Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

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Heh. His writing has been pretty crazy since he started making movies. His movies are still charming!

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Sunday, 10 July 2005 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link

i haven't found his last few very charming.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 10 July 2005 18:51 (eighteen years ago) link

i like when he talks abt tennis

― 007 (thoia), Sunday, 10 July 2005 19:18 (eighteen years ago) link

I love Contempt. Breathless was fine, but not outstanding.

That Vigo box set looks impressive. They need to release that here in the States -- the only Vigo available is the excellent L'Atalante.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: that obscure object of desire. (Eastern Mantra), Sunday, 10 July 2005 19:22 (eighteen years ago) link

m/f i like but read about french politics in the 60s first and you may find it less impressive.

― n_RQ, Sunday, 10 July 2005 20:09 (eighteen years ago) link

That Vigo box set looks impressive. They need to release that here in the States -- the only Vigo available is the excellent L'Atalante.

There's a great Vigo retrospective at BAM right now. They're showing (or have showed) his three plus If..., Before the Revolution, the doc abt the '68 Columbia takeover and a few other things.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Sunday, 10 July 2005 20:18 (eighteen years ago) link

xp i like that it, masculin fem is poppy, the girl eating her apple, all the fidgeting isnt there more to take issue w with his women than his politics, then? i find him pretty wise, now. what are you referring to tho? general juvenalia, adolescence? vietnam shit

ooh bam! ive been hoping to see vigos docs, sighing for america

― 007 (thoia), Sunday, 10 July 2005 20:25 (eighteen years ago) link

also i totally buy into his connections btw history, narrative, fascism, representation but of course aspect ratios are science fiction

― 007 (thoia), Sunday, 10 July 2005 20:34 (eighteen years ago) link

I saw Masculin/Feminin when it came through, and I still don't know what to think. I loved most of it, the complete lack of standard visual storytelling, youthful romance told with a perspective almost absent from cinema, but the political title cards and occasional step-outs didn't add anything to the film or say much themselves. The 'interview with a consumer product' was almost offensive (and tells me that spending any time with Godard would probably drive one to punch him in the nose repeatedly).

I'll give Grouchy Old Man Godard credit for being completely OTM about Michael Moore's uselessness and F9/11 backfiring.

― milo, Monday, 11 July 2005 04:13 (eighteen years ago) link

his aspect-ratios thing btw was a short essay accompanied by several images, the same image in fact, albeit cropped to different ratios. these were accompanied by godard's handwriting which suggested--sort of--the philosophical/poetic differences caused by the varying aspect ratios. after scrutinizing the images for some time (and spending an equal amount of time trying to make out godard's messy handwriting--thanks editor dudes! god forbid you could *type* out what the Master wrote) i decided that any such differences were entirely in godard's head.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 05:01 (eighteen years ago) link

i am also made uneasy by godard's casual references--unceasing in interviews--to "the americans" and "the jews." in one recent interview, given to the NYT i think, godard was extremely rude to the reporter and made some comment about how she couldn't fully grasp his film because there was very complex math in it (whatever math he related was not only simplistic but dubious) and americans weren't very good at math.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 05:03 (eighteen years ago) link

godard is (and has always been) guilty of the sort of naïve formalism that felicity called out on the "male gaze" thread--i.e. collapsing cinematic style into all kinds of broader phenomena, and assuming some kind of metaphysical/rhetorical equivalence between the two. he can also be very insightful, and very observant, but one needs to have a BS detector activated whenever he's talking politics.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 05:06 (eighteen years ago) link

a cpl weeks ago if my memorys ok after the bean beam i desided ms md of the nyt deserved it cuz she reviewed smthng like mr mrs smith v snobbily but ama if, again, i recall u were the one on the gaze thread to sugg laura ws not being pre or proscriptive, but smthng else? it cld involve a gd deal of generosity and disbelief but i uh regard godards formalism? as v personal to him, his moral or ethical filmmaking as kind of gilding his omelettes w her, useful at breakfast and one of a kind in fact. xp haha almost offensive. title cards ad smthng obviously. also to be serious ama i cant believe you characterize godard as nevermore neverless naif. i think hes changed! so do you right, on film, detective? also ama is there a thread you cn link where you explain how movies have nothing to do with life? that it is apples and oranges? im still on some teenage analogy shit so im v confused. also u invented this math thing yourself?

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 05:37 (eighteen years ago) link

what?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 05:40 (eighteen years ago) link

i dont want to peddle but now i remember a maths thing, smthng like multiplication came, as a concept, before division or vice versa, jean being sexy, asserting out of rolles, the translator pinching the phone w his shoulderpads, wondering if hes sweating, paradoid

xp um, gimme a sec

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 05:46 (eighteen years ago) link

are you trife? and did you send me an email?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 05:52 (eighteen years ago) link

one i obfuscated abt the ny times interviewer, who is bad alas, bc i cldnt think how to spell her name, its like magnolia, but w more rs. i think you made up the math thing but its v he sd she sd at this pt. otherwise i think its possible to view godards kinda ostensibly gaudy quote politcs as just away, a way of understanding his own life, its path, to and for him. the stubburn him. and then also like i sd im really sympathetic to eg godard linking the holocaust to i guess narratology. or capitalism. ive never heard that sort of thing refuted but it seems that you cld, cld you? beside calling out sophistry and cloudy prose i mean

i didnt send you mail. i admire trife i suppose! he likes mandy moore! tmw ill read like addl rob lowell letters and work out a more nore east style

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:01 (eighteen years ago) link

also that, i didnt send you mail, looks like im disgusted? sorry! you know alot! im only perplexed by your godard reservations, wherever they escape the like litany? bc you know alot abt him too i see

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:13 (eighteen years ago) link

oh i like godard well enough i just enjoy making fun of him, because his pronouncements are taken so seriously... but more in france than here maybe?

i'm sorry but i can't quite parse the tone or meaning of your posts so i'm not sure how to respond.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:18 (eighteen years ago) link

i dont think his pronouncements are taken seriously at all! but ive never spent as it were time in france. for specificity in winter i did a writeup of how fred wisemans neiman marcus doc, called like store, is, if knowingly, if a priori, so much like shoah. i mean i believe theres such a thing as academics and rosenbaum taking godard seriously but in my exp theyve never seen the rarer films, haha, like this ws dutch painting, and no one else is bringing this kind of hybrid moral aesthete imperitive to film? but im young, i hope. but forget that, i take godard cuz i cn legit say he embraced tv and hes not here to look down his nose at it. oh dear, quite

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:34 (eighteen years ago) link

dutch painting or truffles!

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:35 (eighteen years ago) link

are you louis menand?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:41 (eighteen years ago) link

haha! im 22, all i mean physically is that i take certain of godards pronouncements serious, namely that narrative is dangerous, particularly when talking history, a kind of supremacist move, even inevitable, not that he or anyone wd endorse such a paraphrase! and im curious abt the dissent, a dissent im not skeptical abt! also drunk, yes

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:50 (eighteen years ago) link

haha i can sorta see this exchange taking place in a godard film!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 11 July 2005 06:57 (eighteen years ago) link

narrative is dangerous, particularly when talking history

so much more dangerous than advocating maoist revolution!

― N_RQ, Monday, 11 July 2005 07:55 (eighteen years ago) link

plz

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 14:32 (eighteen years ago) link

narrative is not 'dangerous'.

― N_RQ, Monday, 11 July 2005 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link

i dont know much abt the cultural revolution. neither did godard obviously. but the stereotype is it entailed a gd deal of the iconography, the us and them, the separation i believe narrative cn engender. it cld be this stretch is so malleable and universal to be useless as a political concept, or tool. unless you yourself are a filmmaker! or it cld be that the cultural revolution had nothing to do with storytelling

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 15:28 (eighteen years ago) link

bad people tell bad stories /= stories are bad

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 15:31 (eighteen years ago) link

maybe that's not even godard's notion, but his rhetorical style these days is to alternate between outrageous pith and high-grade obscurantism so who knows?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 15:32 (eighteen years ago) link

There are certain ILE posters who play that same game. (Insert Ned R. emoticon to undercut the dig.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 11 July 2005 15:37 (eighteen years ago) link

i think for godard its more like, who has the right to tell what story, and how, usually w reference to the holocaust. i wish hed address like russia or china, get away from the eu 25, actually. i guess occasionally i believe in such a thing as bad stories more than i believe in such a thing as bad ppl. not always

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 15:39 (eighteen years ago) link

i like that hes so stubburn, repeats himself, in interviews and the late films, the same quotes again and again, kind of testing the usefulness of language, of simon weil or whatever. i also think they air out a gd deal w rewatching, if theres time to be so willful and antisocial, not minding the pith, probably excusing it

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 15:47 (eighteen years ago) link

There are certain ILE posters who play that same game

do you mean me???? i try pretty hard not to be obscure, well most of the time. i don't really see a value in being obscure. when i'm being obscure it's because i don't really have much to say or only a little to say and am trying to avoid people coming to that realization. but i'm trying to have that happen less and less.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 11 July 2005 19:28 (eighteen years ago) link

think for godard its more like, who has the right to tell what story, and how, usually w reference to the holocaust.

ray durgnat's posthumous thing in film comment recently was good on this point. for godard, spielberg isn't allowed to make a film about the resistance, but godard is allowed to make a film about the algerian war. hey-ho.

― n_RQ, Monday, 11 July 2005 20:00 (eighteen years ago) link

but godard is allowed to make a film about the algerian war.

And Palenstine!

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Monday, 11 July 2005 20:44 (eighteen years ago) link

"Palenstine"?! What the fuck is wrong with me?

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Monday, 11 July 2005 20:45 (eighteen years ago) link

My head now rings with the sound of Buck Owens singing "Palenstine was the first in line, and [fill-in-another-name-here] came up next"

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 11 July 2005 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link

im not sure godard has no regrets. i dont agree w his objections to spielberg but our backgrounds are different. i like the fantasy of a redemptive cinema, of making your film according to moral principles, by altering the form, not the subject. even if i dont find them compelling, or as compelling as the man! its kind of astonishing, his centrality

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 20:48 (eighteen years ago) link

he does alot of shittalking tho yes!

― 007 (thoia), Monday, 11 July 2005 20:54 (eighteen years ago) link

do you mean me????

Only in the least denigratory manner possible. It comes from someone who thinks that Godard these days is, as per Network, crusty but benign.... er, neither does that mean I'm calling you crusty. Never mind.

but i'm trying to have that happen less and less.

Whereas Godard appears to be doing it on purpose more and more, I suppose.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 11 July 2005 21:07 (eighteen years ago) link

i dont see what we are talking abt wrt godards useless obscurity. is it allusion, disjunction, dbl entendre, metaphor, abstraction, mysticism, fable, wo attribution? im obscure cuz im not talking aloud, victorian, myself. ill kiss clarity and the explicit but i treasure the letter, the communique, the inside joke, btw 2 or 3, the jot to yourself, what any cpl of ppl cn make rt away of a single film. that is in a sense i see something that is not obscure, that is presuming an infinite audience, as threatening to be impersonal

― 007 (thoia), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 02:05 (eighteen years ago) link

nb ive always thot of godards allusion as a cock thing but its hilarious and wonderful how he justifies it

― 007 (thoia), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 03:02 (eighteen years ago) link

i think i mention this on every jlg thread. i may even have done so on this one. but it is absolutely key not to get intimidated by the allusions because godard has never read a book in his life.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 12 July 2005 07:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Doesn't he appear in Notre Musique reading a book?

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 15:25 (eighteen years ago) link

He was probably reading a page of a book. To watch him read a book from start to finish, that's a cinéma vérité we'll never see.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 15:32 (eighteen years ago) link

five months pass...

I just finished the MacCabe book. It was decent, great in parts, but mostly unsatisfying. I would like to read a Godard autobiography!

Should I see La Chinoise?

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Monday, 9 January 2006 17:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Is that the one about an airport?

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 9 January 2006 18:54 (eighteen years ago) link

No it's the one about the young Marxist revolutionaries. Very talky. Kind of dry. Not my favorite Godard.

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 9 January 2006 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link

i'd hit it. actually i did. it's a satire.

alba -- you mean 'the terminal'.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Monday, 9 January 2006 19:07 (eighteen years ago) link

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