According to an interview from Godard himself with film historian Michael Witt and presented on the book
"Jean-Luc Godard, Cinema Historian" (2013), when asked about this particular short film he was quoted as saying, "It's very
bad". Therefore, JLG fans you can't go too picky on me (as usually most are) if I also don't aprove much of the short since the master himself didn't
like it either, though he's being quite harsh on the project which almost gets a meaningful message across and one quite more
significant and deeper as we're living under two simultaneous wars around the globe.
"The Childhood of Art" makes some small reflections on war and its many constrasts as a woman reads to a boy excerpts from a Victor
Hugo texts dealing with the issue, at the same time there's a conflict going on right in front of them and we see a rebel man fighting
with his gun an enemy we cannot see but can always hear through the loud sounds of machine guns and bombs, and this same rebel man keeps
on writing a message on several postcards with pictures of the French revolution (Liberty Leading the People among them).
If Hugo's
speech is somewhat erratic and distracting as pointing out the difference between an insurrection and an uprising, yet the boy
absorbs it with great interest, the haunting aspect comes from him and another boy practicing some soccer moves as the war keeps on
happining around them, and the few adults there (the woman and the soldier) don't interfere with them, neither try to hide them from
danger. And children will be children, despite knowing that there's a serious and dangerous world outside where they could die at any
minute, and for nothing since it's all about the conflicts brought on by the adults. The film questions some issues of civil war and
foreign war though it doesn't specify which one is happening. Not important, since the message is valuable for both scenarios.
I watched this some months ago, didn't impress me much but I end up returning to it, and I found some relevant themes used, some
great scenes as well. Didn't conquered me as a whole. The title doesn't make much sense, where's the art at - just the text being read
and those signed postcards (which get a higher meaning at the ending)? It should be called "Childhood During Wartime" instead, and with
some gripping storyline maybe the film could reach a higher level of greatness. It's not bad, it's just weak. 5/10.
