Godard on DVD and Blu-ray

[backstreetsbackalright]

Here's some citation information on that Steve Canon Vivre sa vie article:

Cannon, Steve.
Not a Mere Question of Form': The Hybrid Realism of Godard's 'Vivre sa Vie'. French Cultural Studies v7, n3 (Oct, 1996):283 (12 pages).

"Jean-Luc Godard's 1962 film, 'Vivre sa vie,' reflects his ability to capture the reality of contemporary society and situations, despite his emphasis on the formalistic and aesthetic side of filmmaking. Godard's film confronts reality matter-of-factly, by depicting what is there before the lens, using only one microphone, real locations, natural light and no written script. His realism reflects a variety of influences, including those of Naturalism, cinema-verite, and the theatrical works of Bertolt Brecht. Godard's later, more overtly political films do not communicate as deeply as this one does." [Expanded Academic Index]

Here's info on two of the others:

MacCabe, Colin. "The Politics of Separation." Screen 16:4 (1975/76)

Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Critical Distance: Contempt"

One more thing I thought of:

Silverman, Kaja and Harun Farocki. Speaking about Godard. New York University Press. 1998.

This is supposed to be great, and Farocki's one of my favorite filmmakers to boot! Regrettably, I haven't caught up with it yet. Here's the breakdown of chapters:

Nana is an animal : My life to live/Vivre sa vie -- In search of Homer : Contempt/Le mépris -- Words like love : Alphaville/Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution -- Anal capitalism : Weekend/Le week-end -- I speak, therefore I'm not : Gay knowledge/Le gai savoir -- In her place : Number two/Numéro deux -- Moving pictures : Passion -- The same, yet other : New wave/Nouvelle vague

[rlendog]

Godard is a director I haven't checked out yet. Was just wondering what I should purchase first?

Whatever you do, don't purchase/watch King Lear first. I made that mistake and it killed any desire to see another Godard film to this day.

[duane hall]

Whatever you do, don't purchase/watch King Lear first. I made that mistake and it killed any desire to see another Godard film to this day.

How on earth did you decide to introduce yourself to Godard with King Lear in the first place? #-o

[rlendog]

Whatever you do, don't purchase/watch King Lear first. I made that mistake and it killed any desire to see another Godard film to this day.

How on earth did you decide to introduce yourself to Godard with King Lear in the first place? #-o

I like Shakespeare, I was goint through a Woody Allen phase, and that's where I ended up.

[duane hall]

Ah, so it was more to fill out a Woody Allen phase then to start a Godard spree. Forgiveable, especially considering the billing.. Allen as Mr. Alien, Burgess Meredith as Don Learo, Godard as The Professor, Peter "Not to be Confused with Peter Sellers" Sellars as William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth, throw in Molly Ringwald and Norman Mailer as himself... It sounds like fun. And apparently Jonathan Rosenbaum thinks its one of the best films of the 1980s...

[skuhn8]

Just finished watching the Band of Outsiders CC DVD and went ahead and rewatched all the special features, The Loot. I think this is a good place to go, especially with the glossary feature, which gives a pretty good preface to how JLG operates, or at least operated. And what a great flick. Just love those close-ups of Anna Karina.

[blindside8zao]

thanks for all the replies. I finally got around to watching my first Godard. I rented breathless from the school library and was sort of dissapointed? It was really good but I did not get the idea that it was a masterpiece, which are the vibes I get from people talking about it. I am certainly willing to rewatch the film and more willing to watch a different one of his films, though. Definetly liked Discrete Charm of the Bourgoise which I watched last night, better. I will try and find Band of Outsiders or Contempt.

[duane hall]

Breathless surely gets some extra credit because it was first. (Though it is better than its two immediate followups, Le Petit Soldat and A Woman Is A Woman.) And it inspired great feelings of liberation at the time of its release, deservedly so. It is notable as a critical breakthrough for not just Godard but for Seberg, and Belmondo, an actor with by far the most gravitas of any of Godard's male leads from the 60s (excepting Constantine and his indelible mug in Alphaville.) So Breathless has history on its side.

But several of us in the thread did recommend Band of Outsiders first! Or Contempt or My Life to Live if you're interested in the more somber, somewhat rapturous (though still playful throughout) side of Godard. Or for the "scathing critique of the bourgeoisie" there's Weekend, which is being released on DVD this week, if New Yorker doesn't push it back yet again.

I can accept a film fan not especially loving Godard. (Though I would probably not agree with said viewer's gripes.) But anyone who takes cinema seriously owes it to one's self to view at least, say... three ... or four, before writing him off as entirely ... indulgent, disjointed, unfocused, lacking in feeling, whatever.

[jorencain]

Breathless surely gets some extra credit because it was first.

It's also good to start at the beginning with a director like Godard. I think it's the same with the films in the Cassavetes set; "Shadows" is my least favorite, but it was important to see first (for me at least) so I had a basis for where he was coming from and going to.

So, now that "Breathless" is out of the way, you're primed to check out "Alphaville", "Band of Outsiders", etc. and then maybe after a few of those, see "Weekend." I actually think (out of the 10 or so Godard that I've seen) that "Tout Va Bien" may be my favorite, so I'd check that out at some point too (maybe not next though).

[porquenegar]

I had a very bad reaction to Alphaville, my first Godard effort. I decided to stick with it and proceed to watch Band of Outsiders which I thought was good and Contempt, which stuck with me for days and continues to grow on me. Unfortunately, these CC's are the only ones i've seen to date.

[lord_clyde]

I liked Alphaville the first time I saw it, even though I didn't understand it. Next I saw Contempt which I thought was great, then Tout va bien, which I had to watch twice to fully appreciate. By the time I got to Breathless and Band of Outsiders I already liked Godard, but with those two I fell in love.

[blindside8zao]

I picked up Breathless first cause I found it in the library. I have so little time to watch films now that I'm at school. It's been two and a half weeks and the only things I've seen are Breathless, Intolerance, barton fink, un chien andalou, andDiscrete Charm. That is really really sad for me. Oh yeah, I got through 7 minutes of the first decalogue episode and then got flooded with more work. Tonight is Ragtime though.

[Cinesimilitude]

Breathless is so far the only godard film i've seen. I do have masculin feminin and weekend and band of outsiders on order though.

[Napoleon]

The best approach would be to go through chronologically, there is no reason to go after the 'best' as from what I've seen, the quality doesn't vary much.

However, do not touch anything from Pierrot le fou onwards as a first film (certainly not Weekend), as if you don't like it, you really won't like it, to the extent where you may not bother going back to him.

[nick]

I find that the more Godard I watch the more I like his work. There is something fun and captivating (IMO) about the way his ideas and style progress, as well as the references to ideas and moments from previous work.

[lubitsch]

My suggestion would be to drop Godard entirely and see some good movies instead .
The mixture of genre destruction, hard to understand scenes without any real plot drive or interesting characters appealed and appeals only to very few. The late essayistic Godard after his return to cinema in the 80s is considered to be unwatchable by most people, but also the films of the classical period 1960-1967 are mostly merely annoying (Yes, I've seen all of them) with Made in U.S.A. being the toughest one. You should be aware that Godard is intentionally amateurish and intentionally breaks all rules which merely proves why some rules are after all a good idea. Even seemingly accessible movies like Le Mepris are disturbing with the already mentioned conversation in the apartment where Piccoli and Bardot talk about half an hour ... well mostly about why Bardot is so angry. Pretentious.
Better take a look at Julien Duvivier or Rene Clement who were unjustly bullied by these nouvelle vague amateurs.

[David Ehrenstein]

Talking about Godard is like talking about amemebr of my family -- my father to be exact.I consider Godard responsible for the better part of my edication. When I was in high school (Music & Art class of '64) Breathless was far more important that Salinger or Hesse.it was the air we breathed, the way we moved. After that Contempt and Vivre sa Vie made their mark as keys to the nature of the cinema and culture in general -- thought I enjoyed A Woman is a Woman more than either.Band of Outsiders impressed me with the notion that films could do anything at all. Likewise Alphaville and Pierrot le Fou. When Masculine Feminine came along we declared it "our movie" as it expressed like no other film precisely what my generation felt -- and how.

Then came the "classic" period of 2 0u 2 Choses qu je sais d'elle, Made in U.S.A., La Chinoise and Weekend.

After that his life and art went all to hell with Maoism. Wind from the East is unwatchable.

He regained his footing with Prenom: Carmen, Je vous Salue Marie, Detective and
the telefilms France/Tour/Detour/Deux Enfants and Grandeur et decadenc d'un petit commerce du cinema, and the late masterpiece Nouvelle Vague. Since then it's quite spotty.

Not that he owes us anything.

[blindside8zao]

Still haven't gotten around to watching anything else by him... Soooo many good films out there. Makes me wonder why most people complain so much about not having anything good to watch because they aren't making them as good these days. Go back and see all the ones you missed!

[justeleblanc]

I'm actually going to be going through all of Godard's films on a weekly basis this January with some people from work. We're going to start with Breathless and move through chronologically until Weekend. I've never fully appreciated Godard as much as I think I could or should so I'm hoping for some good discussions. Of course, no one we know has access to an R2 player, so we're going to use R1 DVDs and VHS tapes.

I'm looking forward to possibly enjoying A Woman Is A Woman. I never made it through the first time... it gave me a headache.

[Oedipax]

Why stop at Weekend (aside from the obvious problem - availability of many of the films from that point on)? In my opinion, it is this second "half" of JLG's career that is the most interesting, not so much the Dziga Vertov Group stuff (although it's worth seeing) but his 70s video work, and especially his films made from 1980 onward. There's so many incredible films from those years that only diehard cineastes seem to know about, relegated to obscurity by charges of incomprehensibility, overcomplexity, pretentiousness, difficulty...

While I would certainly acknowledge Godard's range of reference points is daunting - philosophy, film, literature, poetry, history - I think there is also a fundamental aesthetic to these later films, in terms of the glorious 1.37:1 compositions and the peerless sound design, that can be appreciated by anyone regardless of whether they fully "understand" all of it. Although I enjoy many of the 60s films, I could almost take 'em of leave 'em compared to something like Hail Mary (that's probably just me). Point is, though, don't stop at '68, there's a whole lot more to the story!

[David Ehrenstein]

While I would certainly acknowledge Godard's range of reference points is daunting - philosophy, film, literature, poetry, history

They're also essential to understanding Godard. His films were made in the context of their time, and not knowing about events that were current in the 60's (especially th Algerian war's impact on the home front which figures in Vivre sa Vie) is to lose a whole dimension of understanding. It's worth your while to know precisely who Brice Parain and Francis Jenson are, for example. Moreover there are cross-references between Godard's films and those of Truffaut (obviously due to their sharing of Leaud) Rivette, Resnais (the poster for Muriel in 2 ou 3 Choses isn't on Marina Vlady's wall for nothing) Rohmer and Jean Rouch. In other words Godard is a dense and complex as James Joyce.

[justeleblanc]

oedipax, as much as i would like to watch the post dziga vertov group works, they are very hard to find and i've hear dthey are really hit or miss. which films from the 70s and 80s do you recommend?

[David Ehrenstein]

Passion is also teriffic late Godard.

[iangj]

oedipax, as much as i would like to watch the post dziga vertov group works, they are very hard to find and i've hear dthey are really hit or miss. which films from the 70s and 80s do you recommend?

I've seen nothing from the seventies except for TOUT VA BIEN. But from the eighties I'd definitely recommend PASSION; PRENOM:CARMEN; JE VOUS SALUE, MARIE; and DETECTIVE.

[justeleblanc]

what's the verdict on king lear? i probably will see it when i get to godard's 80s work just because.... should i expect much?