Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

Desperate to see 'Here and Elsewhere'

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, January 10, 2012 10:30 PM (5 days ago)

i'm sitting here. writing an essay about this. suffocating.

looking forward to watching film socialisme on next gen ipad in full 1080p

judith - some have all the luck, you wouldn't want to know I'm writing about at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF1H0FkEppw&feature=share

oh i'll look forward to watching the full interview. cheers.

i think finally watching the jlg movies that aren't about pretty french ppl smoking was very worth it.

I was thinking I was gonna read that book, but that link makes it seem like an Albert Goldman-style attack.

Here and Elsewhere is one of his best and totally justifies his turn away from commercial cinema post-'68

Jerry Lewis and the French

I probably find Lewis funnier than Chaplin.

The gas chamber scene he talks about...bit unfortunate given certain comments last year...

Just watched most of that interview...as elusive as some of his movies, so much fun.

The interviewer also asked him some really good questions.

Dick Cavett?

Dick Cavett had emcee duties this weekend at Lincoln Center, moderating Q&As with... Raquel Welch.

Did you end up going?

no

Yeah Cavett. Had a good go.

Via www.dangerousminds.net:

1 A.M. (aka One American Movie) was shot in 1968, abandoned by Godard in 1969, and then later resurrected and re-edited by his collaborator on the film D.A. Pennebaker. Intercut with film footage of Godard at work on the film and re-named 1 P.M. (One Parallel Movie), it was finally released in 1972.

An abstract and maddening mash-up of cinéma vérité, documentary footage and goofy political theater, 1 P.M. is another attempt by a European director to wrap his head around America’s turbulent Sixties’ political scene and pretty much failing. Even with input from ace documentarian Pennebaker, the movie seems remote from its material. But despite many yawn-inducing moments of pretentiousness and arthouse vagueness, there are still plenty of interesting bits and pieces in the film to sustain one’s interest. Specifically, an interview with Eldridge Cleaver, a rambling but fascinating sequence involving Tom Hayden. Rip Torn’s absurd Native American routine and a Manhattan-rooftop performance by Jefferson Airplane of “House at Pooneil Corners,” which ends with the cops busting the band and film crew.

The whole thing here:

http://vimeo.com/35986320

British Sounds

Some really good stuff here, as always - great tracking shot (echoes of Weekend) to start with and the final few minutes too (bleeding hand in the mud).

The always overlaid texts are rough going - this is a thing I want to get to read more about at some point - his distrust and nervousness around language and what it could unleash.

Overall the Vertov films seem worth spending some time w/. You always have to be alert w/JLG anyways, no more true here than in his proper ditribution films.

this sounds rad:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/daily-briefing-godards-introduction-to-a-true-history-of-cinema-and-television

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/jlg-reverseshot

http://www.wildbunch.biz/films/goodbye_to_language_3d

the title sounds like something a daily show correspondent would have to make up if godard somehow did something newsworthy

film socialisme was half p good half waste

so no subtitles at all maybe

slow down JLG -- not seen Film Socialisme yet!

ha i was wondering how wild bunch are a going concern after the commercial disaster of enter the void but it seems they financed that last pos that won all the oscars

Is the main Godard thread? Doesn't seem to be a poll...Having seen Vivre sa vie three times now, and Breathless at least five or six (double-bill tonight), I can say unequivocally I prefer Vivre sa vie. The long bedroom scene in Breathless loses me every time, and while I know the jump-cutting changed film history, I otherwise don't find it all that interesting a film visually. Vivre sa vie is very beautiful: that refrain that plays over and over again, the perfectly timed fade-outs, the shots of Karina silhouetted against the window, the Jeanne d'Arc juxtaposition, etc. It seems to be less famous than a whole bunch of Godard films, but it's one of my two or three favourites of those that I've seen.

Just the other day I read the Spanish magazine with a 140 pages issue dedicated to Film Socialisme on that Dr Morbius link and my jaw is still on the floor. I have tried to watch that movie like three or four times since I dl'ed it with Navajo subtitles but have failed every time due to irritation (why can't I speak French like a cultured person right etc.) but you can tell there is something genuinely new and exciting going on there. Just one example from the mag, there is this French collective that took the job to figure out the main plot and wrote 20+ pages of hints and references, for starters ... I love the crazy footage on the cruise, what about the final section? Those images! This is some next level Autechre, Finnegan's Wake Impossible Art from the Future type stuff.

From Film Quarterly:
"In FS common knowledge has disappeared, everything is in code."

S:
Contempt
Notre Musique
In Praise of Love

w/e:
Breathless
Alphaville
Weekend

i've been watching the d-v era films as i've been able to find them over the last couple years. oof that's some rough going.

Breathless gets more of a write-up as it was the first JLG movie, but Vivre Sa Vie is easily better.

Love Here and Elsewhere which i think makes the d-v era G more than worthwhile.

^^^ i love this film

just rewatched JLG /JLG, among his very best from '75-00

Regretfully skipped 2 or 3 Things and Pierrot le fou last night (I've seen both)--just wasn't up to four in two nights.

what's d-v era?

dziga vertov group

^^AKA his films from '68-'73.

cheers

I like tout va bien a lot, that's d-v era, no?

In the middle of watching Histoire(s) du Cinema.... I pity any neophyte who sees this in the S&S 50 and leaps in.

Tout va Bien is considered to be d-v, iirc

^^It and the follow-up Letter To Jane were the final official D-V projects. One of their unfinished projects (a film about the PLO) was revived and released as Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere) in '76.

netflix instant has 'film socialisme'

this is sort of captivating but i'm only a little ways in - there are only bits of english subtitles on this version? they are accurate as far as the main things that people are saying, i just can't tell if it's totally incomprehensible if you don't have the larger context

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3U0udLH974

"meow! that's what ancient egyptians called their cats"

The comment above about FS being half tripe is otm. as a piece I probably "enjoyed" Notre musique a little more.

yeah i've never really enjoyed "breathless" but "pierrot le fou" is probably in my all-time top 10, not

http://a1.smlycdn.com/data/product2/1/821a744d16f39e6e11019db2b87542238573a7c5_m.jpg

that "not" should not be there

'pierrot le fou' is the greatest

contempt is the one i love

i haven't seen contempt in forever

would like to see a bertolucci vs godard t/s

well actually maybe more just "the conformist" vs "pierrot le fou"

Belmondo sooooo hot in PLF.

they're the all-time hot couple imo

also in 'une femme est une femme' <3

While we're crushing: Juliet Berto, Maoist of my dreams

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l1fi4cxXd51qa91cwo1_400.jpg