[REL]France/tour/detour/deux/enfants 1977 (Tv)

[benjaminblack]

http://www.eai.org/eai/title.htm?id=2931

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvqZKnn7LLk


http://starchildrens.blogspot.com/2009/ ... fants.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075509/

[kev]

In this astonishing twelve-part project for and about television — the title of which refers to a 19th-century French primer Le tour de la France par deux enfants — Godard and Miéville take a detour through the everyday lives of two children in contemporary France.

This complex, intimately scaled study of the effect of television on the French family is constructed around Godard's interviews with a school girl and school boy, Camille and Arnaud. Godard's provocative questions to the children range from the philosophical ("Do you think you have an existence?") to the social ("What does revolution mean to you?"). The programs' symmetrical structure alternates between Camille's and Arnaud's segments (or "movements"), each of which is labeled with on-screen titles: Obscur/Chimie is paired with Lumiere/Physique; Réalitie/Logique with Réve/Morale; Violence/Grammaire with Désordre/Calcul.

Using precise formal devices, including the extended take, slow motion, closeups, and the freeze frame, Godard and Miéville "decompose" the quotidian world of their young subjects by focusing on the minutiae of the everyday and isolated gesture, the significance of a gaze. In one remarkable sequence, the fixed camera remains on a close-up of Camille as she sits in silence at the dinner table, while her parents hold an extended conversation offscreen. Another extended sequence observes Arnaud in the classroom.

The children's interviews (titled Verité) and scenes of their everyday routines at home and at school (Télévision) are followed by the ironic commentary of two adult television journalists (Histoire) who provide a history/story that elaborates on the interviews. Intercut with multi-textual collages of television, cinema and advertising images, these discursive visual essays analyze the economic, social and ideological functions of the mass media.

As they expose how a child's world is "programmed" by the institutions of family and television, Godard and Miéville posit the mass media as the pervasive cultural influence in the home, with television as the 20th century primer. A provocative social discourse that resonates with eloquence and wit, France/tour/détour/deux enfants is an extraordinary achievement.

In French with English subtitles

First off, thanks benjaminblack for bringing this series to our attention!

Next... The 'Star Childrens Blogspot' link that benjaminblack had at the bottom of his post had crapidshare links for the first 5 episodes of this odd little series. I've d/loaded the first two and will share them out now then edit and share out the others as I get them.

Other than a couple of diatribes by JLGoddard at the beginning and end of the first episode [or 'mouvement' as they pretentiously like to call them ] , it's mostly just an interview with Cammile in her room, sitting on her bed.
In the same fashion the second 'mouvement' features an interview with Arnaud outside, leaning against a car.
In the third installment we're back with Cammile and with the fourth we rejoin Arnaud once again.

Life philosophy from a Nine-year old perspective [guided of course by an adult! ]; interestingly novel idea, actually.

Hopefully there's a little more action in 'mouvement's' to come..

Lest I forget: The first mouvement:
Like this post to see ed2k links  [338.24 MiB]
Pix from Mouvement 1:
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And without further adieu: The second mouvement:
Like this post to see ed2k links  [247.11 MiB]
Pix from Mouvement 2:
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The 3rd installment:
Like this post to see ed2k links  [351.40 MiB]
Pix:
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Le mouvement of the 4th:
Like this post to see ed2k links  [351.41 MiB]
Mo' pix:
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You can tell by the pix that the quality is pretty poor; like a 10th generation VHS copy run at the slowest speed..

However there are English 'subs for slubs' like me who never took French in school..

I will edit and add as I d/load the files.. I hope there's SOMEONE out there that will find these at least MILDLY interesting...

(Thanks again, bjb!!)

kev.