The bizarre Schick commercial made by Jean-Luc Godard
Throughout his career, Jean-Luc Godard – the enfant terrible of the French New Wave – pushed for a specific brand of political filmmaking that reflected his own ideals and sensibilities. While Godard’s central frameworks undoubtedly changed in his later works, the director’s Marxist critiques in his beloved early works have resonated with film fans all over the world. The pioneering auteur’s contempt for bourgeois decadence is always delightful to revisit.
Godard’s anti-capitalist film activism is not a revelation for any fan who is familiar with his work. The director famously said: “Cinema is capitalism in its purest form…. There is only one solution — turn one’s back on American cinema”. On multiple occasions, the director spoke out against the capitalist structures of Hollywood and its impact on the cinematic spectacle. His dislike for American culture isn’t really a secret since he proudly displays it in many of his greatest works.
From the stunningly bleak video game Disco Elysium, there is one particular quote that will always stick with me. “Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself,” it reads. “Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead”. It’s an articulation of a sobering reality, especially for those who haven’t had the revolutionary dream beaten out of them yet. For Godard, that moment was when he had to make a commercial for an American razor company.
In desperate need of funds to finance his own politically radical experiments, Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin signed a contract with the Dupuy-Compton advertising agency that required them to make one project per month. Schick was owned by Patrick Frawley, a leading American conservative who was well-known in the Catholic community. Godard’s employment under Frawley represents a complex ethical conundrum for artists working everywhere, especially those who want their art to disrupt the status quo.
The commercial itself is a bizarre project, coming across as a hyper-kitschy vision of consumerism and modern relationships. You can almost taste Godard’s hatred for the work, especially in the hilarious final shot, which feels like he’s throwing the advertised aftershave right in our faces. Some fans who discovered the commercial have inevitably wondered why Godard decided to make an advertisement for the people he considered his enemies.
For Godard, it was probably an easy decision to send a huge bill for half a day’s work which helped fund something like Tout va bien. It’s also interesting to think about the justifications he must have made in his head. On the one hand, he wanted the money to fashion the radical images he thought the world needed in order to break free from capitalist oppression. To achieve that, unfortunately, he had to add to the ideologically problematic language of advertisements.
Watch the strange commercial below.
