Photo Essay

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE:

A TRIBUTE TO JEAN-LUC GODARD

DYUTIMAN MUKHOPADHYAY

‘Goodbye to Language: A Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard’

From Top: Varanasi, India (August 2017); Bangalore, India (November 2022); Kerala, India (January 2025); West Bengal, India (October 2009)

Photographs © Dyutiman Mukhopadhyay

Godard’s hand-written synopsis of Adieu au Langage, 2014

Source:

https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/adieu-au-langage/

‘The idea is simple: A married woman and a single man meet. They love, they argue, fists fly. A dog strays between town and country. The seasons pass. The man and woman meet again. The dog finds itself between them. The other is in one, the one is in the other and they are three. The former husband shatters everything. A second film begins: the same as the first, and yet not. From the human race we pass to metaphor. This ends in barking and a baby’s cries. In the meantime, we will have seen people talking of the demise of the dollar, of truth in mathematics and of the death of a robin’.

—Jean-Luc Godard, 2014.

‘Goodbye to Language (French: Adieu au Langage)’ is a 2014 film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The above excerpt was the official synopsis for his film first shared on Twitter. Godard handwrote the synopsis in verse. An official press note for the film is available on the Cannes Film Festival's official website.

Widely regarded as the most significant French filmmaker and film writer of the post-war period, Godard (1930-2022) challenged practically all traditional approaches of storytelling, editing, sound design, and cinematography. As one of the pioneers of the French New Wave, his approach fundamentally reshaped the art of filmmaking. François Truffaut—another cinematic genius, Godard’s close friend, colleague, and sometimes rival—once wrote:

‘Godard shattered the system and wreaked havoc in cinema just as Picasso did in painting, and, like Picasso, he made everything possible.’  (François Truffaut, Le Plaisir des yeux; Paris: Cahiers du Cinéma, 1987).

A Dog’s Monologue Between Two Humans

Dyutiman Mukhopadhyay

Icon—Index—Symbol—

Syllables and Speeches—

Semiosis—Semiotics—Semantics—

They fight in the game—

A game they forgot the rules of—

While Language left through the back door—

Left with the robin—

And never came back—

They talk and talk—

As if talking will save them—

From others—

From themselves—

I piss where I want—

I run through the forest—

The city—the camera frame—

Sometimes they follow—

Thinking I lead them somewhere—

But I go nowhere—

I just—

Go—

I am Free—

I do not speak their Language—

I do not Speak—

And so maybe—

I tell the Truth.

—March 2025