''Tout va bien'' is a 1972 French-Italian political drama film directed by

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...

and collaborator

Jean-Pierre Gorin Jean-Pierre Gorin (born 17 April 1943) is a French filmmaker and professor, best known for his work with '' Nouvelle Vague'' luminary Jean-Luc Godard, during what is often referred to as Godard's "radical" period. Jean-Pierre Gorin was a studen ...

and starring

Jane Fonda Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, activist, and former fashion model. Recognized as a film icon, Fonda is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Jane Fonda, various accolades including two ...

and

Yves Montand Ivo Livi (), better known as Yves Montand (; 13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer. Early life Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, to Giovanni Livi, a broom manufacturer, Ivo held stron ...

. The film's title means "everything is going well". It was released in the United States under the title ''All's Well'' and internationally under the title ''Just Great''. The Godard/Gorin collaboration continued with the

featurette In the American film industry, a featurette is a kind of film that is shorter than a full-length feature, but longer than a short film. The term may refer to either of two types of content: a shorter film or a companion film. Medium-length fil ...

Letter to Jane ''Letter to Jane'' is a 1972 French postscript film to '' Tout Va Bien'' directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin and made under the auspices of the Dziga Vertov Group. Narrated in a back-and-forth style by both Godard and Gorin, the film ...

'' as a postscript to ''Tout va bien''.

Overview

The film centers on a strike at a sausage factory which is witnessed by an American reporter and her French husband, who is a director of TV commercials. The film has a strong political message which outlines the logic of the

class struggle Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor. The form ...

in France in the wake of the

May 1968 The following events occurred in May 1968: May 1, 1968 (Wednesday) * CARIFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade Association, was formally created as an agreement between Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. * RAF Strike ...

civil unrest. It also examines the social destruction caused by capitalism. The performers in ''Tout va bien'' employ the

Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

ian technique of distancing themselves from the audience. By delivering an opaque performance, the actors draw the audience away from the film's diegesis and towards broader inferences about the film's meaning. The factory set consists of a cross-sectioned building and allows the camera to dolly back and forth from room to room, theoretically through the walls. Another self-reflexive technique, this particular set was used because it forces the audience to remember that they are witnessing a film, breaking the fourth wall in a literal sense. This type of staging was appropriated from

Jerry Lewis Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch; March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer, filmmaker and humanitarian. As his contributions to comedy and charity made him a global figure in popular culture, pop culture ...

's film ''

The Ladies Man ''The Ladies Man'' is a 1961 American comedy film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It was released on June 28, 1961 by Paramount Pictures. Plot Herbert H. Heebert is a young man who loses his girlfriend, swears off romance, and then takes ...

''. Godard and Gorin use other self-reflexive techniques in ''Tout va bien'' such as direct camera address, long takes, and abandonment of the

continuity editing Continuity editing is the process, in film and video creation, of combining more-or-less related shots, or different components cut from a single shot, into a sequence to direct the viewer's attention to a pre-existing consistency of story across b ...

system.

References

External links

* *
''Tout va bien Revisited''
an essay by

J. Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at '' The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

French avant-garde and experimental films 1972 films Films about anarchism 1970s French-language films French political drama films Films directed by Jean-Luc Godard Films about the labor movement Films about labor relations 1970s political drama films Films set in factories 1970s avant-garde and experimental films 1972 drama films 1970s French films {{1970s-France-film-stub