The book as motif in One Plus One

‘The Heart of Occident’, the central sequence in One Plus One, Jean-Luc Godard’s playful yet politically-charged depiction of the Rolling Stones, shows several different transactions that occur within a paperback exchange. Though set in an actual shop, Godard depicts what these transactions ultimately mean in terms of ideology. With the producer of the film playing the part of the bookshop’s proprietor, this sequence functions as an analogy for the film as a whole. The corruption of the capitalist marketplace presents a parallel to the corruption of commercial film-making.