Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

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can i point out the irony of being a maoist film maker, maybe i dont get it, but if you were making art (or something like it) wouldnt you avoid an ideolofy which is this iconoclastic ?

― anthony, Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:27 (9 years ago) Permalink

i suppose godard finds humor in nv because he is the ultimate bitch. (xpost)

― dean! (deangulberry), Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

his maoist flirtations were brief, and about 35 years ago

― !!!! (amateurist), Thursday, 18 March 2004 22:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

'elogé de l'amour' isn't too funny either.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

it has its moments. i would say that it dabbles in irony and abject absurdity more than it does in humor. but yes, you're mostly right.

― dean! (deangulberry), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

Breathless is good.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 18 March 2004 23:52 (9 years ago) Permalink

Jed, I would like to see if your Ruffalo lust holds up after his irritating performance in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 19 March 2004 00:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

godard's early films (up till '66 or so) have nothing to do with maoism. after that i can't say, but the early stuff is very funny and interesting. band a parte is my favorite too.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 19 March 2004 04:43 (9 years ago) Permalink

One to lure me out of retirement!

I've seen most of his films up to the early 80s, and really every single one is worth seeing, even if some of the D-Z ones are almost unwatchable. The best of them is 'Vent d'Est', which was intended by its financiers as a kind of 'Bullet for the General'-style Marxist western, and indeed it has Gian Maria Volonte in it. It ends up as an essay on the politics of film-making, and is so a kind of sequel to 'Le Mepris', which is probably the best point of entry for Godard.

The jazzy score for 'Breathless' is lame, and I kind of don't think of it as a Godard at all. It was co-written with Truffaut.

His politics are always going to be a sticking point: the whole Maoist craze that afflicted France in the 60s was obviously a wrong turn, and JLG was a bit of a gadfly: you wouldn't catch Marker, Varda, or Rouch (more classically 'leftist' film-makers) making the same mistake.

This being so, I prefer his D-Z films, impossible as they are, to 'Tout va Bien', which was an attempt, via stars (Fonda and Montard) to 'reconnect' with the mass audience (it's about student politics, left-wing union politics, media politics); you'd be better off watching more straightforward contemporary films on the same subject by Ken Loach and other BBC directors of that era.

If I had to pick one, I guess it would be 'Masculin-Feminin', made in the winter of 65-66, and the start of his political odyssey, following 'Pierrot le Fou', his farewell to Hollywood.

― Henry K M (Enrique), Friday, 19 March 2004 09:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

'passion' is funny, sometimes just in its audacity

― !!!! (amateurist), Friday, 19 March 2004 10:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

I wish Criterion made posters out of their box art. I can't wait to watch this and the short that accompanies it.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Thursday, 17 June 2004 02:07 (8 years ago) Permalink

that's a cool cover (except for the repeat of the title on the bottom), but the film is one of godard's worst imo. funny enough, criterion is supposed to be releasing "lettre à jane" on dvd, which is another of his worst. i guess they can make it up to us by releasing "je vous salue, marie" one of these days.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 17 June 2004 05:39 (8 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

How is "Le Mepris"?

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 24 October 2004 16:36 (8 years ago) Permalink

Excellent. The argument in the living room is gripping. The third act is -- somewhat incomprehensible, but good.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:34 (8 years ago) Permalink

What about this 3 DVD boxset?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002HSDD2/qid=1098643669/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_11_1/026-3737398-5990003

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

this one looks marginally better:

http://play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=162776

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:47 (8 years ago) Permalink

Two Or Three Things I Know About Her is about the suburbs (la banlieue)

― --bruno, Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:47 (8 years ago) Permalink

Thank you, RJG, I appreciate your efforts. Actually, I think you can get it for less in the real shops. It is 'fullscreen' - booooooooooo!

I think I prefer this 'Jean Vigo' thing because it has an interview with Otar Iosseliani:

http://play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=123208

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:54 (8 years ago) Permalink

I think they might have been filmed, in 'fullscreen'.

I can't remember but.

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 24 October 2004 17:58 (8 years ago) Permalink

Oh, right. Well, they ought to stretch them then.

I only have a 'fullscreen' portable telly to watch them on anyway.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Sunday, 24 October 2004 18:04 (8 years ago) Permalink

godard is one of those people i'd actually rather not hear about again for a long while, although i like some of his films, esp. hail mary/first name: carmen/detective/etc.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Sunday, 24 October 2004 18:51 (8 years ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

The 3 DVD box set referred to above, which is now GBP 19.99 in HMV or Virgin sale, is it...dubbed? It says subtitles, none.

Did you watch 'Elogie d'amour', Jerry? I taped it, on the video, off the telly, but I haven't watched it yet.

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 16:04 (8 years ago) Permalink

that's 90 minutes you can safely record over, Peter.

― Miles Finch, Tuesday, 25 January 2005 16:59 (8 years ago) Permalink

the complete jean vigo is great.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 17:05 (8 years ago) Permalink

otm! they shd do more of 'that kind of thing'.

― Miles Finch, Wednesday, 26 January 2005 09:52 (8 years ago) Permalink

I think Elogie d'Amour is well worth watching, though probably only once.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 13:17 (8 years ago) Permalink

I thought elogie d'amour was very good when I watched in the cinema, I can remember walking down byres road explaining to my friend exactly why (it had something to do with history & memory). strangely though I can't remember anything about the film other than the fact it has a piano player and a colour change (?) in it. I doubt I'd like it as much now, knowing what I do now.

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 13:33 (8 years ago) Permalink

IIRC

First Half: Paris. moody b/w. a sensitive young man is working on a play/novel/poem/opera. plentiful references to books JLG probably hasn't read. a scene near the canal where part of 'L'Atalante' was shot.
Second Half: Brittany. extraordinary colour. an american (working for Spielberg) is trying to buy the rights to a resistance's fighter's autobiography. how awful--the yanks have no history, they have to steal 'ours' to make films. something vague about juliette binoche.

not a very lucid film, and honestly if it wasn't godard doing it no-one would have given a toss.

― Miles Finch, Wednesday, 26 January 2005 15:56 (8 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

i watched band of outsiders again last night, the end of that movie always makes me inexplicably happy. the last line of the narration is one of my favorite moments in all of cinema.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 10 July 2005 03:33 (7 years ago) Permalink

people of britain, buy the new la chinoise dvd ok?

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 10 July 2005 03:42 (7 years ago) Permalink

I wish I could find a copy of the Le Mepris soundtrack somewhere.

and the latest Criterion news re: Godard is their forthcoming release of Masculin/Feminin

― Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Sunday, 10 July 2005 03:45 (7 years ago) Permalink

I just saw a showing of Masculin, féminin tonight and it was fun as hell-- probably my favorite of the Godard films I've seen so far.

― Chris F. (servoret), Sunday, 10 July 2005 04:44 (7 years ago) Permalink

people of britain, buy the new la chinoise dvd ok?

Oh man, I hadn't heard about this. I'm debating ordering it from Amazon UK.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Sunday, 10 July 2005 04:54 (7 years ago) Permalink

Does anyone know if there are any available versions of Historie(s) du cinema?

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Sunday, 10 July 2005 05:04 (7 years ago) Permalink

only the japanese box set

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 10 July 2005 05:16 (7 years ago) Permalink

and the latest Criterion news re: Godard is their forthcoming release of Masculin/Feminin

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D

― cousin larry bundgee (bundgee), Sunday, 10 July 2005 05:19 (7 years ago) Permalink

Apparently the MF Criterion disc has new interviews with Goya, Kurrant and Gorin.

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Sunday, 10 July 2005 05:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

omg destroy Comment ça va, worst godard ever. it probably would have been good as a book on tape or something though.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Sunday, 10 July 2005 05:25 (7 years ago) Permalink

Or a lecture!

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Sunday, 10 July 2005 05:26 (7 years ago) Permalink

there's also a french (vhs only) box set of Histoire(s) du cinéma

― ---Bruno, Sunday, 10 July 2005 07:40 (7 years ago) Permalink

i got chinoise from australia, it was supposed to have 'british sounds' as an extra but didn't. peeved criterion are doing 'm-f' cos i got it on a uk edition. 'la chinoise' looks glorious.

― n_RQ, Sunday, 10 July 2005 11:30 (7 years ago) Permalink

theres always fantastic or uh rickety godard vhss on ebay, i bot histoires but wished id bought the soundtrack box. i want to see made in usa the most. masculin is my favorite tho. i also picked up some godard authored tract a cpl months ago, recent, called like cinema, maybe i shd read it today? its ben embarassing me

― 007 (thoia), Sunday, 10 July 2005 15:28 (7 years ago) Permalink

Made in USA is on a new UK Godard set. (w/ Pierrot Le Fou and Prenom Carmen)

― C0L1N B... (C0L1N B...), Sunday, 10 July 2005 17:52 (7 years ago) Permalink

and the latest Criterion news re: Godard is their forthcoming release of Masculin/Feminin

BOUT FUCKING TIME, SHEESH.

New Yorker Video is also putting out Week-end this August.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 10 July 2005 18:04 (7 years ago) Permalink

I notice that none of the Criterion Godard releases are "director-approved," which I guess shouldn't surprise me one jot.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 10 July 2005 18:06 (7 years ago) Permalink

try to get godard involved in a video production without him holding forth for ten hours on the 'end of cinema' and so forth. or a discourse on the metaphysics of aspect ratios. this was the subject of a recent (last year?) piece for cahiers du cinema. i guess i'm supposed to find him charming as an old man and such but i read stuff like that and i guess it's a little emperor's-new-clothes for me. i mean, he's apeshit batty, and the editors are like "hm, godard's poetics of the aspect ratio is quite provocative." bleh. but yeah he's made a lot of great movies.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 10 July 2005 18:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

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 (7 years ago) Permalink

i haven't found his last few very charming.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 10 July 2005 18:51 (7 years ago) Permalink

i like when he talks abt tennis

― 007 (thoia), Sunday, 10 July 2005 19:18 (7 years ago) Permalink

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 (7 years ago) Permalink

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did/does godard really have any explicit one-sided line on the truth or lie of cinema? the line 'cinema is truth at 24 frames per second' is from le petit soldat, i guess it's bazinian and i guess godard could be being a bit ironic by feeding it to one of his characters, but i don't know if that's a lineage he broke with completely.

― tubular, mondo, gnabry (Merdeyeux), Tuesday, 28 August 2012 02:14 (8 months ago) Permalink

i don't think that's it so much as just healthy disregard for formal conventions that welles was engaging with? feels like reading a lot into his quote.

― the late great, Tuesday, 28 August 2012 03:43 (8 months ago) Permalink

" a kind of anarchistic, nihilistic contempt for the medium" = healthy disregard? Seems a little more than that, no? Don't think I'm reading more than what's there.

― Loo Reading (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 28 August 2012 04:18 (8 months ago) Permalink

not everyone thinks anarchism or nihilism such a bad thing. welles?

― the late great, Tuesday, 28 August 2012 04:33 (8 months ago) Permalink

esp in the context of 68 or whatever

― the late great, Tuesday, 28 August 2012 04:33 (8 months ago) Permalink

this scene. Then you see the truth has two faces. i think this is genuinely how he sees it, a very simple analogy. cinema as the modulation of visibility, the grammar of film in its ordering of images in relation to each other is the production of truth, relationality, politics. Its not that when he says 'cinema is truth at 24 frames per second' he is being ironic, but rather there is no metaphysical category of truth, no a priori transcendental essence that can be made manifest. rather truth is a production, the derivation of whatever set of legitimising procedures - like a doctors examination, a court case, a forensic report, cinema can make things true, anna karina in a dark cinema. I like him way more than bergman. "his films are boring" what a fucking boring thing to say. godard always seems ignited by something, agitated by it. right from the beginning, a bout de souffle, that itching surface. the romance is stitched together from american movies but its still real, as much as anything else at least.

― judith, Tuesday, 28 August 2012 08:27 (8 months ago) Permalink

One of the interesting things about the Bergman diss is that JLG was a big cheerleader for him during his critic days, saying upon the premiere of (IIRC) The Seventh Seal that Bergman was now the world's greatest director.

― Hut Stricklin at Lake Speed (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 28 August 2012 09:07 (8 months ago) Permalink

i don't think that's it so much as just healthy disregard for formal conventions that welles was engaging with? feels like reading a lot into his quote.

― the late great, Tuesday, 28 August 2012 03:43 (10 hours ago) Permalink

I think seeing Godard's work as having a "disregard for formal conventions" is kind of missing the point -- it's not about casting tradition aside, but laying bare the illusion, cinema that points to its own tools of manipulation, etc.

― look at this quarterstaff (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 28 August 2012 13:52 (8 months ago) Permalink

nah i'm not missing the point, i agree with you entirely, that's what i was getting at w.o using so many words

there's nuff JLG that isn't as hard-line marxist as you make him out to sound though

― the late great, Tuesday, 28 August 2012 16:10 (8 months ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

Which of these should I hunt down first: Le Gai Savoir or Numero Deux?

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 10:59 (6 months ago) Permalink

LGS

gen speaking chron order is the way to go

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 13:06 (6 months ago) Permalink

thx, just watched it. I think this maybe one of my very favourites.

The immediately pre-Vertov films (Weekend, La Chinoise, LGS) and immediately post-Vertov (or about to be anyway) (Here and Elsewhere) are currently my favourites.

Or at least they have to be seen alongside LGS: not so much for the ideas, they seem always half-formed (I mean others have said they make you think you are stupid but there is no way he has engaged that deeply w/them; I'm guessing much of it is derived from overheard cafe conversation), all a bit of a soup but laid thick and assembled in a way that you are unable to stop watching, picking moments and using it for whatever you are thinking at that moment. Or simply to wonder.

Not as if its year zero: that ear for listening into conversation is used for sound -- its nothing less than a virtuoso performance of assemblage. The use of colour (the clothes of the participants), and the manner in which the light falls on Berto and Leaud througout to create these somewhat strange moments of intimacy between them that ring true: a kind of screen chemistry is achieved like no other in cinema.

So much of that derived from years spent in making the disgusting bourgie cinema JLG peddled to the masses for 10 years! Old habits die hard, it seems...

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 23:09 (6 months ago) Permalink

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