I’m sure someone else has said this clearer and better. It’s not a new thought, it’s just me trying to explain what I believe is the relationship of story to film.
I think cinema comes into its full potential as a true art when it manipulates image and sound with the intention of evoking a feeling or idea and is best and most effectively brought to that fully (and is sustained through the many phases of the idea[which can almost seem narrative-like]) through the manipulation of time and space (editing). Adhering to the demands of continual story-telling, while ignoring what makes the medium unique—the limitless manipulation of image, sound, time and space, brings cinema back from it’s full potential and closer to it’s sisters literature and theater, where the public at large is more comfortable with it, but only because it’s what it has been fed primarily.
Trying to think of an example of pure cinema that the public at large has accepted.
btw…the the middle of Pierrot Le Fou now.
today’s youth make the ‘children of marx and coke a cola’ look like Tibetan monks.
I felt Godard’s creative and political stress for the first time with this viewing of Masculine Feminin. Making fun of the incompetence of the youth of his day to compensate his own guilt. (I don’t know, that might be a stretch) That was the first time I didn’t thoroughly enjoy this film.
Dude,
That, along with La Chinoise, was the greatest act of love of which Godard was capable.
Godard loves the young.
You know, I talked to a friend of mine a while back and we were discussing Godard and Bunuel. We thought that Godard might be making fun of the flower power generation, at least to some extent. Such as the person dressed in period clothes in Weekend reading from a book which is supposed to relate I guess to what the attitude and milieu of that time period was like. Or, in the same film, towards the end, you see these militant hippies in the forest and they are killing people and eating their bodies. I think he was trying to be somewhat funny about it. Bunuel, of course makes fun of the church and the bourgeiousee, as does Godard with the bourgeioussee and I also think a case can be made that he makes fun of the lower classes such as peasants where you see scenes like a mocking of the Last Supper in Viridiana or the peasant in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeiousee that tells the priest how she doesn’t believe in Jesus or something like that. I know that we are not talking about Bunuel, but I see sort of a connection between the two with what I have just said.
Godard is being instructive – he’s showing them their folly.
He loves their spirit, however foolish – love is the constant act of overvaluation.
Look at the “Miss 19” scene in Mas. Feminin. If not for the fact that the girl handles herself with such pose, the scene would almost be unbearably abusive. Having said that, it is documented that Godard turned to the youth for inspiration at a time of creative crisis, or so I just re-read in Brody’s Bio.
@Peter
FWIW, I wanted to say that I thought this was a cool idea. If I wasn’t married with kids, I would have considered participating.
The start of ‘2 or 3 things…’ means just 2 or 3 more…..
“dofferent viewing muscles” is right.
He wasn’t “making fun” of young people at all. he was getting incontact with what would catche fire in May ‘68. Jean_pierre Leaud’d friend in the film isn’t an actor at all bu an actual budding 60’s activist who Godard had met.
“masculin-Feminin” is about boys trying to get in touch with girls, but it also has a political background — whcih lead sthe way to “La Chinoise” made the following year. And as everyone has recogniced “La Chinoise” predicted May ’68 with alarming acuity.
Who’s Jean Pierre Leaud’s friend? are you talking about “miss 19” Elsa Leroy? There was a whole article that came out after the film that talked about how she wasn’t happy with that scene.
Here’s Philippe Garrel: “I remember when I was young, the only film by Godard that i didn’t like was Masculine Feminine, because of it’s mockery of young people, the way of making fun of them”. Not saying that Garrel should be the end of the story, but you’re saying he wasn’t making fun of young people. well maybe “making fun of” is a bad set of words.
if you want to elaborate ‘specifically’ on how MF led the way to La Chinoise, please do. i am not keen on that aspect.
Reflecting on how effective JLG’s voiceover narration (why does this feel like it should be called something else) was in 2 or 3 things i know about her (zeinthing in the coffee swirl sequence) Random thoughts : How less effective would it be if it was not whispered and if I understood French and wasn’t reading it? What if it wasn’t him, the filmmaker, doing it?
@David Ehrenstein About my remark about Godard making fun of the hippie generation. That’s just my observation based on the films I’ve seen of his. I think he likes to inject a lot of humour into some of his films along with serious stuff as well. I work at a library and we have one of your books about gav cinema. You wrote that, right? Are you a journalist? Have you written for the NY Times as well? I think, if you have, that I might have read an article or two that you wrote, but I can’t remember what it was about. Didn’t you say somewhere in another post that you know people like Godard or Fassbinder and have interviewed them? Sorry if I’m not entirely familiar with your writing, but thanks for responding to my remark.
end of story
end of cinema
end of Godardathon
what a day. this really is an astounding run of films. thank you JLG. i’ll visit again, but not too soon! ha!
You were supposed to make a running comment on every film. What happened? We were watching and waiting!
Peter, you seen any of his later films, like Hail Mary and Notre Musique? If not, you really should!
Paul’s freind is played by a guy named Michel Debord
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0213502/
He wasn’t an actor and this was his only film. I wonder if he was related to Guy Debord.
@HAL 9000 — Yes I’m a jornalist but I’ve never written for the NYT. I’ve interviewed Godard. I met Fassbinder once but didn’t get a chance to talk with him. I’ve spoken to a number of people who worked with him, however.
I also was lucky enough to have met and interviewed Pasolini.
@ bobby – I knew you were with me!!! I felt like we were all together!!!!!!
@ Joks – Next year – Godard’s late period starting with “Every man for himself”!
Hahahahaha Good for you, Pete!
My annual ‘New Year’s Night’ screening this year was Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, so beautifully shot. I screened it for about 13 people. Everybody left happy, and intent on reading before bed.
My course on the entire French New Wave begins in three weeks. We will be screening four of those Godard titles you just watched.
What other films are you showing, and why? Any interesting or offbeat picks?
@David Ehrenstein What was interviewing Godard like? Also, how about Pasolini? I’ve only seen one of his films: The Gospel According to St. Matthew that I thought was one of the best Jesus films I have seen along with The Last Temptation of Christ. I also own a copy of La Commare Secca that I know he worked on with Bertolucci, but haven’t got around to watching that yet. And I want to try to watch Salo, but I don’t know if I’d have the stomach to watch it based on the excrement eating scene or scenes. They say he could have been murdered. Wasn’t he run over by a car which caused his death?
Godard was — as Lacan said of himself — “Le Pere Severe.” Brilliant and cadgey. Though I wouldn’t have expected anything less. A warm and fuzzy Godard is a contradiction in terms.
Pasolini was graciousness and elegance personified. I saw him first in 1966 at the New York Film Festival when Accatone and The Hawks and the Sparrows were shown. Then again in 1969 when Teorema was screened before an extremely hostile audience at the Museum of Modern Art. Pasolini took them on with humor and supreme confidence. I had tea with hi at the Pierre Hotel the next day. He understood english but preferred to speak in Italian though an interpreter.
Alas I was not his type. But had that been in the cards I would have been all over him like a cheap suit.
Robert W Peabody III
@ Peter Rinaldi
I liked what you said about Godard – very true for me too.
I think the “story” for Godard is the development and refinement of an idea.
The process of conceptualization is a through-line for me.