JLG lounge aka Godard lives

[hurluberlu]

Cause We Need This.



LOVE. HATE. EMOTIONS

[OldAle1]

Juggling Lazy Gophers?

[kongs_speech]

Juggling Lazy Gophers?

Justice League Guy. This is a Zack Snyder thread.

[OldAle1]

In all seriousness, some questions for everybody; I'm sure we'll rank him in our "rank a director" thread soon, so I'll skip that, and also discussion of where he ranks within the pantheon, or even the pantheon of New Wave filmmakers

1) what was the first JLG film you saw, if you can remember?

A - I think Breathless, probably around 1987-8.

2) what was the first JLG film you saw NEW, if it's different?

A - Probably Nouvelle Vague in 1990-1

3) Did you ever get to meet him or see him in person at a screening (or anywhere else)?

A - No

4) Favorite piece of criticism by him?

A - n/a - if I ever read any of his criticism, I've long forgotten it; don't know how much of his work is actually available in English

5) Favorite piece of criticism about him and his work?

A - haven't read that much; most of what Rosenbaum has written about him, which I've generally liked, but that's about it. Would like to read Richard Brody's book sometime.

[Armoreska]

first - Bande à part
2nd and it was new then, 3 yrs old - Film socialisme

[RBG]

[RBG]

at least he directed his own death. RIP

[beavis]

1) what was the first JLG film you saw, if you can remember?

Probably À bout de souffle as that one is often sited as one of the key Nouvelle Vague works, I am sure it was among some of the very first batches of tapes rented from the "cult videotheek" which also included stuff like my first silent movie, Eraserhead (probably my first Lynch movie too...?), Faster Pussy Cat Kill Kill and more big cult and arthouse classics that turned my late teen regular videotheek dweller self into a true cinephile. If not it must have been Week End, another early one. Haven't got records of that time that i can check.

2) what was the first JLG film you saw NEW, if it's different?

Film Socialisme, If I remember correctly this was also released far more widely than previous work and felt like a bit of a comeback, or at least a new direction

3) Did you ever get to meet him or see him in person at a screening (or anywhere else)?

nope

4) Favorite piece of criticism by him?

Histoire(s) du Cinéma

5) Favorite piece of criticism about him and his work?

Susan Sontag's writing on his work

----

Letterboxd says I've seen 69 of his works so far, but they do count shorts. Still Godard is easily the director I've seen the most features from. He is the most original and challenging amongst the directors I've seen a lot from. The admiration for this work can be nothing but hUge.

[hurluberlu]

Breathless / The Image Book / Not yet / Histoire(s) du cinéma / Thierry Jousse articles in the Cahiers du Cinéma

[beavis]

As for the Godard influence, that cannot be overstated, I think it is fitting to give a small shout out to William Klein too, his death seems to be forgotten between the Queen and the God

[kongs_speech]

As for the Godard influence, that cannot be overstated, I think it is fitting to give a small shout out to William Klein too, his death seems to be forgotten between the Queen and the God

I watched Mister Freedom last night/this morning. It feels very indebted to '60s Godard and the French New Wave in general. Unsurprisingly, I loved it. The extent of its rabid anti-Americanism is hilarious. RIP William Klein. He doesn't deserve to be forgotten.

[pitchorneirda]

1) I honestly can't remember whether it was Breathless or Contempt but I've known Godard from the very first moments of my cinephilia. If you don't count what you passively watch during your childhood, Breathless and Contempt were among the first 100 films I actively watched.
And Contempt was the one that had the heaviest influence on me.

PS: the more I try to remember, the more I think it may have been Pierrot le fou after all

2) I think this was Film Socialisme as well, but at this time, I was around 20 years old, the age you want to make revolution and Film Socialisme seemed a little too coy.
I lost interest in Godard's more recent works, especially after watching Adieu au langage in 2014, which I very much disliked.
To me his last decent work is Notre Musique. I might want to revisit his later works when I'm even more mature.

3) No

4) I like his takes on television but that's no surprise, I'm a kid of Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard and Pierre Bourdieu.

5) I can't think of nobody in particular, but it's always interesting to read the correspondance between Godard and Truffaut, or Rivette.

[hurluberlu]

"For me, images are life and texts are death. We need both. I am not against death. But I am not for life's death until it has been fully lived."
JLG, 1980


films7 on Twitter

[St. Gloede]

My attempt at an obituary: https://icmforum.com/2022/09/13/godard- ... -could-be/

[blocho]

1) what was the first JLG film you saw, if you can remember?

Weekend. I saw it in high school. A encountered a classmate on the bus home from school, and he suggested we drop everything and see Weekend at Lincoln Center. I loved it. Still the only Godard movie I like. That same classmate once told me he regarded Godard as "not only one of the best filmmakers of the twentieth century, but also one of the best people of the twentieth century." Here's the crazy part: That guy moved to Sweden a while ago and I hadn't seen him in four years. And then three days ago he gives me a call because he's in New York, and we meet up for drinks.

3) Did you ever get to meet him or see him in person at a screening (or anywhere else)?

No.

4) Favorite piece of criticism by him?

Haven't read any.

5) Favorite piece of criticism about him and his work?

Agnes Varda and the ending of Faces Places.

[St. Gloede]

1) what was the first JLG film you saw, if you can remember?

Alphaville, sometime around 2006-2007, it was instant love, and I'm glad I started with a film that already started to diverge more heavily from the new wave rather than Breathless, as it prepared me immediately for films like Weekend, Prenom Carmen, etc. Shortly after seeing Alpha ille I got a JLG boxset for Christmas, with a healthy mix of 60s, 80s and 90s films, and almost all became favourites, spurring me to explore the work that was actually available at a rapid rate.

2) what was the first JLG film you saw NEW, if it's different?

Depends on the idea of new. In Praise of Love and Our Music we're both somewhat new-ish when I saw them, but the first I saw around the time of release was Film socialisme.

3) Did you ever get to meet him or see him in person at a screening (or anywhere else)?

A - Sadly, no.

4) Favorite piece of criticism by him?

I have read one or two translated Cahiers du cinema magazines, but they are quite few in circulation. Godard had one article from what I can remember, but it was more amusing observations/a diary vs actual criticism.

5) Favorite piece of criticism about him and his work?

I too have enjoyed Rosenbaum on his work, but I have not read enough. I am very intruiged by Farocki's book Talking About Godard. If anyone have any recommendations let me know.

[Ebbywebby]

I'm not sure about the first one I saw. It's possible that I saw "Hail Mary" while knowing almost nothing about Godard, just because I heard it was blasphemous and controversial. Might have rented it from a VHS store. I definitely didn't "get it."

I saw "Masculin Feminin" in a college film class around the same time, so that's another candidate. I figure "Breathless" is another possibility, but I don't recall how/when I first saw it.

Eerie coincidence: I've been wanting to see his "Scenario du FIlm Passion" for awhile. And last night I happened to Google it for whatever reason and found a subtitled link on the ok.ru site. Hooray. Then just hours later, I heard he was dead.

[3eyes]

a) Alphaville (I think)

[Good_Will_Harding]

1) what was the first JLG film you saw, if you can remember?

Went through his filmography quasi-chronologically back in college about a decade ago, so probably Breathless, though I have early memories of Alphaville around that time as well.

2) what was the first JLG film you saw NEW, if it's different?

Not brand new, but I sought out Film Socialism not too long after it was newly released in the US, sometime in 2012 I believe. Same with Goodbye to Language a few years later. I have such dim memories of both that now seems like a good time to revisit them.

3) Did you ever get to meet him or see him in person at a screening (or anywhere else)?

Unfortunately not.

4) Favorite piece of criticism by him?

Actually haven't read up too much on his written works. As Ale says, not much of it is readily available in English.

5) Favorite piece of criticism about him and his work?

Also not too well read on this front as well. A decent chunk of what I've come across, without looking very hard, usually amounted to some ultra-modern readings of his earlier work, along the lines of "the form is very impressive, but the content is dated and problematic" - and I tend to avoid any and all criticism that automatically assumes every film from the classic era and earlier is "dated and problematic".

[hurluberlu]

Regarding texts about Godard and Pierrot Le Fou in particular, there is this famous article from French poet and surrealist Louis Aragon, here in English, including a really interesting analogy with painter Delacroix and the effects they both get out of colors.

Godard has been often compared to Picasso as well, in terms of career ups and downs as much as diversity of styles and ultimate impact on art. Here, several languages available.

And still about Pierrot Le Fou, I came across that very apt "educational" notice with a lot of insightful analysis.

[matthewscott8]

I watched Le Mepris with my two brothers in the cinema a long time ago. It was special because the movie was just so damned beautiful, but also, we never spend time together as brothers ever, let alone watching arthouse movies. Fritz Lang and Jack Palance in the same movie is some sort of mad gift. I watched it and felt that being the crazy cinema owner was something I could aspire to be.

I'd love to open a cinema (ideally re-open one) and show movies that maybe no-one would come and see, maybe sometimes 0 people, sometimes 2, sometimes 20. At least I would be fulfilling some sort of duty if I could get underseen cinema projected on a screen, even if no-one came to see it. Maybe a couple would come in out of the rain to fuck whilst a Marguerite Duras short was on in the background, maybe I'd sell tickets for £5 or for free if they agree to a shot of absinthe beforehand. Maybe it'd be a place students would look back on later in life after they've fucked everything up, and say, well at least we had the Unreal Palace.

I'm actually considering hiring a local microcinema out to show some avant garde films, just me and the staff and will cost a fortune, but it'll be beautiful. Not got enough money to do my mad non-commercial cinema dream though, not by a long chalk.

[hurluberlu]

Full discussion between JLG and film critic Serge Daney kicking-off Histoire(s) du cinéma, with English subs.

Spoiler

[hurluberlu]

[hurluberlu]

[cinewest]

I watched Le Mepris with my two brothers in the cinema a long time ago. It was special because the movie was just so damned beautiful, but also, we never spend time together as brothers ever, let alone watching arthouse movies. Fritz Lang and Jack Palance in the same movie is some sort of mad gift. I watched it and felt that being the crazy cinema owner was something I could aspire to be.

I'd love to open a cinema (ideally re-open one) and show movies that maybe no-one would come and see, maybe sometimes 0 people, sometimes 2, sometimes 20. At least I would be fulfilling some sort of duty if I could get underseen cinema projected on a screen, even if no-one came to see it. Maybe a couple would come in out of the rain to fuck whilst a Marguerite Duras short was on in the background, maybe I'd sell tickets for £5 or for free if they agree to a shot of absinthe beforehand. Maybe it'd be a place students would look back on later in life after they've fucked everything up, and say, well at least we had the Unreal Palace.

I'm actually considering hiring a local microcinema out to show some avant garde films, just me and the staff and will cost a fortune, but it'll be beautiful. Not got enough money to do my mad non-commercial cinema dream though, not by a long chalk.

Hahaha, I had a similar dream for about ten years, and had my eye on a few venues that wouldn't have been difficult to convert. Even tried to make it happen in Costa Rica, but the entire project fell apart just as it was about to open. You hit on the main issue, though, that being how to make it a viable business. There was a period of time in San Francisco where there were a lot of similar venues (back before VHS and Home videos really took off), and actually there are still a few such theaters that match your idea more than mine (an arthouse cafe that would screen curated films, host acoustic music events, and readings at least once a week, even double as a gallery), and seem to have made it work (yeah, the Roxie is still alive and well, and has even added another theater next door).

The key is locating such a venue in the right place: near a university, an artsy neighborhood, or at least in a cosmopolitan city where enough of an audience could be found. I actually found an old classic movie theater in SF (which had been converted into a Pentecostal Church for about 15 years) that was up for sale, but I needed financial partners to get it off the ground, and who knows if it would have worked given that the home video market was just taking off (circa 1990). The location wasn't bad, along a thouroughfare with ample public transportation, including a streetcar line that connected two universities not far away. The street didn't have much foot traffic, though, nor the buzz of other popular businesses nearby.

That was just before I left for Costa Rica, where I would live for a few years until everything I was involved with came crashing down all at once... I've lived several lives since then, but your post took me back...

[hurluberlu]

[Good_Will_Harding]

Things I've watched this week, in honor of the man, myth, legend, etc:

Breathless (1960)

Probably my third viewing, if I'm remembering correctly - likely due to it being one of the few Godard films that's been most widely available, across many of the streaming platforms or constantly being shown on channels like TCM. Also pretty sure this was the first Godard film I ever saw, since I went through his filmography in quasi-chronological order during college - and this one has always stood out to me as one of my favorites of his. Don't have a whole lot to contribute to the discussion regarding its style nor the storyline, but it's just an immensely entertaining watch every time I revisit it, to say nothing of the earth-shattering influence it's had on the medium of film in the over half-century since its release.

Vivre sa vie (1962)

Second viewing - first watched this during my aforementioned Godard binge that took place about a decade ago and lasted over the course of a couple of weeks. Therefore most of the films unfortunately have either run together in my mind or just been forgotten altogether, hence this unofficial 'quest' for a refresher on them. And this one really knocked my socks off during this most recent viewing. Structurally it really resembles fellow French New Wave alumni Agnes Varda's masterpiece Cleo from 5 to 7, released the same year, and I'm sure the similarities between the two are not merely coincidental. I almost wish I had gotten around to this sooner, since it would've factored much higher on my list during the recent yearly poll we held for 1962.

Le petit soldat (1963)

My only first time viewing of the bunch. From the earliest part of his career, this is one of the films I've heard the least about, yet in a lot of ways I found it to be equally as impressive as some of the rest which are more widely known and discussed. In this case, I was more captivated by the directing and aesthetics than I was necessarily attached to the dramatics, but I still found it a highly rewarding and engaging watch the entire way through.

[Good_Will_Harding]

While I'm on my roll (apparently I can only watch films by JLG in week-long periods of ongoing marathons ), I also got around to watching two of his "newer" films today, Film socialism and Goodbye to Language, both of which I was sure I had seen before, but appear to have never rated on IMDB. While I enjoyed both as some of the more willfully experimental works of his career, I must say that Goodbye to Language, the most recently released work I've seen from this great auteur, unfortunately started to wear pretty thin after a while, despite being the shorter of the two films. Not bad, but at this point probably my least favorite from his otherwise prolific body of work.

[St. Gloede]

Finally watched it!

JLG/JLG Self-Portrait in December (1994)



A self-portrait that reveals very little, and quite a lot at the same time. It's opening moments only allowing us to hear JLG's voice and see his hands. The walls and rooms in his home, along with its surroundings, are our canvas, while a notebook, with the occasional sentence or word, give us direction as Godard, in familiar fashion, talks us through the very preparation of the film and sets the stage.

It takes about 10 minutes before we see the back of Godard's head, and longer before he becomes fully animated, at which point a certain melancholy has set in. Like many JLG films from this period, Lemmy Caution, Children Play Russian and Forever Mozart in particular, the world and visual expression in front of us is bleaker, colder and barely able to smile. The energy is lower, and indeed, just like December, ice seems to have crept in.

This does not stop Godard from being playful, and contrary to some classifications this is no more a documentary than his whimsical Keep Your Right up, from 7 years earlier, where he plays a Tati like version of himself. This version, which has to be closer to real life, and certainly closer to the version we encounter is Our Music a decade later, is more mellow and reflective, but it is still a role - and he is engaging with a cast.

The very opening lines cement this, with Godard, speaking as if he can barely breath, goes over his need to cast the roles and get into his own. Fictitious encounters with the film industry and the people around him play with the same poetic touches as his other work, and there is still a wink, but as his own works and statements are referenced and quoted just as his other quotations he seems frozen still. He is engaging with himself, perhaps even the legend of himself, and with his thoughts and projects, but meditating on them rather than offering in-depth analysis or coming to any conclusions.

An open work, which again and again reminds us of the late season, both of his career and the very literal scenery and sense of isolation and loneliness, makes it a powerful, if not small part of his filmography - standing out first and foremost for the subject matter: himself.

It is also a work that continues and expand on the cinematic language he had been developing throughout his career. Quotations, references, audio from other cinematic works are all entangled into his new footage, while the form in many ways build on the experiments he started with Miéville in the 70s. A particularly exciting and enthralling set-up is the back of Godard's head watching scenes from films on a small camera that is also connected to his TV. The perspective is intense and almost unnerving, a little like the effects of an infinite mirror even if it is just three steps and two repetitions.

The play with screens is exciting, but so is the focus on simply flipping through the notebook, or Godard alone on a table, only armed with pen and paper, slowly drawing us in.

Seemingly contemplating his death almost 3 decades before the end of his life, the film hits even harder now that his passing is confirmed, especially the final remarks, beautifully presented in the pages of the notebook, that we are not yet in the past.


P. S. While watching it I loved how it in early instances felt very much like the great late personal films of Pollet and Cavalier, before it immediately became a Godard film, especially a 90s Godard film, with everything that implies.

[St. Gloede]

[Good_Will_Harding]

Truffaut and Godard shutting down Cannes in 1968, absolutely unstoppable together.

[OldAle1]

Appreciation by Rosenbaum published today:

https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2022/09/j ... -airplane/

[St. Gloede]

Appreciation by Rosenbaum published today:

https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2022/09/j ... -airplane/

Great write-up. Interesting to read that academics were more excited by Vladimir et Rosa and Wind From the East than Numero Deux back in the day, given that the latter is now his most recognized film from the 70s by far (along with Tout va bien) while the older Dziga Vertov Groupe films are forgotten. His reasoning for why this was the case is also likely why these two films still caught me completely, though I would say the visual experimentation in Numero deux is far more interesting (and teachable).

[St. Gloede]

A museum in Italy recreated Jean-Luc Godard's studio and screen The Image Book and a series of shorts from his computer to a TV screen (inside the recreated studio) every day: https://www.fondazioneprada.org/project ... o-dorphee/

[St. Gloede]

Really exciting news. The entirety of France/tour/détour/deux/enfants (1977-1978) has been uploaded on youtube, and the print is much better than what I believe I have seen previously:



Wonderful mini-series. Highly recommended for any fans of JLG's essay work. This was his work long-form work, and I would place it amongst his most important collaborations with Miéville.

[Torgo]

I'll just leave this oddity here ..
Adieu Godard (2021)

[St. Gloede]

The director of Adieu Godard also wrote on JLG's passing: https://www.telegraphindia.com/entertai ... id/1886376

[cinewest]

Another nice tribute to Godard: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/09/ ... d-matters/

[hurluberlu]

Martin Scorsese: Godard is perhaps dead


2 or 3 Things I Know About Her & Taxi Driver

[OldAle1]

Absolutely beautiful. Thanks for posting, hurlu.