Godard in Japan

[sevenarts]

Can anyone comment on some of the Godard DVDs that appear to be available only in Japan? Anybody have any of these? How's the quality? I'm looking for comments on the DVDs in this case, not the films, which I already know I'm interested in seeing...

Helas Pour Moi

Une Femme Mariee

Ici Et Ailleurs

And I know I read somewhere that Germany Year 90 Nine Zero is available on a Japanese DVD as well, and I really want to see that one but can't seem to find it anywhere. Anyone want to point me towards that or otherwise comment on the DVDs quality at least? And, of course, the ever-important question about English subs...

[BrightEyes23]

I know for a fact that A Married Woman does NOT have english subs, and I would venture to guess that the others do not have them either, which is very unfortunate.

I kind of wish that we (as a film forum community) could get together a project, get ahold of some folks who are fluent in French or Japanese (if there are indeed japanese subtitles), and create subtitles for these titles, perhaps for some sort of compensation, etc.

Or someone in R1 land can get off their butt and release more of the Godard catalogue!

[yoshimori]

And I know I read somewhere that Germany Year 90 Nine Zero is available on a Japanese DVD as well...

Here ya' go. No subs, but a good print.

[sevenarts]

Damn. Kinda figured that. Looks like it's back to waiting for stuff to show up in R1 or Europe. It continually amazes me that an important director like Godard still has so many of his films almost completely unavailable. I mean, I realize the stuff in question here is hardly very accessible, but Godard himself is such a "name" worldwide that that should be enough to get the DVDs out to the niche audience that wants them.

[hellboytr]

You can buy the Japanese DVD, it's excellent... Here are a few screenshots from an avi i ripped from the DVD:











I prepared English subtitles for Une Femme Mariee using the script published by Lorrimer Publishing.

Ici Et Ailleurs is also one of the best Godard/Mieville films for me, the only comment on cdjapan for this film is by me:

This is one of the most interesting films of the Godard filmography for me. It contains footage from the unfinished Dziga Vertov Group film "Till Victory" in which Godard and Gorin tried to extend the concept of "collective creation" which shaped their previous and excellent film "Wind From The East" to a mass basis.

Uncle Jean says: "This film is the result of political discussion. The members of the Palestinian resistance are participating in its making(...) This is the first Dziga Vertov Group film to deal in an ongoing armed fight for liberation. Its subject has thus the kind of raw, carnal reality that newspaper headlines record."

Based on this footage Godard and Mieville creates something completely different, aesthetically challenging and ideologically autocritical.

I also prepared English subtitles for this, but lost it because of a HD crash Anyway, i'll do it again soon till the end of summer, you can check KG "Make Subtitles" forum for my announcement...

My screenshots from the DVD are here

By the ay, Cahiers' Helas Pour Moi DVD is far better than the Japanese one. Since Tregenza's Cinema Parallel issued this film on VHS in the States with English subs, it's just a matter of time to prepare subtitles... I'll post them to KG when they are ready...

[hellboytr]

Loin Du Vietnam DVD by Japan Columbia Music Entertainment... Screenshots are from a rip of mine.

[hellboytr]

Le Plus Vieux Metier Du Monde [The Oldest Profession] (1967) DVD by Japanese Tohokushinsha Film Corporation... Screenshots are from a rip of mine.







"English Fansubs For Godard's Episode Only" was prepared by me with the helpf of two French friends:

Subs zip

[hellboytr]

Ro.Go.Pa.G. DVD by Brazilian Versatil Home Video... Screenshots are from a rip of mine.







Since the Brazilian DVD had removable Portugues subs, i prepared English subs using two sources, first; an old, English subtitled VHS , and second; Criterion's Mamma Roma DVD for Pasolini's segment La Ricotta. In places where the subs on VHS is unreadable, i put question marks in the subtitle file.

Link

[BrightEyes23]

hellboy, you are a god amongst men! Thank you so much for these subs!

Although, my wallet will not thank you when I get done purchasing said films

What's this "KG make subs" forum you speak of?

Thanks!

[hellboytr]

What's this "KG make subs" forum you speak of?

Here

[accatone]

"Jerry, not gods have created men, but men created god!"

[hellboytr]

"Allemagne Annee 90 Neuf Zero" DVD by Japanese Kinokuniya... Screenshots are from a rip of mine.











Since the Japanese DVD had removable Japanese subs only, i prepared English subs using an English subtitled TV capture from the Australian SBS channel.

Subs zip

[hellboytr]

"Helas Pour Moi" DVD by Japanese Best Entertainment...

Screenshots are from a rip:











A few words on film: this is among the WORST films of the Godard filmography, in my humble opinion as usual. Actually, the only film which is more disappointing than this one is "On S'est Tous Defile"... As far as i can tell, Godard himself seems to acknowledge that this film is a complete failure: From his interview in Le figaro, 30 August 11993:

Helas Pour Moi is a film [...] which is born a little early, like a premature baby, because in the cinema one simply cannot wait[...] You get the finance in order to shoot, not to wait for things to happen in their own time.

I wanted to go further but that was an unrealisable dream. The film does not carry its logic through to the end but it manages to say something. A fes traces and hints remain [...] You feel that something is unfinished[...].

Here is another very interesting quote from Bernard Verley, who played the important character Klimt in the film, which was "added" by Godard two months after the shooting:

Godard stopped the film and reworked his entire story. That was when he called me in and explained to me that the film was a complete failure[...] Therefore, after much thought, Godard decided to change the structure of the film and add a character, called Abraham Klimt, who in reality acts as the director's double and helps us to understand the non-finite nature of the film. It is as if the role of Klimt introduces another film within the film[...].

Here is a line from the subtitles, which i would also like to say: "Excuse me, seeing the invisible is exhausting." You'll see what i mean if you watch the movie

I prepared English subs using the original "Oh Woe Is Me" NTSC VHS issued by Cinema Parallel in USA ==>

Subs zip

[evillights]

Were you the guy who recently posted something on the Godard listserv about this? Diligent work on the subtitling... the bittersweet news is that 'Une femme mariée' is available on DVD in the US, with English subtitles, from New York Film Annex, and order'able through Facets Video. It's been out for about a year, but it's barely publicized because the rights clearly exist here in some kind of "grey market" zone. The transfer is sharp enough (likely taken from videotape, but still quite high quality as far as that sort of thing goes), and the subtitles are ugly-yellow. The cover image is a shittily designed color-laser-print-out of Macha Méril in close-up and colorized, with "A MARRIED WOMAN" in a yellow, gross, serif'd font overhead. The disc-label itself has that very "vanity-project" type of feel to it. Nevertheless -- it exists.

On a side note, I'd like to state something I've been banging on about in other places for a long while: the Cahiers DVD transfer of 'Nouvelle Vague' is "acceptable but not exact" -- ditto the New Yorker DVD transfer of 'For Ever Mozart.' These films are 1.33. Not 1.66. cf. Godard's clips from each in the 'Histoire(s)' to see examples of the "full frame" image. James Quandt frequently talks about how, upon inquiring with JLG about which aspect ratio 'Eloge de l'amour' should be projected in for a retrospective, Godard responded: "1.66." However, the 1.33 version of the film seems almost absolutely the 'correct' form of the film (cf. the Optimum UK disc), and I would take Godard's dashed-off fax to mean '1.66 is acceptable, because I'm assuming the theater won't have the means to project 1.33.' Coupled with the hilarious and righteous "image-essay" that Godard published in Cahiers two years ago, it's all but certain he regards 1.33 as the correct aspect-ratio for his latter-day films. The only JLG films that I think are truly 1.66 are 'Weekend,' 'Tout va bien,' and 'Sauve qui peut (la vie).'

Another conundrum of "resistance" enters when we ask at what aspect ratio Godard composed the images in 'Armide' and 'Dans le noir du temps,' two films embedded within 1.85 omnibus works?

These are "ideological" (or, less loaded, "aesthetic") provocations of a Wellesian order, and should make us all take pause when we reflect upon the mores of exhibition and, most basically, framing / mise-en-scène. (Remember Léaud in 'Masculine-Féminin.') With such a hit-and-miss record of correct projection and video-transfers, these late films, existing unknown-as-mangled, are kind of voyages into utopia indeed.

[hellboytr]

Were you the guy who recently posted something on the Godard listserv about this? Diligent work on the subtitling... the bittersweet news is that 'Une femme mariée' is available on DVD in the US, with English subtitles, from New York Film Annex, and order'able through Facets Video.

By the way, i was aware of the Facets DVD, actually their VHS edition of une Femme Mariee which i have and their DVD edition carry the same subtitles, but after reading the English script, i saw that Facets subtitles was far from perfect...

[yoshimori]

On a side note, I'd like to state something I've been banging on about in other places for a long while:
the Cahiers DVD transfer of 'Nouvelle Vague' is "acceptable but not exact" -- ditto the New Yorker DVD
transfer of 'For Ever Mozart.' These films are 1.33. Not 1.66.

This has been discussed in other threads - here and here and here.

Your confidence in the aspect ratio of Nouvelle Vague is particularly problematic for me given that the new Documents book,
prepared for the Centre Pompidou Godard exhibition, while treating, e.g. Allemagne Anne Zero Neuf Zero and Helas Pour Moi
as 1.33:1, clearly treats both Nouvelle Vague and Notre musique as 1.66:1. (see pages 414f.)

I, however, have not read what you call the "hilarious and righteous 'image-essay' that Godard published in Cahiers
two years ago," so I don't know what makes you think that "it's all but certain he regards 1.33 as the correct aspect-ratio
for his latter-day films." Could you reproduce the relevant sentences?

[evillights]

Your confidence in the aspect ratio of Nouvelle Vague is particularly problematic for me given that the new Documents book, prepared for the Centre Pompidou Godard exhibition, while treating, e.g. Allemagne Anne Zero Neuf Zero and Helas Pour Moi as 1.33:1, clearly treats both Nouvelle Vague and Notre musique as 1.66:1. (see pages 414f.)

I haven't received the Documents book yet, but I'll email Nicole Brenez and ask where that particular info came from. You'll see 'Nouvelle Vague' in 1.33 in 'Histoire(s) du cinéma.' For 'Notre musique,' see below:

I, however, have not read what you call the "hilarious and righteous 'image-essay' that Godard published in Cahiers
two years ago," so I don't know what makes you think that "it's all but certain he regards 1.33 as the correct aspect-ratio for his latter-day films." Could you reproduce the relevant sentences?

What "makes me think" this are the aforementioned relevant sentences, which I'll reproduce here, in to-to. Note that the examples he produced to make the case were -- tah-dah -- stills from 'Notre musique.' (The information in 'Documents' could be mistaken. That book was obviously a massive effort, and was being put together right up to the last minute of the midnight hour.) --

Without further ado, "Formats," by Jean-Luc Godard, from what was I believe the June 2004 issue of Cahiers du cinéma. One page long. --

"Jean-Luc Godard has requested that 'Notre musique' [Our Music] be projected in 1/37 [Academy ratio], a format rarely shown today in theaters. Using two frames of his film and his own illustrations to forcefully compare the different formats, he provides evidence, in these documents entrusted to Cahiers, of the effects of the modifications to which these films are so often subjected."

[First column: frames of Sarah Adler's face from 'Notre musique', appearing in progressvely more cropped aspect ratios]:

1/37, person
1/66, character
1/85, satellite slave

[Middle column: pen illustrations of various "frames"]:

ritual / myth
window / story
1.37 / to be human
1.66 / untold tale
1.85 / dollar-bill
Scope / funeral

[Third column of exterior shot of the city of Sarajevo from 'Notre musique' with the tops of the buildings gradually more vanished as the aspect ratios become more cropped down the column]:

1.37, evidence of Serbian bombardment
1.66, evidence diminished by Europe/USA
1.85, extermination of the evidence (Milosevic acquitted)

There's the evidence.

[yoshimori]

I have that issue of Cahiers. The piece is on page 78 and it is in fact pretty hilarious! Though I wonder whether or not the whole 'essay' is a bit of a joke - he was perhaps pissed that the bombed building in the second still from Notre musique was miraculously spared by the 1.85:1 framing - Godard does indeed write, though strangely in third person, that Jean-Luc Godard asks that the film be projected at 1.37:1.

Still, that's not the same as "it's all but certain he regards 1.33 as the correct aspect-ratio for his latter-day films". Godard may very well prefer Academy ratio, but the evidence (Cahiers' DVD of Nouvelle Vague, the Quandt fax, the stills in Documents, etc) is hardly unequivocal.

[evillights]

Well, I understood the introductory paragraph with the third-person reference as an introduction by the editorial staff. What follows is the part by Godard (probably faxed in).

When Godard himself comes out so strongly on record in favor of the 1.33/1.37 ratio, and the compositions of films like 'Eloge de l'amour,' 'Nouvelle Vague,' etc., simply -look- composed for Academy -- they are at their freest shape, they conform to the framings of the other Academy films + video works, and most simply, they demonstrate a SINGING integrity, harmony, within the image -- I'm not sure how much more evidence is needed. Quandt received a fax with the word "1.66" on it, not much more than that, which to my mind reads as: "You can show it in 1.66." -- To paraphrase a friend who was contrasting JLG's in-person demeanor with that of Rossellini, "Godard is an iceberg." (That said, Godard can also be quite warm and charming.)

'Nouvelle Vague' is in 1.66 because that's what Gaumont's (I believe) master was in, because that was 'standard theatrical projection' in Europe at the time, and, regardless of his friendship with the man at the top, Gaumont's video department is hardly going to ring Jean-Luc up to double-check on the AR (ditto 'For Ever Mozart' from New Yorker, another Gaumont master, although I believe the Japanese release might have come from a master where the film appeared at 1.33, somehow, though I haven't confirmed this), and has nothing to do with Godard's wishes; he can't be bothered to police his works on video. In fact, the only thing I've ever read with regard to him coming out against a shoddy video release of one of his works is when Gaumont initially released 'Histoire(s) du cinéma' on Secam video, and he found the transfer and mono'ized soundtrack disgusting -- and went ahead to work with ECM on the CD soundtracks.

As far as the stills in 'Documents' go -- I don't know what more you want, or need. He published an essay in Cahiers du cinéma saying that the film is in 1.37 and made a point of showing how any other aspect ratio robs the truth of the image. Fin de l'histoire.

Do you not agree that these films look "at their most integral" when you compare, say, a frame from 'Eloge' at 1.33, with a frame at 1.85 (New Yorker Video) or 1.66 (make your own matte)?

[yoshimori]

As far as the stills in 'Documents' go -- I don't know what more you want, or need. He published an essay in Cahiers du cinéma saying that the film is in 1.37 and made a point of showing how any other aspect ratio robs the truth of the image. Fin de l'histoire.

"Fin de l'histoire"? Thanks for alerting me. But if the Cahiers piece is the fin, it's the fin only for Notre musique, not necessarily, as you seem to think, for all what you call "the latter-day films". No?

Do you not agree that these films look "at their most integral" when you compare, say, a frame from 'Eloge' at 1.33, with a frame at 1.85 (New Yorker Video) or 1.66 (make your own matte)?

Not sure I do. I think Soigne ta droit, for example, looks horrible at 1.33:1. Other films less so. Some, like Nouvelle vague and Helas pour moi, look great at 1.66:1. Still, the stills in Documents for Helas are 1.33:1 and most of them (not all, iyam) look as good as the 1.66:1 crop. [The Cinema Parallel vhs of Helas, fwiw, put out by Godard's buddy, Rob Tregenza, is 1.66:1]

Again, though you may be right, the evidence presented so far is hardly unequivocal. Your speculation as to Gaumont's praxis, Godard's temperament, and the Document editorial board's presumed "slip up" is interesting, but doesn't, at least for me, completely settle things yet. I'm surprised at your certainty.

PS. That whole thing about "robs the truth from the image" is surely at least partly bluster. No? Either no image is "true", or all are. Sure, a cropped image may not reflect the filmmaker's intention, but that's another thing altogether.

[sevenarts]

Not that this settles the debate or anything, but Godard does come right out in one of the essays in Godard on Godard and says that the only proper aspect ratios for films are either 1.33 or 'scope -- he doesn't like the "in between" ratios.

I think it is likely that most of his later films were probably composed for 1.33, especially considering the close ties in terms of style and working methods between these films and his simultaneous video work of the last few decades.

[yoshimori]

Not that this settles the debate or anything, but Godard does come right out in one of the essays in Godard on Godard and says that the only proper aspect ratios for films are either 1.33 or 'scope -- he doesn't like the "in between" ratios.

If you mean the book edited by Jean Narboni and Tom Milne, that was published in 1968, right around the time Godard did, in fact, make a film with an "in between" ratio.

[hellboytr]

[The Cinema Parallel vhs of Helas, fwiw, put out by Godard's buddy, Rob Tregenza, is 1.66:1]

yes yoshimori, that's really the case. I watched both the 1.66:1 VHS and 1.33:1 DVD in the course of preparing subtitles, and what looked correct to my subjective eyes was the 1.33:1 one.

Anyway, the very scene in Helas Pour Moi from which the last screenshot above was taken from, in which there is a man carrying a bag, another playing a musical instrument and a woman on bicycle, is used by Godard again in his "Origin of the 21st Century", and the image in that film is certainly 1.33:1. So we don't have any reason to suspect that the intented aspect ratio of Helas Pour Moi is 1.33:1 imho.

[BrightEyes23]

Anyone have subs for Loin Du Vietnam? I'm considering picking up a handful of discs on hellboy's recommendation, but want to make sure I can find subs for them first. So far, I'm gonna get Ici Ailluers, Germany Year 90 9 0, and Ro.Go.Pa.G, but I'm also considering The Oldest Profession (if there are subs for the other films?) and possibly Passion and JLG:JLG that I saw on the site (same thing...although I have seen terrible VHS' a looong time ago).

Thanks!

(also, in terms of the aspect ratio...sometimes I get the feeling Godard puts out confusion about it on purpose...he seems like a guy that would enjoy that sort of trick )

[sevenarts]

Anyone have subs for Loin Du Vietnam? I'm considering picking up a handful of discs on hellboy's recommendation, but want to make sure I can find subs for them first. So far, I'm gonna get Ici Ailluers, Germany Year 90 9 0, and Ro.Go.Pa.G, but I'm also considering The Oldest Profession (if there are subs for the other films?) and possibly Passion and JLG:JLG that I saw on the site (same thing...although I have seen terrible VHS' a looong time ago).

if you want Passion, the Cahiers Du Cinema twofer set of that one with Nouvelle Vague is excellent (aspect ratio questions on NV aside) and it does indeed have English subs already.