Godard on DVD and Blu-ray

[accatone]

(sie söllten besser nicht existieren oder etwas - nicht?)

Finally you got a feeling of being a non engl. native speaker in the www. Now think about an AR disussion in german…just kiddin'! However, you are absolutly right - that is what i was trying to say - sorry for the confusion.

There is a link i posted somewhere else in the Kluges Box Set thread where you can watch some FACTS und FAKES episodes with Heiner Müller that have engl. subs (for the www comunity out there…). Those interviews bring us back to ALLEMAGNE and its importance as far as Müller was a famous author in the former DDR and that the history of Germany/DDR has not been told yet (at least in cinema). ALLEMAGNE is indeed a masterpiece - but too bad nothing else on that subject followed...

[domino harvey]

Helas Pour Moi looks stunning, beautiful. Very much a companion to Nouvelle Vague. This was the last Godard feature left that I hadn't seen and it did not disappoint. If anything, it was perfectly in-line with his films from this era.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Helas is definately a beautiful movie. I couldn't believe that twilight tracking shot that ended with the man playing pinball. Well, I took the plunge and ordered the Cahiers Passion/Nouvelle Vague double. Cost me $52 after the exchange rate, but I keep telling myself that's for 2 films so $26 a film is pretty reasonable.

The Top 3 Godard films I want on DVD right now! (with English subs)!
1. The Joy of Knowledge
2. King Lear
3. Allemagne 90 neuf zéro (I was hoping this would be an extra in the first Optimum boxset but helas pour moi)

[accatone]

Can somebody please give me an info on the subtitle situation of the new Studio Canal releases? Or even better a good web source that gives detailed infos on dubs/subs (opposed to most of the french retailers i know…). Thanks!

[sevenarts]

Any other word on the Lions Gate Godard box set? If it's just what was previously announced, I'm going to jump on the Optimum edition of Helas Pour Moi, since I already have all the other films announced for the LG set. But I keep holding out hope that they'll include the scenario for Passion, which unfortunately isn't on the otherwise great Cahiers du Cinema twofer, or some other unexpected films.

[justeleblanc]

Sadly no news. I spoke with someone from Lionsgate who said the set would be announced in September, so they must be clearly behind schedule. I told him about SCENARIO DU PASSION and who currently owns it, so maybe they are working on releasing that as well. Who knows.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Are you sure Lionsgate is releasing a Godard set? I went to their website and was overwhelmed by trashy releases. Delta Farce? Betsy Bubblegum's Journey to Yumm-Land? Tons of low-rent horror flicks? Oh, and the topper- Stone Cold Steve Austin in The Condemned!

Not to sound elitist, but if this company really is releasing a Godard boxset, will they treat it with the respect it deserves. I could see every single disc having a forced trailer before every film for Delta Farce. #-o

[domino harvey]

We've been over it many times, their recent Bardot and Bunuel sets are part of a new licensing with Studio Canal. Justeleblanc has been talking with reps for Lionsgate forever about many of these sets, if he says it's so then it's reliable.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Just finished watching Nouvelle Vague. What an amazing film. I was thrown for a loop by the character flip-flop halfway through. I am going to read the pertinent chapter in "Speaking about Godard" then rewatch it soon. How some people offhandedly disregard later Godard is beyond me. The films have infinitely more depth than his 60's output and thus are disregarded because they are not as pop-culture oriented.

In regards to the aspect ratio, nothing I did to the projector could make a 4:3 picture look acceptable. I had to set it to 16:9 even though I lost a little sharpness. I don't regret the purchase for a second though. Passion this weekend.

[domino harvey]

Nouvelle Vague is in a matted 1.66 on the disc, so

[duane hall]

The films have infinitely more depth than his 60's output and thus are disregarded because they are not as pop-culture oriented.

Infinitely more depth? Don't shortchange the 60s stuff because they ARE more pop-culture oriented! There's mastery at such a high-level in both eras, and damned if I know how one gauges "depth."

But glad you're a champion of the later stuff. It is sadly under-viewed/appreciated. Even in the wrong AR, Nouvelle is completely enrapturing.

[sevenarts]

Infinitely more depth? Don't shortchange the 60s stuff because they ARE more pop-culture oriented! There's mastery at such a high-level in both eras, and damned if I know how one gauges "depth."

But glad you're a champion of the later stuff. It is sadly under-viewed/appreciated. Even in the wrong AR, Nouvelle is completely enrapturing.

I'm a HUGE admirer of nearly all of Godard's work; he has yet to make a film that I find totally without value, and many of his films, from all periods of his career, surely rank among my favorites. I'd say, though, that if given the choice between his 60s films and his 80s/90s films, I'd pick the later ones every time. And I'd agree with "Petty Bourgeoisie" (what a fitting name for a Godard discussion) that later Godard has more depth than his 60s work -- although perhaps not with as strong insistence. I'd say this not because the earlier films are aligned with "pop culture," but because mature Godard has a calm and quiet sensibility that allows him to explore his ideas with greater delicacy and subtlety than he ever did in the loud, stylistically wild 60s films. As great as those films are, even the best of them don't quite approach Prenom: Carmen or the dense sound/image poetry of Nouvelle Vague, which can probably best be thought of as a near-abstract work. His ideas were often stated more clearly in the 60s films, or else framed in terms of dialectics which remained continually unresolved. In the later work, he began developing a capacity for much greater ambiguity, much more varied shades in between opposing poles. A work like Hail Mary, with its complex and wholly un-ironic appreciation of religion, sexuality, femininity, and family, would have been far beyond the grasp of the younger Godard. And the essay films of recent years, especially such masterpieces as Histoire(s) du cinema and its short spinoff De la origine du XXI siecle, are clearly the work of a mature artist at the height of his powers. In my opinion, Godard started strong and only kept getting better as he continued to expand his repertoire and develop his art in new directions.

[SoyCuba]

Can somebody please give me an info on the subtitle situation of the new Studio Canal releases? Or even better a good web source that gives detailed infos on dubs/subs (opposed to most of the french retailers i know…). Thanks!

I'm not sure which release you are referring to, but I Just got the new Nordic release: Studio Canal Godard collection with ten movies on ten discs and a bonus disc. Everything has english subtitles and all the text on the package is in english as well. Image quality is excellent, although there's that usual, slightly annoying problem with the 1.33 PAL transfers with jagged upper and lower edge. All movies are in OAR as far as I know. An excellent package, though I don't know where one living outside of the Nordic countries might purchase it, or if there is a similar release elsewhere.

Might as well list all the subtitle options:
English
German
Dutch
Swedish
Spanish
Portuguese
Norwegian
Finnish

And the extra disc only has english subtitles.



The 11 discs are housed in six slim cases. Got mine for 49.35€, and needless to say, it was a bargain.

[Macintosh]

^holy crap! That looks beautiful. The only film I already own in that set is Contempt so i would be willing to buy this. So where did you get it?

[domino harvey]

Pierrot le fou really should not be translated into any sort of English approximation, how embarrassing.

[solent]

All these discs [in amarays & same artwork] have been released as separate DVDs in Australia.

[accatone]

Thanks solent - that is what i was looking for. There was some ebay seller around who sold single discs of this box with only bad cover images attached so i was a little confused as far as the cover artworks did almost look the same as the (new) french releases but differed in extras, subs etc…

My first viewings of Pierrot were all dubbed (german) versions - cinema & tv. This is probably coming from childhood memories, but there was a special kind of dubbing for french films in the 60s and 70s in germany that i really like(d). Pierrot with its comic/comedy like episodes and language is untill today a film that i prefer in its dubbed version - of course just for personal reasons. (Belmondo was so big in german tv when i was young - i could only imagin him speaking in his dubbed version…)

[solent]

The R2/R4 PIERROT actually defaults to an English-dubbed soundtrack. No problem, just change the audio and you get the French version with subs. You will have to use the English audio function however to get subs on the French audio commentary.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Can anybody tell me about the image that ends Je vous salue, Sarajevo? I'm referring to the B&W image of the lady with her head in her lap. Is it a film still or a photograph?

[accatone]

Don't know about that particular image. As far as Godard is often using the same culutural/historical images, i found the "image by image" research by Céline Scemama for the Histoire(s) extremly helpful. I had similar questions in the past but by rewatching the Histoire(s) i recognized the same images (or quotes, sounds etc.) there and was almost always able to find it in Scemamas research. I think the whole "research" is still online and of course i printed that whole thing on a boring office day… nevertheless i think its also available as an ebook (maybe on amazon??).

[jdcopp]

Here is the link for the "partition" by Celine Scemama. The odd circumstance here is that I had once found this document in media res as one might say and had never been able to locate its home page. Hence, I could only navigate it by jiggling the URL. In other changing the "1a" in the URL to "1b" or the "1b" to "2a". discovering the author's name led me to finding the home page.

[sevenarts]

I finally got a chance to see Godard's King Lear, and it was well worth the wait. This needs to be on DVD at once, because I think it would spark a pretty major re-evaluation of its merits. To my way of thinking, this is absolutely the culmination of Godard's 80s work, the clearest and most powerful presentation of his ideas about art, history, and the process of interpretation. It fulfills the sequence of his 80s films (including his abandoned project about Bugsy Siegel and Las Vegas, which is recycled in some of the dialogue here), and looks forward to the themes of Histoire(s) du cinema and his short essay films of the 90s. Far from being the unwatchable mess that its reputation suggests, I would wager that anybody who enjoys Prenom: Carmen or Hail Mary will find the same visual brilliance and quick-witted intelligence here -- unless, of course, you're just watching those films for the hot nekkid women, of which there are none here. Even in a somewhat sketchy downloaded VHS rip, it's obvious how great the 4:3 compositions and use of color are.

I would recommend everybody who's the least bit interested in Godard, especially his later period, should make every effort to see this overlooked masterpiece. I've written more about the film's themes and provided a link to a BitTorrent download on today's blog post.

[solent]

Both MADE IN USA and 2 OR 3 THINGS have similar looking trailers. Both begin with the same text of "silence" and then progress without audio and with Godardian intertitles cut between selections from the film.

All of Godard's trailers are interesting. I picked up LE PETIT SOLDAT yesterday - excellent transfer from Universal [R4 release] - and was surprised to see the inclusion of a trailer for this film (not on the Fox Lorber DVD). Bruno narrates this trailer over images from the film.

[accatone]

There is an entire chapter dedicated to the trailers in the (very good, imo) FOREVER GODARD book. This is indeed something really interesting from his first feature up to NOTRE MUSIQUE. The one for LE MÈPRIS is still one of my favourites and it blew my head off when i saw it for the first time…

[Kinsayder]

The latest Cahiers du Cinéma Godard 2-discer came out yesterday: ELOGE DE L'AMOUR + NOTRE MUSIQUE. According to the Cahiers site, both titles are English-subbed.