I used to be a Godard person. I was never a Bergman person, though I like several of his films.
Godard’s heyday is over and Bergman bought the farm.
Slow curtain. The end.
I think perhaps this is too simplistic a divide, a little like saying there are two types of people: those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don’t… Why do we need to be one or the other? Personally, I love them both. But then, I am a Gemini. I have my Godard days and my Bergman days, but can I really say that I prefer Le Mepris over Winter Light? The joy for me is that both directors appeal to different parts of the human condition, and hooray that they have done what they have done in the careers. My world is certainly the better for it.
I like them both but I can definitely say that I’m more of a Godard person than a Bergman person.
I can’t say I gush over either of them, though I have only seen two of Godard’s and three of Bergman’s. I find both of them to be distant in a way that doesn’t really suit my tastes too much. That’s a weird statement coming from me as some of my favorite directors are distant as well, Kubrick and Lean being two examples of this. If you’re wondering, I’ll tell you which of both I’ve seen
Godard – Breathless, Band Of Outsiders
Bergman – Persona, Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries
I know these are considered some of their best, but maybe other movies from each of their filmographies would suit me better?
Michael, try Pierrot le Fou by Godard (this mixes hedonism and a sense of freedom with his usual intellect that sometimes got the better of him),and for an accessible popular Bergman, Fanny and Alexander.
I have mixed feelings over both directors. Interesting to note that one was sympathetic to Hitler, the other to Mao, at least in their younger days. Bergman’s taste for angst seems perverse for me at the end of the otherwise lyrical (and yes summery) Summer with Monika; hints of a cruel streak, as well as sometimes deeply self-searching. I don’t think Godard was ever quite the same, or hit the same heights, after Karina.
To quote Bergman “Godard is a fucking bore!”
Godard is not that bad but i definitely like Bergman better
Ah ha, no surprise to find some disdain.
I like Bergman more than Godard, but I love Breathless. I think, from what I’ve seen, Bergman’s great films were better than Godard’s great films.
I wouldn’t classify myself as a Bergman, or Godard person, though. If I’m anything I’m an Ozu person.
A better choice, for sure. Col!
Bergman may technically be a better auteur, but Godard I admire much more.
Hail Mary > Through a Glass Darkly, Persona, Fanny and Alexander, The Silence, Winter Light
Godard is definitely more to my taste. Just like I’ll always prefer rock music to country, Jackson Pollock to Norman Rockwell. Not that Bergman is the cinematic equivalent of country music or the Saturday Evening Post. But I think Godard was more progressive and more cullturally and aesthetically significant.
Put it this way: during the radical 60s, when so much was going on, Godard attempted to engage with events as they happened. Maybe he didn’t always get things right, but he tried to be there on the frontines, while Bergman made increasingly obscure films taking place on islands and remote beaches, like a total shutting out of the world. I think that’s fundamentally the two kinds of artist there are, in any medium, and I’m more for the kind that engages with the world.
I am definitely more Godardian – however – i think it needs to be stressed that these are two fundamentally different auteurs but i suppose this is only light jabber at comparison so I won’t fret
I haven’t seen enough of either to make a judgement but nevertheless, I dont see the dichotomy between these two specifically.
i’m a godardian.
i’ve seen 4 or 5 bergmans, and none of them hit me very hard. he just doesnt do it for me. but godard’s work hits me right where i live. when he’s on, his best films steamroll over bergman’s canonized best. in my opinion.
I think if we’re talking about the “Godard type” and the “Bergman type”, the "hipster’ vs. the “snob”, I probably fall into the latter categories. I prefer Shaw and Wilde to the Beats, Mozart and Mendelssohn to The Beatles and the Stones, etc. However, though I suppose I am more of the “Bergman type”, I love both Bergman and Godard so much that to label myself a Bergman person to the exclusion of Godard would be unthinkable. Both are brilliant, and necessary in that they appeal to different aesthetic sensibilities and aspects of thought and life.
I think if we’re talking about the “Godard type” and the “Bergman type”, the "hipster’ vs. the “snob”, I probably fall into the latter categories. I prefer Shaw and Wilde to the Beats, Mozart and Mendelssohn to The Beatles and the Stones, etc. However, though I suppose I am more of the “Bergman type”, I love both Bergman and Godard so much that to label myself a Bergman person to the exclusion of Godard would be unthinkable. Both are brilliant, and necessary in that they appeal to different aesthetic sensibilities and aspects of thought and life.
I’m much more of the “Bergman type”, definitely. The stuff Bergman deals with in his movies feels more tangible and universal to me. I think part of that may also be a reaction against the American attitude towards art that I’ve experienced, where people seem to favor the light over the heavy and think that people who enjoy the heavier stuff are just pretentious and pretending to like it. I think Godard, in many ways, is more agreeable to people, because he’s more about looking at the surface than delving into the depths of a person’s soul. It’s much more comfortable to talk about surfaces than how you really feel, because the later challenges you much more as a person. In our world, there is also a definite preoccupation with looking and being cool and there’s definitely a lot of value in examining that, but it’s not something I get into as much.
Godard is superior. I haven’t seen many films by either but Godard is better for so many reasons. One thing I like about Godard is his incorporation of french philosophy into his films. Bergman doesn’t have that. He seems torn between Christianity and Atheism.
What’s a Bergman?
What’s a Bergman?
It seems as if most here like Godard better. He and Karina are leading in the collaboration poll, but Bergman and Ullmann are a very close second. I like both, I’d be up for Godard or Bergman at most times during the day. Am I a “snob” and a “hipster” then?
My vote goes to Bergman.
Godard seems to me just preoccupied with trying to be “cool” or different than everybody else. I do not hate Godard but he seems to me more concerned with style and marxism than really telling a great story with great acting which you get with Bergman. I think Liz hit it right on the nose.
Two different directors with very different styles. Bergman was more introspective and philosophical in his films, whereas Godard was more about innovation, style and “hip,” if that makes any sense. I can’t even say I like one over the other, because each of them brought so much to the world of cinema in their own special ways. I can rewatch Breathless or Band of Outsiders as many times as I can rewatch Fanny and Alexander or Wild Strawberries.
I prefer Bergman for the reason that Stewart SFA Adams prefers Godard, because for me the only philosophy is Crhistianity versus Atheism, and I think that Bergman makes compelling arguments for both at times. I also think that he makes better films and gets more out of actors than most directors-even great directors, for a Bergman film would risk failure if he were not able to extract terrific performances from his actors everytime, because his films are all about the characters.
I can do without French intellectual Philosophies, but I haven’t completely written off the new wave, and I am looking to try some more Godard, although I think I’m done with Truffaut and the others. I’m going to get Godard’s film “Weekend” and maybe try some of the british box sets of his work for the cheap.
“The cinema is not a craft. It is an art. It does not mean team-work. One is always alone; on the set as before the blank page. And for Bergman, to be alone means to ask questions. And to make films means to answer them. Nothing could be more classically romantic.”
— Jean-Luc Godard, “Bergmanorama,”
Cahiers du cinéma (July 1958)
same article, another quote…
“For an artist, to know oneself too well is to yield a little to facility.” – Godard
I’m a total Bergman, Godard is just boring and over-wrought.
“I’ve never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a fucking bore. He’s made his films for the critics. One of the movies, Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis, was shot here in Sweden. It was mind-numbingly boring.”Ingmar Bergman on Godard
(Excerpt from an interview in the Swedish daily – Sydsvenska Dagbladet)
Both of them were/are real shits.
Damola Animasaun
In my short time as a member of this site, i’ve definitely noticed that the Auteurs can effectively be divided into factions. There seem to be Godard people and Bergman People. The Hipsters vs. the Snobs, the “too-cool-for-school-Bohemians” versus the “film purists”.
Both directors seemed to have some sort of rivalry as they had taken shots at each other.
I definitely identify myself as a Godard person.