Theo Mantion, forword to “Lacunary Films”, the Monique Wittig’s essay on Jean-Luc Godard, in Film Quarterly, 3 janvier 2023

Theo Mantion rédige un avant-propos afin de présenter l’article de Monique Wittig sur Jean-Luc Godard (1966) qu’il publie dans Film Quarterly, rubrique Quorum, le 3 Janvier 2023, jour de commémoration des 20 ans la disparition de Wittig. Il avait traduit en français cet article pour une première publication inédite dans Libération le 28 septembre 2022.

Praising discontinuity as the driving force and major innovation in Godard’s films, Wittig calls them “lacunary,” a mineralogical term she borrows from Jean-Marie Straub. Contrary to the continuity at work in conventional character and narrative development, there is no internal logic in such films, Wittig argues. The “wholehearted de-dramatization” of Godard’s films instead displays a broken, open-ended sense of “mood,” where events are juxtaposed rather than subordinated. The resulting “delirium of images” thus appears as an image of radical, absolute cinema inventing itself. Eventually, discontinuity establishes an aesthetic regime where the subjectivity of the reader-spectator is relieved of its contours, paving the way for Wittig’s oeuvre to come.

Although Wittig’s pioneering literary and theoretical work has enjoyed a substantial rediscovery in recent years, essential aspects of her oeuvre remain in the dark. Her cinematographic reflection is one such area. In addition to being a valuable acknowledgment of Godard’s vast impact, “Lacunary Films” will hopefully also illuminate unexplored corners of Wittig’s oeuvre.

L’article est à lire en entier ici et la publication à propos de la version française est ici !