AP: In recent times, the Left has been talking about “resistance”. Ranging from the names of activist groups to the texts of the Leftist press, “resistance” is everywhere. Is this simply a moral position? That is, under the new rigid conditions of neo-liberalism, just when it seemed that all was lost, we will continue to stand up for what we believe is right. If we articulate our resistance in the sphere of culture or in everyday life, it is because we don’t have the possibility for expressing our protest in politics, not to mention for changing the situation in any cardinal way through our actions. To me, this seems like a hidden trap. First of all, we derive a colossal amount of narcissist pleasure for our (supposed) non-conformism; second of all, we receive rather tangible bonuses, finding our selves in the system one way or another…

In answering the question of “Reform or Revolution”, Rosa Luxemburg saw “the idea of transforming the sea of capitalist bitterness into a sweet socialist ocean by adding social-reformist lemonade bottle-by-bottle” as something both tasteless and fantastic. With her critique of Bernstein and the reformist fraction of Social Democracy in 1899/1900, Rosa Luxemburg opened a debate that eventually produced two political camps, each of which claimed the sole right of leading the working class. By today, the question “Reform or Revolution” almost sounds impious; both historical titans have shrunken and become touching old men.

Since the 1960s, people have always asked the question whether Godard was a revolutionary pornographer or a pornographer of revolution. Just another Beatle (cf. Spectacular Society, chD 1)? A “Maoist liar”? (Debord). Or was Godard really the one of the greatest revolutionaries of the cinema? Don’t Godard’s early aesthetics provide ways of opening new understandings of what politics actually are? Was he able to codify and transport these new meanings, to encapsulate them within a cinematic anti-narrative made to survive the Thermidore?