Routine Pleasures

One of the most intelligent and original minds in cinema today, Jean-Pierre Gorin has carved a unique and important niche in the tradition of documentary film. His ‘journey’ has taken him from philosophy and journalism through to the founding of the radical Dziga Vertov Group with Jean-Luc Godard in 1968. Born in Paris in 1943, Gorin was an ardent cinéphile since his youth.

He received his baccalaureate in Philosophy in 1960, subsequently enrolling at the Sorbonne. Here he took part in the seminars of Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault. In addition, from 1965 to 1968, Gorin was an editor at Le Monde newspaper, helping create its weekly literary supplement, Le Monde des livres. He wrote dozens of articles, contributing to the political and esthetic debates that would lead eventually to the upheaval of May 1968 and to his partnering with Godard as co-director on some of the most radical and influential political films of that period.

Long fascinated by the American southwest, in 1974 Gorin moved to San Diego at the invitation of famed film critic and painter Manny Farber. He would go on to join the faculty of the University of California at San Diego and direct a trilogy of acclaimed documentary films on life in southern California. —ihousephilly.org