Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

but stevie, it brings to an end the identifiably european culture that began with dante!

is that a colin mccabe quote?

yes

it's kind of funnie because for eliot, on whom maccabe is supposed to be an authority, that homogenous, one european culture that began with dante was ended by the english civil war/british civil wars, or by the forces that caused it/them; anyway, that's what he's alluding to, i suppose

sensibility keeps on getting more dissociated every gd year

saw big col trying to int jlg onstage at the nft abt 10 years ago, prob the most excruiating encounter between admirer and object of devotion i've ever witnessed

godard seems to bring that out in people. the new yorker's richard brody interviewed him back then and apparently it was insanely awkward -- afterwards, they ended up in the same restaurant, but pointedly jlg and amm both ignored brodybro. who went on to write a very long biography of godard.

very long and very fawning, i should say: he got very upset when people used bits from it (you can guess to what prejudice they pertained) to attack godard

yeah, this was like 20 min arselicking question from CM taking in dante, eliot, cambridge structuralism, dagenham motors, maoism and what not followed by monosyllabic grunt from JLG

bukowski writes of a v funny (if incredibly self-serving) encounter w 'jean-luc modard' in his 'novel' Hollywood (iirc, Buk wrote the English subtitles for 'Slow Motion'... cld be misremembering...)

wonder if jean-luc and woody did a joint bday party, when they were doing 'lear'

godard seems to enjoy being a rude twat

following lacan's edict of 'leave them wanting more'

By the way (following up on the birthday greeting above), has anybody ever seen Letter to Mickey, where Godard and and his friend Jean-Pierre Gorin spend an hour deconstructing a still from Steamboat Willie? Fantastic.

was this after Letter to Jane?

Battle of the dry wits: I'm joking, but I'm not sure if you're joking or not. (This is like that slacker in the Simpsons "Homerpalooza" episode: "Oh, he's good." "Are you being ironic?" "Man, I don't even know anymore...")

i saw some quote on tumblr recently from a filmmaker but i cant remember who, thought maybe it was godard, about how its the rich who want art to seem special & extraordinary, but we should work to make art everyday. it may not have been his. anyone know what im talking about?

http://www.carvalho-bernau.com/jlg/

showing at the museum of fine arts in boston this week as part of a huppert retrospective

Every Man for Himself (Sauve qui peut (la vie) by Jean-Luc Godard (France, 1980, 89 min.). Employed by a television company, Paul is newly separated from his wife Denise. Isabelle (Huppert), a country girl, comes to the city to make a living as a prostitute. The three characters meet, talk, argue, have sex, and separate. A favorite Godard film among many scholars and critics, Every Man for Himself is a crucial and classic work of modern cinema. “So rich, dense, and subtle in imagery that I saw it twice…The film attacked me in what seemed to be a total way” (Gerald Peary, The Boston Phoenix). In French with English subtitles

The film attacked me in what seemed to be a total way

gerald peary assaulted by foreign film

just saw Every Man for Himself for the first time since '81. Liked it but was not assaulted.

West End Cinema in DC is doing Breathless, Contempt & "Made in the USA" which has apparently never screened in the US til now? Saw Breathless (again) Saturday, gonna try to see Made in the USA this week.

p sure it has played in the US, but maybe only on the college film society circuit, or at nyff?

yeah i misread somewhere, apparently it was just 'not widely shown' in the us

i think a lot of his films never got a 'real' release, especially in the 1970s, but it's funny with 'made in usa' coz whatever else you might say about it, it has anna k at her most beuatiful... and also marianne faithfull, who i guess was marketable at the time too

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3461/3234442774_a9277a1247.jpg

think it's one of his best because -- i suppose my memory could be fucking with me but -- jlg himself kind of stays out of it

Parts of Made In USA are great

the restored print of breathless is rad btw

did they fill in the jump cuts?

or cut down that one really long scene?

tempted to get the restored blu-ray JLG box set for xmas

smash: AK
discard: JLG

i cannot be the first to suggest...

Made in USA has some good scenes, and is attractive to look at, but is kinda silly.

they're *all* kind of silly

at least 'made in usa' is attractive to look at

made in usa is supposedly based on a richard stark novel (a gd one, too) but almost no trace of it remains in the godard film - it's a bit like fennesz 'covering' paint it black, nobody wld ever spot the source material unless they were told

i've nvr read any maupassant but idk if his stories are discernible in 'masculin-feminin'... or 'stagecoach'

Because neither Godard nor the producer paid the book's adaptation rights and following legal action by Westlake, the film was long unavailable in the United States. The film had its U.S. premiere on April 1, 2009 (three months after Westlake's death)

blimey. apparently it did play nyff in '67, but otherwise nup.

Same point as above: I thought Made in USA was totally beautiful--that Marianne Faithfull still conveys the look of the film well--but quite silly.

I saw Made in USA maybe a dozen years ago at NYC's Anthology Film Archives (a nonprofit where I've also seen Haynes' Superstar).

Maupassant is great! U should read him

i know :(

Made in USA has had a few runs at Film Forum in the past couple years too.

pretty sure it screened recently at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive

so Film Socialisme opens in NY in 2 weeks... same 'Navajo' subtitles?

an annotation of FS (will read before/after imminent second viewing):

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/film-socialisme-annotated-20110607

w/ enhanced subtitles, apparently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5tWwNmw8xk&feature=share

FInished Brody's book. Very interesting. A little reductive, perhaps, and he really runs with a few narrative threads, but that's fine and it was enjoyable.

i don't know why it took me forever to finish it, because i thought it was mostly very entertaining/interesting, and (mostly) even-handed (doesn't let him off the hook for the failure of the d-v stuff) despite brody's obvious fanboyism. but man it took me forever to finish it.

It took me a while because I had the silly idea of trying to watch as many of the available films as possible before I got to the chapter. I finally gave up on that and just barrelled through the rest. I honestly don't know who much Karina really took over so much of that early work, but it made for a good story.

haha yeah i mean i always knew he was a cock but he comes off as the world's most obnoxious erudite manchild in the karina part of the story.

I think he gets worse in the 80s and unbelievably crepey with Berengere Allaux.

This guy rips the book - and Brody - to shreds.

hmmmmmmmm

ok, the line 'when i hear the word culture i reach for my chequebook': where is it from? when?

godard didn't come up with it.