Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

the long argument scene in the middle of contempt is one of my favorite godard moments. it so accurately captures the dynamics of a relationship falling apart

eh. it's a good scene, but it seemed a little stagey to me. and since i really didn't care about either of them as characters or archetypes or whatever godard conceived them as, i mostly just wanted to be let out of the room.

(i felt that way about the latter half of l'avventura too, fwiw. a lot of that '60s "candor" about "how relationships really are" hasn't aged very well, imo.)

I saw it just a couple of years ago and it resonated

http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/une-femme-mariee/

Macha Méril! aka Traunitz from Fassbinder's Chinese Roulette!

omg omg omg Traunitz! gwee!

I mostly find Contempt a beautiful bore.

otm.

yeah, but 'mostly', because it's simultaneously really entertaining and satisfying; geeking on fritz lang bigging up M, enjoying the technicolor etc. it's like watching radio days and sitting through mediocre woody allen for the few good jokes. i think the beautiful thing about the sixties godards is that the stars aligned for a few of them and everything was in place to make them great, deep, rounded films, but the rest are almost like a travelogue or a diary, where he'd voice whatever interested him, throw it in like a magpie and just stir it around. this is BEST when some philosophy is voiced by jean seberg or by a passer by in bandé a part, but it's still absorbing even if it's in something sketchy (almost literally sketchy) like 2 or 3 things.

Macha Méril! aka Traunitz from Fassbinder's Chinese Roulette!

omg omg omg Traunitz! gwee

Always loved the venomous letter Truffaut sent to Godard after his scorching attack to La nuit américaine.
Best bit: "Il y a encore à Paris assez de jeunes gens fortunés, complexés d’avoir eu leur première voiture à dix-huit ans, qui seront heureux de se dédouaner en disant : “je produis le prochain Godard".

Ouch!

I liked it when Truffaut calls him the "Ursula Andress of the protest movement" (or something like that).

Yeah, one of the few occasions the usually quiet Truffaut really flew off the handle.

My problem with Le Mépris is that Brigitte Bardot is terrible in it, would have been a hundred times better with Anna Karina.

it's stunt casting on a meta level

the only thing I remember not liking about contempt was bardot's denouement. it plays like sour grapes from godard. "I will have my revenge! things will end terribly for you in my motion picture!"

now I'm thinking about what a completely different film contempt would be with anna karina in it... karina is awesome in general but bardot's bombshell cinema goddess really works in context of the movie.

rewatched Pierrot last nigh. God, Anna Karina...

Does ILM accept Dailymotion links?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xo15z_a-bout-de-souffle_shortfilms

guess not :-(

i think bardot is right for 'contempt'; it is an incredibly meta movie and she was the face of the new wave*

*kind of. i think back then (1963) vadim wasn't seen as a completely different breed from the cahiers lot, of whom rohmer and rivette were very obscure anyway.

She wasn't so much the face of the New Wave as she was (in the eyes of the public at large) the face of all French cinema at that time. Deneuve was just starting to make a name for herself, and I guess an argument could be made for Jeanne Moreau, but really now, BB was one of the most famous women in the world in the early 60s.

yeah, if you watch some of the extras on the contempt criterion disc you can get a sense of the media circus bardot brought with her to the production... like if some indie filmmaker cast beyonce as the lead in his new movie

Yeah, that Paparazzi one is nuts. Photographers hanging off the cliffs on the island set trying to score pictures.

yea that's pretty much what i mean.

"the new wave" was a huge thing from 1956 cos of her and vadim. the first book in english on the subject covers ~50 directors.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/images/covers/200905.jpg

(this looks good)

http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/2656/512_box_348x490.jpg

In April

all this fiftieth anniversary ish for breathless is sheer myth, no disrespect for the film

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/movies/23scott.html

Mr. Godard’s film quickly took its place among those touchstones of modern art that signified a decisive break with what came before

no

don't remember 'hiroshima mon amour' or 'l'aventurra' or 'la dolce vita' getting this kind of hyperbole

hmm? It's been spoken about like this for as long as I can remember (the late '70s)

don't remember 'hiroshima mon amour' or 'l'aventurra' or 'la dolce vita' getting this kind of hyperbole

― long time listener, first time balla (history mayne),

don't remember you alive in 1960.

Less a "decisive break" and more a "successful one," though I guess two of those other three movies you mentioned didn't do too badly at B.O. either.

Breathless has always seemed, to me, a sort of porridge-just-right situation in terms of its reputation against other landmarks of the era.

don't remember you alive in 1960.

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:49 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

a. o. scott wasn't around in 1960 either

i do a lil thing called "research"... anyway, i don't think "breathless" was a big decisive break, less so than "HMA" by a long shot. of the four films, i think "la dolce vita" was probably the biggest commercial success -- not a "decisive break" (formally) either, but a huge deal in terms of increasing the art film's visibility.

anyone seen Film Socialisme?

Mr. Godard’s film quickly took its place among those touchstones of modern art that signified a decisive break with what came before

no

don't remember 'hiroshima mon amour' or 'l'aventurra' or 'la dolce vita' getting this kind of hyperbole

that's because breathless *is* different from those three, which are film extensions of 20th century high art ennui. breathless was the marriage of low and high art, concerned with stuff like gangster films, youth culture, rebellion, bringing the kineticism of b movies to the art house. so I def see it as a break and something that influenced folks like scorsese in a big way, but also agree it hasn't aged as well as some of godard's other 60s films.

breathless is different from those three, but not more important or better

i wouldn't bat 'em away by saying they're about ennui: they are sincere responses to the human condition/life in post-war europe/__________

i don't see where the high art is in breathless: it's in french? they have pretentious convos?

resnais was a huge and vocal comic books guy, l'aventurra is kind of working with a 'lady vanishes' plot line, and la dolce vita is all *about* the alleged breakdown in cultural standards... but these are all secondary concerns

i don't like the high culture/low culture idea you're using anyway: a good gangster movie is only 'low art' if you buy into that bipolar view of culture in the first place. go back to the 1920s and the highbrows were greeting popular genres because they abolished the bigh/low split.

it's inarguably "a decisive break with what came before" It wasn't called the new wave for nothing. The reverence which it's afforded is a different matter (and I don't think it's much elevated critically from your choices in the wider scheme of things), but the original nature of the film is difficult to counter.

Watched Slow Motion again recently, having not seen it for years. That's a strange but hypnotic piece of work.

fellini was a comic bk guy too, THE WHITE SHEIK is even abt fumetti (photo comic strips)

still think BREATHLESS *feels* different to L'AVENTURRA and LA DOLCE VITA (and most other films of the period), and that's partly to do w/ the improvised feel, the naturalistic lighting and performances, and of course the jump cut. godard of course wasn't the first to use the latter, but i really can't think of a filmmaker who had made it so central to their technique before. Wld love to hear (and see) counter-examples.

It wasn't called the new wave for nothing.

yeah but JLG wasn't even the most famous new waver -- came after truffaut and chabrol (and resnais though of course he wasn't a cahiers guy)

i think 'new wave' was even applied to vadim -- it was just a quasi-sociological term to do with 'liberated' postwar french youth [via bardot, trintignant, et al] that got applied to the cinema c. 1958–9

there were pretty good critics (like raymond borde) who were having none of it

xpost

i think the feel of 'shadows' is not dissimilar to 'breathless'... the overuse of the jump cut is basically a result of godard not knowing what he was doing, yes? can't remember where it's documented, but fritz lang gave him a stern talking-to and tried to teach him the basics later. of course it's fine to use jump cuts for a reason, but i think antonioni and resnais were manipulating form in a way way more interesting way.

you cld say that godard's ignorance of basic film technique meant that he wasn't held back by the dogma of the 'well made film' and therefore was more likely to do something new, different (tho' it's surprising to me that someone who'd been such a student of movies the previous ten years or more didn't pick up more classical film grammar). i'm also guessing that raoul coutard *did* know the basics, and took charge of the technical side of things on goard's first few features (there've certainly been plenty of other film directors who have leaned heavily on their dps and editors.) i'm always struck by the fact that fellini and (especially) antonioni had been making movies, working in or around the film industry, for quite a while before they had their big breakthrough hit - i don't know the history well enough, but it seems as if the french film industry was a much more of a closed shop than the Italian film industry.

i don't know enough about that. i think there was some crisis in the french cinema that led to lots of cheap first features being commissioned, and that the international breakthrough of 'and god created woman' encouraged.

the question of breakthroughs has to relate to the wider picture of art-house distribution... get the feeling this ramped up in the 1950s, especially in america. no single film or filmmaker is responsible for that, but there is a kind of temperature-change about 1960 (for convenience's sake). i don't think antonioni's debut was even shown in the UK for example.

breathless is different from those three, but not more important or better

yeah, I didn't say that, neither did that NYT quote. punk rock existed before never mind the bollocks but it's hard to argue it wasn't a landmark cultural detonation for a lot of folks.

the overuse of the jump cut is basically a result of godard not knowing what he was doing, yes? can't remember where it's documented, but fritz lang gave him a stern talking-to and tried to teach him the basics later. of course it's fine to use jump cuts for a reason, but i think antonioni and resnais were manipulating form in a way way more interesting way.

the idea of lang talking sternly to him is, if I can extend the punk rock metaphor here, like elvis giving johnny rotten singing tips. there was a method in the madness. I've said this before, maybe not in this thread, but godard made 10 films between 1960 and 1965, and at least 5 of them (your pick) are some of the best films ever made. a lucky naif with a movie camera can make a great film but godard's track record belies he was something more than that.

(btw I have watched the lang/godard interviews, godard was totally in awe of the guy but it's evident there's a gap in where their respective heads were at)

and at least 5 of them (your pick) are some of the best films ever made

lol

tbrr i just don't think the extreme reverence for the new wave is a good thing

i like a o scott, but there are some really bad offenders out there

obviously it's fine paying tribute to good things that are old, but spare me yr "touchstones of modern art"

5 YEARS

Pierrot le fou (1965)
Alphaville (1965)
Une femme mariée (1964)
Band of outsiders (1964)
Contempt (1963)
Les carabiniers (1963)
Le petit soldat (1963)
Vivre sa vie (1962)
Une femme est une femme (1961)
Breathless (1960)

if you don't like godard I guess it doesn't mean a hill of beans but I'm always gonna find that run as staggering as eno's first 4 albums

and he kept going, too. 15 in 7 years. gah.

Week End (1967)
La chinoise (1967)
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
Made in U.S.A. (1966)
Masculin féminin (1966)

i like contempt a lot although anytime it gets referred to as "subversive" i cringe but yeah i dont get godard most of those movies are unbearably corny to me. week end in particular is just str8 shameful

i like em better than brian eno's first four albums, but not as much as a whole bunch of other stuff

lot of them have some really memorable images, but they're also often really dumm, and have patches of boring stuff, are badly constructed, or whatever

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

Pretty much OTM there - apart from the Eno bit

part of my appreciation of godard is driven by looking at his 60s work as a whole, pieces of an enterprise or approach. you can pick any one of these films in isolation and push them around for their deficits and weaknesses, but godard was landing more punches then he was missing on the whole imo.

breathless is not my favorite godard but it lays out the ground rules he'd work from during the 60s. watching breathless is more of forensic activity for me, hearing faint sounds that would become bigger echoes in contempt, band of outsiders, and pierrot le fou. in a way, band of outsiders is breathless remade by a godard who was much more in control of his materials.

and yeah I finally read that whole NYT article, it does get a little cloying with the hosannas.

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.

i think the worst thing about all the contemporary godard adulaish is his being misunderstood as a profound/original thinker

haha yeah the idea that just having your characters talk about hölderlin makes a movie "intellectually challenging" or w/e is kinda :/ and a lot of his "critiques" feel like point missing/obfuscation

it'd be ok if they talked about all this cultural art hotness in a way i understood, but i don't, and more to the point, i don't think godard does either. i did actually read a blog post recently that said he was clearly very erudite because of all the references/allusions he makes, but that isn't quite right. it doesn't work that way.

i've also seen it said that the cahiers writers all felt like outcasts because they weren't university graduatess and french cultural life is very snobbish and exclusive, and that maybe they overcompensated a lil bit by being deliberately obscure. i find other intellectual filmmakers -- like resnais -- comparatively lucid anyway.

i 'get' the 60s ones, and even the dziga-vertov movies to a degree, but 'eloge de l'amour', the 80s movies, not so much