Letter to Jane

This is a detailed, perceptive analysis of a news-photo which shows Jane Fonda in Vietnam, looking concerned in conversation with some Vietnamese. Godard/Gorin argue very soundly that this emphasis on the concern of the West, through an image of a film star, rather than on the Vietnamese themselves and what they have to say, is only another form of the colonialism which dominates the Third World. The use of film to analyse the ideologies of still images is very effective; but by turning what should be an investigation of the photo into 'a letter to Jane' telling her off for constructing her image, Godard/Gorin fail to engage with the way meanings are constructed in news images (and other media).