Whilst watching British Sounds (Jean-Luc Godard, 1969) again I a section that felt made an interesting manipulation with the idea of truth.

The interview around 18:55 is not contextualised we are not told who the speaker is, who or who they represent, there is something immediately unsettling, not just about what is being said but also, how, and by who. I came to a conclusion that it is a revolutionary student reading back a speech or press release by a member of ‘the establishment,’ however this idea is challenged as the lecture becomes more unreasonable in the statements that it makes as it progresses. In a section about Vietnam …

“it it is sometimes necessary to cut off breasts… we don’t like coloured people.”

British Sounds (Jean-Luc Godard, 1969)

The juxtaposition seems to come from the fact that we have been taught that voices in documentaries have authority, the film-maker believes they represent an important point of view, but the speakers dishevelled appearance challenges this assumption, as does the extreme nature of the speech, this seems to confront the ‘truth’ of the image or images, if this can’t be trusted then what can?

I am developing an idea regarding anthropomorphising a machine I feel that this idea of alternate histories and truths is an important question.