The use of sound in The Image Book is totally lost at home w/o a surround sound system--I saw it 3 times in a small theater and in the last 40 minutes he completely expands the stereo field, iirc most of the first half of the movie is essentially mono or simple stereo. By the end, there's different shit coming out of every speaker.
Didn't like Goodbye to Language but I watched at home w/o 3D glasses
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:33 (four years ago) link
He's always had a knack for memorable sound effects, too. I've been tempted to steal the gunshot sound from Masculin Feminin and the one from Ici et Ailleurs (which is featured in The Image Book).
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:34 (four years ago) link
Nouvelle Vague his most accomplished of the recent ones imo and no way in hell will I waste my time streaming/DVD-ing those films again. A heater with a sharp sound system, I'd recommend, if you can get it.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:36 (four years ago) link
er I meant Notre Musique.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:37 (four years ago) link
alph when was the nft jlg season?
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 April 2020 bookmarkflaglink
It was about three years ago, maybe a bit more than that.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:40 (four years ago) link
Never watched it but I used to listen to the soundtrack to nouvelle vague quite a lot (xpost to ecm thread!)
― Microbes oft teem (wins), Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:40 (four years ago) link
That's a great musique concrete work in and of itself. Sorta.
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:42 (four years ago) link
Notre Musique just sailed by me, just like Helas Pour Moi.Desperately seeking JLG/JLG, Nouvelle Vague, and Germany Year 90 Nine Zero...
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 8 April 2020 20:57 (four years ago) link
I remember Helas Pour Moi having really amazing theater sound.
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 April 2020 21:33 (four years ago) link
I remember bumping into your mate, xyzzz, at a screening of The Wind From the East!
I was at this screening too!
Dumb movie tbh, what surprised me about La Chinoise was that I'd seen it dismissed as JLG going full maoist and humourless but it's not that at all, much of it is a satire of student politics and he's questioning himself all the way through. This one felt like what ppl accuse La Chionise of being, just a hectoring polemic by a dude who's pretty bad at politics. So much yelling at the Soviet Union for wanting to avoid nuclear war, he's like a maoist version of a UK reporter harassing Corbyn about Trident. Glauber Rocha wasted, too.
mark s's original shitposter theory is seductive but I think by this point JLG was taking himself far more seriously than any twitter dirtbag, and not in the troll-y way that his more recent persona has
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:05 (four years ago) link
A lot of what you say is 100% otm, but Glauber Rocha singing Gal Costa is good not bad.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:10 (four years ago) link
i think he briefly took himself super-seriously yes, but everyone did for a season or two then, it was a terrible time (for mainly external reasons tbf to radical youth): the issue is how quickly he re-emerged to be funny abt it. and i don't think it lasted very long before his underlying quickness of multiple contradictory response got him quite sly abt late 60s ultra-political earnestness
(not least bcz A: french maoists were the WORST so B: some of JLG's self-seriousness was almost certainly protective rhetoric adopted after harangues at self-crit sessions -- can you justify your work!!?? -- and of course C: he had already in his pre-pol phase noted that "youth" as a sacred characteristic leads to terrible outcomes which are combination tragic and hilarious)
― mark s, Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:14 (four years ago) link
your Debord comment upthread made me chuckle cos when i was watching Image Book recently i kept thinking of parallels to the movie of Society of the Spectacle
― a slobbering sombrero moment (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:17 (four years ago) link
tbf the 60s in france was like a bad ilx thread, locked by the mods* after 204857309847510938 posts
*de gaulle
― mark s, Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:31 (four years ago) link
That could be a double-bill xp
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:33 (four years ago) link
surely it has already been one
― mark s, Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:38 (four years ago) link
I have a soft spot for Sympathy for the Devil, the weird Rolling Stones doc that kinda becomes a meditation on how to find a new path forward. The film sequences not about Rolling Stones are kinda abysmal, but also sorta touching in the way they are grasping for something new but just never finds anything. Especially when a group of Black Panthers shows up, after the death of Martin Luther King. It does take it to a different level. And it is lucky for Godard that the Rolling Stones ends up finding a very new and brilliant sound, even if Godard ended up struggling for basically twenty years after that.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 9 April 2020 10:53 (four years ago) link
Here and Elsewhere and Numero Deux sure was the look of a struggling artist.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 9 April 2020 11:02 (four years ago) link
"I've been tempted to steal the gunshot sound from Masculin Feminin"
haha i actually used this for a video project when i was in college
― circa1916, Thursday, 9 April 2020 13:20 (four years ago) link
I also remember liking Notre Musique but I'm damned if I can remember a thing about it now. True for most Godard movies from the last 30 years. (Goodbye To Language's split 3D shot aside.)
― Vegemite Is My Grrl (Eric H.), Thursday, 9 April 2020 15:37 (four years ago) link
might fuck around and rewatch a godard or two on amazon prime later
― mark s, Thursday, 9 April 2020 15:40 (four years ago) link
idk I don't go to a Godard film to remember stuff about it after. He's mostly dabbling at coherence.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 9 April 2020 15:56 (four years ago) link
Yeah the pleasure is mainly in the moment, at least as far back as Weekend
― a slobbering sombrero moment (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 9 April 2020 16:04 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3FP_zV4BqQ
Auto translate for English is... manageable
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 05:38 (four years ago) link
Full interview with subtitles now up:
https://vimeo.com/411300705
― the grateful dead can dance (anagram), Monday, 27 April 2020 13:57 (four years ago) link
Discovered via last night's Mrs. America (also used in Killing Eve, evidently--I must not have noticed).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ntMc2Fbq4
― clemenza, Saturday, 16 May 2020 20:51 (four years ago) link
^^From a TV Musical written by and costarring Serge Gainsbourg!
― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 16 May 2020 21:24 (four years ago) link
...and Marianne Faithfull does a Serge tune and it’s all wonderful.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Saturday, 16 May 2020 23:03 (four years ago) link
I'm amazed at the brevity of this Wikipedia entry for what I consider a major film.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tout_Va_Bien
Watched it again last night and enjoyed it more than ever.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 9 July 2020 08:34 (three years ago) link
I agree pinefox, a major film - things like that long tracking shot through the supermarket seem incredibly 'modern' in terms of slow cinema technique, used in service of an 'outdated' Maoist discourse. Combined with the fact the Godard films of this era are now easy to see in lovingly restored archival editions - so they look freshly shot even while showing us the recent past - the effect is pleasingly disconnecting and disconcerting, true dialectic achieved.
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 9 July 2020 08:41 (three years ago) link
yes, a major film, and the supermarket scene is spectacular (and in more than one sense)
― budo jeru, Thursday, 9 July 2020 10:48 (three years ago) link
Definitely the best of his ultra radical period, everything else he did with Gorin approaches unwatchable. Letter to Jane would be fine if the first 35 minutes were cut.
― flappy bird, Thursday, 9 July 2020 19:14 (three years ago) link
I think I prefer ici et ailleurs
― Temporary Erogenous Zone (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 9 July 2020 19:18 (three years ago) link
Me too, I forgot about that one w/r/t Gorin because it was released so many years after their split. Ici et Ailleurs is imo the best thing he made in the 1970s.
Numero Deux is okay
― flappy bird, Thursday, 9 July 2020 19:38 (three years ago) link
My impression was that TOUT VA BIEN was considered the 'return' to something (commercial cinema?) *after* the ultra-radical period.
(I have always thought that only with JLG could this film be considered a return to the mainstream rather than a wild departure from it.)
But I haven't seen the ultra-radical films except, when I was 16, LE GAI SAVOIR.
Still haven't seen LETTRE A JANE, ICI ET AILLEURS, let alone BRITISH SOUNDS or even the Stones picture. Should I?
― the pinefox, Friday, 10 July 2020 07:35 (three years ago) link
Feels like since about 1967, p much every new Godard is claimed (by someone or other) to be a return to the mainstream/narrative cinema etc. SLOW MOTION is the one that I thought was especially promoted as 'Godard's back' (when in fact, with all the video effects, it's one of his more 'experimental' films despite a certain narrative coherence).
FWIW, I don't think the difference between TOUT VA BIEN and BRITISH SOUNDS is all that much and if you appreciated the former you would also find things to appreciate in the other Dziga Vertov Group films. This box set from Arrow is exemplary:
https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/jean-luc-godard-jean-pierre-gorin-five-films-1968-1971-dual-format/FCD1511
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 10 July 2020 08:05 (three years ago) link
I have difficulty remembering them tbh but they're definitely worth watching.
― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Friday, 10 July 2020 10:04 (three years ago) link
"Feels like since about 1967, p much every new Godard is claimed (by someone or other) to be a return to the mainstream/narrative cinema etc"
Really? I think it's pretty much standard to dismiss everything post-weekend up to 1980 as somehow transitional/something to be ashamed of. Then yes you get films that seem to look back to the new wave years. Except he actually would still be making the essay films he was developing in the 70s (which is what he was actually doing) alongside broken narratives with actors.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 10 July 2020 10:17 (three years ago) link
Ward: yes, I just saw the existence of that box set yesterday. Now keen to get it some time!
― the pinefox, Friday, 10 July 2020 11:03 (three years ago) link
I find WEEKEND much less satisying than TOUT VA BIEN, fwiw, even in 'conventional narrative terms' or whatever - or almost any terms.
On reflection I think WEEKEND remains probably my least favourite Godard apart from the astoundingly bad FILM SOCIALISME.
― the pinefox, Friday, 10 July 2020 11:04 (three years ago) link
i like numero deux but the pinefox will definitely hate it lol
― mark s, Friday, 10 July 2020 12:03 (three years ago) link
WEEKEND is my favorite and it’s not even a close contest.
― Get the point? Good, let's dance with nunchaku. (Eric H.), Friday, 10 July 2020 16:21 (three years ago) link
It's top 3 for me.
But I agree film socialisme is terrible.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 10 July 2020 16:26 (three years ago) link
I have 2 image book posters
― flappy bird, Sunday, 12 July 2020 05:57 (three years ago) link
i dig Film Socialisme, you counterrevolutionary hacks.
Watched A Married Woman yesterday, which i vastly prefer to Contempt. It has no stars, but an OB-GYN detailing the difference between pleasure and love.
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 12 July 2020 12:02 (three years ago) link
btw the actor playing that OB-GYN was so unaffected and raw I figured he might be a nonacting doctor. Half right: he was Godard's regular camera operator at the time.
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 12 July 2020 14:19 (three years ago) link
Le Gai Savoir is often tedious, but its black-box central set reminded me of Head.
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Monday, 20 July 2020 22:03 (three years ago) link
No, yes.
― Sonny Shamrock (Tom D.), Monday, 20 July 2020 22:06 (three years ago) link
For real? I have to watch Head now.
― flappy bird, Monday, 20 July 2020 22:56 (three years ago) link
Happy Birthday! 90 today.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 3 December 2020 20:11 (three years ago) link