''Here and Elsewhere'' (french: Ici et Ailleurs) is a 1976 documentary film by

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran� ...

and

Anne-Marie Miéville Anne-Marie Miéville (; born 11 November 1945) is a Swiss video and filmmaker whom ''Sight & Sound'' has called a "hugely important multimedia artist." Biography Miéville was a practising photographer when she met Jean-Luc Godard, who would be ...

. It is a

film essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

, narrated by Godard and Miéville, on the limitations and artificiality of cinema in attempting to portray reality. It is additionally a critique of the Dziga Vertov Group, the partnership of Godard and

Jean-Pierre Gorin Jean-Pierre Gorin (born 17 April 1943) is a French filmmaker and professor, best known for his work with ''French New Wave, Nouvelle Vague'' luminary Jean-Luc Godard, during what is often referred to as Godard's "radical" period. Jean-Pierre Go ...

who together made a number of political, pro-

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

films between 1968 and 1972. ''Here and Elsewhere'' incorporates footage of

Palestinian fedayeen Palestinian fedayeen (from the Arabic ''fidā'ī'', plural ''fidā'iyūn'', فدائيون) are militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians consider the fedayeen to be " freedom fig ...

(resistance fighters) taken for ''Jusqu'à la victoire'', an aborted 1970 pro-

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

Dziga Vertov Group film. ''Jusqu'à la victoire'' had been abandoned after most of its subjects were killed by

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

ian forces as part of the 1970

Black September Black September ( ar, أيلول الأسود; ''Aylūl Al-Aswad''), also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was a conflict fought in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan between the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF), under the leadership of King Hussein ...

conflict several months after filming. ''Here and Elsewhere'' takes its name from the contrasting footage it shows of the fedayeen and of a French family watching television at home. Among the film's critiques is a specific criticism of the trickery that was sometimes employed by the Dziga Vertov Group for propaganda purposes. The film shows footage that was taken of a Lebanese woman who states that she is pregnant with a future fighter for the Palestinians; Godard states in a voiceover that she was in fact not pregnant at the time. ''Ici et Ailleurs'' marks the beginning of Godard's transitional period, which found him experimenting with

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

and moving from political polemics to an examination of the way people perceive themselves and others; as such, it shares many of the traits of both his radical-era films and the video-centered work that followed. It is also one of his first projects with Miéville, who has remained the major collaborator in his life and work since.

References

External links

* French avant-garde and experimental films 1976 films Films directed by Jean-Luc Godard French documentary films 1970s French-language films 1976 documentary films 1970s avant-garde and experimental films 1970s French films {{France-documentary-film-stub