The Dziga Vertov Group (1968-1972) was a film collective co-founded by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, named after the pioneering documentary filmmaker Dziga Vertov. Anti-auteur, anti-verité, anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist, the DVG was also the most radical of the French film collectives, and so, of course, it managed to land a great advertising gig.
But don’t call it a sellout. According to at least one account, Godard and Gorin managed to stick it to their ad agency. Furthermore, they delivered full-throttle irony: Their Schick commercial features a young man and woman arguing over a news broadcast about Palestine … and Palestine was also the subject of an ill-fated 1970 DGV project called “Until Victory.” You can read the fascinating back-story of that film here.
And for the movie geeks: Yes, the actress is Godard regular Juliet Berto.
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Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.
My how the faces change but the back stories stay the same. As to selling out. That’s not when you exploit the mainstream to refocus attention. That is when you are used in the mainstream and leave your focus behind.
Hm … I would say they made a great ad. Stick it to Schick? I don’t think so.
Best Godard film ever !