I've Never Seen La Chinoise

When I was ten years old I played my first year of little league baseball. I lived in Detroit with my family. We were there for a couple of years, because of my father's job.

I was horrible. I didn't really understand the concept of hitting a baseball. I became a decent hitter later on. My brother said that my batting stance didn't really resemble any major leaguer's, it was more like something inanimate, say furniture. I used to look back and imagine myself looking like I was waiting for a transmission from somewhere else.

Today I read in the latest New Yorker that Jean Luc-Godard's 1967 Maoist film La Chinoise is showing in New York City. This reminded me of a story regarding transmissions from somewhere else that I read years ago.

I read about Godard using an earpiece to feed Anne Wiazemsky her lines in La Chinoise. I'm not even sure if it's true. I think it is. I've read more recently that Godard used this technique with several non-actors. The motivation for the transmissions was that an actor will look startled or confused while listening to the incoming message. This could be an asset during certain scenes.

I've never seen La Chinoise, but there is supposed to be an earpiece aided scene, where Wiazemsky has a political debate with another actor. I've heard jokes about politicians going their entire career receiving similar transmissions. I think they were jokes.