Thursday, November 20. At 7 p.m.
Here is Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin’s assault on consumer capitalism. A couple, an advertising director and an American journalist, visit a French factory to make a report. There, they find themselves in the middle of a strike and the occupation of the facilities by the workers. Through both comic and tense situations, Godard and Gorin dismantle with irony the world of labor, class politics, and the alienation of capitalism. With a radical mise-en-scène and the performances of Jane Fonda and Yves Montand, “Tout va bien” becomes a critical reflection on May ’68, its consequences, and the difficulty of maintaining revolutionary commitment in everyday life.
According to film theorist and historian David Bordwell, Tout va bien combines a certain return to classical narrative conventions with a critical analysis of the contradictions of the left operating within the very system it seeks to transform; the discontinuous editing and formal ruptures compel the viewer to become aware of the construction of the story and to maintain an active, political gaze on the film.
