Jean-Luc Godard

[Oedipax]

I wonder if the Raro will have Mieville's Book of Mary? It's doubtful, I guess, but it's on my VHS copy before the main film.

[iangj]

I wonder if the Raro will have Mieville's Book of Mary? It's doubtful, I guess, but it's on my VHS copy before the main film.

Book of Mary was always an integral part of the film. It'd be doubtful that it wouldn't be there.

[Guest]

From Criterion's web-site, the following article is linked.

'Cinema is over'

Jean-Luc Godard hardly ever talks to the press, and when he does it's as likely to be about football as film. In a rare interview, Geoffrey Macnab discovers that the original enfant terrible of the French new wave has lost none of his fire

Geoffrey Macnab
Friday April 29, 2005

Guardian

It is a balmy afternoon and Jean-Luc Godard is sitting by a French swimming pool, smoking a cigar and talking football. His new film, Notre Musique, has just received its world premiere. Midway through it, there is a reference to the famous match at Wembley in November 1953 when Hungary (the "Magnificent Magyars") defeated Billy Wright's England 6-3. Reflecting on the match, Godard, a devoted football fan as a youngster, begins to tick off the names of the Hungarian players one by one. "Apart from the goalkeeper, I remember them all," he says. There was Puskas ("the galloping major"), the right-half Bozsik ("the deputy"), Sandor ("the mad winger"), Kocsis ("the golden head"). Stanley Matthews, he adds, is the only English player who sticks in his mind.
Godard describes first watching the Hungarian team, which revolutionised world football, as being "a discovery, like modern painting." Most of the Hungarian players, he points out, were from Honved, the "club of the army". The country was under Soviet occupation. None the less, Puskas (an army officer) and his colleagues approached the game in a freewheeling, marvellously uninhibited style that contrasted with the regimentation of day-to-day life behind the Iron Curtain. The only team that has come close to Puskas's Hungary, Godard adds, was Ajax of Amsterdam during the Cruyff era. "Everybody played in attack and defence - it was like free jazz."

Godard turned 74 in December. In the twilight of his career, he remains as playful, provocative and perverse as ever. Somehow, it's no surprise that he is as eager to discuss Puskas and Stanley Matthews as to reflect on his new film. He is nothing if not contrary, and has an unerring ability to wrongfoot critics and audiences alike. At a press conference for Notre Musique, Godard fazed journalists by inviting a spokesperson for the French actors and technicians' union to take to the platform. He then sat silently as the union's gripes against the French government were detailed at length.

Humorous, lyrical and baffling by turns, Notre Musique is typical late Godard: part essay, part poetic meditation. The film, divided into three parts, begins with a rapid-fire montage sequence of stock shots from documentaries and Hollywood war movies. Lasting for around seven minutes, this section is called Hell. Godard uses a quote from the 18th-century philosopher Baron de Montesquieu to contextualise the images: "After the great flood, men came out of the earth and started exterminating each other." Alongside the battle scenes, there are shots of penguins and monkeys. "I found some pictures of American GIs in the river and I thought they made a nice follow-up to the monkeys," he explains cheerfully.

Next comes Purgatory, in which Godard returns to Sarajevo, a city also featured in an earlier film, Forever Mozart (1996). He wanders through the city, encountering journalists and academics, and discussing politics and history. We hear asides about how history is written by the victors. There are actors playing fictional characters and real people (Godard among them) playing themselves. There are near-identical images of Palestinians and Israelis on the same sea shore, but the context of these pictures is utterly different. One is of victory, the other of defeat. We hear a quote from Malraux: "Humane people don't start revolutions, they open libraries". We also see the bridge at Mostar, whose destruction in 1993 marked a low point of the Bosnian war. The bridge has now been reconstructed, amid much talk of hope triumphing over barbarism.

"I had the feeling that Sarajevo was the perfect place to shoot the film I wanted to shoot. It is the perfect illustration of purgatory," says Godard. The final part portrays heaven, albeit in heavily ironic fashion. Paradise is a leafy place in the woods, guarded by US marines.

Godard may be a famous name, but he seems resigned to the fact that his films are not now widely seen and rarely make much impact at the box-office. His reputation is such that his regular producers, Ruth Waldburger and Alain Sarde, can raise money for his new projects easily enough, but his recent career isn't exactly a commercial beanfeast. To illustrate the point, he tells a story of how he recently flew from Montr�al to New York. When he arrived, the customs officer asked him: "Mr Godard: what are you coming here for? Business or pleasure?" Godard indicated the former. The officer asked what business he was in. "Unsuccessful movies," Godard replied.

There is something paradoxical about his attitude toward cinema. He now seems despairing of the medium's ability to reinvent itself or to have any kind of social impact. "It's over," he sighs. "There was a time maybe when cinema could have improved society, but that time was missed."

Yet he continues to study film and experiment as energetically as ever. He is brutally dismissive of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and of the spate of other recent films attacking globalisation, warmongering and US cultural imperialism. "They say they are attacking Bush, but they are not doing it in movie terms, but in words." He calls Moore (in his idiosyncratic English) "just a Hollywood reporter man", and compares him unfavourably with the great cin�ma v�rit� documentary-maker Frederick Wiseman. He even suggests that Moore's work may actually have helped Bush. "It's not enough to be against Adolf Hitler. If you make a disastrous movie, you're not against Adolf Hitler." (Whether he has actually seen Fahrenheit 9/11 is not in any way apparent.)

Nor is Godard especially flattering about the legions of admirers who make reference to him in their own movies or even name their companies after him. Quentin Tarantino, for example, calls his production company A Band Apart, in deference to Godard's 1964 classic, Bande � Part. "He says he admires me, but that's not true," Godard muses, then makes a cryptic remark about the torture and humiliation of prisoners by US guards in Iraq. "What is never said about Tarantino is that those prisons we are shown pictures of, where the torture is taking place, are called "reservoir dogs". I think the name is very appropriate."

Back in the 1950s, when he was writing for Cahiers du Cin�ma magazine, Godard was among the most provocative critics of his day. "The Cinema Is Nicholas Ray," he wrote. Another of his gems: "You can describe Hiroshima Mon Amour as Faulkner plus Stravinsky." Every film student knows quotes such as "All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun" and "The cinema is truth 24 times a second."

He remains adept at coining polished one-liners, but now they tend to have a melancholic undertone. Ask him whether he still takes pleasure in Nicholas Ray's films and he admits he doesn't watch them any more. "It's not possible to see the films. You can only see them on DVD, which I don't like very much, because the screen is too small."

He sounds equally disenchanted with film festivals. "In the beginning I believed in Cannes, but now it's just for publicity. People come to Cannes just to advertise their films, not with a particular message. But the advantage is that if you go to the festival, you get so much press coverage in three days that it advertises the film for the rest of the year."

Living in Switzerland, he rarely sees movies, unless he is preparing a documentary like Histoire du Cin�ma. He claims he spends his spare time watching sport and reading old Jack London novels. He doesn't keep in touch with many of the old colleagues with whom he worked in the Nouvelle Vague era. "It's like with any family. You see your relatives and then you don't. All of a sudden, they disappear and you don't know what has become of them. Ten years ago, I felt nostalgic about that period, but not any more."

No, he hasn't seen Bertolucci's The Dreamers, which re-creates the heady days in Paris in 1968 and features its own homage to his film, Band � Part. Isn't he curious about a film so close to his own experiences? "It's a past life," is all he says. He likewise parries questions about future projects, joking that all he now has in mind is "to try to play some tennis and see my analyst".

Despite Godard's reputation as an aloof, Prospero-like figure, he is a surprisingly gracious interviewee. Not that Godard relishes journalists or authors poring over his private life. Even Colin McCabe's enthusiastic biography, Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70, meets with his disapproval. "I was not glad he did it. I asked him not to, but I can't prevent someone from writing," Godard says. "He knows nothing about me. Maybe he knows some of my movies ... I was grateful to him for a time because he helped me do a few things, but that's all. It's not because you are friends at the time that you have the moral authorisation of entering the private life of another person."

Godard's treatment of his own collaborators hasn't always been chivalrous. One thinks of Truffaut's famous letter in which he suggested that if Godard ever made an autobiographical film, the appropriate title might be Once a Shit, Always a Shit. Then, there was Letter to Jane, the 1972 documentary he and Jean-Pierre Gorin made about Jane Fonda. A 52-minute deconstruction of a photo of Fonda in Hanoi, this was a cruel and mocking piece of agit-prop. "It was not a very good movie," Godard acknowledges, but adds that it was "an attempt to analyse the political work of Jane Fonda", not an attack on Fonda personally.

The director describes his new film as an optimistic one, with an underlying message that "reconciliation is possible" - but there is no disguising the his dismay about the state of his chosen profession. In one of the most poignant scenes in Notre Musique, we hear a voice asking him if small digital cameras can save cinema. There is a close-up of Godard's face: he scowls and says nothing at all. The inference is clear: the battle is already lost. As our meeting ends, I put the question to him again. There is still no answer.

Godard's treatment of his own collaborators hasn't always been chivalrous. One thinks of Truffaut's famous letter in which he suggested that if Godard ever made an autobiographical film, the appropriate title might be Once a Shit, Always a Shit.

Can someone please elaborate on this? I knew they drifted apart, but I never knew there was bad blood involved.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Can someone please elaborate on this? I knew they drifted apart, but I never knew there was bad blood involved.

This comes from MacCabe's book; I'm sure other authors have gone into more detail on it, but I don't have them handy. Relevant letters from Truffaut to Godard (and vice versa) are included in the collected edition of Truffaut's correspondence (Correspondence, 1945-1984), but I don't have that.

[Anne] Wiazemsky recalls a very violent argument that summer [1968] when Godard tried to persuade Truffaut to lend his backing to the campaign to close the Avignon festival. Truffaut refused, not only citing his friendship for Jean Vilar, the director of the festival, but also making clear that if there had to be a choice between supporting the proletarian riot police and rich kids intoxicated by revolution, then he was on the side of the police.

By this time Godard had become a more or less committed Maoist, so he broke it off with Truffaut, who was obviously not sufficiently "militant." Truffaut wrote to Godard after the latter's motorcycle accident in 1971; then, in 1973, Godard contacted Truffaut (apparently out of the blue) with a rather harsh letter criticizing Day for Night. MacCabe doesn't go into too much detail on this, but if I remember correctly the gist of Godard's critique was that the film treated cinema as a sort of abstract quasi-mystical concept divorced from class and other political realities, which was of course anathema to Godard at this stage. He also called Truffaut a liar because the director in Day for Night was practically the only character not sleeping around when the real-life Truffaut was a rather notorious womanizer. In the same letter Godard actually summoned the cojones to ask Truffaut for financing, "so that the public doesn't get the idea that we all make films like you." Truffaut wrote an understandably angry response that basically called Godard a phony ("the Ursula Andress of militancy").

Godard wrote to Truffaut again in 1980, suggesting the two should participate in some kind of public discussion in Geneva (along with Rivette and Chabrol), but Truffaut was obviously in no mood to reconcile and wrote another angry response that took Godard to the mat for his mistreatment of various figures over the years (Vera Chytilova, Loleh Bellon, Pierre Braunberger). The letter concluded: "I await your response without excessive impatience because if you've become one of Coppola's groupies, you'll be pressed for time and you don't want to ruin the preparation of your next autobiographical film whose title I think I know: 'A Shit Is a Shit.'" That was apparently the last contact they had.

[cbernard]

The letter concluded: "I await your response without excessive impatience because if you've become one of Coppola's groupies, you'll be pressed for time and you don't want to ruin the preparation of your next autobiographical film whose title I think I know: 'A Shit Is a Shit.'" That was apparently the last contact they had.

Godard did indeed have an association with Coppola at one point. Wish I knew what the nature of it was, what came of it, etc.

[Kirkinson]

In one of the most poignant scenes in Notre Musique, we hear a voice asking him if small digital cameras can save cinema. There is a close-up of Godard's face: he scowls and says nothing at all. The inference is clear: the battle is already lost. As our meeting ends, I put the question to him again. There is still no answer.

I've said this elsewhere, but I really wish people would stop asking him the Notre Musique question about digital cameras saving cinema, as none of the critics or interviewers I've read have understood what was going on in that scene. In the film, Godard "scowls" and remains silent not because little digital cameras (necessarily) bother him, but because the question implies that no one in the room was listening to a word he said. In the scene, his audience becomes more and more restless as his lecture goes on, paying less and less attention to what he has to say--they only want to know about dolly shots and close-ups, not about film as an aspect of life or an art with higher expressive potential. Now when people turn around and ask Godard this question in real interviews, it only shows that no one who watched the film was listening to a word he said, either. That's got to be depressing.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Godard did indeed have an association with Coppola at one point. Wish I knew what the nature of it was, what came of it, etc.

Zoetrope co-produced Sauve qui peut (la vie). I'm pretty sure that was the extent of the relationship.

[ambrose1am]

Zoetrope co-produced Sauve qui peut (la vie). I'm pretty sure that was the extent of the relationship.

Coppola also wanted Godard to direct Hammet, which Wenders eventually directed.

[backstreetsbackalright]

'Cinema is over'

Jean-Luc Godard hardly ever talks to the press, and when he does it's as likely to be about football as film. In a rare interview, Geoffrey Macnab discovers that the original enfant terrible of the French new wave has lost none of his fire

This interview is pretty disposable. I gotta be frank, I kinda think The Guardian sucks. This sounds less like an interview than notes from a year-old press conference. There's very little new information here at all. And as for the whole "rarely does interviews" business, I don't know that that's true. To name names, Film Comment ran a comparitively epic one in the Jan/Feb 2005 issue.

I'm reminded of The Guardian's 2004 interview with Kevin Shields (of My Bloody Valentine), which claimed to be the first interview Shields had given in 12 years. Many fans quickly noted that he'd given one to Arthur less than six months previous....

[GringoTex]

Relevant letters from Truffaut to Godard (and vice versa) are included in the collected edition of Truffaut's correspondence (Correspondence, 1945-1984), but I don't have that.

Godard actually wrote the forward for Truffaut's collected correspondence. It was after Truffaut's death and contains as much an apology as you'll ever likely to get from Godard.

Godard worshipped Truffaut in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and it seems to me his sudden attacks on him were more a reaction against his own idolatry than Truffaut himself.

[chaddoli]

'Cinema is over'

I hate to say this: but that interview makes me think more and more that Godard has lost it. I love Godard's early work, Breathless, Contempt, etc, but Notre Musique seemed to be by a fallen artist who still can make beautiful images, but ultimately, with nothing left to say. And this bitter, egocentric interview makes me feel that way even more.

[cbernard]

Notre Musique seemed to be by a fallen artist who still can make beautiful images, but ultimately, with nothing left to say. And this bitter, egocentric interview makes me feel that way even more.

I disagree about Notre Musique. Even Godard's silence (in that famous response to the DV question, deceptively simple) has weight.

Godard is living the end of Candide.

[Dylan]

Godard did indeed have an association with Coppola at one point. Wish I knew what the nature of it was, what came of it, etc.

Coppola also had a hand in the production of "Passion." Vittorio Storaro was lined up to photograph it, but due to creative differences, Godard fired him (Godard also apparently fired ample additional crew from Zoetrope {"Coppola groupies" as Truffaut called them} in favor of hiring his own crew or doing much of the work himself).

[kekid]

It is interesting to compare the Godard interview with the extract from a Bresson interview included with "Pickpocket". While explaining why he does not like current films, Bresson is unfailingly introspective, gentle, and melancholy. Godard is angry and arrogant. Both are lonely. I regret that we have a complete record of Godard but only a brief extract of far more fascinating Bresson.

[yoshimori]

Got mine today from amazon.com. Sadly, the transfer looks like it was taken from the 1980s Vestron (?) vhs, but even softer. What a shame. I guess I'll have to order the Raro.

ps. The DVD does have Book of Mary, if you care.

[Dylan]

When will Raro release their DVD? And by the way, there's a very negative review of this DVD on Amazon (from a person who loves the film, of course). Here is a bit of it:

The quality of the image is worse than I could ever have imagined. The picture is blurred, dull and dark. Again this is a characteristic of its source. The sound is no better as it is fuzzy and distant. The burnt in subtitles on this film also proove problematic as each time a title appears or diappears the entire image changes colour ( a characterisitc of bad DVD source and encoding).

This DVD is totally unacceptable for a number of reasons. Firstly a Japanese DVD version prooves that the original film prints of this film are still available and in good condition. The Japanese version is beautifully restored and features a worthwhile behind the scenes featurette, not included on this disk. Secondly the full price of this DVD makes it nothing short of a rip off.

Dylan

[captgriff]

I'm also interested in this set, especially for the transfer of Breathless, given the less than stellar versions with English subtitles currently available in the marketplace.

Anyone out there have this yet, or have it on the way? Opinions?

[Kirkinson]

From IMDb, by way of online tabloid service WENN:

Godard Slams Tarantino
Legendary director Jean-Luc Godard has hit out at Quentin Tarantino - one of his biggest admirers - for using the title of one of his 1960s films without financially rewarding him. Maverick film-maker Tarantino took the name Band A Parte (Band Of Outsiders) from the New Wave icon's 1964 movie and used it as the name for his production company. But Breathless filmmaker Godard, 74, is less than impressed by the Pulp Fiction director's intended flattery. He says, "Tarantino named his production company after one of my films. He would have done better to give me some money."

Since WENN almost always fails to site their sources, does anyone know where this quote came from?

[Oedipax]

Godard Slams Tarantino

That's not even really a slam, Godard is always saying things like that. I don't get this recent trend of putting more emphasis behind what Godard is saying in his interviews than before. Declaring cinema 'over' is, I'm fairly certain, something he's been saying for quite some time now (Peter Greenaway has, at any rate). It just seems like people want to drum it up into something bigger than it really is, as if Godard and Tarantino are going to have some kind of spat in the press, or that Godard has just now declared cinema over and film lovers around the world have to discuss it.

I think Godard's response to the Bande a Part homage is to be expected, since he considers his first, most widely known period to be almost 'another life,' not something he's really nostalgic for or in any way wishes to repeat. If anything, it's probably frustrating for someone with such a huge body of work to still be recognized most for his first decade or so of activity, particularly when he feels little connection to it these days.

[Kirkinson]

That's not even really a slam, Godard is always saying things like that. I don't get this recent trend of putting more emphasis behind what Godard is saying in his interviews than before.

To put things into perspective, WENN always writes headlines like "Such-and-such Slams So-and-so," or "Such-and-such Shocks Fans," regardless of how tame a celebrity's comment may be, and regardless of whether it was meant in jest (as the "give me money" comment most likely was). And Godard isn't a usual target for them; I wouldn't be surprised if they flagged this quote a long time ago and simply waited until Tarantino was being talked about again (in this case because of C.S.I.) so they'd have something to write about him if the tabloid news was slow.

I do agree with you, though. Sometimes people seem to act as if Godard has only recently become crotchety and irascible, when if you look back over the years he's pretty much always been like that. And being recognized only for your earliest work years later can certainly be frustrating; I recall an interview with Terry Gilliam in which he said he gets a little depressed when people tell him their favorite film of his is Time Bandits.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I wouldn't be surprised if they flagged this quote a long time ago and simply waited until Tarantino was being talked about again (in this case because of C.S.I.) so they'd have something to write about him if the tabloid news was slow.

Sounds about right -- that same quote appears in Wheeler Winston Dixon's The Films of Jean-Luc Godard, which was published way back in 1997. So it's at least eight years old. I guess WENN has a database of these things they can just search when the news gets slow.

[hellboytr]

Another indispensable boxset from Japan, but overpriced and without subtitles just as other Japanese Godard, Garrel, Eustache, Straub & Huillet... editions



Especially Ici et ailleurs and Comment Ça Va? will be for the first time available on DVD as far as i know... Pre-order price amounts to approximately 15000 Yens.

[Oedipax]

When did the Japanese Histoire(s) come out? Maybe we'll see Comment Ca Va and Ici et Ailleurs on R1/R2 DVD in three or four years!

[Arn777]

Back in 2001. But these 2 have far less appeal on paper than Histoire(s). I'd be interested to see if they add any extras, especially with Sauve qui peut (la vie), hopefully including the video scenario. The Japanese Passion dvd had the 2nd video scenario of Passion, and Hail Marie had the Petites Notes (also a kind of video scenario), and both are very interesting.

[Andre Jurieu]

Nice cover on that Sauve qui peut (la vie) disc.

MATT!!

Right about now, I'm feeling like Homer Simpson reading a Far Side Calendar.

"I..... don't get it."

What's so objectionable about Matt's comments?