History of cinema

History of cinema and a bloody spur, two most unique experiences now enshrined in our past for ever. Cinema’s power touched me in a certain uncanny way when I watched Godard’s history of cinema-I, first of the series of 10 films made for French TV after the world war II.

I can’t imagine, any other time when cinema’s art aspect was more palpable than it was during the 50 min screening of history. It was bold and certain; creative and powerful. It didn’t have much of a narrative. In fact it didn’t have any narrative. It had cinematic presence of the most potent kind. One that doesn’t lean on narrative, one that can carry on the weight of pure imagery and sound. It’s one thing to have passing ideas in your head, its another to make a movie out of it. Its one thing to have miles and miles of film stock of the 100 or so years of cinema history and another to comb through it to come up with any kind of sensible narrative. And besides its cinema we are talking about where somebody’s cinematic vision might not “make sense” yet be powerful enough to move you.

What else would you show in history of cinema? What else is there to it if not a concoction of imagery and sound? Take yourself 60 years back to a continent essentially ravaged by the modern warfare of unforeseen proportions and imagine what it would do to a society. We have witnessed wars in recent times in Afghanistan and Iraq. Godard’s words, “Forgetting extermination is the part of extermination.”

Godard was not exactly celebratory, eulogizing or blood thirsty in his conclusions or analysis. He was merely showing us cinema as it were, how it leaves its footprints in time, how it objectively lays bare the truth, how camera cannot cheat. His conclusion, “there is too much known about theater, there is too much unknown about cinematograph”. And the music, how it evolves and permeates deep within the narrative and imagery in an ice-water relationship. The images start to bleed emotions when music plays behind.

Godard sticks to the truth aspect with astute tenacity. You can’t judge whether he is being expository, pedantic or merely chronicler. We can’t attach too much meaning to anything simply because it existed in the past. Out of our overzealous nostalgia we glorify all our past. Past was simply is chunk of time. And just like present it had it own version of deglamorised realities. This is more visible in cinema than anything else. It was evolving, remember?

The film offered a chance to visit past and experience cinema and music the “way it was” and not the way it is made to out to be. It was an incredible experience for its creators, performers, lovers and moviegoers and to quote Godard again, “Histories of cinema, histories of blood, histories of night”.