Pictorial 89

Destruction, vengeance; corroded textures, primal color. Godard’s 60s opus has that in common with the eschatological epics of pan-European mystic Jean Parvulesco (prev.)
To Parvu, the dawning of the cosmopolitan Age of Aquarius is a moral inferno that the forces of the Red-Brown Shiva are fighting in an occult battle that has been going on – probably since about 1770.

These are the red-brown, burnt ochre forces of Atlantis to whom destruction of the material illusion ushers in being. The eternal Tantric self.

What is self but the ephemeral being that materialism attempts to wipe out; that Godard’s films capture with deft magic? The ephemeral in line and movement, music and magic, captured for all eternity.

 

Parvu’s books are waxed in esoteric lore; to wit:

The agents of the Inner Continent are awake. In the night sky of out repulsive civilization appears the magic star heralding the imminent transformation of the Inner into Outer. This is the star of the Invisible Empire.

(any relation to The Plumed Serpent is coincidental!) Could this magic star be feminine? The red-brown is Shiva, Tantric deity of the Hindu, whose other self is Shakti. The two are one indivisible self, and Shakti simply the female personified.

 

Parvu – somewhat like Howard – invents his cosmogony by taking what exists in Indo-European lore, and adapting it to a world view where the mystical is much closer to the surface. In The Plumed Serpent (rev) this mystery is ordained by the low, throbbing drum; the symbol of Quetzalcoatl; and by the green-clad Katie as the goddess Malintzi, bride of the living Huitzilopochtli.

Without the female principle – even as the blessed Mary reclining on the white moon – the melody that marks the universe is gone. In Godard’s movies this is always quite clear, as the technical tricks he pulls are often at the service of the higher poetry of love in a universe of danger.

ALPHAVILLE

Karina, as Paula Nelson, references this in Made In USA, where she say

We are living in an old part of the universe where nothing happens, while elsewhere galaxies are being created by explosions.

Even the squawk-box, a reel-to-reel recorder emitting a metallic voice, seems to resemble the circular motif of Alpha 60. This is maleness, or the world without melody (where we live).

The feminine principle is the begetter of life; the womb is the moon. Diana the huntress; blood and destruction.

What happens in the womb is a priori all that happens in the world of men. All is stillmess and gentle sounds of ambient presence, somewhat like a Dutch interior!

Stillness is a quality lacking in modernity, since it speaks of Inner movement. This Inner life has a harmonic akin to the sphere. After all, how can something develop into a distinct personality unless the entire process is harmonised?

The Inner is therefore the very opposite of Darwinian competition. And yet if, as Parvu says, the Inner shall become the Outer, this harmonic can also become visible in the world (again).

All this is quite visible in Godard’s 60s films. If you noticed in the clip of Karina in Made In USA there was a percussive rhythm that was arbitrarily tied to the flick of her head. The melodic grace of woman as a technical trick.

Both in Godard are equally important. Neither dominates in the moral sphere. Only when one dominates – as in the metallic squawk-box – is there a negative factor.

That is the world we live in; a negative factor, an anti-life of technical tricks tied to the male and his numerical fixation (of physical boredom); the numerical and the sexual are one.

Only physical strength can free us of this; but where is physical strength produced? Only in the womb of woman. She is melody and harmony; she knows not abstract competition.

Physical strength is a moral right, and it is tied to the feminine principle. In America, the men and women with guns in Richmond, Virginia (capital of the Confederation) are asserting a moral right of strength. A commune that defends itself is composed equally of men and women.

Thus does the feminine principle carry a harmonic that is tied to the moon; blood and the womb; the hunt and destruction to preserve life. In Made In USA Paula has to kill to survive; I'd stay alive at any price..

In old Dutch paintings the harmonic principle is visible, and women are sturdy and strong. The same would be so of a Puritan settlement.

Howard’s Hyboria too harbours the feminine principle of harmony, in the proportions of the city-state, the principle of feuding to preserve one’s space. It is in the feminine principle, the red-brown ochre of destruction, that is the mythical key that one can see in the films of Godard, the writings of Parvu, the painting of Pieter de Hooch; in Richmond and in Hyboria.