Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)

[criterion10]

Not that I promote/support this sort of thing, but for anyone interested, there is an anaglyph 3D (the red/cyan kind) version of Goodbye to Language that one person created by converting the new 3D Blu-Ray and posted the link to on their Letterboxd account. Supposedly, it is compromised, but works rather well, especially considering most viewers will be downright unable to view this in 3D.

[nolanoe]

Fortunately, I watched it only in 2D, and I'm not sure I want to try it in 3D.

I saw it in 3D, and I have to say - in my best french:

I am sorry, but you miserably failed here.

Yes, the movie can and should ONLY be seen in 3D. Yes, the "plot" is messy, but that's not the point of this movie. While I do not agree with a certain friend of mine - who thinks this is the #1 movie of the year - I still enjoyed it, and the use of 3D is actually mind-blowing.

[Mathew2468]

A lot of people say that his weird 3D gives them headaches.

[nolanoe]

Probably the same people that said they got headaches from Agnes Moorehead's acting in Ambersons.

Granted, it is weird. But great.

[knives]

Or maybe the 3D effect of any film let alone one as unusual to the eyes as this posses a strain on the eyes which induces headaches.

[hearthesilence]

I'm tempted to say that it helps if you're a dog owner, the type that is very close to their dog. Seriously, the second time I watched this, instead of approaching those scenes as "okay, he's filming his dog, like the people on YouTube who film their pets," I had to think of the role of Roxie as if it were my dog (and I did have a dog for a very long time). That helped make him seem like both a full-fledged character and performance - not by imposing on him memories of my dog, but observing him the way I'd observe my dog by reading his "expressions" and even conjecturing what's actually going on in his head - can a dog even think in a way that's close to a human thought process? How's he seeing the world? (A lot of shots even start too look like his POV, as if he was just lying on a chair or a couch, watching people go by. Again, the way my dog would lie around the house, not asleep but just looking straight ahead.) It's kooky, but this seems to be Godard's approach and when you meet him on his terms, it clarifies a good portion of the film.

[nolanoe]

@ knives: Maybe - possible!?

@hearthesilence: Are you insinuating Godard did with the women of his other films what he does with his dog in Adieu?

Closely related - I watched the last unseen (by me) of the "first wave 15" last night, which happened to be "2 or 3 Things I know about her". I very much enjoyed it, and would put it in the top tier-section of his work (let's say a 8.5/10). I was surprised, however, to see him work with the "end of language"-theme in this one already. I am now suspecting that Godard is simply re-fashioning the themes of his earlier works in his new ones, but have only seen Adieu of that batch.

[otis]

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

[zedz]

Fixed!

yo, deth twittrz R gr8ly exxagerate

[criterion10]

I was able to see this at the IFC Theater in New York the other day. While I'm not too familiar with Godard's recent output (I've really only seen his films from the 1960s), this is basically along the lines of what I expected it to be after having seen Film Socialisme some time ago. It's very experimental and out-there, and I'm surprised it clicked so well with critics.

I enjoyed the experience of it all, though the film as a whole is just not my cup of tea. There's a great article by David Bordwell analyzing Godard's approach to narrative in Goodbye to Language, and while he is very fond of Godard deliberating obfuscating viewers through his presentation of the main events, I couldn't feel further from the contrary.

The use of 3D is interesting though, and the one famous moment that many critics have written about really is fascinating. At the same time, I'm now more interested to see the film again in 2D, where I feel I would be able to focus more on Godard's themes, etc., because man, were my eyes really strained! Then again, 3D does this to me normally, but the migraine I walked out of the theater with felt worse than normal here.

[hearthesilence]

FWIW, you can see how that famous shot looks in 2D via this video clip at the Huffington Post.

[criterion10]

I think that was posted a few pages back.

Anyhow, that's one moment that really has to be seen in 3D. I think some, if not many, reviews are overselling Godard's use of the format, but what he did with this shot is indeed revolutionary. There's another similar shot later in the film that uses the same effect as this one (blinking one eye shows one image, the other another).

[Oedipax]

I don't think Godard's use of the format is being oversold at all. In its constant disruption of the traditional viewing experience, it effectively makes every frame of the film about the process of seeing itself. It works on more or less a physiological level. It reminds us that seeing is just as much a subjective process as anything else - far from the relative 'objectivity' of the standard 2D frame. Another way to put it is he brings the old use of deep focus into another dimension. You as the viewer must consciously decide where in the frame to converge your vision - foreground, background, somewhere in between. It's practically an altered state, a 70 minute constant engagement with one's own visual cortex on such a fundamental level that I can't imagine simply writing it off as critical excess. There has simply never been cinema like this. And it's just one layer of meaning in the film, but in my view probably the most exciting one alongside the impressionistic passages with Remy.

[swo17]

With no small amount of effort, a friend and I recently managed to acquire a 3D projector and a copy of the StudioCanal Blu-ray to be able to see this remarkable film as intended. I must say, I have never been much of a fan of 3D (other than, you know, in real life), but I suppose that is only because I had never considered the possibility of extending the technology to experimental cinema. That's precisely what Godard is doing here, working primarily with material that would have been discarded by other filmmakers for not working in a conventional sense. There are foreground objects included to distract the eye more than to convey depth, and there are actors shot like grapes that could be plucked from the frame. There are shots with the background out of focus, where if you adjust your eyes you can see for miles, and there are other disorienting shots where short distances (the depth of a sink, the length of a face) are afforded just as much perspective. There are shots or elements of shots that I don't think are possible to resolve visually (and I've always been good at solving stereograms, for whatever that's worth). And there are other shots where your two eyes are made to see completely different images at the same time. (This has maybe been the most celebrated aspect of the film, and it's disorienting for sure, though I thought there was untapped potential here for the disparate images to complement each other more. Imagine for instance something like this: Your left eye sees a man standing in a field by a tree while your right eye sees a woman standing in the same position in the frame as the man but in an empty field. In the superimposition, the tree would appear to be only half there and the man and woman would awkwardly occupy the same space. Maybe one could be wearing red and the other blue and you would see them together in purple--or does that sort of thing only work with paints?) In any case, I love the wide range of material covered here. You never know what to expect, and the obvious skill that went into many of the shots makes it difficult to write off the ones that might otherwise have come off like Godard didn't know what he was doing. Oh, and the colors! I love the liberal use of oversaturated colors.

Story-wise, this feels a lot like one of Godard's modern essay films. I'm not sure how much interest it would hold on its own in 2D, though there are a lot of nice moments touching on the unappealing side of technology, bastardized film presentations, notions of equality, and the, um, cumbersomeness of communication that ring true. "We know everything about other people but nothing about ourselves." "One day we will all need interpreters to understand the words coming from our own mouths." Adieu au langage indeed.

[zedz]

"One day we will all need interpreters to understand the words coming from our own mouths."

To me, a line like that simply sums up the intellectual vapidity of much modern Godard: modish nonsense that sounds, like, really deep, maaan.

But yeah, the film looks fantastic.

[swo17]

I don't know, I think that line in particular is just a poetic exaggeration of the idea of not being able to come up with the words to adequately describe what you mean, or not even knowing who you are or what you want in the first place, but still carrying on with pointless conversations about these very things regardless.

[John Cope]

"One day we will all need interpreters to understand the words coming from our own mouths."

To me, a line like that simply sums up the intellectual vapidity of much modern Godard: modish nonsense that sounds, like, really deep, maaan.

This is exactly what has been putting me off from any interest in the new film. When I read what it was ostensibly about all I could think was that this was exactly what we do not need at this point in cultural history: i.e. the undermining of language as expressive tool of intellect or even as constitutive component of intellect, a condemnation of its legitimacy in the face of supposedly more "real" experiential truths like the dichotimized "nature" for example (though I'm not sure how seriously to take Godard's own stance as I gather he suffuses this piece with his usual readings and I'm not sure to what degree that ironically gets him off the hook or is meant to). Godfrey Reggio's Visitors was also structured on the foundation of image and feeling usurping language and intellectual cognition. If the argument is toward first foundations that's one thing but the intent of this kind of work seems to be a suspicion that has given way to outright distrust and dismissal and that seems way misguided even downright dangerous to me. If someone wants to see this poetic idea expressed thoroughly and with real conviction they can consult the work of Alberto Caeiro, one of Fernando Pessoa's heteronyms. Alternately if I want a real engagement with the implications of philosophical nihilism I would also look elsewhere. The 3D is about the only draw for me.

[swo17]

I should say, while I like the ideas that Godard is playing around with here (emphasis on "playing around"), I don't really know what his overall message is, if there even is one. If anything, I think he might be saying that the way we live today is destroying language, not that language is something that needs to be destroyed. See for example the early shots where old intellectual texts are observed lovingly by the camera as these richly textured living things, in contrast to the rather stale perusal of commodified information on smartphones.

[zedz]

I don't know, I think that line in particular is just a poetic exaggeration of the idea of not being able to come up with the words to adequately describe what you mean, or not even knowing who you are or what you want in the first place, but still carrying on with pointless conversations about these very things regardless.

But those are scenarios in which you either can't articulate what you really mean (not that you have no idea what it is you are saying), or are engaging in phatic communion (which is a perfectly ordinary everyday phenomenon which has been long understood). And in neither instance could a third party be expected to provide any clarification for you. It's a pretentious metaphor that hasn't been thought through and is expected to pass through gnomic obfuscation and a fawning "oh, but it's GODard" reflex.

[zedz]

I should say, while I like the ideas that Godard is playing around with here (emphasis on "playing around"), I don't really know what his overall message is, if there even is one. If anything, I think he might be saying that the way we live today is destroying language, not that language is something that needs to be destroyed. See for example the early shots where old intellectual texts are observed lovingly by the camera as these richly textured living things, in contrast to the rather stale perusal of commodified information on smartphones.

The impression I get with a lot of these "death of X" artists like Godard and Greenaway is that their real message is "there are no artists as important as ME any more", or a slightly more nuanced, "I have exhausted the expressive possibilities of My chosen artform so I'm going to switch off the lights on My way out." And to me, that says a lot more about their vanity and lack of engagement with the work of younger artists than it does about the state of the artform. They've both been crying wolf about the end of cinema for decades now, and cinema still hasn't got the message.

[Mr Sausage]

I should say, while I like the ideas that Godard is playing around with here (emphasis on "playing around"), I don't really know what his overall message is, if there even is one. If anything, I think he might be saying that the way we live today is destroying language, not that language is something that needs to be destroyed. See for example the early shots where old intellectual texts are observed lovingly by the camera as these richly textured living things, in contrast to the rather stale perusal of commodified information on smartphones.

Sorry to seem like I'm jumping all over you swo17.

The problem with the above is it (inadvertently?) reuses a old snobbish prejudice, to wit that the real problem with [insert cultural product] is that it's now available to everyone. Those lovely old texts may be stirring symbols of high culture and stable expressive power, but they were also shut up in monasteries and known only to the small number of people afforded the luxury of being able to read. So Godard takes us from a symbol of cultural elitism to one of cultural populism in a movie about the death of language. Even as a joke, it's a particularly blunt and stubby pin to be pricking people with. And it's probably not a joke.

But then I suspect the French's relation to their own language makes them especially susceptible to worries about its (and by extension all languages') purity--worries that anglophones, users of a baggy, shifting mongrel of a language, are no longer as anxious about.

[swo17]

I could have been more clear, but the "old intellectual texts" are mass-produced paperback books, well-worn from use.

[Red Screamer]

I should say, while I like the ideas that Godard is playing around with here (emphasis on "playing around"), I don't really know what his overall message is, if there even is one. If anything, I think he might be saying that the way we live today is destroying language, not that language is something that needs to be destroyed. See for example the early shots where old intellectual texts are observed lovingly by the camera as these richly textured living things, in contrast to the rather stale perusal of commodified information on smartphones.

Sorry to seem like I'm jumping all over you swo17.

The problem with the above is it (inadvertently?) reuses a old snobbish prejudice, to wit that the real problem with [insert cultural product] is that it's now available to everyone. Those lovely old texts may be stirring symbols of high culture and stable expressive power, but they were also shut up in monasteries and known only to the small number of people afforded the luxury of being able to read. So Godard takes us from a symbol of cultural elitism to one of cultural populism in a movie about the death of language. Even as a joke, it's a particularly blunt and stubby pin to be pricking people with. And it's probably not a joke.

But then I suspect the French's relation to their own language makes them especially susceptible to worries about its (and by extension all languages') purity--worries that anglophones, users of a baggy, shifting mongrel of a language, are no longer as anxious about.

I don't think the image that positions Godard against modern technology holds up. He has celebrated digital devices and cameras for decades and in the interview with an actress from this film posted some pages back, she reveals that Godard has an iPad, iPhone, and iMac. It also seems to me that the film isn't only about the death of language but it's rebirth as well and Godard himself points out in his Canon interview that in Switzerland, goodbye and hello are the same word and the meaning relies on the inflection of the speaker. Also the movie ends with

Spoiler

a baby's cries and a dog's barks, then credits, then the dog walking away (goodbye) and quickly bounding back (hello)

I'm not entirely sure what Godard is saying for most the film either but it's certainly more complex (or at least more contradictory and convoluted) than some elitist rant about iPhones.

[Oedipax]

While Godard has at times made pessimistic assessments about the cinema's demise, that's not what he's doing with Adieu. I would argue that beginning with Film Socialisme, he's entered into a new period stylistically that is very much about finding radically new ways of making and using images (while still building off his earlier works, of course), not about the death of cinema or 'turning off the lights' at all.

[zedz]

While Godard has at times made pessimistic assessments about the cinema's demise, that's not what he's doing with Adieu. I would argue that beginning with Film Socialisme, he's entered into a new period stylistically that is very much about finding radically new ways of making and using images (while still building off his earlier works, of course), not about the death of cinema or 'turning off the lights' at all.

In formal terms I don't think he's ever been in line with his own prognostications about cinema - since he's always been embracing new forms and technologies - but my problem is specifically with the intellectual content of his films, not the form. In that sense, I think the shift away from "death of cinema" to "death of culture" / "death of language" is just more of the same, but on an even more grandiose scale.