British Sounds

French director Jean-Luc Godard sinks to the level of inept propagandist with this ludicrous political tract. Sloppy documentary footage shot in a British auto factory is accompanied by a condemnation of capitalism on the grounds that the workers cannot afford the cars they work on. Occasionally, the camera cuts to a naked torso, symbolizing women's oppression, and a group of prosaic young Maoists. In the name of revolution, the film extols war, repression, and flag-waving -- the very things it condemns capitalism for. The soundtrack and visuals of the film are fervently Marxist, frequently using voice-overs where narrators teach slogans and revolutionary history to a child who repeats them by rote. This approach suggests a patronizing view of the audience, treating them as children in need of education. The film contrasts Hollywood and revisionist Russian films with the ideal revolutionary films Godard and his collaborators aim to create. The narrator claims a revolutionary film is like a blackboard for political debate, but this is undermined by the film's didactic and condescending tone, which hinders genuine discussion.

After taking film to "zero" with -Le Gai Savoir-, Godard and the Dziga Vertov Group put out several Maoist/Marxist films, including this one. The main idea of British Sounds is exactly the soundtrack; the images are primarily still, with minimal camera movement: mostly tracks and pans.

British Sounds is didactic and academic, but not without artistic merit, particularly the use of red and the jump-cutting fists that punch through the British flag repeatedly. The film has six parts, including the famous ten-minute track through an auto assembly line and a four-minute shot of a woman's nude torso; it is also filled with speech, whether it's a text from Engels read aloud or a newscaster talking about the necessities of burning women and children. A real agit-prop film, but, as Godard said about the later -Vladimir and Rosa-, also "a time piece."