileveled, individual response,
at once intuitive and intellectual, that crosses freely disciplinary
borders and areas (art, philosophy, literature, music, aesthetics,
theology, history, metaphysics) with a flexibility of method and
subtlety of approach. The fluid, mutable, transformative spaces of
Godard’s cinema offer the excitement of negotiating new forms, new
chromatics, and new harmonics in its continual (re)grafting of
sounds and images with bold washes of color, searing chords, and
shooting stars of ideas. This is a true cinema of the senses, with
sudden rushes of multisensory, erotic, and mental energy, vibrations
and stimulations, often of synaesthetic power. We “hear” images and
see “sounds” in Passion (1981), for example, and Baudelaire’s
“Correspondences” is aptly recited at length in Notre Musique
(2004). Indeed, in his groundbreaking work as a sound artist and
composer of polyphonic soundtracks, Godard sculpts new, luminous
sheets and textures of sonic space through an ever more complex
interplay of diegetic and nondiegetic sound that oscillates between
the human voice and silence, found sound and ambient noise, and
live and recorded music (from the Western classical canon to popular
music, jazz, and entire swathes of the ECM New Series catalog).
How can one attempt to convey such affective and intellectual
intensities in Godard’s work and open oneself up in the immediate
present tense of writing to its multiple plastic and expressive
qualities? That is, how can one engage with the full panoply of
Godard’s cinema without simply trying to capture and relay on the
page all the intricate syncopations of Godardian montage frame by
frame and also within the same frame (a process that reaches its
logical conclusion in the detailed written découpage of sound and
image), or, at the other extreme, encasing it in a grid of preordained
and totalizing critical paradigms? Moreover, how can one do critical
justice to the rich textual mosaic of Godard’s work and its boundless
aesthetic capacity to surprise without treating it merely as a
repository of thoughts and ideas to be patiently itemized and
cataloged, or else reducing it to a recalcitrant object to be
intellectually “rationalized”? How, in short, is one to take full critical
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Title: Julia Cary and her kitten

Author: M. E. Miller

Release date: September 17, 2023 [eBook #71668]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: American Tract Society, 1873

Credits: Bob Taylor, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed


Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JULIA CARY


AND HER KITTEN ***
JULIA CARY
AND
HER KITTEN.

BY MRS. M. E. MILLER.

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,


150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by the American
Tract Society, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
JULIA CARY
AND

HER KITTEN.
CHAPTER I.
A SAIL.

A fine large steamboat was sailing up the Hudson river one


summer morning.
Up and down its broad decks and pretty saloons skipped lively
little Julia Cary.
“Don’t ask me to keep still, Ellen; I can’t, I am so happy,” she said.
Ellen was her nurse, who had taken loving care of Julia since she
was a baby.
She kindly went to the side of the boat, whenever it was to land, so
that the little girl might see a stout man ring a big bell, and other men
throw ropes to men on shore. These ran and threw the ropes over
huge posts, and so held the boat fast till people went ashore. Then
other people came on the boat; then the ropes were drawn back,
and the boat started on again.
But Julia liked better still to wander about, holding her father’s
hand. He could answer all her questions about the lovely shores they
sailed between. He told the names of the villages they passed, and
showed her the busy machinery that sent the boat swiftly along, far
away from the hot city.
“Papa,” said Julia, “are you poor?”
“In money, child? No, no; I have more than you and I will spend.”
“And you are good, papa, and are not sick. What did that lady
mean when she said, ‘Poor Julia! poor papa!’”
Mr. Cary walked quickly on, leading Julia by the hand.
Down stairs, where trunks and boxes of all kinds were piled, on
their own poor luggage sat a family of German emigrants.
You would quickly call them poor. Their clothes were coarse. They
were eating black bread, because they could not pay for a good
dinner such as Julia and her father had.
Two little girls and one stout boy laughed and jabbered their queer
talk with their mother and father. The mother held a baby on her
knee—an odd-looking fat baby, with a funny cap on its head.
Mr. Cary sat down on a trunk, at a little distance from them, and
lifting Julia upon his knee, he said,
“My darling will learn that she and I must be, in one way, poor as
long as we live. What has that little trot-foot got that money cannot
buy for my Julia?”
Julia looked at the shiny, apple-cheeked little Dutch girl who came
shyly towards her. She noticed the thin dress, the heavy shoes, the
ugly net over her yellow hair. Surely, Julia bought for herself lovelier
things than those.
Julia kept thinking. The strange child too was thinking, and drew
so near that she was scared at last to find herself so far from her
mother. She turned and ran back. The mother held out her arm,
hugged the little girl close to her heart, and kissed her between her
blue eyes.
That kiss told Julia what her father meant. Laying her head upon
his shoulder, she said, “I know, papa; she has her own dear mother.
But mine—O papa!”
Julia’s tears choked back the words that might have told you her
dear mother was in heaven.
Sitting there, Julia and her father felt how very poor she was in
losing mother-love and care and kisses, like that which blessed
those little strangers. The Germans had no house, no land—had
only money enough to take them West, where they must work hard
all day, early and late. But they had each other.
They might tell us that life and love are God’s best blessings.
Health and wealth are also his rich gifts, but not so dear—oh no! oh
no!
CHAPTER II.
A RIDE.

At Catskill Mr. Cary and Julia left the boat; and Ellen, too, with her
hands full of baskets, bags, and wraps.
They walked aside from the crowd on the dock, towards a man
who was holding the reins of two bright bay horses.
This was uncle Benjamin. He had left his hay-field, ten miles away,
and come down to the river to welcome our travellers. Smiles and
black eyes lit up his sunburnt face cheerily.
If you had been looking off from the boat to see Julia go ashore,
you would have wished you too might have been lifted by his strong
arms into his easy carriage.
Ellen and the baskets were next put in. Mr. Cary sprang to the
front seat, and uncle Benjamin got up beside him.
The horses started as if they were in a hurry to get through the
bars of their green pasture-lot again. Away they went over the hills.
Julia thought there was no other man so good as uncle Benjamin.
She thought he owned all that country, that all the calves and colts
scampering about the farms they passed belonged to him, and many
an eager question she asked about what she saw.
“O uncle Benjamin!” she shouted at last, so quickly that he half
stopped his horses, as he turned to hear, “have you got any kittens
for me?”
“Ha! ha!” he laughed; “I thought you had dropped your hat or bag
in the road. Got any kittens? Can’t say. Charley or Johnny will know.”
A few more hills were crossed, and uncle Benjamin was at home.
Aunt Abby stood smiling at the open door; but the boys met the
carriage at the gate. They were in haste to see this dear little cousin
who came but once a year.
Before Mr. Cary had hung up his dusty linen coat, Julia whispered,
“Papa, they have got kittens, four of them. Please ask if I may
have one for my own self.”
Mr. Cary told aunt Abby how lonely Julia was at home without her
mother; how for weeks her heart had been so sad she could hardly
play at all. She was getting used to the stillness in the house, and
the heartache was wearing away. But she wanted some live thing to
play with, she said, and hoped to take home a real kitten.
“Poor little motherless girl!” sighed aunt Abby.
When called to tea, Julia came in smiling, with Charley and
Johnny, who had been showing her their out-door pets.
After tea, Julia led her father to the old woodhouse stairway, where
there was a more lowly kind of mother-love to be seen.
A large contented-looking cat lay on the door-step, winking
fearlessly at them. The cunningest of four kittens was climbing on
her back. Two prettier kittens were having a frolic at her feet, while
the other one sat soberly looking on. Sometimes the wild ones rolled
over and over each other down the steps.
“Did you ever see such lovely, pesshus kittens, papa dear?”
“None so precious to you and this mother-cat,” her papa said,
smiling to see her so pleased.
“And I can have one! All the folks say so. Now help me find out,
papa, which is the bestest kitty.”
“I wish a mouse would come along; then I’d tell you which I think is
the best,” said Charley.
“But I don’t care ’bout my kitty’s catching mice; I only want her to
play with me. She shall have milk to drink, and part of my dinner
every day.”
“Kittens would look prettier to me if I didn’t know they would grow
to be cats,” Johnny said.

“Bah! yes!” said Charley. “Up on that shed, by your bedroom


window—see, Julia—see that big striped cat! Johnny and I just loved
him when he was a kitten. But he kills our birds, and that we can’t
forgive.”
Up spoke kind-hearted Johnny: “I b’lieve he’s the wickedest,
badest cat that meows. So many nests he has spoiled! Then the
mother-birds cry and call so, we have to stop our ears. When I get a
gun, I b’lieve I’ll shoot you, Mr. Tom.”
Johnny handled a willow-rod as if it were a gun, and pointed it up
at the big gray cat. But it did not fear him, it was up so high. Perhaps
it knew nothing about guns.
“Better go to bed now, Julia. Dream about the kittens, and in the
morning we will see which one we like the best.”
CHAPTER III.
CHOOSING THE KITTEN.

In the morning two little girls, Anne and Rose, from the next
farmhouse, came to ask for a kitten.
Aunt Abby said Julia must first choose her own.
The liveliest kitty had a black-and-white coat, with black cap and
ears. Its clean white face and hands and feet pleased Julia so well,
that she tied her red ribbon around its neck.
Anne and Rose were just as content with the gray ones the boys
gave to them.
When they went away, each carried a kitten in her arms, and each
very sweetly asked Julia to come to see them.
“We will,” said aunt Abby, “to see how the kittens like their new
home.”
“Come here, Papa Cary,” this kind aunt said after breakfast, when
he sat under the cherry-tree reading his newspaper; “come to my
kitchen-door and see a pretty picture.”
Papa went with her, and saw his Julia trying to make the kitten
love her.
She had a basin of new milk, of which kitty had been drinking.
Now it was purring its thanks. Julia laid her fat cheek against its furry
side to hear the purr-purring sound.
“Dear little kitty, you will love me, wont you? My dollies just lie still,
and can’t love a bit. You nice, warm, live kitty, you wont let me be
lonesome any more.”
CHAPTER IV.
LITTLE THIEVES.

So now there were only two kittens in aunt Abby’s house.


Julia found them in mischief that very day, up on the kitchen table.
Aunt Abby was getting ready to make a custard. She had gone to
the pantry for some eggs, and had left the milk on the table, and the
sugar-jar uncovered. When she stepped out of the kitchen, the
kittens stepped in. The flies, perhaps, had been in before.
No little boy or girl would meddle with sugar or milk left in the way;
but it is hard to teach kittens that it is wrong to touch what is not
theirs.

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