Jean-Luc Godard: Tout va bien / Everything's All Right, Part 2

In Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin's Tout va bien / Everything's All Right (1972), Jacques (played by Yves Montand) at one point says, "I'm only now starting to understand things that [Bertolt] Brecht pointed out forty years ago . . ." And now, almost forty years later, I can say the same thing about Godard and his crew. What's startling about Tout va bien is how urgent the socio-economic and gender issues remain in 2011. Today's basic advanced capitalist structure is already well in place by 1972 -- even without the internet and wireless devices. But more on that next time, perhaps. For now, let's consider this anthropologically (and sociologically) profound supermarket scene -- not exciting in the least, it nonetheless inspires deep contemplation:

Compare with the "frontal attack scene" in Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Now, consider the complex interaction of social organization, technology and movement shown in each scene. Then, check out the checkout lines in the next store you go to. What do you see?

Today's Rune: Initiation.