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Whew, what a ride the first few months of '09 has been for me, Godardwise. I have viewed and reviewed 11 of the 59-69 films. There are some gaping holes in there of course, and I'll fill those in eventually. Every time I watched another Godard, I had, erm, "expectations". What a silly thing to have! Every successive film threw me off my idealised Godard path. I hated some of these, initially. But, there isn't one of them that I cannot wait to view again. I haven't suddenly become rapturously enamoured with every single one of them. But I'm completely drawn to them, mesmerized by their beauty (yes, even Les Carabiniers), mystery, density, unclassifiability (is this a word?), unexplored/unrealized layers (especially the last two Sons Of Bitches). Godard is uncompromising, unapologetic, unsympathetic. (And funny as hell most of the time.) I adore this about him. It's an exciting new world for me.

Anyway, I now skip to some of the 80s works. Please be kind and rewind. Thanks.

Noiretirc wrote:Anyway, I now skip to some of the 80s works. Please be kind and rewind. Thanks.

Before skipping to the 80s, you should try to find Tout va bien and Numero Deux.

Given his reaction to La Gai savoir, you should have recommended Comment ça va? and Ici et ailleurs

domino harvey wrote:Given his reaction to La Gai savoir, you should have recommended Comment ça va? and Ici et ailleurs

Hmmmm...... (My INITIAL reaction, Domino! I'm reconsidering. It's a natural process when one is no longer in the eye of the storm. Dammit I can't wait to attack it again.)

Justeleblanc, I acquired 17 Godards via my annual Xmas ordering and that is what I shall deal with in '09. What do you suppose are the consequences of not seeing those two? (It greatly annoys me that I haven't seen My Life To Live, Weekend, Made In The USA, or 2 Or 3 Things. Yet.)

noiretirc-- They aren't essential to appreciating his 80s films, no, but they are two terrific films, and I think they bridge together his interest with political language, and how he applied the same formal analysis to cinematic language.

Ici et ailleurs and Comment ca va are two decent films, but I just don't think they are as interesting as Numero Deux.

I've decided to try and compile a list of filmmakers who Godard has spoken of in the past. Going mostly by memory, I have:

-DePalma and Scorsese being described by him positively in his debate with Pauline Kael. DePalma needs to focus more on his stories according to Godard.
-Coppola being slightly mocked for his tendency to go over budget in the same debate. I wonder what his opinion of Apocalypse Now is?
-Kubrick getting knocked around in Cahiers and later on.
-On Kiarostami: "Film begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami."
-Repeated admiration for Nicholas Ray.
-Put Samuel Fuller in Pierrot le fou.
-He liked Antonioni and nearly got into a car crash when Rosselini yelled at him (I read this somewhere but I can't find it...I think it was on a blog a user here has/had.)
-Doesn't like Tarantino, as we all know. I swear I had a quote where he jokingly mentioned a connection between Reservoir Dogs and Abu Ghraib.

If someone has anything to add, I would certainly appreciate it.

Not quite sure the point of the last post but Fritz Lang starred in his film Le Mepris (Contempt)

CRM-114 wrote: -Kubrick getting knocked around in Cahiers and later on.

What does this mean. Nasty essays on Kubrick?
Also the Tarantino one is extra funny since the obviously admires Goddard to a humorous degree.

Godard would knock Kubrick down for his being derivative of Ophuls (reviews on The Killing and Lolita).

There is also a quote where Godard ripped into Michael Moore for inadvertently praising Bush in his misuse of images.

I haven't seen any Ophuls, I know , so I can't comment on that. I do find that knock a bit funny though since French New Wave and therefore probably Goddard, I know I really need to watch some of these masters, is really derivative, to say kindly, of various directors.

CRM-114 wrote: If someone has anything to add, I would certainly appreciate it.

You know, there's a whole book of my writings for Cahiers

CRM-114 wrote:If someone has anything to add, I would certainly appreciate it.

In the Dick Cavett interview he said that Woody Allen's use of black and white photography in Manhattan was a gimmick, and also said that Scorsese's Alice doesn't Live Here Anymore was the last great American film he had seen (i think the interview took place in 1980).

Amazon delivered my Believer today. Certainly this will be the first and last Godard DVD with a beach ball printed on the disc

The Godard beach footage is totally surreal. The somewhat bitter commentary provided by the guy who shot it and the ultra-cheesy 80s video titles only add to the experience.

domino harvey wrote:Amazon delivered my Believer today. Certainly this will be the first and last Godard DVD with a beach ball printed on the disc

Wha? They aren't shipping mine until April 13.

Oedipax wrote:The Godard beach footage is totally surreal. The somewhat bitter commentary provided by the guy who shot it and the ultra-cheesy 80s video titles only add to the experience.

The guy who shot it was Ira Schneider. I had the misfortune to meet this guy and he was a complete d-bag, yelling at my colleagues and I about how no one cares about video production anymore. He began yelling "Do you know who I am?" repeatedly. I don't think anyone knew who he was except for me, and only in reference to this beach movie. I made him aware of this and he warmed up immediately and began talking about Godard and Gorin. I told him I wasn't interested and he got angry once again. Now that I've finally seen this beach movie, I'm glad I said that.

Too funny. And judging by the subpar quality of said video footage (nastily overexposed, lousy operation, total disregard for any kind of interesting framing, pointless zooms - i.e. your typical home video) he didn't care much for video production back in 1979 either. Has he done anything before or since that we should know about? His only IMDB credits are as a caterer!

Oh, almost forgot: Bill Krohn has given the Brody bio the pan it deserves in the latest Cinemascope.

NYC film series Picturing the Shoah includes In Praise of Love, Histoire(s) du Cinema and Notre Musique, with an appearance by Brody, among others.

Fiery Angel wrote:NYC film series Picturing the Shoah includes In Praise of Love, Histoire(s) du Cinema and Notre Musique, with an appearance by Brody, among others.

So, someone here is going to film the Q&A, right? Because you just know it's going to get out of hand

BTW--the Histoire(s) screening and Brody discussion afterwards are free--follow the link for ticket info and send an email to RSVP.

First the Krohn article (which is excellent, by the way) had to open up all of the old wounds, and then we had to have the salt of Brody speaking at screenings of Godard's Shoah films. This physically hurts me, I hope Dick knows that.

Oedipax wrote:Oh, almost forgot: Bill Krohn has given the Brody bio the pan it deserves in the latest Cinemascope.

Typically excellent Krohn piece. He really knows how to dig in the weeds of the evidence. My only quibble is his surmising that Brody set out in revenge for Godard's snub of him. It's beneath the rest of the article.

It's not as damning as the points attacking the text but it's so obviously valid that it needed to be said.

One slightly embarrassing error in the article: It's Colin MacCabe, not McCabe as Krohn refers to him throughout (Altman on the brain, perhaps...)