Introduce me to Jean Luc Godard!

After Breathless I'd suggest Masculin Feminin.

One thing you'll notice going the chronological route is that Godard was constantly revisiting themes through the 60s, resulting in practically each early film having a later companion piece (ie Breathless--> Peirrot Le Fou, Le Petit Soldat-->Alphaville & Peirrot, My Life To Live-->Masculin Feminin)

Bonus points for having an amazing soundtrack (I doubt Chantal Goya's tracks from the film are available on CD). Check out the Rialto Pictures trailer (www.rialtopictures.com) - unrepresentative of the film itself but with one of Goya's songs.

Based on Band of Outsiders and the one recent Godard film I've seen I'd say this guy is a tiresome asshole. Is there a film that could convince me otherwise?

A Woman Is A Woman maybe? Or Masculin Feminin Both chatty but charming. Judging from you're "tiresome asshole" comment, you should avoid the newer stuff (by that I mean post-, oh say, '67 or so) like the plague.

Embrace his assholish tiresomeness and take in Weekend.

Weekend or Sympathy for the Devil

Pierrot Le Fou, A Woman Is A Woman seconded. Anna Karina's face in full colour is incentive enough for me to watch any amount of tiresom assmilinery.

the new Criterion of 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her has nice supps and the film is a bit more intellectually uncertain AND heartfelt(?) than the Maoist stuff that followed hard upon.

swap out "uncertain" for "inquisitive"

I think Contempt is the only Godard I've really enjoyed but I haven't seen much. I've seen Breathless a couple times and I don't think it's anything great. Maybe for its time, but not now.

Breathless is possibly my favorite movie and is only really challenged by Band of Outsiders.

the absurdist political stuff like Weekend and Sympathy for the Devil, and Alphaville are the Godard films I really like. His films like Band of Outsiders - I think are just okay, and the latter stuff that's more heavy on the agitprop aren't as interesting.

I really really really wanted to like Alphaville but it just didn't do it for me for some reason. Then again I watched a b- print of a torrent on my computer monitor vs. all the other Godards I've seen on screen or in Criterion prints. idk

I didn't like Alphaville as much as I wanted to.

I just came back from a screening of Week End and liked it better than the first time around. forgot about the fish thing, and actually much of the sex in general.

interestingly enough I watched Pierrot le fou yesterday, which was also quite good - I may even like it better than Week End.

That's coz it's great. Like, really great.

Alphaville is (if you're sarahel, look away now!) one of the 10 best movies I've ever seen. Please watch it.

I said I really liked it, just not as much as I wanted to/thought I would. I probably should watch it again.

i've forgotten the fish thing. is it related to the rape scene?

christ, im working on a thing about haneke. art-house audiences really, really hate themselves, don't they?

Sarah, I also meant the whole 'one of the best 10/20' thing I have going which you keep calling me on :P

oh yeah! ha! thanks for reminding me?

rape scene = the passing hitchhiker going down into the ditch? the fish scene happens near the end, with the cannibals, and I just kept on thinking that somewhere, there's probably a woman who makes her boyfriend wear a trout mask replica when he's going down on her.

the one line that stuck with me w/r/t all the shocking! in your face! deviance! was the line that went something like "we need new horrors to erase/overcome the horrors of living as bourgeoisie" - JLG anticipating 40 years of pop culture

or just anticipating Haneke.

I was skimming a book on JLG and it reminded me how nutty his role in King Lear is.

"Are you making a play for my daughter"?

I've been rescreening (at a slow pace) Godard's classic era films in reverse order. Pierrot is next in line. I wasn't so hot on Weekend the first time around, but man o man I just love it now. Kinda like a more misanthropic version of one of Bunuel's late 60s-early 70s ensemble films. I've long enjoyed that interview w/Raoul Coutard on the Weekend dvd where he admits that most of the outrageous stuff in the film was put there to piss off the producers, whose relationship w/Godard soured during preproduction. "What a rotten film. All we meet are crazy people."

I've also warmed up to Made In The USA, although it's more Karina's triumph than JLG's. La chinoise is a nice artifact, plus Juliet Berto:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3012/2292272375_43700b2ced.jpg

I saw Made in USA recently and it is kinda uneven; it really strikes me as a very transitional film

Berto has a nice scene in 2 or 3 Things

IIRC, that was her first movie.

I watched a couple of Godard movies over the week - "Passion" from 1982 which I enjoyed despite some baffling choices on his part (sound out of sync and other wilful weirdness). I finally got around to seeing "Band Of Outsiders" which I really liked too. It has an odd mix of hopeful adolescent energy and good ol French fatalism/despair to it.

(sound out of sync and other wilful weirdness)

Normal for JLG.

I will finally catch Goodbye to Language this weekend.