Jean-Luc Godard: S and D

It took me a while because I had the silly idea of trying to watch as many of the available films as possible before I got to the chapter. I finally gave up on that and just barrelled through the rest. I honestly don't know who much Karina really took over so much of that early work, but it made for a good story.

haha yeah i mean i always knew he was a cock but he comes off as the world's most obnoxious erudite manchild in the karina part of the story.

I think he gets worse in the 80s and unbelievably crepey with Berengere Allaux.

This guy rips the book - and Brody - to shreds.

hmmmmmmmm

ok, the line 'when i hear the word culture i reach for my chequebook': where is it from? when?

godard didn't come up with it.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barbara_Kruger

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Johst

The famous line is regularly misattributed, sometimes to Hermann Göring and sometimes to Heinrich Himmler. In December 2007, historian David Starkey misattributed it to Joseph Goebbels in comments criticizing Queen Elizabeth II for being "poorly educated and philistine".[1] It has also been adapted, for example by Stephen Hawking as "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol" and by filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard in 1963's film Le Mépris, when a producer says to Fritz Lang: "Whenever I hear the word culture, I bring out my checkbook." Lang evokes the original line as he answers "Some years ago—some horrible years ago—the Nazis used to take out a pistol instead of a checkbook."

yeah no i mean who made the 'chequebook' joek first?

Not 'chequebook'-related, but At long last...

don't tell whiney but there's been a UK region-2 set for yonks

He's also making a new film

Oh, no clue Enrick.

My partner's trying to recall a Godard quote where he says something to the effect of "the only thing European cinema has in common are American movies" or a vague equivalent - ring any bells to any Godardphiles?

Film Socialisme out today with two sets of English subtitles.

yeah, we're getting it in a week w/o the navajo

Desperate to see 'Here and Elsewhere'

It's on Netflix Instant. Also Godard discussed by Kent Jones and Jonathan Rosenbaum here

Fantastic conversation:

I once characterized my problems with "In Praise of Love" in terms that were too harsh by half, but I included a quotation from Wallace Stevens that seems just as pertinent 11 years later: “…the probing of the philosopher is deliberate. On the other hand, the probing of the poet is fortuitous.” The poet has no obligation to be clear or absolutely precise; he or she has an obligation only to his or her own internal reality, which incorporates a vision of and relationship to the shared reality of public life.

To characterize Godard in purely political and historical terms is, paradoxically, to do him a disservice, because it places him at a little bit too great a remove from “the spirit of the forms,” to evoke Elie Faure. Given the fact that he has fought so hard for the image and against the dominance of the text, this is more than a little ironic. Godard is a poet of the image and a great one, and that is more than enough – he doesn’t have to be everything else.

Of course, he has created the same kind of problem for himself that Ezra Pound created with his Cantos (and by the way, I am not implying that Godard is anti-Semitic by introducing a comparison to Pound) – both poets have found themselves looking at western civilization from a great distance, finding errors and suggesting correctives. The fortuitous and the exploratory continuously segue into the deliberate – but unlike Pound, Godard always quickly segues back.

omg

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/daily-briefing-film-socialisme-cruise-ship-runs-aground

He could've made his own Poseidon Adventure!

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