CMP’s Great Jean-Luc Godard Project
Godard, Phrases from Giovanni Piacenza on Vimeo.
Short Summary
Contra Mundum Press (CMP) is seeking support for the remainder of printing costs and marketing expenses for a series of five books by Jean-Luc Godard to be translated into English: 1) Allemagne neuf zero; 2) Les enfants jouent à la Russie; 3)JLG / JLG; 4) 2×50 ans de cinéma français; 5) For Ever Mozart; and 6) Éloge de l’amour.
The books will be published under the collective title Phrases and mark the second collaboration between translator Stuart Kendall and CMP, our first being Kendall’s translation of Gilgamesh (2012).
What We Need & What You Get
We have already paid for the translation rights, have funds for typography and design fees, but have only part of the printing fees covered (a total of 2,000 copies will be printed). What remains of the budget for the book is as follows:
Printing costs: $7,600.00
Publicity & Marketing: $3,000.00
Typesetting & Design (for ads): $350.00
PERKS
For your contribution to the project, these are the gifts that we are offering for different donation levels:
1) A 10% discount on Godard’s PHRASES.
2) A copy of Godard’s PHRASES before it is released to the general public
3) Discounts from 15%–25% on other CMP books.
4) An original work of calligraphy by Alessandro Segalini of a word or phrase of your choice.
5) Discounted subscriptions to CMP books or any twelve CMP books of your choice.
6) An original 12” x 12” silk-screen of Genese Grill’s “World-maker; Word-maker (Robert Musil at Work).”
Genese Grill is the translator of Thought Flights, our edition of Robert Musil’s selected short prose & other texts.
7) Series Titling: In the tradition of Stanford University Press’s Meridian Series (named in honor of Paul Celan’s speech on poetics), for a significant donation, our Godard publication can be named in your honor. On a title page, the publication will be named after you or an agreed upon name, i.e., A Dark Matter Series Publication.
The Team
JEAN-LUC GODARD
A pioneer of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard has had an incalculable effect on modern cinema that refuses to wane. Before directing, Godard was an ethnology student and a critic for Cahiers du cinéma, and his approach to filmmaking reflects his interest in how cinematic form intertwines with social reality. His groundbreaking debut feature, Breathless is essential Godard: its strategy of merging high and low culture has been mimicked by generations of filmmakers. As the sixties progressed, Godard’s output became increasingly radical, both aesthetically and politically, until 1968 when he had forsworn commercial cinema altogether, forming a leftist filmmaking collective (the Dziga Vertov Group) and making such films as Tout va bien. Today Godard remains our greatest lyricist on historical trauma, religion, and the legacy of cinema. [Bio taken from Criterion]
TRANSLATOR: STUART KENDALLThe books will be translated into English by Stuart Kendall, a writer, editor, and translator working at the intersections of modern and contemporary art and design, critical theory, poetics, and theology. Kendall is the author of the critical biography Georges Bataille and the editor and translator of four other books by Bataille (SUNY Press). He has also translated works by Éluard, Blanchot, and Guy Debord and is the co-editor of Terence Malick: Film & Philosophy.
TYPOGRAPHER: ALESSANDRO SEGALINI
Alessandro Segalini studied and practiced graphic design and calligraphy in Milan, Helsinki, Philadelphia, and Rome. He is a member of the editorial board of Multi, the RIT journal of diversity and plurality in design, and co-creator of ISType (Istanbul Type Seminars), a lecture and workshop series devoted to encouraging typographic literacy in Turkey. Hemingway, a typeface designed by Segalini, was inspired by Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and selected for the UK Creative Review Type Annual (2011).
“Todesguge/Deathfugue”
“Interglacial Narrows (Poems 1915-2021)”
“Always the Many, Never the One: Conversations In-between, with Florent Toniello”
“Conversations in the Pyrenees”
“A Voice Full of Cities: The Collected Essays of Robert Kelly.” Edited by Pierre Joris & Peter Cockelbergh
“An American Suite” (Poems) —Inpatient Press
“Arabia (not so) Deserta” : Essays on Maghrebi & Mashreqi Writing & Culture
“Barzakh” (Poems 2000-2012)
“Fox-trails, -tales & -trots”
“The Agony of I.B.” — A play. Editions PHI & TNL 2016
“The Book of U / Le livre des cormorans”
“Memory Rose Into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan”
“Paul Celan, Microliths They Are, Little Stones”
“Paul Celan: Breathturn into Timestead-The Collected Later Poetry.” Translated & with commentary by Pierre Joris. Farrar, Straus & Giroux