British Sounds

Jean-Luc Godard made the hour-long 1969 experimental documentary British Sounds also known as See You at Mao for London Weekend TV in 1969. In the opening scene, a ten minute long tracking shot along a Ford factory floor, a narrator reads from The Communist Manifesto. This is followed by a woman wandering around her house naked while a narrator reads a feminist-tinged text, a news commentator reading a pro-capitalist rant that is repeatedly and abruptly cut off to show workers that contradict his statements, and a group of young activists preparing protest banners while transposing communist propaganda to Beatles songs ("You say Nixon/I say Mao" to "Hello Goodbye"). It closes with a fist repeatedly punching through a British flag. It's a bold and assaultive socialist screed made during the director's most divisive political period and was banned from television. Of note are the director's experiments juxtaposing image, text, and sound. (www.allmovie.com)