Contempt: Sex, sun, sea and twisted automobiles. We've got Brigitte Bardot, Odysseus, Fritz Lang, Jack Palance, and the Casa Malaparte. Cinematic heroin.
― -8-(*_*)-8-, Tuesday, 4 March 2003 15:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Fanfan la Tulipe, Tuesday, 4 March 2003 15:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Tuesday, 4 March 2003 15:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
"Pierrot Le Fou" is my favorite of the films, though. And "Bande à Part" certainly has its moments.
― Nemo (JND), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 15:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 19:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 19:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
As I've mention on another thread I value some of Godard's later (post-79) work as highly as the '60s films. Esp. Sauve qui peut, Passion, First Name: Carmen, Hail Mary, and Hélas pour moi. A lot of people swear by Histoire(s) du cinéma--I've only seen two episodes of this.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 19:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― innercitykitty (innercitykitty), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 20:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 21:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 21:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Andrew L (Andrew L), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 21:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 18 March 2004 20:39 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 18 March 2004 20:41 (twenty years ago) link
― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 18 March 2004 20:42 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 18 March 2004 20:47 (twenty years ago) link
― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 18 March 2004 20:49 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:09 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:10 (twenty years ago) link
Some bits of 'Une Femme Est Une Femme' are very funny.
― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:11 (twenty years ago) link
It's not about an airport. It's about a supermarket, a prostitute, a cup of coffee, et al, etc.
N.'s last line is correct aussi.
― the bellefox, Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:25 (twenty years ago) link
― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:27 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:28 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:33 (twenty years ago) link
― Spinktor au de toilette (El Spinktor), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:35 (twenty years ago) link
― dean! (deangulberry), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:36 (twenty years ago) link
― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 18 March 2004 21:51 (twenty years ago) link
― dean! (deangulberry), Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:22 (twenty years ago) link
― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:24 (twenty years ago) link
― anthony, Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:27 (twenty years ago) link
― dean! (deangulberry), Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:30 (twenty years ago) link
― !!!! (amateurist), Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:46 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:33 (twenty years ago) link
― dean! (deangulberry), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:37 (twenty years ago) link
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:52 (twenty years ago) link
― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 19 March 2004 00:01 (twenty years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 19 March 2004 04:43 (twenty years ago) link
I've seen most of his films up to the early 80s, and really every single one is worth seeing, even if some of the D-Z ones are almost unwatchable. The best of them is 'Vent d'Est', which was intended by its financiers as a kind of 'Bullet for the General'-style Marxist western, and indeed it has Gian Maria Volonte in it. It ends up as an essay on the politics of film-making, and is so a kind of sequel to 'Le Mepris', which is probably the best point of entry for Godard.
The jazzy score for 'Breathless' is lame, and I kind of don't think of it as a Godard at all. It was co-written with Truffaut.
His politics are always going to be a sticking point: the whole Maoist craze that afflicted France in the 60s was obviously a wrong turn, and JLG was a bit of a gadfly: you wouldn't catch Marker, Varda, or Rouch (more classically 'leftist' film-makers) making the same mistake.
This being so, I prefer his D-Z films, impossible as they are, to 'Tout va Bien', which was an attempt, via stars (Fonda and Montard) to 'reconnect' with the mass audience (it's about student politics, left-wing union politics, media politics); you'd be better off watching more straightforward contemporary films on the same subject by Ken Loach and other BBC directors of that era.
If I had to pick one, I guess it would be 'Masculin-Feminin', made in the winter of 65-66, and the start of his political odyssey, following 'Pierrot le Fou', his farewell to Hollywood.
― Henry K M (Enrique), Friday, 19 March 2004 09:04 (twenty years ago) link
― !!!! (amateurist), Friday, 19 March 2004 10:02 (twenty years ago) link
I wish Criterion made posters out of their box art. I can't wait to watch this and the short that accompanies it.
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Thursday, 17 June 2004 02:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 17 June 2004 05:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 24 October 2004 16:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:34 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002HSDD2/qid=1098643669/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_11_1/026-3737398-5990003
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:45 (nineteen years ago) link
http://play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=162776
― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― --bruno, Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:47 (nineteen years ago) link
I think I prefer this 'Jean Vigo' thing because it has an interview with Otar Iosseliani:
http://play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=123208
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:54 (nineteen years ago) link
I can't remember but.
― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:58 (nineteen years ago) link
I only have a 'fullscreen' portable telly to watch them on anyway.
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 24 October 2004 18:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 24 October 2004 18:51 (nineteen years ago) link
Did you watch 'Elogie d'amour', Jerry? I taped it, on the video, off the telly, but I haven't watched it yet.
― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 16:04 (nineteen years ago) link
Brody very active in defending Godard's reputation on twitter.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 09:12 (one year ago) link
Two hour interview.
https://www.cinematheque.fr/henri/film/125365-entretien-entre-serge-daney-et-jean-luc-godard-jean-luc-godard-1988/
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:17 (one year ago) link
Watched about 15 mins. Once Godard gets going (and Daney shuts up) you can feel how important the materiality of the medium is for him. You know this, but I've seldom watched him try and articulate it. Like when he talks about the act of projection.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 10:32 (one year ago) link
May read it but that quote is terrible.
Fredric Jameson writes on Jean-Luc Godard. ‘If cinema really is dying, then he died with it; or better still, it died with him.’https://t.co/9pZDvpZHIf— New Left Review (@NewLeftReview) September 28, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 14:33 (one year ago) link
Picture makes it look like Godard secretly killed cinema and is gloating.
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 14:51 (one year ago) link
Looks like that meme of the girl looking at the camera while the house burns lol
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 14:56 (one year ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/4CobVKP.jpg
― DPRK in Cincinnati (WmC), Wednesday, 28 September 2022 15:15 (one year ago) link
Is that from his Ulysses project?
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 28 September 2022 15:27 (one year ago) link
everything fredric jameson writes is terrible
― mark s, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 17:17 (one year ago) link
He's a fan of poptimism
― Toshirō Nofune (The Seventh ILXorai), Wednesday, 28 September 2022 18:35 (one year ago) link
Was wondering.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 28 September 2022 18:43 (one year ago) link
Scorsese has a piece up on Godard:
https://www.cahiersducinema.com/actualites/martin-scorsese-godard-is-perhaps-dead/#:~:text=When%20I'm%20editing%20a,images%20made%20by%20other%20people.
― clemenza, Saturday, 15 October 2022 18:11 (one year ago) link
Nice, thanks!
― We Have Never Been Secondary Modern (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 15 October 2022 18:24 (one year ago) link
Just watched ÉLOGE DE L'AMOUR (2001), only 19 years after Jerry the Nipper referred to it at the start of the thread.
I couldn't make much sense of it. Broadly confirms the sense that while early Godard is dazzling, late Godard is rambling.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 8 November 2022 23:31 (one year ago) link
Of the Godard I've seen from the last couple decades (which is not comprehensive), that one is definitely the weakest.
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Wednesday, 9 November 2022 00:03 (one year ago) link
He made five films from 2000. Image Book > Goodbye to Language (will we ever see it in 3D again) >>>> In Praise of Love and Our Music.
Haven't seen Film Socialisme.
Those top two films would comfortably be in a top ten for Godard.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 9 November 2022 00:10 (one year ago) link
Lots of shorts and skits and stuff outside those five features tho
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Wednesday, 9 November 2022 00:23 (one year ago) link
(I do need to circle back and see Film Socialisme imo)
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Wednesday, 9 November 2022 00:24 (one year ago) link
It's dire.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 9 November 2022 09:08 (one year ago) link
I have really never engaged with Godard's short film output at all..
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 9 November 2022 09:14 (one year ago) link
Richard Brody of The New Yorker declared In Praise of Love the greatest film of the 2000s, stating that it is "one of the most unusual, tremulous, and understated of love stories, as well as the story of love itself; ... Godard’s third first film, thus something of a rebirth of cinema."
Unusually preposterous.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 9 November 2022 10:11 (one year ago) link
Yeah, everyone knows that's Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 9 November 2022 10:25 (one year ago) link
He made five films from 2000
I've seen them, at least two of them twice, but they're vaguer in memory than the superficially similar 80s and 90s movies and I need to see them again.The first Godard I've rewatched since his death was Made in USA, not especially beloved by most, but I was surprised just how much plot (though heavily obscured) and how many speaking parts the film contains. Was it his last nod at a "genre" film (unless Detective counts)?
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 9 November 2022 16:25 (one year ago) link
― the pinefox
That's our Richard!
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 November 2022 16:34 (one year ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/19/molly-ringwald-on-filming-shakespeares-king-lear-with-jean-luc-godard
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 13 December 2022 13:58 (one year ago) link
Imagine being in a film, not understanding any of it then watching it months later and it never making sense.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 13 December 2022 13:59 (one year ago) link
i mean a lot of people in POPULAR MOVIE FRANCHISE DELETED must feel like that
― jus do jus (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 13 December 2022 14:43 (one year ago) link
quite a little burgess meredith anecdote in that piece
― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 13 December 2022 19:14 (one year ago) link
rewatching THE IMAGE BOOK (2018) as a treat to myself and wondering if the many extracts it's quilted from are anywhere definitively listed, ideally in the actual order they appear (including repeats)
(by which i mean listed on the internet: the credits do include a list which i assume is at least a start and i guess i could just grab a pencil and paper and press pause a lot -- but on this day of all days i'm allowed to be lazy and find out if any ilxors know of a solid shortcut)
― mark s, Friday, 7 June 2024 19:06 (one week ago) link
https://letterboxd.com/thisisdrew/list/the-image-book/ this works?
― fpsa, Friday, 7 June 2024 20:01 (one week ago) link
ooh yes, that is a very good start, thank you
― mark s, Friday, 7 June 2024 20:13 (one week ago) link
Ok, got to see the Rosselini Jesus movie
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 7 June 2024 21:07 (one week ago) link
Finished Godard On Godard:
The first section, featuring his earliest, pseudonymous writings, is I think solely of historical interest - lots of grand pronouncements, vague tossed off sentences, recurring attempts to elevate movies by comparing them to sundry important names in literature - anything to avoid actually describing the film, criticism as an imposition of taste rather than insight into the art. This is fine - they don't teach criticism in schools, it's normal to be feeling your way around the dark at first, I certainly did - but boy was I worried that all of it would be like this.
Thankfully he does evolve: as one gets further into the book, there is much more care given to actually describing what is happening onscreen, in terms of shots, editing, acting, use of colour, etc. He does still frequently throw in some random enigmatic phrase; at this stage, I would wager that with about half of these, if you challenged him on them he would be able to (though probably not willing to) explain the reasoning that lead him to them, and half are just stuff he's saying because it sounds good. Kind of unfair to single out Godard anyway, the enigmatic aphorism is such a huge part of French intellectual thought in general. And every now and then he hits upon a sentence that sums things up perfectly, even if I can't entirely explain in what way.
I'm big on the idea that you shouldn't judge critics by what movies they like, but of course there's a sense of kinship sneaking in for me as he heaps praise on Tashlin, Ray, Welles. He's good on stuff he doesn't like, too, at least when he deigns it with a full review - much more common is the random sideswipe, so we are given to think that, say, Pagnol is worthless without much explanation why. He's surprisingly enthusiastic about Vadim early on; respectful but distanced from Antonioni; considers Visconti a metteur en scene as opposed to an auteur and I have no idea why. Worst is the Mizoguchi essay, where he casually mentions that film festival audiences split themselves into Kurosawa fans and Mizoguchi fans and then quotes some dude who is like "it's a stupid debate, Mizoguchi is way better!". I prefer Kurosawa, but what annoys here more is the implication that Japan gets to have one (1) auteur and we have to decide which one.
The final section of the book is from when he's directing, and consists of interviews as well as some letters and speeches. I was surprised by how open Godard is about his process, no attempts to appear mysterious, no lecturing the interviewer on not having understood. It's like, after all those years reporting back what's onscreen, he now can't wait to tell about how it comes about - quite endearing!
It cuts off before the estrangement from Truffaut and so the prickly Godard who turns on his friends is in no evidence - Truffaut, Chabrol, Varda, Demy, Resnais all come in for unqualified praise.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 10 June 2024 10:40 (five days ago) link
> what annoys here more is the implication that Japan gets to have one (1) auteur and we have to decide which one
i thought the lack of japanese films in the list posted above was a bit odd (although maybe the list is incomplete)
― koogs, Monday, 10 June 2024 11:14 (five days ago) link
FWIW, the Japanese section of Truffaut's The Films In My Life is pretty thin too (I think it was even omitted in some editions).
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 10 June 2024 12:41 (five days ago) link
See, I read that and my knee-jerk reaction is that I wish there were still Mizoguchi fans squaring off against the Kurosawa army in any tangible sense
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Monday, 10 June 2024 13:21 (five days ago) link
Mizoguchi is oft canonized and criterionized still.
I don't begrudge Godard or Truffaut not knowing a lot of Japanese cinema - I'm sure it was pretty difficult to see stuff beyond Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa - it's accepting the framing of "well here's two directors from Japan, we must face them off against each other" that I find questionable.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 10 June 2024 13:41 (five days ago) link
xpost Hear hear! Team Mizoguchi all the way.
― completely suited to the horny decadence (Capitaine Jay Vee), Monday, 10 June 2024 13:42 (five days ago) link
xpostTo be slightly fair to Godard and Truffaut, it was pretty difficult to see most Japanese films outside of Japan until well into the 1960s (the first international Ozu retrospective, for example, didn't take place until 1963). Kurosawa was always something of an exception.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 10 June 2024 13:45 (five days ago) link
If the S&S polls teach us anything is that once more films become available in the first place the stuff that was there before is seen in a different way.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 10 June 2024 13:53 (five days ago) link