He’s currently working on a film entitled Socialisme; apparently he’s shooting around the Mediterranean.
Here are some pics from the as-yet-unfinished film: http://cinemasparagus.blogspot.com/2008/11/socialisme_03.html
i’m looking forward to it.
WOW!
I am glad Godard is still alive and still working..
Does he have any official site on the wweb? I have not foundd any…
no, he doesnt have a website that i know about. and yes, he’s still going strong. the last of the great masters. when he dies, i think the final giant of film history will have passed.
Bobby Wise, while I agree that Godard is one of the greatest filmmakers ever, i think it is pretty pessimistic to say that he is the last great filmmaker. The medium is still extremely fresh and i’m sure it will progress in ways we can’t even fathom at the moment. But then again I see your point every time i look at whats playing at my local theaters!
Bobby stated that godard is one of the last great masters still alive. I don’t think hes implying that cinema will be dead when godard dies.
what kurt said. that’s exactly what i meant.
Kubrick is gone, Bergman is gone, but we still have Godard.
Godard is mulling contemplating on whether he wants to make A Film about the holocaust
Here’s more on Godard’s potential adaptation of Lost: The Search For Six Million:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i3506b270c4e1b2d9d5284c9d1c969734
As usual, I think if Godard does adapt this film, it will most certainly not be a direct adaptation of the book but a Godardian rumination on the book’s themes.
I don’t want a direct and absolute adaptation of the book either way, Godard shouldn’t defer to a trite storyline aabout a rephrehensible event in history. Perhaps this new film could be Godard charting and forging new territory in terms of the genre war film, hopefully it is not too reminscient of Notre Musique.
Hmm, I guess the rumors that Socialisme would be Godard’s final film have proven to be false then?
yes, dying.
Charbol and Rohmer are still alive. I know Charbol had a movie out last year. Vardas is still going. Renais has a movie coming out this year.
The day Godard ceases to make films will be the day of my death
I actually think I’m coming to face the fact that I’m sort of giving up on Jean-Luc. I will always love everything from Charlotte et son Jules to Weekend. But basically the man is not my hero anymore. And it saddens me to say that.
Would you care to share your opinions on late Godard, Mr. Vicari? I’ve only seen Hail Mary, In Praise of Love, Notre Musique, and Nouvelle Vague; but I quite enjoyed each one.
Well, it’s too late right now to write cogently and in depth about the subject. It’s more of a personal thing. When I watch Godard’s 60s films I feel like I’m communing with a best friend and brother. When I watch his late films I feel like I’m communing with someone I’ve grown apart from — I recall the form our intimacy used to take, but I have to consciously remind myself.
UUUGUUUUNNNNNNNNGGGGFFFFFFFFFHFHFHHF!!!!!
Justin stop, stop!!!
you’re an animal.
“When I watch Godard’s 60s films I feel like I’m communing with a best friend and brother. When I watch his late films I feel like I’m communing with someone I’ve grown apart from — I recall the form our intimacy used to take, but I have to consciously remind myself.”
Jeeeeeesus Christ.
Is Godard French ? Of course not : listen to his accent ; no need to understand what he says to know that he is Swiss. If he were French, he would be far more obnoxious.
Some French are nevertheless reluctant to give him up. In his dictionary of filmmakers, Jean Tulard, a Napoléon scholar who has extended his personal empire to world cinema, describes Jean-Luc Godard as a « director of Swiss origin » ; could Mr. Tulard mean that he is not actually Swiss ? That he is stateless and therefore available for annexion by France ?
This is quite possible, as Jean Tulard appears in favour of enforcing a strong French imperial policy in the field of cinema. In the next edition of his dictionary, Jean-Luc Godard may thus become a « French director of Swiss origin » : in Mr. Tulard’s similar reference book on actors, Michel Simon has already completed his naturalization process and is a « French actor of Swiss origin ». Expect the « Swiss origin » to be dropped soon.
More surprisingly, the British too seem ready to concede Godard to France, may be because they are not among his more enthusiastic admirers. According to the British Film Institute site, Jean-Luc Godard is the son of a « wealthy Swiss family » a shocking revelation that there may exist poor Swiss families but « born in France ». Could it be that the key to the director’s at times disconcerting work should be found in the conjunction of these two inconsistent facts
: Swiss wealth and French birth ? Or that France should be held accountable for Godard’s films, as his career would certainly have developed in more traditional fashion, were he born on the right side of the Swiss-French border ?
Let us be fair : Godard is as Swiss as cuckoo clocks, numbered accounts, the Pope’s guards and, unfortunately, Roger Federer at least until he wins at Roland Garros.
Meanwhile, Godard’s films are as French as Champagne wine or Roquefort cheese, though sometimes less sparkling and tasty. Why ? :
-because Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg amble up Champs-Elysées and not Genève main street ; because Jean-Paul Belmondo again and Anna Karina drive around Côte d’Azur and not Lac Léman,
-because, despite a commandable taste for Nordic-type actresses (see above, or Maruschka Detmers in « Prénom Carmen »), the casts of Godard’s films are mostly French, from Jean-Paul Belmondo to Alain Delon, Isabelle Huppert to Bruno Putzulu…
because France has invested so much into Godard’s movie that the country deserves, as a tribute to and a return on its investment, that they be labelled French : Gallic audiences dozed, screamed, applauded, booed, walked out of Godard’s films more than any other ones ; French critics and media controvery, the Cannes film festival -with Godard at the forefront of the « coup » to cancel it in 1968 forced them on the world ; French journalists coined the expression « un mauvais Godard raté », « a bad, failed Godard film », to pay homage to the panache of unsuccessful experiments ; Godard’s films has been financed mainly by French money. For over forty years, willy-nilly, France has the director’s number one sponsor : the unofficial Godard Foundation,
because Godard’s films have become to epitomize French cinema at its -make your pick worst, best, most irritating or hilarious,
-because French arrogance would not have it otherwise,
because Jean Tulard would not have it otherwise : in another product of his many reference books, the « Guide des Films », « A bout de souffle », « Pierrot le Fou », « Le Mépris » too, despite Moravia, Capri Island, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang -Bardot prevails are nothing but French. With respect to more recent fare, situation is a bit hazier : « Sauve qui peut la vie » and « Eloge de l’amour » are French-Swiss, but France comes first : at worst, the films may claim dual French-Swiss citizenship.
But nothing is ever settled with Godard : it now appears that the more serious challenge to the director’s Swiss citizenship comes from unexpected quarters : could it be that Jean-Luc Godard is Korean ?
Not lost in translation.
After all, it may be that Jean-Luc Godard is not Korean. Lucky Koreans : if he had been, they would enjoy and understand him less.
This is the doom of French-speaking viewers, as they listen to Godard dialogues : because the words sound familiar, they think they can make sense of the sentences ; they fail and the more they fail, the more frustrated they grow.
In Korea and the whole non-French-speaking world, spectators run no such risk : as they listen to Godard, they hear the foreign language it is.
They do not try to grasp the words ; to their ears, this is music and how Godard should be appreciated.
Godard’s dialogues are like saloon talk in a Western film : their literal meaning could not matter less.
Do you speak Godard ? Nobody truly does, but Jean-Luc himself. Even his favourite actors speak his prose with a hint of a foreign accent, as if it were French.
Only Jean-Luc does full justice to his words, the articulation of their sounds, the return of their alliterations, their rhythmic slowness.
Only he can intone them to hypnotic effect, like the oracle and zen master, if not God, he truly is, as his voice over comments his experimental films and his « Histoire du cinéma ».
If Godard is not Korean, maybe one need be, or Japanese, to enjoy his aphorisms fully, meditate them for years and be rewarded with sudden illumination.
Stravinsky said that music did not express anything beyond itself. Then, Godard is true music ; his language cannot be lost in translation, because it cannot be translated.
If he had been Japanese, Godard would have written haiku. A French native speaker, the Cartesian structure of his language forced him to become an analytical poet.
The only way to enjoy a work by Godard is not to strive to understand it. With him, absence of understanding is lived like a form of ataraxia, a peaceful and paradoxical state of plenitude, similar to the instants in « Sauve qui peut (la vie) » (1980), when the world suddenly stands still.
According to Bunuel, the need to understand was a typical « bourgeois » failing. This is debatable, particularly in a movie theatre : the need to understand, bourgeois or otherwise, follows on the heels of boredom.
Who would feel the need to understand Godard films if they were more entertaining ?
Socialisme, as far as I know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXzAQyt1qLE
Unfortunately, yes. Don’t worry, he will soon kick the bucket and we can all work on erasing him from our collective memory.
I love the music used in Socialisme, but I can’t find anything on it except it’s another Arvo Part work could anyone help me out as to which it is? Thanks. :)
“Unfortunately, yes. Don’t worry, he will soon kick the bucket and we can all work on erasing him from our collective memory.”
Grey’s accoplishments – ________________
Godards:
Breathless
Alphaville
Pierrot Le Fou
A Band Apart
Weekend
2 or 3 things i know about her
Contempt
Histories Du Cinema
Nouvelle Vague
Hail Mary
Passion
Etc.
I think I’m going to remember Godard a bit more than whoever it was I quoted above.
Mike Spence: ‘Etc.’
Ah yes, a more recent work of his dealing with a university professor who teaches English to French students and begins to question the importance of language in modern society. :D
On a serious note, I’ve wanted to ask someone who’s seen Histoire(s) this: can you just watch it even if you haven’t seen most of the films brought up or do you just let yourself become washed over in the ‘Godard-ian’ dialogue? ;)
“The day Godard ceases to make films will be the day of my death”
Are you Godard?
Brian: That’s possible, I read Scorsese has an Auteurs account. What other famous directors are roaming our threads???
Looking forward to Socialisme, also Pedro’s new one starring Cruz sort of popped out of nowhere, looking forward to that too?
subtitled SOCIALISME trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhqOFWdtDdY
Robert Crampton
I saw the 63 second trailer he created for last year’s Vienna film festival – apparently created in six days – but does anyone know if JLG is working on anything new? What’s the word on the rue?