Notre Musique is satisfying visually with sweeping scenes of a war-struck Sarajevo - bridges and emerald green River, majestic edifices gutted to the bone, fleeting city-trams - and not least for Godard's appearance as himself at a conference where he espouses his antagonism towards the cinematic device of 'shot/counter-shot'.
I'll start with that, as to interpret what he means is tough, and without understanding this piece may as well remain unwritten! Shot/counter-shot' is a documentary method whereby two actors are shot at identical angles, and they are made to seem equivalent.
From that seeming triviality, he goes on a rigmarole. Elsinore in documentary form is a fairly plain castle in Denmark. It is only placed in the vision by the knowledge it is Hamlet's castle.
The way I understand that is that a documentary style appears real but lacks vision. Reality has two faces in that struggles are going on. Between men and women; between blacks and whites; between Red Indians and cowboys.
A trio of native Americans appear as 'ghosts'; Godard also shows a photo of Richmond, Virginia after the civil war.
So, the film is a poetic exploration of violence and war - victors and losers - and possibly also feuding as I've been using it in a communal sense. Godard's films are known for being documentary-style, but they are nothing without the vision and here the fantasy-elements are rendered realistically.
What that means in short is that documentary style of shot/counter-shot renders reality without the vision and you have just the text, or words.
"Text has covered vision."
Vision is dark, sombre, tragic. Also gay.
The bridge bring rebuilt over the river has two faces representing the pain and guilt of war, struggle between peoples. The water is a rich emerald green - which I took to be the fertility of blood sustained in the conflict. The Noto-esque underworld (see 'Red Lace'..) is there all the time, and red changes to green (the Styx.)
In the sombre world that is not all text (head), the physical processes (body) create active areas of regeneration from degradation. Reality is two-faced because from the brute destruction and disorder comes ultimate revival and fertility.
Branching off from what Godard may have intended, there is an Arcadian reality where physical processes are left to themselves in relatively primitive situations of country, peasant-based smallholdings.
Arcadia is where Buffy's quote on dried buffalo manure (see quote HB70) rings true, because things are generally left to their own devices. Untidiness becomes tidiness through the natural processes that just happen.
In American terms, it's the country blues that seem quite simple stylistically, but actually have a lot of physical, tonal content.
Canned Heat in their third album have an extended country blues called 'Parthenogenesis/Nebulosity'. As the sleeve notes say, the meaning of that is not atall clear, but it could simply be literal. Parthenogenesis means (among other things) the unfertilised eggs of queen bees that give rise to male drones.
I did a little reading on bees, and their lifecycle is astonishingly fecund and debauched! This is the very content of a blissful Arcadia, one that is heard only through (nebulous) pan-pipes. To some that would be reactionary, even an Uncle Tom-ism, and I think that may well be the case. Truth is no stranger to controversy. That is, the physical reality of the body rather than words of the documentary head (text.)
The next film I'm looking at is Goodbye to Language from 2014, which one might assume has a not dissimilar theme. The documentary-style head has no physical content - of Arcadia or the underworld - but has a lot of neutralising style (words, and words that can't be used.)
What we get is a world of policies (federal legislation) but where you can't insult people. As I've been saying for awhile, insults in organic communes are normal and just a recognition of differences that exist. Even words that are not insulting such as 'Redskins' are legislated out.
Shot/counter-shot in the documentary-style establishes a world of text that corresponds to the reality 'they' want. It's one that has not the physical untidiness (disorder, destruction) nor the gaiety of revival (psyche, Dionysian rites.)
As a director, Godard's aim is to "shine a light on darkness.. notre musique.' One must first have the darkness. Without the revival from darkness there can be no psychic strength.
