Marxism and Film: A Conversation with Jean-Pierre Godin

French writer, academic and filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin famously collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard during the latter’s “radical” period. A Leftist influenced by Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan, Gorin’s political leanings consistently influenced his film work. He went on to teach as a university professor in California, and continued to make movies. Of one, Poto and Cabengo (1978), he explained: “The singsong of the twins reveals the shaky grounds of institutional power. It relativizes discursive authority from the family to the scientific community in their competitive and ineffectual attempts to ‘define’ the twins who spontaneously flit about the screen exceeding any definition.” If that makes any sense to you, join Gorin for a chat about Marxism and the movies. What better way to spend a Saturday night?