Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

I dunno. I think early Hollywood moguls Jewish identity has been a pretty big part in studying the era, although maybe I'm channeling An Empire of their Own vibes.

Maybe what we're really learning here is that a treatise on class is fine but a treatise on ethnic groups is off-limits.

jesus christ gukbe, no one is saying pointing out that early moguls are jewish is anti-semitic in and of itself

and sorry morbs, i didnt realize being old was a valid excuse for being a racist

and honestly, if you really have anything to say yourself, i'm still waiting for it. your argument, as usual, is basically "i like or dislike this thing and if you disagree with me you're an idiot." i guess you really don't go much deeper than that huh

There's a certain amount of accepting that that's how old people are, and if he's being honest about the holocaust thing that I'd expect that would play a big role in being fascinated by the group as The Other.

How is everybody reading the "Are Jews for Diversity? For Commerce." thing?

he said "the jews" made a deal with the mafia and we need to "look into it." for fuck's sake

How is everybody reading the "Are Jews for Diversity? For Commerce." thing?

― Gukbe, Tuesday, November 16, 2010 8:34 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark

the same as the rest of this bullshit

I have no idea if JLG is anti-Jew. I don't particularly care, anymore than the kids who stuck their tongues up Public Enemy's racist homophobic fat asses cared about that.

slocks, you make it sound like he's asking for an investigation when he's just trying to back-up why saying that Jews had involvement with the Mafia is not anti-semitic lies.

but how in particular are you reading the diversity/commerce thing?

do u not recognize that a jew, and a film lover, and a GODARD lover such as myself, might be upset by him saying this shit?

sorry, i didn't mean racist, i meant ANTI-SEMITIC [sic]

xp

I don't really care if JLG is anti-semitic or not, btw. Same way I don't care that Heidegger was a nazi.

Great artists are mostly fucking self-absorbed assholes. Deal.

To be totally transparent, Morbs, I DO find homophobia in classic hip-hop problematic. In not-classic hip-hop, it's merely convenient.

I don't really care if JLG is anti-semitic or not, btw. Same way I don't care that Heidegger was a nazi.
--Gukbe

i care abt this wrt heidegger than the othets but for reasons i disagree w/ in theory

I don't really care if JLG is anti-semitic or not, btw. Same way I don't care that Heidegger was a nazi.

― Gukbe, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 1:37 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu275/leonardo_ARG/seinfeld.gif

Go review some fucking FOOD.

^^^ meme potential?

jews being 'for commerce' -- idk, how complex is this, really? in the new film someone apparently explains how 'goldberg' means 'gold mountain'. european conservatives, and sympathizers like eliot, often associated jews with commerce, usury, greed, which threatened to disrupt the 'stable' 'homogenous' pre-capitalist society they wanted back [via nazism].

this meme's relevance to the foundation of hollywood is slight. the founders of a massive business enterprise were pro-commerce? woooow.

that "for commerce" quote is the most incriminating imo

Dunno, thought he meant that everyone is looking in the same direction, which is commerce.

Even so, it's hardly shocking, controversial, or new to say that the Hollywood moguls were interested mostly in commerce as opposed to, say, art, or diversity etc... They quite famously clamped down on director's who went over-budget or made difficult films (Von Stroheim, Wellman in the early days, more and more etc etc) that didn't sell or that they didn't think would sell to the audience.

I've not seen Film Socialisme, so I'm only going on that interview. While it is annoying and yes, art-smart crap in places, I don't think it's particularly anti-semitic. Especially when the point in the end there seems to be that if you say anything like "Hollywood Jews were interested in money" then you get called anti-semitic?

I do however understand that it's a sensitive topic, and if he is painting Hollywood Jews as obsessed with money because they're Jews, then I see that as a problem.

no, when you say "THE JEWS" stand for commerce or made a deal with the mafia or whatever, that's anti-semitic. classic, old school, fuckin' ugly and venal anti-semitism.

i really cannot tell if you are trolling tbh

but the question is referring to the Hollywood Jews (i.e. the moguls). to start off a question with that reference to his film and then quickly asking a question about 'all jews' is definitely straight up trolling on the part of the interviewer.

This area gets murky though.

xp you're right s1ocki, but on that point it might also be worth figuring out in which language the interview was done, how it was translated etc etc. I'm not trying to bail JLG out at any cost but the subtleties of definite/indefinite articles sometimes get lost in translation.

when i have a mo im gonna scare up the french interview and report back

paying attention to interviews is a bad habit of music fans/writers. If it's not in the work, it doesn't matter.

I don't like Godard's answer on the etymology of "anti-Semitism" either, but at this point I get the feeling his only goal in interviews is to fuck w/ the questioner.

don't you post links to interviews all the time?

i mean i kind of agree but i'm not using his comments to judge "film socialisme"

it is simply a case of somebody saying some hateful shit and me having an emotional reaction to it, sorry i'm not some detached aesthete robot

Again, I've not seen the film, so it could be violently anti-semitic and I'd have no idea. Not trolling btw, I asked for a specific interpretation of the diversity/commerce line last night. I get the impression I'm totally misunderstanding what he meant by 'diversity'.

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/kultur/aktuell/ich_werde_nicht_gern_mit_picasso_verglichen__er_malte_zu_viele_teller_1.8293071.html

^ original interview. unfortunately in german not french.

don't you post links to interviews all the time?

yeah, sure. I read stuff that doesn't matter a lot. (ie, in the end, it doesn't matter to judging the art if it's extrinsic)

I detest Mel Gibson and am sort of intrigued to see this Jodie Foster film he stars in.

that movie looks so bad, like the most generic "lars and the real girl" indie dramedy

What's your stake in this, Morbs? Godard has pretty much always been indefensible as a human being.

Morbs is saying that most artists are indefensible as a human being.

*human beings

I don't really see how that cliche is germane here since no one is really using this against his work.

great. more jaded received wisdom.

xp

I don't have a stake here. It's obvious to me Godard is a muddled thinker at best and at worst a, yes, anti-Semite.

*an

not sure if "an" is necessary there, that is an interesting conundrum

But how is he as a filmmaker?

the last Godard I liked a little was Notre Musique.

http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/kultur/aktuell/ich_werde_nicht_gern_mit_picasso_verglichen__er_malte_zu_viele_teller_1.8293071.html

^ original interview. unfortunately in german not french.

― google street jew (s1ocki), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:20 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

this reads pretty much the same in german as it does in english, so I don't think the perceived anti-semitism is a translation to english issue.

I'm guessing the original interview was done in french (unless JLG speaks fluent german, I have no idea really), so maybe there was some mistranslation there.

There's a well-known quote from Godard where he says that, as much as he despised John Wayne politically, the moment near the end of The Searchers where Wayne lifts up Natalie Wood and says "Let's go home, Debbie" made him love Wayne. Seems like you're having more or less the same discussion on Godard himself.

The other day someone said to me, upon realizing that I was Jewish, "oh you've got nothing to worry about then, you'll do fine HERE" HERE being Hollywood I suppose. It was not Godard, just some woman I was talking to at the AFI festival.

And I'm about to graduate - how do I get my resume to be more "Jewish"?