Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

i paid a lot of money to see the d-v films

but here are some of them, apparently

http://www.ubu.com/film/dziga_vertov.html

That's money, uh, not well spent

contempt - subversive, yeah I don't get that. playfully irreverent and satirical is more like it.

i think the worst thing about all the contemporary godard adulaish is his being misunderstood as a profound/original thinker. he's a very muddled thinker and a pretentious so-and-so to boot. politically he's all over the place, but somehow he gets a free pass/is taken to be a leftist

agree with this. godard's politics are the least interesting thing about him. he's a super intelligent guy and he did a lot of original + memorable work, but he's not as deep as he thinks he is. you throw some lines of sartre at ppl and some are gonna be like "wow, deep thinker!"

godard's value for me is as an aesthetic trickster. he's brilliant but take him seriously at yr own risk. but y'know I wouldn't trust bob dylan with my personal effects either.

The roughest going for me Godard-wise was having to sit through godawful Jefferson Airplane trying to recreate the "Let It Be" rooftop jam in "One P.M" - though I'll guess most of that is DA Pennebaker's doing.
Anyway - I think he's brilliant. Far from a "pretentious so-and-so" (what's that, exactly?)
Here's a good recent interview.And I can't recommend "Histoires du Cinema" (sp?) highly enough as a hallmark of DIY video filmmaking. Great shit.

Godard is into quoting a lot of sources he hasn't understood or cares to understand/engage with to draw something out of (having started to watch them when I had already read/listened/experienced some of the sources not first seeing them through a G film as a 16 year old) but I always pictured that he was using it on the moment, and if it did the job on the day...he is probably one of the few I picture as somehow 'living' as a filmmaker on a set, on a day-to-day basis. I see a real struggle for inspiration: sometimes coming through, sometimes not.

It lead to a lot of boringness that you could pick apart retrospectively but as a whole its a rollercoaster rush at the cinema. Really unique without the preciousness that implies.

Hate all the films I've seen post-68. Look forward to watching the "Histoire" docs one day.

I really have no patience for Godard except for Breathless, Contempt, and bits of Masculin-Feminin. Criterion did us a favor by releasing those films in beautiful prints though.

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Donnerstag, 27. Mai 2010 18:19 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

have you seen "vivre sa vie"? it's probably the most devastating film i've ever seen.

Pierrot le fou (1965)
Alphaville (1965)

These are two of my very favourite movies. I haven't seen any of his other work. I don't think. Maybe I should.

Didn't Ophuls have a hand in kickstarting the New Wave? La Ronde really is one of my top movies too; it's a total headspin, and has that impish sense of modernist New Wave fun to it as well. Feels a lot more modern/timeless/whatever than it actually is, and the cinematography is sorta level-up at points, especially in that opening scene

watch any of these next

Band of outsiders (1964)
Contempt (1963)
Vivre sa vie (1962)
Une femme est une femme (1961)

Godard's political confusion is a big part of why I like him, to be honest - I think his movies are pretty upfront about not having any answers, or even a medidated grasp on what the problem is. Which works well with their breakneck pace, they're these ADD pieces where pop culture, love, politics, everyday shit all gets jumbled and played around with. Which jives well with a certain (perhaps excessively fetishized, I grant you) vision of the 60's, it's all about big, colourful chaos. Not a good life model or anything but as an aesthetic I enjoy it.

ah cool, Ed III

Daniel Rf, that sounds pretty on the mark. Alphaville is perhaps more pointedly political of the two I've seen but even it has many ambiguities - it works best AS a piece of cerebrally-playful science fiction. PLF is such a blast of escapism it manages to get away with having two perfect endings, one after the other

godard's best films are this run, i think: sauve qui peut (la vie) / passion / prénom carmen / je vous salue, marie / détective / king lear / nouvelle vague / allemagne année 90 neuf zéro / hélas pour moi. somewhere in there is soigne ta droite which isn't up to the same level. but to make up for that there are several short films i love: grandeur et décadance d'un petite commerce de cinéma, soft and hand, armide (from aria), puissance de la parole.

passion-->détective, in particular, are films i watch all the time. they are just ravishing. and i know this will sound weird, but they are all "catchy" in the way a pop song is "catchy"--they stick in my brain. sequences from them run in my mind all the time. more than in almost any other films.

that's not to say i don't love many of the other films from other periods. my favorites from the '60s are probably vivre sa vie and la chinoise. the latter is very, very funny.

i also really like the television essays (?) he made just prior to his so-called comeback: six fois deux, sur et sous la communication and especially france/tour/détour/deux/enfants. the latter might actually resemble political lucidity in a weird way. i don't generally turn to godard for his politics, though, which are quite capricious. i'm not sure has has much to "say" in that respect. read recent quote, someone responding to brouhaha over new film: "he's a poet who thinks he's a philosopher." that seems close to apt. but a lot of people don't seem ready or willing to even find the poetry in his films of the last 30 years.

for some reason i went to see hélas pour moi with my mom who is not a big cinephile and she was like WTF. have you guys seen (or rather heard) that one? the weird croaking voice, man. let's see if i can find that. no, i can't.

but i have to admit i kind of like this mashup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvRen4eiPQ4

in fact, fuck it, i'm going to watch je vous salue, marie right now. might be my favorite film.

and here's the opening to nouvelle vague:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6_K2NXLyFs&feature=related

just LISTEN to that.

by the way it really sucks now that when i type in "nouvelle vague" into any kind of search, i get stuff from some shitty british band or whatever.

oh fuck, never mind that last clip, it's got some russian guy speaking on top of the french dialogue. try this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h80izhcPfPM

Saw The Old Place for the first time tonight, which I rather liked, bcz for one think I didnt know there was a jazz version of the Rosemary's Baby lullaby.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183595/

It played w/ JLG/JLG, which is pretty much the only thing of his I'm passionate about post-1970.

I remember the sound of Hélas pour Moi being astonishing. What it all meant I wasn't clear on.

hmmm, a post 1970- JLG poll could be quite interesting

curious fact: 'le mepris' (1963) had not been released in the UK as of september 1967

life imitating art:

Worst traffic jam ever? Gridlock spans 60 miles

He's getting an honorary Academy Award this year. They trotted out Satyajit Ray and Elia Kazan when they were on death's doorstep, so maybe this means he's sick. In any event, I hope it's part of the televised ceremony, and I hope he attends. It will be very moving to see him get a standing ovation from Miley Cyrus.

...as she mouths "who???" to the person seated to her right.

Le Mepris is great, everything else I've seen has been mostly a bore.

lol at the thought of the compendium of clips

No clips; Billy Crystal will do a lighthearted song-and-dance reenactment of everyone's favorite scenes from Weekend, La Chinoise, and Letter to Jane.

Have they found him yet?

Somehow missed this news.

He's not coming, and good for him.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/jean-luc-godard-to-be-an-oscar-no-show/story-e6frg8n6-1225915014578

he should send polanski

i would think more "good for him" if this wasn't the reason:

"He just told me, 'It's not the Oscars,' " she says, referring to his reaction on learning about the award. "At first he thought it was going to be part of the same ceremony, then he realised it was a separate thing in November."

At a time when a movie like Crash can win best picture I don't know why anyone gives a shit.

Ugh, that was worded badly.

I think that article probably overstates the non-televised thing as being a factor. I doubt he'd have shown up anyway, and that was just another reason to skip it.

Well, maybe not that article, but a different one I read that used the same quote. Definitely bed time.

At a time when a movie like Crash can win best picture I don't know why anyone gives a shit.

― optimizing the emotional effects of Redneck Hoe by Insane Clown Posse (corey), Tuesday, September 7, 2010 5:54 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah im sure jlg wishes it were the 50s, when classics like 'around the world in 80 days' took best picture

all gone downhill since then

wait Jackie Chan's 80?

JLG is meant to be a know-nothing misanthrope, I think it's part of the charm

i would think more "good for him" if this wasn't the reason

It's a perfectly good reason, just as it was insulting to have Bacall and Corman wave from the audience last March while the telecast spent 15 minutes on a tribute to John fucking Hughes.

either he's dissing the academy awards for being shallow/worthless/idiotic, or he wants more screen time. u can't have it both ways.

If he was so shrewd, he'd film himself in his limo getting stuck in the traffic jam on the way to the Academy Awards.

can't believe they snubbed the great auteur corman while paying tribute to john hughes

loooool

mayne swinging for zing thread

swingin' for a zingin'

Corman >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hughes

^^always hoped the day wld come that i cld agree w morbs abt something, and this is that happy day! even if you discount all the fucking great movies corman directed, no other producer can claim to have given so many notable young directors their first proper break in the biz (coppola, hellman, towne, dante, scorsese, demme etc etc)

if u discount the movies u have no argument whatsoever! he gave ppl starts, yay!

better to say like french critics that his films were "desperate cries from the heart of a grotesque fastfood culture", a phrase i like to pass off as my own while applying it to whatever the current topic is.

Sixteen Candles vs The Masque of the Red Death

is Chic-Fil-A shedding tears?

k, having been to Atlanta last month I know what Chick-Fil-A is, but huh?

"desperate cries from the heart of a grotesque fastfood culture"

A dispatch from the grotesque fast food culture.

One opened on campus a few weeks ago – still haven't tried it.