Jean-Luc Godard’s After-Shave Commercial for Schick

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.

Related Content:

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Wes Anderson’s New Commercials Sell the Hyundai Azera

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.


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