Jean-Luc Godard + Jean-Pierre Gorin: Five Films, 1968-1971

The career phase where Jean-Luc Godard abandoned narrative cinema for experimental exploration of radical political themes--in collaboration with writer Jean-Pierre Gorin and the other participants in the Dziga Vertov Group--is represented in this quintet of efforts.

A peaceful interchange of ideas in a pastoral field between auto workers and college kids is interspersed with documentary footage of the May 1968 worker strikes and student riots that swept France in “Un Filme Comme Les Autres (A Film Like Any Other)” (1968).

As trade unionists negotiate with their bosses for the most mutually beneficial terms, a hippie band seeks to make Beatle lyrics more revolutionary, in “British Sounds” (1970). AKA: “See You at Mao.”

An audio narrative of a strike's natural progression is laid over absurdist imagery representing the participants in “Vent d'Est (Wind from the East)” (1970). Gian Maria Volontè, Anne Wiazemsky, Götz George star.

A Italian teenager (Cristiana Tulio-Altan) tries to embrace Marxist politics, but can't let go of her bourgeois existence, in “Lotte in Italia (Struggle in Italy)” (1971).

The trial of the Chicago Eight gets a singular retelling--with running commentary from Valdimir Lenin (Godard) and Karl Rosa (Gorin)--in “Vladimir et Rosa” (1971). Juliet Berto, Yves Afonso co-star.

7 1/2 hrs. total on 3 DVDs/3 Blu-rays. Widescreen; Soundtrack: French Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: English; featurette. In French with English subtitles.