Jean-Luc Godard

[accatone]

Godard opted not to come to Berlin to pick up his price: 30min. interview here (its German dubbed - but there must be french only version as well somewhere on the Arte page). Interview in the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT.

[accatone]

„Laß, o Welt, o laß mich sein! / Locket nicht mit Liebesgaben /Laßt dies Herz alleine haben / Seine Wonne, seine Pein“ --Eduard Mörike

This is what Godard sent to Wenders for the laudatio - a little pathetic, imo. However, I read somewhere else that Godard did also not attend the ceremony because of problems finding money for SOCIALISME - which would indeed make a lifetime/career/stone pit award look pretty silly if a director on the other hand is not able to produce his new film because of the lack of support/money.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

„....because of problems finding money for SOCIALISME - which would indeed make a lifetime/career/stone pit award look pretty silly if a director on the other hand is not able to produce his new film because of the lack of support/money.

Which is of course the case with Terence Davies recently made a BFI fellow and unable to make a film for more than 7 years.

[GringoTex]

Which is of course the case with Terence Davies recently made a BFI fellow and unable to make a film for more than 7 years.

I don't buy this. Anybody can raise money for a film. It may not even be a $5 million budgeted project, but anybody can raise money for a feature if they really want to.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

anybody can raise money for a feature if they really want to.

What fucking planet do you live on pal??

[GringoTex]

What fucking planet do you live on pal??

I've been part of multiple indie feature fundraising efforts. Getting a film made is really really hard work, and a lot of people would rather bitch about it than work at it. I have no idea whether Davies bitches about it or not, but nobody is stopping him from making a film but himself.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

What fucking planet do you live on pal??

I've been part of multiple indie feature fundraising efforts. Getting a film made is really really hard work, and a lot of people would rather bitch about it than work at it. I have no idea whether Davies bitches about it or not, but nobody is stopping him from making a film but himself.

He was on the verge of making Sunset Song with UK film financing board backing when it was pulled and the money put into 'Sex lives of the Potato men'. What is it you say over there..... Go figure?

By the way, do I take it you're offering to produce my next feature??

[domino harvey]

Perhaps you can get money from producers, sure, but getting it from producers who will allow the filmmaker to have all say over all aspects of the film: good luck.
btw I doubt Godard is having trouble raising money.

[GringoTex]

By the way, do I take it you're offering to produce my next feature??

Are you kidding me? I've got a family to raise.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

By the way, do I take it you're offering to produce my next feature??

Are you kidding me? I've got a family to raise.

QED

Ipso facto. Case proven your Honour.

[broadwayrock]

Interestingly enough Godard mentions in that interview that in the early days of his career he had to steal money to make films.

I had no choice, or at least it seemed that way to me. I even stole money from my family to give (fellow French director Jacques) Rivette for his first film. I pinched money to be able to see films and to make films.

[accatone]

The quote with the money raising problem is just a rumor!! On the one hand i am with Domino Harvey, as far as Godard himself often said in the past it its good to know that he will at least get the money to make a "little" film. But on the other hand one must know that its not just about the money - but also time schedules e.g. for production (not to mention the cast - Binoche) and the general process of producing a Godard film…

What i am trying to say is, that IF you fit into the plans/schedules of your financier - getting some money for a Godard film should not be that big of a problem … IF!

Again - this money-talk is just a rumor i read on some lousy newspaper webpage!

[Michael Kerpan]

David Bordwell on Godard and aspect ratios

Very interesting piece...

[domino harvey]

Nor will I do a detailed narrative account, because I find the characters and their interactions still fairly baffling. I'm always amazed that critics can praise a Godard film without ever getting down to explicating what's literally happening in a scene. They write as if these films were telling their stories straightforwardly. Without help from the presskits, could journalists discern even the sketchy plots they refer to? A great deal of the fascination of Godard's late works comes from his refusal of the most elementary forms of exposition–picking out characters, explaining their relations, and the like. There is always a story, but it's about three-quarters hidden, and this seems to me to require a lot more analysis than people tend to give it.

This is so on the money.

Fantastic interview with Charles Bitsch, includes discussion of a Godard film, Pour Lucrèce, that almost began shooting between Vivre se vie and Les Carabiniers.

[Oedipax]

This week's issue of The New Yorker features an article on Godard and Truffaut's tumultuous relationship over the years, drawing heavily on the published correspondence between the two. If you've read MacCabe's JLG biography or Truffaut's letters, you're already familiar with most of it, but it's still a good read. The New Yorker has a podcast here discussing the article.

[justeleblanc]

Film Forum's Godard retrospective of his 1960's films will be making their way to the AFI Silver in DC starting at the end of May and continuing through July. Also, NGA is showing Tout va bien in the theaters in May (part of their May '68 retrospective).

[jaredsap]

Film Forum's Godard retrospective of his 1960's films will be making their way to the AFI Silver in DC starting at the end of May and continuing through July. Also, NGA is showing Tout va bien in the theaters in May (part of their May '68 retrospective).

Any word if the retro will hit LA eventually?

[Ovader]

Maybe this isn't quite the right thread for this, but it does seem appropriate... Has there ever been any word about the possibility of some of Anne-Marie Mieville's films on DVD? I greatly enjoy Book of Mary and her ongoing collaboration with Godard has obviously yielded great fruit. So I really want to see Apres la Reconciliation and some of her other films, but it doesn't seem like they're forthcoming anywhere. Is this likely? I mean, maybe not considering that even Godard's full filmography isn't all available yet (talk about ridiculous), but here's hoping...

APRES LA RECONCILIATION is available with ELOGE DE L'AMOUR from CDJapan for 9600 Yen but only with Japanese subtitles naturally. I don't have the DVD so I cannot comment on the quality.

[TheGodfather]

I was thinking about ordering this book
Has anyone read it and know if it`s worth ordering? I already own this one.

[domino harvey]

I was thinking about ordering this book

An excellent, HUGE tome-- it's practically a text book. If you have any interest in late-period Godard, it's essential.

[Kirkinson]

I was thinking about ordering this book

An excellent, HUGE tome-- it's practically a text book. If you have any interest in late-period Godard, it's essential.

Co-sign. It's an absolutely superb book, very studious and exhaust(ive/ing).

[Hopscotch]

"For Ever Godard aims to do critical justice to the full sweep of Godard's artistic interests and preoccupations. The volume presents material by scholars and practitioners from film and media studies, art history, musicology, philosophy and aesthetics, museum studies, French studies, European history, cultural studies, and feminism and gender studies."

Sounds fantastic. I wish I were in college already, so I wouldn't have to cough up the cash I'll inevitably cough up for that book in the next few months. By that I mean the library definitely has it.

[the dancing kid]

If you're looking for material on Godard's work from the late eighties and early nineties then I think Daniel Morgan's dissertation is definitely worth reading. It's called "A Feeling of Light: Cinema, Aesthetics, and the Films of Jean-Luc Godard at the end of the Twentieth Century." It's available on ProQuest. You might be able to order it through a university library if you don't have access.

The films he works the closest with are 'Keep Your Right Up,' 'Nouvelle Vague' and 'Germany: Year 90 9 0,' but he covers pretty much all of the films and videos of that period. His argument is about how Godard's films fit in with debates about modernism, post-modernism, and the "death of cinema" that accompanied the introduction of digital formats and video and their ability to manipulate the image and challenge its authority. He's specifically interested in how Godard often draws upon the aesthetics of the German idealists and how that relates to the criticism of aesthetics put forward by the various schools of modernism.

[domino harvey]

Thanks dancing kid for the tip, I will definitely have to read that dissertation!

[Oedipax]

Yes, thanks for that - although I looked it up on ProQuest just now and I could only access a 24 page preview - the full PDF is $34.00, unfortunately. I'm tempted anyway because of the three films in question... and the preview seems promising.