Jean-Luc Godard

[shirobamba]

Stephanie Zacharek's uncritical review of Brody's Godard book prompts my response.

Great response! You gave the only possible answer to such film"criticism"! The Times should print your article.

[jbeall]

Stephanie Zacharek's uncritical review of Brody's Godard book prompts my response.

Good work. Didn't SZ used to write for "Salon" online. My recollection was that she was pretty worthless on that gig -- at least most of the time.

She still does.

[sevenarts]

This has inspired me to delve even further into late Godard than I already have, starting with some films I've had on deck for a while. Up first, Helas pour moi, which was beautiful and baffling in about equal measures.

More late Godard:

British Sounds (1969)
Numero deux (1975)
Germany Year 90 Nine Zero (1991)
JLG/JLG: autoportrait de decembre (1995)

[Ovader]

I came across an online photo of Hitchcock being interviewed by Truffaut in 1966. I thought I have seen that photo before and remembered it is in the For Ever Godard book on pages 222-223 of Godard's 1979 collage of Hitchcock with two other images. I started laughing!

I don't have a scanner of the collage photo so maybe someone else can scan it but I thought it was amusing. I couldn't find any mention of the gag in the book so I don't know if the writer is aware of the original photo.

[sevenarts]

Two Or Three Things I Know About Her

[Antoine Doinel]

This month's issue of Harper's has an essay by J. Hoberman about Everything Is Cinema.

[accatone]

And here is Godards short for this years VIENNALE

edit: click the image at bottom left aka VIENNALE TRAILER 2008

[Oedipax]

Merci! Nice that they have it as a downloadable Quicktime file.

[accatone]

Dat Du min leewsten Büst

Dat Du min leewsten Büst
dat Du wohl weest
Komm bi de Nacht, komm bi de Nacht,
segg mi wat Leews
Kommst Du um Middernach
Kommst Du Klock een,
Vader slöppt, Mudder slöpt
ick slaap allen
Klopp an die Kammerdör,
vorn an de Klink
Vader meent, Moder meent
dat deiht de Wind
Wenn dann der Morgen graut
kreiht dann der Hahn
Leewsten mien Leesten mien
Du schasst jetzt gahn

For whats worth it - this is the german poem. I just found this out due to a rather ugly/dubious web source (at least it has the Bundesverband Minnesang on top ...) The strophe that can be heard in the film is highlighted. If anybody is interested i can translate this - its a german dialect, however it shouldn't be too difficult and its quite funny because it is about some kind of a night-date... (une catastrophe d'amour anyone?)

[Oedipax]

A translation would be great! Thanks.

[accatone]

Le Monde on Une catastrophe.

...just to add something of different language to the more and more boring "english speaking" discussion on Godard (There is so much(!) more than Brody and McCabe!!!)

[LQ]

Le Monde on Une catastrophe.

...just to add something of different language to the more and more boring "english speaking" discussion on Godard (There is so much(!) more than Brody and McCabe!!!)

Thanks so much for posting that! While Marmande certainly isn't a stranger to hyperbole, it is an amazing 64 seconds, and thoroughly Godard. One of my favorite JLG touches is les voix entremêlées, and it's such an immense pleasure to read truly gifted people put into words what you have always felt but couldn't truly pin down yourself. (And what beautiful words they are!)

[BrianInAtlanta]

Reading Brody about Une femme mariée, a movie I haven't seen in a very long time, and he describes a scene where we see the title character making out with someone in a cinema while Resnais' Nuit et brouillard is playing.

Probably a coincidence, but an inspiration for this?

[sevenarts]

As part of the Cooler's Movies & Politics blog-a-thon, I wrote about Godard's Here and Elsewhere.

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

Une catastrophe is the best piece of cinema I've seen in 2008. And it only lasted 1:10!!!! I love the poem.

"Come at midnight
Come at one o'clock
Father sleeps
Mother sleeps
I sleep alone.

Knock at the chamber-door
Open the latch
Father thinks
Mother thinks
That it's the wind."

Just brilliant stuff. Here is the page where I read the translation. It also has some stills for Socialisme which apparently is near complete and ready for release in 2009.

[cinemartin]

The film 1 PM was available for a long time to purchase from DA Pennebaker's website. It seems that Un Film Comme Les Autres was also available at one point. I noticed on their website that this is no longer true. I'm wondering if it has something to do with licensing issues and if we'll see some sort of box set like the one in Spain for the Dziga Vertov Group, which included both of these films. Does anybody have any thoughts or explanations?

[Antoine Doinel]

The London Review Of Books discusses Histoire(s) du cinéma.

[Noiretirc]

I have the paperback version and it's almost as stiff as a hardback (that's what they mean by turtleback-- I'm sure the librarians on the board will tell you it's similar to a laminated paperback cover that emulates a hardback). It's so bulky (have I mentioned yet that the thing's freaking huge? Think phonebook) that it's going to be cumbersome no matter what, but I have no complaints about the paperback-- and it even has interior flaps like a hardback book's dust jacket. This is all based on the American version, though I don't think there's any difference.

I want For Ever Godard. (Although I'm curious as to why the paperback is 320 pages and the hardback is 420.)

Domino, in your opinion, if I was to get ONE book on Godard, which one should it be?

[domino harvey]

Domino, in your opinion, if I was to get ONE book on Godard, which one should it be?

The Brody book, no question.

[Noiretirc]

Domino, in your opinion, if I was to get ONE book on Godard, which one should it be?

The Brody book, no question.

Rosenbaum scared me away from that one! Perhaps I shall reconsider.

[FerdinandGriffon]

With all due respect, I have to strongly disagree with Domino here. I've read Everything is Cinema, and at times had to put it down in disgust or outrage. Brody goes to ludicrous lengths to straight-jacket Godard inside the male characters of his movies, in effect making Godard's entire oeuvre into one long soap opera about his relationship with Anna Karina, interrupted only by brief pedophilic interludes. I admire Brody for paying as much attention to Godard's later work as his sixties stuff, but the Dziga Vertov/ revolutionary era is unfairly trivialized and belittled. However, Brody's worst crimes are his blind and belligerent allegations of antisemitism of Godard's part. They not only betray a complete misunderstanding of key films and scenes (the lecture in Notre Musique for example, or the Holocaust sequences in Histoire(s)), they also show a clear intention to discredit any and all of Godard's reflections or criticisms of Israel. And seeing as Godard has been one of the most insightful, talented and qualified artists to examine that particular issue, Brody's attacks are a very real issue. Brody's book is full of cute anecdotes, and is a decent way to get and idea of the rough outline of Godard's career, but as a work of serious criticism, it is blinded by sentimentality and ideology in turn.

[Noiretirc]

With all due respect, I have to strongly disagree with Domino here. I've read Everything is Cinema, and at times had to put it down in disgust or outrage. Brody goes to ludicrous lengths to straight-jacket Godard inside the male characters of his movies, in effect making Godard's entire oeuvre into one long soap opera about his relationship with Anna Karina, interrupted only by brief pedophilic interludes. I admire Brody for paying as much attention to Godard's later work as his sixties stuff, but the Dziga Vertov/ revolutionary era is unfairly trivialized and belittled. However, Brody's worst crimes are his blind and belligerent allegations of antisemitism of Godard's part. They not only betray a complete misunderstanding of key films and scenes (the lecture in Notre Musique for example, or the Holocaust sequences in Histoire(s)), they also show a clear intention to discredit any and all of Godard's reflections or criticisms of Israel. And seeing as Godard has been one of the most insightful, talented and qualified artists to examine that particular issue, Brody's attacks are a very real issue. Brody's book is full of cute anecdotes, and is a decent way to get and idea of the rough outline of Godard's career, but as a work of serious criticism, it is blinded by sentimentality and ideology in turn.

Ferdinand, have you formed an opinion on For Ever Godard? What is your favourite Godard tome? (Apologies if this should be in the "books" thread instead.)

If I may, my life experience with Godard is, so far, sadly limited to Breathless, Le Petit Soldat, Les Carabiniers, and Notre Musique. I'm floored, having been bashed on the side of my head, so to speak. These four films have aroused an assortment of emotions within me: shock, bewilderment, awe, anger, surprise, and most of all, intense curiousity. Thirteen more Godards are hopefully at 35000ft+ / 600mph, heading my way. Intense lurking at This Place has furthered my understanding and my eagerness. But the right book is also neccessary.

Forgive me for this indulgence, and, thank you Criterionforum Dot Org. (Especially Domino.)

[domino harvey]

If you want a good "primer" on Godard, since you still have a lot ahead of you, I would recommend Douglas Morrey's book in the French Film Directors series. It would be a great "first" book on Godard, and takes a lot of differing approaches-- plus if memory serves, it covers all his films through when it was published. Certainly it's less of a commitment than the Brody book and also comes with no contentious "baggage" (to my knowledge at least).

[LQ]

First US release of Made in USA coming to Film Forum next month! Richard Brody's introducing the 8:20 show on Jan. 16th. Can't wait.

[ando]

I have yet to enjoy watching a Godard film. My worst experience was having to sit through a viewing of his Contempt, a film chosen by critics Stanley Kauffman and Andrew Sarris, both of whom were the featured speakers at a Walter Reade theater's (Lincoln Center, New York) presentation of the book release, American Film Critics: From The Silents Til Now. They chose the film, apparently, because they felt it was a kind of threshold that marked the line between classic and contemporary filmmaking approaches. I suppose their thesis had some validity but what an ordeal! Like me Kauffman loathed it though Sarris sung its . Everyone in the film seems to impotent in one way or another, though it's clear they have the potential to do so. I dug Godards societal (and, no doubt, personal) allusions but why put us through such visual peregrinations? I couldn't wait for all that vacillation to end.