Nice article written by some idiot who doesn’t even understand what Godard is talking about, but is at least narrow-minded enough to accuse him of craziness and racism. Here is the correct definition of the word “semitic” which Godard refers to. His refusal of the Oscar and its dumbed down commercialism that doesn’t relate to Godard’s body of work is at least justified, and the description of his next film project sounds like one of his usual jokes. Now who cares about that stupid article? It seems that some people have nothing better to do than writing nonsense about filmmakers.
Born in Saugatuck, Michigan, Josh Brunsting has been a fan and lover of the medium that we call film since day one. Currently a Journalism major at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI, Josh has now turned his love of any and everything related to film into what will hopefully one day become a career, culminating in complete world domination. Josh is currently a writer for GordonandtheWhale.com, as well as Associate Editor of DVDsnapshot.com, and even has time to have a girlfriend, a job at a local movie theater, and a golden retriever named O’Malley.
He also sounds like a dickhead.,..I’m with Zartek & Tylermays
I agree with Godard when he questions what films of his the Academy may have seen. I’d have to say not many since it’s failed to nominate any of them for anything…and there’s no way anyone could argue the performances of Anna Karina in MADE IN USA or Belmondo in PIERROT LE FOU weren’t worthy of recognition. Or WEEKEND not getting nominated for BEST PICTURE in 1967…when DOCTOR DOLITTLE was!
Astounding.
Godard does say some questionable things in his interview.
“Once again, there is a debate in Jewish newspapers about whether or not you are an anti-Semite. Does this hurt you?
That’s nonsense! What does ‘anti-Semite’ mean? All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean. The expression was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII. It is inexact and means nothing.”
This is actually a bullshit response. People accused of anti-semitism often respond that they can’t be anti-semites because a “semite” is a person from the middle east or, in this case, “the mediterranean”. I have heard, for example, Middle Easterners say that they can’t be anti-semites because they themselves are semites. Anyway, such arguments completely ignore the specific etymology of the term that was exclusively directed against Jews (and, more specifically, a more “scientific” term for what was once called “Jew hatred”). Anyway, that doesn’t mean I think Jean-Luc is an anti-semite, er Jew hater, but he seems to have some issues. Even if much of what Brody writes in his book has been discredited, some things certainly haven’t. I haven’t heard, for example, a convincing explanation for the Pierre Braunberger “sale juif” episode. An affectionate nod towards La Grande Illusion is not convincing (especially if you heard Braunberger’s side of things).
This is actually a bullshit response.
He is defining his terms; Godard does that – he wants words to have precise meanings – that is how he thinks linguistically.
Right, but linguistically, he’s wrong. If a term has a precise etymological and historical meaning, don’t try to obfuscate it with what it “technically” means when that has nothing to do with its historical usage. And Godard, in his films, is not someone concerned with ideas as they exist in pure abstractions but with how their meanings exist historically and in context so he of all people should be aware of this.
Evidently, not with language – look, the guy is not like the rest of us and God bless him for that.
@ Josh Brunsting Breathless (the greatest piece of cinema ever crafted in the eyes of this writer
the greatest ……lollollolllollol
Is this what we are gonna do here? drag up worthless crap from other sites and discuss it?
I miss the good-old days when worthless crap was originally produced here at the Auteurs.
We do not get to discuss this stuff with the dickweed Josh at criterioncast or Ryan at the Guardian or the phktard from Slate who wrote The Searchers piece.
“look, the guy is not like the rest of us and God bless him for that.”
I see…Godard is SO FUCKING SPECIAL that any single twisted opinion of his automatically turns him into a “GOD”!!!
Godard’s response to the ‘Anti-semite’ question may have been stupid, but it’s not nearly as stupid as this article written about it. Seriously, he wants to compare a Godard film to ‘Marmaduke’ because it might have a talking dog in it?
He also tries to villify him for having views that aren’t politically correct. He implies Godard is a racist for saying that there are differences between white culture and black culture. Godard may have phrased his statement in an intentionally provocative way, but that’s really all he was saying. He’s not one to soften his language because it clashes with the mainstream point of view, and Brunsting is the idiot for not being able to tell the difference.
Political correctness is essentially voluntary ignorance, and I bet Brunsting’s actual views on race are far more racist than Godard’s stated ones.
could translation possibly be the problem? going from French to German to English?
And then it gets mashed up in that pea-sized brain of Josh’s?
Here it is and it sounds like he was joking:
he described the project:
It’s about a man and his wife who no longer speak the same language. The dog they take on walks then intervenes and speaks. How I’ll do it, I don’t yet know. The rest is simple. Simple? I thought you wanted to hire a star. Only if he brings in some money. I’d shoot immediately with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner, they’d be perfect. They were gods. Who could we take now?Godard laughed at the interviewer’s suggestion of Scarlett Johansson (“No, no, that’s business”) and said that the dog might be played by his own dog: “I don’t want him trained like a movie dog.” Also, he said that, though he hasn’t seen any of the recent films shot in 3-D, he is very interested in the technique:
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2010/11/dog-days.html#ixzz15eVbXV3h
JIRIN: “Political correctness is essentially voluntary ignorance, and I bet Brunsting’s actual views on race are far more racist than Godard’s stated ones.”
I’m standing up and applauding.
I’m not a fan of anything Godard has done since the seventies, but this is one of the most idiotic pieces I’ve ever read that attempts to be critical of him. I’ve always been wary of The Criterion Cast simply because of their bullshit name.
In the United States to criticize Israel for any reason whatsoever is to risk being accused of anti-semitism.
Godard has been a longtime ctitic of Israel and a supporter of the Palestinians. Worse still he has dared to criticize Stephen Spielberg. He didn’t like “Shindler’s List” at all. Not only that he wnet on to explain why in “L’Eloge d’Amour” in a sequence devoted to interviewing actual holocaust survivors whose testimony was used by Speilberg for making “Schindler’s List.” In Godard’s view their stories are far more compelling than what Spielberg turned them into. But as we all know to citicize “Shindler’s List” is sacrilege. Consequently Godard has become the Designated Leni Reifenstahl in the eyes of those who Vanesssa redgrave once referred to as “Zionist Thugs.”
“Godard’s response to the ‘Anti-semite’ question may have been stupid, but it’s not nearly as stupid as this article written about it. Seriously, he wants to compare a Godard film to ‘Marmaduke’ because it might have a talking dog in it?”
You are absolutely right, Jirin, which is why I completely ignored the article and just went straight to the interviews that the article was based on. Why bash and ridicule an inept website piece written by an undergraduate? Let’s talk about what’s in the interviews instead.
David, you’re absolutely right that some of the hostility against Godard has to do with his anti-zionism. I think that is absolutely ridiculous and I have no problem with Godard’s criticisms of Israel. But I don’t think Schindler’s List is considered sacrilege. Many mainstream figures like David Mamet have also criticized it. But I think it still doesn’t answer some of the criticisms raised again him. Foremost, Godard does have a tendency to conflate his criticisms of Israel with his observations on Jews and, maybe you don’t have a problem with this, but I really think this is deeply problematic. And, if anyone here can, I imagine you can give the better explanation for the Braunberger incident which I’ve never seen an adequate explanation of (if someone angrily calls me a “sale juif”, I don’t see what justification it can ever be given except that the person has issues with jews – see Mel Gibson). Perhaps part of the problem is what Dimitris identified, a tendency to deify Godard and justify everything he says (even when what he says is problematic). I’m sure Godard doesn’t always agree with Godard.
a tendency to deify Godard and justify everything he says
It isn’t a matter of deifying or justifying, it is a matter of understanding what he says.
He isn’t like us because he operates on a level we have to work up to.
That piece was written by someone who would rather take Godard down, than work up to his level.
Sure, so let’s discuss and try to understand the piece itself. I raised one question on one comment – let’s discuss another.
“When the Holocaust happened, I was 15 years old. My parents kept it a secret from me, despite belonging to the Red Cross. I only found out about it much later. Even today I still feel guilty, because I was an ignoramus between the age of 15 and 25. I am sorry I couldn’t stand up for them. Today, in my own thoughts, I would like to have a critical look at them.”
This is interesting. Why should Godard feel guilty for being a fifteen-year old kid who wasn’t aware of the Holocaust? I don’t see why he should feel guilty. But, even stranger, is it odd that his guilt about the Holocaust has led him to have a “critical look” at Jews today? Why? I guess the link he would make is that he sees Israel as using the Holocaust as a “pretext” to justify their actions against Palestinians. Okay, that’s fine and there are numerous people who have made that case. On the other hand, there’s something slightly odd about this kind of logic. Imagine a white person who grew up in the segregated south and wasn’t aware of the racism around him. They later feel guilty of their ignorance but they then use their guilt out of the experience to “have a critical look at” African Americans in the present. Huh. Does not compute.
“He isn’t like us because he operates on a level we have to work up to.”
Godard knows half of what I have read and learned. I can have a superiority complex like anyone else.
@Ari
This is what you can’t do is pick a out word like ‘critical’ from a a non-English text. Worse you don’t know what Godard is thinking that word means – it is possible it means something different to him.
I guess the link he would make is that he sees Israel as using the Holocaust as a “pretext” to justify their actions against Palestinians. Okay, that’s fine and there are numerous people who have made that case. On the other hand, there’s something slightly odd about this kind of logic.
huh?
You got that from this?:
“When the Holocaust happened, I was 15 years old. My parents kept it a secret from me, despite belonging to the Red Cross. I only found out about it much later. Even today I still feel guilty, because I was an ignoramus between the age of 15 and 25. I am sorry I couldn’t stand up for them. Today, in my own thoughts, I would like to have a critical look at them.”
Is anyone here fluent in German? I’m just curious because we’re talking about a translation into English of statements appearing in German in a German paper (point of my own ignorance, is Godard fluent in German?) by some guy named Frederik Lang and posted on some other guy’s blog, so I’m curious as to the quality of the translation.
Speaking in the abstract, being “critical” of something and being “anti” aren’t necessarily the same thing, though certainly one can pretend to be involved in the former when he or she is really involved in the latter. Hypothetically speaking, one can be critical of two opposing positions, but probably can’t be coherently anti- both concepts or positions.
“You got that from this?: "
Like I clearly said I made an inference from his body of work (“I guess”) – one based on his other works which often discuss and/or invoke the Holocaust in relation to Israel’s actions against the Palestinians. In fact, that was my sympathetic interpretation of a remark in order to make it comprehensible at all (but still inherently problematic).
But, yes, it’s true in a larger sense there’s a question of translation. And I’m pretty sure that interview was originally in French. I don’t think he’s fluent in German.
I have some very basic German so I looked at the original text. In any case, the key term in point:
sich auseinandersetzen which can translate to quarrel with them/to have a showdown with/to come to grips with or set one’s wits to.
Again, I’m not sure that nuance changes the basic meaning of the sentence but I think the meaning is somewhat clear (again if you follow his films where that conversation is taking place – after all, Godard has called Palestine – and not the Holocaust – Europe’s original sin. In his mind the atrocity of the Holocaust exists primarily in how it locates itself in the present – TODAY – in what’s happening in Israel – I think that’s pretty clearly his view).
“Worse you don’t know what Godard is thinking that word means "
The problem with what you’re saying Robert is that you’re setting up criteria in which ALL interpretation is absolutely impossible and meaningless. Of course, I don’t know what JLG is thinking. How the fuck would I? Or you? Or anyone except JLG? That doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to understand or interpret what he says. Or is he so un-understandable that us mere mortals need to bow to his genius and accept every word he says. Unless to paraphrase Wittgenstein, you think Godard is a lion who speaks.
It’s true that “anti-semitic” is an imprecise term. It’s also true that Godard himself has used the term “anti-semitic” as synonymous with “Jew-hating” in the past.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/cover_story/article/jean-luc_godard_to_get_honorary_oscar_questions_of_anti-semitism_remain_201
But let’s be precise: Godard is a Jew-hater.
To claim that he’s just a principled but non-bigoted opponent of Israeli policies is bullshit. He’s a Jew-hater.
That doesn’t change my opinion of his films. Plenty of great artists are rotten human beings.
bow to his genius and accept every word he says
That would make understanding unnecessary – not what I was suggesting.
“The Jewish Journal” is one of the main torch-carriers for the “Godard is an anti-semite” mem. They refuse to publish letters challenging their anti-Godard screeds. They are beneath conempt..
Godard has never to my knowledge played the holocaust off against Israel’s genocidal ( yes, that’s what it is) actions against the Palestinians
Here’s a recent blog entry about this
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/11/03/contempt-ii-zionist-boogaloo/
And here’s another about Israel’s piracy
http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2010/06/12/fait-diver-israel-chokes-and-goes-home/
Well David, as much as I disagree with your anti-israel bias, a distiction should be made between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Looking at the quote on Godard on your blog, it seems he’s crossed that line.
“How is Godard different? He has called the producer Pierre Braunberger a “filthy Jew”, lauded the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics (“before every Olympics finale, an image of Palestine [refugee] camps should be broadcast”), and several times equated Zionism with Nazism—the product of a mind pitted with the syphilitic hate we call anti-Semitism.”
Assuming this quote is accurate, Godard has bigger issues than speaking out against Israel’s policies or for Palestinian statehood. As idiotic as equating Zionism with Nazism is, its his lauding of the the massacre of Israeli athletes in that reveals something much darker.
Well, Jean-Luc Godard wouldn’t be the first person with controversial viewpoints about Jews whose opinion doesn’t matter to me at all. The guy is a fucking filmmaker, not a political scientist, and if you’d like to make a statement as bold as “he’s a philosopher” then he’s a really uninteresting philosopher because most of his thoughts have been expressed in much greater detail (and in forms that don’t just resemble grumpy rants) by actual academics way before he was making films. Stop worrying about what he thinks about this stuff. Breathless was a classic, then people started taking him way too seriously which in turn lead him to take himself way too seriously.
Spike Lee says ambiguously racist shit about white people all the time. Doesn’t mean I didn’t like Ge Got Game. But when he starts incorporating his retarded political views into his work, its when it starts to suck.
The “sale juif” remark was taken wildly out of context. IN context Godard was alluding to a line in Renoir’s “La Grande Illusion.”
And israel’s DAILY attacks on the Palestinians aren’t “dark”?
Now read this
http://radioislam.org/solus/JGchatilaEngl.html
Someone else to be attacked as an anti-semite?
They’re dark like war is dark (and certainly not “daily”). In attempting to defend itself from the constant threat of terror, Israel has, at times, gone too far in the cause of securty and its tragic that innocents have died on both sides of the conflict.
Joshua Brunsting is an idiot, and Criterion Co. should be offended that his website gives the appearance of being affiliated with them.
The phrase Redgrave used was “Zionist hoodlums” -
Jaspar Lamar Crabb
Godard’s contempt will leave you breathless…
http://criterioncast.com/2010/11/17/jean-luc-godard-says-oscar-means-nothing-to-him-talks-about-anti-semitic-accusations/#more-9024