Codes of Godard

Godard’s counter-cinema clearly opposes the seven conventions of Hollywood cinema, as seen by the table Wollen sets up on page 74.  I would just like to understand more precisely why this is so important.  Wollen’s closing paragraph points us most clearly in the right direction when he says: “The cinema cannot show the truth, or reveal it, because the truth is not out there in the real world, waiting to be photographed.  What the cinema can do is produce meanings, and meanings can only be plotted, not in relation to some abstract yardstick or criterion of truth, but in relation to other meanings” (82).  We have been trained to follow the codes of Hollywood cinema, which have thus become naturalized.  Godard wants to point out the film is just like another language.  The words in a dictionary are not concretely defined because they are defined in terms of one another.  Meaning is gathered with their relationships.  If I look up the word “boat,” the dictionary will direct me to a whole new set of words, which I could then also look up.  I think Godard is adding new words to the dictionary of cinema rather than creating a completely new language.  We only understand his new codes when we see they are reactions of the seven standard Hollywood “virtues.”  I guess that statement is slightly off, though, since I don’t completely understand all of his new codes…I think I have a better grasp of their purpose rather than their actual meaning.  Godard uses these new tools to challenge the viewers, make them aware of their idle consumerism by not allowing them to be sucked in by traditional cinematic codes that cater to laziness.  His codes seem as if they deal much more with the interaction with the audience and elements outside of the screen…he challenges rather than seduces.