Obraz zatrzymany : praktyka i teoria późnego Godarda

Abstract

Issues raised in the book concern the phenomenon of the freeze frame image in fi lm. Th e slow motion image/freeze frame are thus the core of refl ections reconstructed in the late (from the year 1980) artistic practice of Jean-Luc Godard. Th e fi lm, video and television practice combined with Godard’s theoretical essays become an exemplifi cation for the narrative which has a form of a theoretical refl ection upon the nature of an immobile/mobile image. Th e book is comprised of six chapters, three of which are essentially related to the constitution of freeze frames. Th e fi rst chapter, which has an introductory character, provides an explanation of the reasons for raising the subject and determines features of the late style present in Godard’s work. Th e following chapter, Return to cinema, gives an account of periodisation of the director’s artistic work, at the same time refl ecting the critical moments in his artistic biography. In this chapter the Author emphasises the signifi cance of the so called “second fi rst fi lm” – Slow Motion (1979/80), seeing in it the actual shift leading to fundamental technical, aesthetic and thematic revaluations which have since continually accompanied Godard. Th e subsequent chapters: Stop the motion/slow motion image, Still images/paintings and Freeze frame/photography give an account of technological and ontological determinants of an image, which are diverse for fi lm, video and photography. Th e Author is particularly interested in aberrations within the fi lm motion which result in changes of perception and plastic shaping of video-fi lm utterances. Visual strategies used by Godard in his fi lm essays authorise inspirations by painting and painting techniques, and also by photography as a specific medium of memory and as an archive (archiving) of reality. Alongside the refl ections upon painting in fi lm the Author raises issues of cinematization, self-portrait, landscape and manner of framing – which are important for fi lm and painting. She emphasises the paradoxicality of both the very still images (fi xe, immobile) in fi lm and their author’s activities consisting in mobilisation of still painting and photographic images, and, simultaneously, the artist’s will to bring fi lm and video images to a halt. Moreover, despite the frequently experimental character of the performance of the pope of the New Wave, the Author notices in Godard’s performance an evident reversal to the cinematic tradition (silence of cinema, usage of existing fi lm image-quotes). Th e summary is a demonstration of the theoretical character of Godard’s audiovisual endeavours, which means – neither more nor less – the creation of a new quality of constructing theory in practice. Th e Author, in the context of painting, photographic and „interimage” perspectives, is inspired not only by refl ections and observations by Jean-Luc Godard himself, but also by the theories of image by R. Bellour, J. Aumont, A. Rouille and opinions on art, performance and painting of L. Marin and H. Damisch.