BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS
Symposium
With their formal inventiveness, gift for light-hearted humour and lyrical imagery, Boris Barnet’s films were beloved by the critics at Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s, and have had an enduring resonance in Godard’s work. BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS was made at one of the darkest moments in Soviet history, when Stalin’s Great Purge was gearing up and artists laboured under strict formal guidelines, a context which makes the splendour of the film all the more impressive. A love triangle among collective farmers on an island in the Caspian Sea, images from the film have had a talismanic presence in Godard’s late work.
With their formal inventiveness, gift for light-hearted humour and lyrical imagery, Boris Barnet’s films were beloved by the critics at Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s, and have had an enduring resonance in Godard’s work. BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS was made at one of the darkest moments in Soviet history, when Stalin’s Great Purge was gearing up and artists laboured under strict formal guidelines, a context which makes the splendour of the film all the more impressive. A love triangle among collective farmers on an island in the Caspian Sea, images from the film have had a talismanic presence in Godard’s late work.
