Scénario du film "Passion" (Script for the film "Passion") by Jean-Luc Godard (1982).

France/Switzerland. Jean-Luc Godard, in collaboration with Jean-Bernard Menoud, Anne-Marie Miéville, Pierre Binggeli. Production/ JLG Films/Studio Trans-Vidéo/Télévision Suisse Romande. Video. In French, English subtitles. 54 minutes. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix. Commissioned by Channel 4, London. In French, with subtitles by Tom Milne. With: Jean-Luc Godard, Isabelle Huppert, Hanna Schygulla and Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Michel Piccoli, and Laszlo Szabo. I'm not a religious person, but I'm a faithful person. I believe in images. I have no children, only movies.-Jean-Luc Godard I was raised a Protestant, but I don't practice. I am, however, very interested in Catholicism.-Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard

Godard has frequently shunned producing traditional scripts, and occasionally he has produced alternative scripts, shot in video. Scénario du film "Passion" is thus his script for Passion, a film whose very title puns on both the religious and sexual connotations of the word. From a video editing studio, Godard introduces the proceedings like an omniscient newscaster. Head-on to camera, he announces: "Good evening, friends and enemies."

Still from Scénario du film "Passion"

The mood here is sometimes slapstick, but also elegiac and non-denominationally religious as Godard discusses his approach to creation. Once remarking in an interview that he was brought up a Protestant, but that he does not practice, the filmmaker nevertheless emphasized his interest in Catholicism. That seemingly offhand remark goes, in fact, to the heart of one aspect of Godard's thought. His interest in Catholicism stems from his awareness that that religion is fundamentally more visual than Protestantism, a religion whose origins were associated with the word. In Scénario du film "Passion," Godard announces that he didn't want to write the script, but that he wanted first to see it, because, "I think you see the world first and then you write it." Historically, of course, his position hearkens back to the New Wave's abhorrence for the script-driven films of the Cinéma de papa in the 1950s.

In the video, Godard tells us that Tintoretto's painting of "Bacchus and Ariadne" partially inspired his film Passion. Jacques Aumont has evocatively spoken of painting as ultimately the best model for creation, and here Godard is a divine creator before his canvas or screen.

With special thanks to Rebecca Cleman and Galen Joseph-Hunter of Electronic Arts Intermix, New York.

Bibliography:

Text by Sally Shafto.

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