Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

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?

I believe one of the books on Godard suggests that most of the English-language films shown by Langlois were unsubtitled, leading the critics-to-be to focus on mise-en-scene rather than dialogue.

The abbreviated English subtitles in Film Socialisme were actually quite informative, giving the sense of the French dialogue/voice-over. The words go by too fast in latter-day Godard films, I can only make "poetic sense" of them in the moment even if the subtitles are precise translations.

Godard spoke in English at his 1996 TIFF press conference for Forever Mozart, only relying on a translator once or twice, although some of the questions were in French. I remember him discussing one of his earlier films, asking, "You have this word in English, 'catastophe'"?

"clearly not that happy about it"

i mean it was colin mccabe lol

who was tbf a perfectly charming and friendly boss when i worked at the bfi but i don't rate his work explicating godard and i doubt godard does either

think i said all this at greater length upthread

The MacCabe biography spent a lot of time switching focus to wider conceptual and historical topics; Richard Brody's book was more conventional, though he is certainly not ignorant of the wider context of Godard's work.

This clip is probably well known, but just saw it linked to on Facebook - Godard on the Dick Cavett show, speaking pretty good English and generally being quite accommodating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aBogJonJ1E

Yeah that was good.

"The audience don't go to see framing?"

"But the viewer receives a film through that"

glad i watched through to the end, to hear him talk about how great he expects The Day the Clown Cried is going to be when it finally gets made

"booster kitten"

Pauline Kael wrote about this interview in her review of Sauve Qui Peut.

The disjunction between the first third of Hail Mary and the rest is stark enough to wonder if I watched two different movies or wasn't paying attention.

I found it mostly a wash, with some adolescent peeping at private parts.

I think of it as the start of the latter-day "spiritual" Godard, less world-weary than Passion and Carmen.

⚫ Jean-Luc Godard est mort https://t.co/gDLynUc7Ta pic.twitter.com/LQ5DXWPgap

— Libération (@libe) September 13, 2022

https://www.thecinetourist.net/uploads/7/0/9/9/7099213/1966b-made-in-usa_orig.png

rip jlg

https://live.staticflickr.com/3532/3184470110_13928069f9_b.jpg

I mean not really but sort of. RIP.

Au revoir, Jean-Luc.

RIP to the GOAT

God damn, RIP sir

ah shit, the real greatest, OK RIP for a bit but get yourself reincarnated if it turns out that's an option, then keep moving, keep causing trouble, shit on the bores, make another confusing and marvellous pile of things. There's a fight on and there always has been and you've always known it.

A master. One of the last great ones. He kept at it, breaking conventions and exploring, up til old age. I hope he passed away serenely at his mixing desk. Infinite thanks for helping shape the way I see and embrace films.

this also effectively means RIP Nouvelle Vague right?

pic.twitter.com/f4Omf7oOPv

— Peter Webber (@PeterWebber) September 13, 2022

straub of straub-huillet is still with us tho he hasn't made a film for a few years now

also luc moullet and philippe garrel, but with the best will in the world…

Lots of Letterboxd kids recommend Vivre Sa Vie; what do ILX make of that one?

One of my absolute favs of his early films.