Godard

[Bilan]

What do people think about Goddard's films?

[Anonymous]

I've only seen Breathless, The Outsiders and Contempt. Loved them all, he's definitely a classic. Even better than Truffaut I'd say.

[Random Precision]

Le Petit Soldat was really good. Also RevLefters might find La Chinoise to be of interest, it's a (somewhat autobiographical, somewhat based on Dostoevsky's Demons) film about a Maoist collective at the Sorbonne in '67. It's a bit hard to understand at some points, but it's an excellent indictment of middle-class revolutionism.

[Bilan]

I finished Masculin Féminin: 15 faits précis last night. That was pretty cool.

[x359594]

Godard is the greatest living filmmaker in the world in my view. At 80 he's still experimenting, still pushing the boundaries of the medium. As he put it in an interview a few years ago, "I'm the youngest filmmaker working today because I'm still making my first movie."

If possible, see his Histoire(s) du cinema by all means.

[Post-Something]

Oh, I think Jean Luc Goddard is absolutely amazing! I've got Weekend, Breathless and Masculin Feminin. I prefer Bergman though.

The most Marxist of them is probably Weekend.

[KC]

Definitely my favorite out of the French nouvelle vague.

[brigadista]

i like sympathy for the devil

[KurtFF8]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Tout Va Bien. Probably his most overtly Marxist film.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Damnit, I just searched and this thread didn't come up, so now I have bumped a thread that is a couple of years old.

Anyway, I think the most watchable of his films was le petit soldat, but as I said in the other thread, a bout de souffle is simply one of the most influential films ever. I like Godard, but I do watch him retrospectively, which is perhaps necessary to get the most out of him.

Any suggestions for modern takes along the same vein as Godard's (especially earlier) work?

[Janine Melnitz]

Tout va Bien is really great; the factory set was amazing, and while he was obviously trying too hard to be "Brechtian" with the monologues I still liked them a lot. Also seconding Masculin Feminin.

I can't really get behind his later work; I'm certainly not someone who insists that movies etc. be "progressive" but in Godard's case when the fire went out of his politics his films became incredibly boring.

[Bilan]

Une Femme est Une Femme is magnificent. The costumes, acting, etc. is wonderful. Anna Karina is also superb.

[Pirate Utopian]

I liked Sympathy For The Devil, wasnt too crazy about La Chinoise.

[Cinemarx123]

Pierrot le Fou, Masculin Feminin, Les Carabiniers, and Vivre sa vie are some of my favorite films. If you like his films you'd probobly enjoy plays by Bertolt Brecht, a Marxist playwright, who influenced Godard considerably.

Also of interest are the Situationist critiques of Godard's films, and the films of Guy DeBord.

[x359594]

Tout va Bien is really great; the factory set was amazing...

His hommage to Jerry Lewis's The Ladies' Man which takes place in a huge cut away set.


...I can't really get behind his later work; I'm certainly not someone who insists that movies etc. be "progressive" but in Godard's case when the fire went out of his politics his films became incredibly boring.

I don't agree. The fire never went out of his politics: Allemagne année 90 neuf zéro, Les Enfants jouent à la Russie, Je vous salue, Sarajevo, and For Ever Mozart are all passionate political films form the 1990s about changes in Europe after the collapse of the USSR.

True, his attention has shifted to over areas of life in his old age, but he always returns to politics.

[JimFar]

Le Petit Soldat was really good. Also RevLefters might find La Chinoise to be of interest, it's a (somewhat autobiographical, somewhat based on Dostoevsky's Demons) film about a Maoist collective at the Sorbonne in '67. It's a bit hard to understand at some points, but it's an excellent indictment of middle-class revolutionism.

That's a rather curious film, isn't it? It's my understanding that Godard was not yet at that time a Maoist, but that many of the people in his circle were already involved in Maoist politics, including his wife, Anne Wiazemsky. It's interesting that Godard drew inspiration from Dostoyevsky's novel, since Dostoyevsky wrote that novel to discredit revolutionary politics in Russia, whereas I think that Godard's intentions were a bit different. He clearly deplores the Maoist collective's turn to terrorism (i.e. the attempted assasination of the visiting Soviet minister of culture), but Godard also seems to have a lot affection for his characters too. I also got the impression that the one character whose politics Godard was the most sympathetic at the time is Henri who gets expelled from the collective for a being a "revisionist."

Also interesting is the cameo appearance of Francis Jeanson, the disciple and friend of Sartre, who in the film attempts to dissuade Véronique from turning towards terrorism. (Apparently, in real life, Jeanson was Anne Wiazemsky's philosophy professor). In the film Jeanson defends certain forms of political violence (in fact during the Algerian independence struggle, he had played a key role by founding the Jeanson Network, which collected and transported funds to support the Algerian side in the conflict), while denouncing terrorist acts which were not grounded in popular struggle.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I love him. My favoruites are Alphaville, Pierrot Le Fou and Breathless.

[x359594]

To all Godard admirers: beware the 700 page Richard Brody biography Everything's Cinema. It's a hatchet job by a reactionary "fan."

[Incendiarism]

He opened my eyes t Anna Karina. If only for this reason he has my eternal gratitude.

[Eva]

My favorite film by Godard is Vivre Sa Vie; probably because it was elegantly subversive and accessible; very easy to grasp. I thought it was very snarky of him to use prostitution as a metaphor capitalism. I also liked the fact that most scenes were very banal in nature and that the dialog was mostly improvised.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

He opened my eyes t Anna Karina. If only for this reason he has my eternal gratitude.

Oh yeah I totally agree. He was married to her aswell.