Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

The Image Book - is there a better last film?

Rewatching the first two parts of Histoire(s) du Cinéma today was like having a mental orgasm

Watched Alphaville for the millionth time because I watched Vivre Sa Vie every other day last summer, those are my favorite of the 60-67 run

So much amazing work from Breathless to The Image Book, a living legend who refused to become a relic and never did

Fassbinder was Godard's only heir. No one succeeded him. Who could possibly succeed Jean-Luc Godard now?

But I can't be that depressed, it isn't tragic. The man ended his final film with the words: "and even if nothing would be as we had hoped / it would change nothing of our hopes / they would remain a necessary utopia." He lived a beautiful life. He had the flower of his dreams. He was that man. And he invited us in, always.

I think Cecil Taylor is a much closer match to Godard, just based on the fact that both of them were game changers in their respective fields, and neither of them ever compromised their art by working with U2.

Reading the write-ups it's quite something to see how people like Chabrol, Truffaut, Rohmer were very much assimilated into the rest of the industry.* And how JLG resisted that and went on to do other things. He took the politics of his time, and even maybe some of those critiques from Situationists and went into something else. That's what most journalistic write-ups will struggle with.

* Rivette was inventive in a singular way, so you can see something very different in his films.

i was thinking about Weekend as a response to that Situ piece last night

there's the quote from Story of the Eye at the beginning of the movie that seems more than coincidental

In Emilie Bickerton's excellent A Short History of Cahiers du Cinéma, it's Rivette who comes across of the most 'left' of all the Cahiers mob, which was something of a surprise to me, just based on the films.

Godard was a right winger to start off with - as was Truffaut - but mostly in an epater les bourgeois way.

Yes Truffaut apparently regularly excised the more 'provocative' elements in Jean-Marie Straub's contributions to CDC.

cahiers wasn't considered a left journal compared to the left bank film ppl (marker, varda, etc)

in the mid-60s this got decisively complicated: the students were agitating after 65, the french left split into factions pro and con the student revolt, the pcf was increasingly (correctly) considered the reactionary and not-with-it wing and individual film-makers tended to make politico-cultural alliances per their skillset and pre-existing focus

from 67-ish godard was a channer with quasi-left characteristics (the greatest ever to do it)

i was thinking about Weekend as a response to that Situ piece last night

― seo layer (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 14 September 2022 bookmarkflaglink

That's probably the one to really re-watch, where his film career is kinda collapsing but he's finding other things in the wreck.

As far as musical equivalents: Charlie Parker. Kind of came out of nowhere, didn't really spend too much time emulating his forebears but instead decided to tear merde up on his own terms. Influenced generations afterwards if not technically then conceptually( yeah, I said the "I" word).

also the soviets and the chinese were no longer buddies, which enabled a lot of symbolic side-taking and vanguardist jostling, very little of it connected to actual real-world politics imo

Rohmer was meant to be the most conservative of the nouvelle vague. Rivette deposed him at Cahiers because of this, although Rohmer still appeared, as an expert on Balzac!, in Out One some years later.

seems like there's a big tension here between conservative = which candidate you vote for vs conservative = pays attention to the art of the past, cares about it, curates it, takes lessons from it but doesn't (necessarily) imitate it

is "let's do balzac properly" a conservative or a radical impulse? godard sent a lot of time in film archives!

this is what king lear is about (especially the rubber dinosaurs)

another fave

"Fassbinder was Godard's only heir. No one succeeded him. Who could possibly succeed Jean-Luc Godard now?"

I think Akerman succeeded him. Also with a more consistently great filmography but there isn't a lot in it.

can't remember which Cahiers writer it was or if i'm conflating a bunch of things but "stagey tableaux of scenes from Balzac is bad cinema/bad Balzac" was an early NV manifesto point iirc

Influence or inspiration (or just cheap quotation)?

None of the above surely - Baumbach I'm sure digs Godard but the point of that scene is the character being unable to relate to his own life in any way that isn't the cultural reference points he's based his self-esteem on; a Kevin Smith whose obsessions happen to be highbrow cinema and literature instead of comic books.

Reading the write-ups it's quite something to see how people like Chabrol, Truffaut, Rohmer were very much assimilated into the rest of the industry.

Don't know if this was so much about Godard "resisting" as it was about the filmmakers you cite being quite compatible with mainstream cinema from the get-go. Tirez Sur Le Pianiste aside (which always felt like Truffaut doing Godard to me) the late 50's/early 60's stuff I've seen by Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer is always quite narratively conventional in ways that Godard never was, even from the get-go. Not disputing that it must have seemed quite radical at its time, but as far as wanting a story with beginning, middle and end those three usually take care of that.

Rohmer was meant to be the most conservative of the nouvelle vague.

He was but in a quirky Rohmeresque way.

in general cahiers was very pro mainstream cinema! tho it was also re-orienting what the actual mainstream actually was

auteur theory isn't a leftist analysis (or better say: yes there's a leftist version -- film troupes as collectives -- but our entire habit of declaring a film the act and consequence of a single director, which is largely their bequest, but nearly no one except for a brief moment in the late 60s and early 70s pursued the collective projects with any great political energy

it just struck me also that all the nonsense about "influence" and heirs/successors is part and parcel of the more reactionary reading of auteur theory lol: it tidies film-making into a hugely simplified and handily singleton-aggrandising structure which is quite false

did godard try to overthrow this structure? now and then maybe, much of the time probably not (as a shorthand it also benefits archivists and getting stuff funded benefits from personal branding as well as promoting it)

"their bequest" ie the bequest to the critical world of cahier-think

benefits archivists = who do we file the work under? the director

in general cahiers was very pro mainstream cinema! tho it was also re-orienting what the actual mainstream actually was

Mainstream American cinema sure, mainstream French cinema tho? Bit skeptical of that claim.

it just struck me also that all the nonsense about "influence" and heirs/successors is part and parcel of the more reactionary reading of auteur theory lol: it tidies film-making into a hugely simplified and handily singleton-aggrandising structure which is quite false

Influence is frequently used within the context of genres, countries and industries - "the influence of spaghetti westerns on Japanese samurai cinema" and such - that largely bypasses any auteurist claims I'd say.

did godard try to overthrow this structure? now and then maybe, much of the time probably not (as a shorthand it also benefits archivists and getting stuff funded benefits from personal branding as well as promoting it)

Of possible interest in this context:

"I find it useless to keep offering the public the 'auteur'" -- Jean-Luc Godard pic.twitter.com/XxatiRhzMj

— biblioklept (@biblioklept) September 13, 2022

"Don't know if this was so much about Godard "resisting" as it was about the filmmakers you cite being quite compatible with mainstream cinema from the get-go."

All of them had an "American cinema" (or Hitch) thing with a twist. I haven't seen Breathless in a long time but I didn't feel it was more unconventional than Truffaut.

JLG went further and further away from them but he was still picking on an American pulp genre and attempting that twist up to "Made in USA"?

And then he had periods with no kind of normal film career.

They were all huge US cinema geeks yeah but I think Godard was more blatant in wanting to add that twist you mention - even with A Bout De Suffle the jump cuts and digressive conversations, as well as the use of music make it harder to approach than Truffaut imo, tho yeah it's the most accessible Godard for sure. With the others the twist was as much about cultural context and sensibilities I think.

Influence is frequently used within the context of genres, countries and industries - "the influence of spaghetti westerns on Japanese samurai cinema"

never to say anything concrete or consequential tho (bcz it always just smooshes wildly different elements together and enforces generalisations that require you to overlook differences and also reasons) -- it's a pretend and a mystical machinery which we invoke when want not to think abt how making a film (or a whatever) works

it's just an extremely bad dumb word, stop using it: work out what you actually mean and say that instead! use good writing instead of bad writing!

it just struck me also that all the nonsense about "influence" and heirs/successors is part and parcel of the more reactionary reading of auteur theory lol: it tidies film-making into a hugely simplified and handily singleton-aggrandising structure which is quite false

You're taking this word, influence, something that clearly exists--I believe famous books have been written about how troublesome it can be for people who create art--and trying to minimize it or write it out of existence because it offends your sensibilities.

You know, I contributed to A Hidden Landscape, and you're giving me a hard time here. I want my money back.

I wish you luck in influencing writers not to use it in their work going forward.

xpost

i've read those books! harold bloom makes it an agon -- a problem, a fight, a fear -- as a way to dig into interesting and concrete detail of how poems connect to each other!

his map of the connectivities he favours is super-weird mind you

sorry clemenza, i don't mean to give you a hard time (and thank you for yr contribution) -- i like that you're explaining godard to ppl who never heard of him and hunting for better ways to do it. mainly when ppl use this word i am trying to say "ok what do you mean by it" and yes i then get a little goad-y and impatient when all i get is swerving and "shut up! everyone knows what it is! i will never be concrete!"

reynolds played the "haha good luck influencing ppl" on me on twitter a while back which i took this up with him: the word he was actually looking for was "persuading" of course but smooshing ever is the order of the day in this conversation

seems like there's a big tension here between conservative = which candidate you vote for vs conservative = pays attention to the art of the past, cares about it, curates it, takes lessons from it but doesn't (necessarily) imitate it

Truffaut adapting Henry James, Rohmer calling a film series "Six Moral Tales." Bogdanovich a (slight) stateside example.

(xpost) We're not that far apart here. It's just an entry point, and yes, you then go on to figure out how those influences were transformed and made new. Seeing Godard as just a checklist of Ford and Ray and Renoir, etc., wouldn't be very interesting or illuminating.

Schrader on Godard. pic.twitter.com/I1ldtpSgFO

— The Film Stage 📽 (@TheFilmStage) September 14, 2022

Show business is snow business.

Benning on Godard pic.twitter.com/9YiJkuWoSC

— Diego Cepeda (@untrenoculto) September 13, 2022

I heard the same thing about his scripts elsewhere.

Which films should I watch and in what order to find about Godard as a director? Under consideration: Weekend, Vivre sa vie, Pierrot le fou, La Chinoise, ...

The middle two there are probably as good as anything as introductions, from what I've seen. Masculin, feminin and Breathless up there too.

If you watch Weekend first, you may jump out the window after the Bronte sequence.

By all means watch it, but maybe fourth after PLF, Breathless, Masculin, Vivre sa vie, and Band of Outsiders.

(guess my math was wrong lol)

I've seen Breathless but should probably watch it again. Are there any American or French films I should watch before or after Breathless? Please disregard this question if irrelevant. Was Elevator to the Gallows influenced by Breathless? (sorry mark s) Will watch others suggested ...

if you watch la chinoise first think of it as an affectionate but alsoquite sardonic portrait of the very extremely on-line

except these people wear such pretty clothes

Elevator To The Gallows came a year or two before Breathless.

Yes, I was just fact checking and about to report.

The photos for La Chinoise make me think of APC.

i was a huge fan of une femme est une femme in college, the musical without music aspect of it made it click much more immediately than breathless, though maybe i'd find the gender politics abhorrent now

i saw weekend probably earlier than i should've too but it's a staggering experience so i loved it. made in usa the only early godard that was too obtuse for me, i should rewatch it tho

nobody's mentioned alphaville, so i will.

As someone who didn't connect for years, I'd recommend starting with Band of Outsiders, Masculin Feminin, and Vivre sa vie. They're all very accessible. I'd save the later work for later.

Yes, I should rewatch Alphaville and consider his comment about black and white on that Dick Cavett interview. I vaguely remember a fan and a disembodied voice. Did the French write science fiction? The English seem to have written a lot.