Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

That could be a double-bill xp

surely it has already been one

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.

Here and Elsewhere and Numero Deux sure was the look of a struggling artist.

"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

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.)

might fuck around and rewatch a godard or two on amazon prime later

idk I don't go to a Godard film to remember stuff about it after. He's mostly dabbling at coherence.

Yeah the pleasure is mainly in the moment, at least as far back as Weekend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3FP_zV4BqQ

Auto translate for English is... manageable

Full interview with subtitles now up:

https://vimeo.com/411300705

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

^^From a TV Musical written by and costarring Serge Gainsbourg!

...and Marianne Faithfull does a Serge tune and it’s all wonderful.

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.

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shot through the supermarket seem incredibly 'modern' in terms of slow cinema technique, used in service of an 'outdated' Maoist discourse.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.

yes, a major film, and the supermarket scene is spectacular (and in more than one sense)

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.

I think I prefer ici et ailleurs

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

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?

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

I have difficulty remembering them tbh but they're definitely worth watching.

"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.

Ward: yes, I just saw the existence of that box set yesterday. Now keen to get it some time!

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.

i like numero deux but the pinefox will definitely hate it lol

WEEKEND is my favorite and it’s not even a close contest.

It's top 3 for me.

But I agree film socialisme is terrible.

I have 2 image book posters

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.

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.

Le Gai Savoir is often tedious, but its black-box central set reminded me of Head.

No, yes.

For real? I have to watch Head now.

Happy Birthday! 90 today.

HBD JLG

This Lillian Ross bit on him from 1965 is entertaining in that Lillian Ross way: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1965/10/09/godard-est-godard

Congratulations to big birthday boy Jean-Luc Godard for outliving American cinema

— Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (@vishnevetsky) December 3, 2020

I just tried to watch Pierrot Le Fou last night, could see where sub titles matched French for a while I thought but then seemed to lose conection around the point where Jean paul belmondo picks up the young woman from the flat and gets into the car. So I'm wondering if the dialogue does totally disconnect from relaistic or if I have a set of subtitles for a different cut. Did almost seem like subtitles were about a minute out on dialogue. I thought the Sam Fuller bit was about in sync though.
So yeah wondering if there is a different cut that adds in about 30 seconds of something. I think they're walking around at a party talking in disconnected ad speak or something but that could also be down to me having sub titles for the wrong edition.
& subtitles seemed to start surprisingly late. Only began after the opening scene though what they were for was not directly connected to teh action anyway.
I mean avant garde nouvelle vague directors you'd think they'd strive for realism wouldn't you?

I wound up turning off pretty early because it seemed to be the wrong set so wondering if that is just a standing thing. I think my Frecnh is generally good enough to connect what is said to the subtitles, as in I will recognise what is being translated as what even if my French wouldn't be fluent enough to speak it without having something to read it from.

The party scene is indeed all disconnected ad speak. Whether the rest "makes sense" is up to debate I guess but I do think you'd notice a connection to what is onscreen.

Realism never a particular concern for Godard tho and def not in Pierrot.

I haven't checked the subtitles on my CanalPlus Blu-Ray of Pierrot Le Fou (bought for £3 in the Shaftesbury Avenue Fopp a few years ago) - time for a rewatch. But I get the impression that Godard, rather like Jean-Marie Straub, regards English language subtitles as something of a capitulation to American cultural hegemony. In UK cinemas, the print of the relatively recent Film Socialisme came with 'Navajo subtitles' which were at best an approximation of the French language audio and often seemingly a counter-argument to what was being enunciated on screen. And iirc there are marked differences between the French language dialogue and the English language subtitles for Slow Motion too - because Charles Bukowski was involved with the 'translation'? I think that's the movie alluded to in Bukowski's Hollywood, which includes an enigmatic film director called 'Jean-Luc Modard'.

Text has always been v much a part of Godard's aesthetic and I guess subtitles fall within that as a filmic component that can be manipulated, deconstructed, critiqued etc.

The one time I saw Godard in person, at the National Film Theatre in London, he was speaking in English to Colin MacCabe and clearly not that happy about it (his English didn't seem especially good, but that might well have been deliberate non-communication on JLG's part).

I don't think Godard has much control over how his 60's work gets released? Pretty sure if he did these films would all only be available in 3D dubbed into vietnamese or something.

I always wondered whether, back in the old days when Henri Langlois was screening American films at the Cinémathèque Francais, those films were subtitled or dubbed or neither

I think the subtitles may just be running a bit behind teh film. & the bit where tehre are no subtitles at the start is down to taht. Should be in time with taht cos I think that's the drag so something like 30 seconds or something out. Which is a pain and makes it difficult to watch, Just tried it with another set of subtitles and will now probably find out taht was the same as the ones I started with.
Hope i can find a correct set. Not sure how one would go around synching them.

well just found out how you sync things . Mus have been lucky with previous subititles and they staye din sync even if they came from elsewhere. Now just spent an age trying to sync things for La Grande Vadrouille after giving up on this only to find taht the set of subtitles seems to not be in sync with itself. Went out of sync by the next scene.
I thought they ran automatically at the same speed and duration as the film. Yeah must have just been lucky before since they did seem to be in synch.

Bummer.

"But I get the impression that Godard, rather like Jean-Marie Straub, regards English language subtitles as something of a capitulation to American cultural hegemony."

Makes sense, beyond subtitles ppl like Strain have a taste for play with the telling, which includes a species of fast-forward narration (my favourite example is 'Not reconciled').

lol so why do Straub films still play in festivals in Portugal w/ english subtitles, money where yr mouth is

My impression is of an unstable product.

And here Straub's films don't get that much of a play. I've only seen their Bach film at the bfi (because music?) and no wider retro though MUBI did a good job, to their credit.

a solid 25% (probably more) of The Image Book is not subtitled, maybe it's an old habit?