[HN Gopher] Jean-Luc Godard has died
___________________________________________________________________
Jean-Luc Godard has died
Author : coolandsmartrr
Score : 448 points
Date : 2022-09-13 08:09 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lemonde.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lemonde.fr)
| conductor wrote:
| "Life may be sad, but it's always beautiful."
|
| -- From "Pierrot le Fou", 1965
| avereveard wrote:
| I'll never forget his leading role on the USS Entergrose
| groar wrote:
| It is actually "Godard", not Goddard.
| coolandsmartrr wrote:
| Fixed.
| yewenjie wrote:
| Godard changed my life. I still can't express how exactly though,
| but watching Pierrot le Fou literally left a serious deep impact
| to me when I was adolescent. I am deeply thankful that he existed
| in this world.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| When I first saw the headline, my mind immediately read it as
| "Jean-Luc Picard" has died" and I was about to say something nice
| about the actor who plays him.
| moviewise wrote:
| "I just talked about myself, and you, yourself. You should've
| talked about me, and me, about you."
|
| -- Michel Poiccard, Breathless (1960)
|
| "The 1960 French crime drama film, Breathless, by Jean-Luc Godard
| has a very interesting idea about love. The protagonist, Michel
| Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a car thief and crook, is
| unlikeable. He steals from helpless women as well as vulnerable
| men, and kills a police officer without remorse. He claims to be
| in love with an American, Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg), but
| at one point he threatens to strangle her, and he disregards her
| wishes whether big or small. But he wants to be with her, and we
| believe him. Is this enough to be defined as love?"
|
| From: What Is Love? The True Definition According To The Movies
| https://moviewise.substack.com/p/what-is-love
| rurban wrote:
| The obituary did miss the most important part. Why the hell did
| he commit career suicide, by becoming a revolutionary Maoist, had
| to leave to Paris, and only made horrible bad movies after that.
|
| The answer is simply a pretty blonde aristocrat, Anne Wiazemsky,
| who drove him into radicalism. Cannes recently had a bad movie
| "Redoubtable" about that. https://freebeacon.com/culture/godard-
| mon-amour-review/
|
| He was extremely talented, until Le Chinoise and The Weekend.
| [deleted]
| louhike wrote:
| They do talk about him becoming a maoist and the influence on
| its movies. Maybe I misunderstood what you're trying to say.
| rurban wrote:
| The Wiazemsky influence on his career suicide. He only talked
| about Gorin.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| A more complete, and written in English, obituary :
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/obituaries/article/2022/09/13/jean...
| dang wrote:
| Changed from https://www.liberation.fr/culture/jean-luc-godard-
| est-mort-2.... Thanks!
| gverrilla wrote:
| The poster-boy for commodity fetishism.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism
| WFHRenaissance wrote:
| It's sad, but I assumed he was already dead.
| rozab wrote:
| It's strange how his more recent work isn't known so much, it
| remained daring and innovative. Goodbye to Language (2014) is
| well worth a watch.
| yewenjie wrote:
| Really? Care to explain more? To me he is basically a critic
| of commodity fetishism while acknowledging the reality of it.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Am I the only one that read this as "Jean-Luc Picard has died"
| and then went into a minor panic for just a split second?
|
| Yeah. Me either.
| alec_irl wrote:
| Hard to overstate Godard's importance to the film world, both as
| a critic and a filmmaker. As a critic with Cahiers du Cinema he
| and others championed many forgotten Hollywood films and
| established one of the first recognizable 'canons' of film -- one
| of the beginning points of film history as a subject. And unlike
| his predecessor and colleague Bazin, Godard went beyond theory to
| actually create films that embodied the radical new ideas about
| film that the Cahiers crowd promoted. I've seen people in the
| thread mentioning Italian Neorealism, and some of the great
| Hollywood films of the 50s, all fantastic examples of forward-
| thinking film art. But Godard and his contemporaries'
| contributions were about synthesizing earlier developments with a
| pop-art bent in a way that destroyed established boundaries of
| the medium and paved the way for explosions of film creativity on
| the continent and beyond. His genius was finding a middle ground
| between directors like Hawks and Rosselini, or Ford and Renoir,
| and using that space to create indelible masterpieces. RIP JLG
| batisteo wrote:
| Je vais prendre deux fois des moules
| m_st wrote:
| I recommend you to also watch Operation Beton - a documentary
| about the construction of the Grande Dixence concrete dam by JLG
| preceding his film work and a testimony.
| zeruch wrote:
| I remember sitting in a hotel room in SF with my girlfriend at
| the time and her waxing about Godard, whom I knew little about.
| She was right about how influential and brilliant he was.
| rurban wrote:
| Alan Tanner also died just yesterday, and I rate him much higher
| than Godard. I'll only see Revolutionary Maoist Godard obituaries
| I assume, not any Tanner's. Not even a movie yesterday.
|
| They lived very close, Geneva and Grenoble.
| emotionaltrash wrote:
| 'weekend' is still one of my favourites movies all time.
| StillLrning123 wrote:
| So many epic scenes in that movie.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BySdtZWDCwI
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| And that clip you posted is still perhaps 5 minutes shorter
| than the full clip from the film.
| suction wrote:
| drexlspivey wrote:
| It is hard to overstate how much Godard changed cinema, even in
| America. If you don't believe me check for yourself. Open the
| best picture nominees between 55'-65' and watch their trailers.
| Films like Marty/On the waterfront/12 angry men/To kill a
| mockingbird/The Caine Mutiny/Sweet smell of success is what
| movies were like in the late 50s.
|
| The acting/writing was pompous, actors talked like reciting
| Shakespear. The movies were about heros of impeccable character
| doing heroic things and there always was a happy ending. Movie
| shots followed strict guidelines and the creative head of the
| movie was the producer while the director was akin to a
| contractor, someone hired to film the scenes.
|
| Starting in the mid 60s there was a radical shift, topping the
| nominations we have films like Five Easy Pieces, The French
| Connection, The Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The
| Deer Hunter, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver etc. Actors would act
| and behave like normal everyday people facing everyday problems.
| The new Archetype is the Anti-Hero, someone with flaws/vices in
| their character, someone that viewers can relate to. We see the
| rise of the director as the auteur, the creative master of a
| film. Every known filmaking rule is being tested to it's limits
| and broken by young experimenting directors.
|
| The catalyst for this change was the French New Wave, a group of
| young filmmakers tired of the old style of cinema wanting to do
| films about their own life and experiences. The poster boy for
| the New Wave was Jean-Luc Godard starting this revolution with
| his 1960 film Breathless.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| Cahieurs du Cinema crew were famously obsessed with film noir
| and american directors who have been pushing doom and gloom
| ever since the depression.
| paganel wrote:
| For what it's worth they also loved Lubitsch, so it was not
| all doom and gloom for them.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Film Noir (which inspired Godard a lot; his 1965 film
| Alphaville is basically an homage/parody of it) had many of
| these traits (realistic dialogue, protagonists who weren't 100%
| good or even antiheroes, endings where the the good guys don't
| win) -- look at 1940s/1950s movies with Humphrey Bogart or
| Robert Mitchum.
| mzs wrote:
| Yep, I immediately thought of "SUNSET BLVD." as a counter
| example. Even "The 400 Blows" predates Godard in French New-
| Wave.
| smcin wrote:
| Specifically, the subgenre Future Noir. See 'How Alphaville
| (1965) Gave Us Blade Runner (1982) And The Matrix (1999)' [1]
|
| [1] https://nerdist.com/article/alphaville-gave-us-blade-
| runner-...
| cm2187 wrote:
| It's hard to be more pompeous and recitative than a godard
| film.
|
| Reminds me of a joke from french comedian Desproges describing
| the parisian artistic crowd "who would rather die than to be
| more than 12 having understood the last Godard movie".
| aerovistae wrote:
| "recitative" - great word, I would have never thought to use
| it.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > The acting/writing was pompous, actors talked like reciting
| Shakespear.
|
| To be fair, they were literally lifting from theater talent
| that was trained to do this
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| This is just wildly exaggerated. Italian neo-realism, British
| kitchen sink dramas and the emergence (in France) of verite
| cinema did just as much, if not more, to contribute to the
| refocusing of cinema on normal, working people.
| bobbiechen wrote:
| >The movies were about heros of impeccable character doing
| heroic things and there always was a happy ending.
|
| I thought a big part of this was the Hays Code, which forced
| (voluntarily adopted by studios) certain standards of morality
| for filmmakers:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheHaysCo...
| WalterBright wrote:
| But wasn't this inevitable given the declining cost of movie
| cameras?
|
| After all, I grew up when taking a photograph cost a dollar
| (including printing). This meant one was very parsimonious that
| the picture would be worth it. I still have trouble shaking
| that off when taking pictures with my phone, though I use the
| phone for all kinds of things I never would have considered
| before. Such as taking a photo of the back of my head to check
| on a mole that I can't see in a mirror. Or when I mail a
| package to someone, I'll text a quick photo of the receipt with
| the tracking number on it. Or photograph something so I can
| enlarge it, i.e. use it as a magnifying glass.
|
| (Yes, I've watched Breathless. I thought it was rather dull.)
| kome wrote:
| Italian Neo-realism predates French New Wave.
| klik99 wrote:
| True, but I believe italian neorealism didn't have
| international reach until fellini - outside of influencing
| french new wave which went on to popularize (within the art
| community at least) those ideas. French New Wave also paired
| it with new editing and cinematography techniques that made
| it all work together.
|
| Edit: I had originally prefaced this with "I'm not a scholar"
| but forgot to readd it - the responses below invalidate most
| of what I said, but leaving the comment so their responses
| make sense - though I still stand by the lesser version of
| what I said - that Godard had a bigger impact on American
| cinema than pre-Fellini Italian Neorealism, and that parts of
| italian film influenced Godard.
| carlob wrote:
| Not sure I agree De Sica's Sciuscia (Shoeshine) won a
| Honorary Academy Award in 1947, which then became the
| Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film. In other
| words it was so influential that it ended up defining its
| own category at the Oscars.
| klik99 wrote:
| I am wrong about that then, but I was talking more about
| influence on American films - I haven't seen any Sciuscia
| so I don't know if that went on to influence american
| films in the same way that godard did later.
| l33tbro wrote:
| The French New Wave were all too different to generalise
| like this. Godard and Rohmer (or Resnais) could't be more
| different really.
|
| It was actually the previous generation of French directors
| that they were all reacting against - who were making
| somewhat pretentious literary adaptation films. You can
| read about it in Truffaut's 1954 essay 'A certain tendency
| in the french cinema'.
|
| Neorealism was actually a fairly minor influence - as none
| of the new wave directors were social realists. But older,
| maverick French directors like Bresson and Melville were
| much more influential, as it was their freewheeling
| sensibility which united all the new wave directors and
| sent them hurtling off in different directions.
| klik99 wrote:
| Yeah, it's hard to talk about French New Wave as a
| cohesive set, since it was so reactionary - I still see
| influences from earlier italian neorealism in Godard, in
| the street view slice of life shots and focus on regular
| people throughout Breathless
| achairapart wrote:
| It goes in waves back and forth from Europe to Usa and back
| again:
|
| 40s: Italian Neo-realism
|
| 50s: Hollywood Golden Era
|
| 60s: French new wave
|
| 70s: New Hollywood
|
| Somehow every wave greatly inspired the next one.
| paganel wrote:
| There's also the Japanese New Wave somewhere in there (the
| '50s and '60s) which also had a very great influence.
|
| Me, personally, I'd also put the 1960s-1970s _wuxia_ films
| from Hong Kong in a list of "stuff that has changed movie
| history for good".
| achairapart wrote:
| Of course, the list wasn't exhaustive. Asian cinema also
| had a great influence again in the 90s/00s.
| paganel wrote:
| For sure, to this day I'm mesmerized by a few Tsui Hark
| movies from that era, even though I saw them 15+ years
| ago. Pure art of fluid movement, for lack of a better
| expression.
| coldtea wrote:
| It does, but it has little to do with the kind of cinema of
| New Wave, or the later 60s-70s cinema in America.
| pavlov wrote:
| IMO the success of "Midnight Cowboy" (1970 Oscars for Best
| Picture + Director + Screenplay) marks the moment when the New
| Wave truly hit Hollywood.
|
| Although set in New York, it owes a lot more to Godard and
| other Europeans than American movies of the past.
| erichocean wrote:
| > _" Midnight Cowboy" (1970 Oscars for Best Picture +
| Director + Screenplay)_
|
| That was the first time people in Hollywood truly saw
| themselves represented on screen.
| slibhb wrote:
| > The acting/writing was pompous, actors talked like reciting
| Shakespear. The movies were about heros of impeccable character
| doing heroic things and there always was a happy ending. Movie
| shots followed strict guidelines and the creative head of the
| movie was the producer while the director was akin to a
| contractor, someone hired to film the scenes.
|
| 12 Angry Men and especially Sweet Smell of Success are not good
| examples of this.
| mc32 wrote:
| And for me, I miss some of that straightforward cinema today.
| Sometimes you don't want ambiguities and meandering
| characters.
|
| Everything is a blockbuster and a franchise.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > Sometimes you don't want ambiguities and meandering
| characters.
|
| Or antiheroes, or love triangles, or...
| mc32 wrote:
| You know, ketchup[1] in the right amount can do wonders
| but slather it everywhere and it's the delight of a four
| year old, but it's really not the way it should be
| experienced.
|
| [1] pick your condiment of choice.
| Jimajesty wrote:
| When a movie has a love story that doesn't involve a
| love-triangle or infidelity I breath a palpable sigh of
| relief. Realistic or not, does all romance have to
| involve competition or deception?
| mc32 wrote:
| Cinema instead of being a reflection on society is more a
| mirror of itself. (look at Weinstein/Polanski and people
| like them in cinema and how they were treated until they
| could no more --look at their compasses).
| WalterBright wrote:
| I just watched a romance movie where the plot was one was
| dying of a terminal disease. I watched it because the
| protagonist was Feynman, otherwise I'd have turned it off
| because watching people die is not entertaining to me.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Matt Damon said that in the past studios could expect to
| make half of the money back in DVD sales. Now that DVDs are
| gone studios are a lot more concerned about funding movies
| that are _not_ blockbusters/franchises. Sucks!
|
| Can you imagine a studio funding a movie like Fracture
| (2007) today? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG1Lxnn8Qa8 -
| probably not, a movie about a genius man who murders his
| cheating wife and an egotistical district attorney. But the
| film is tremendous, can't be made today.
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| It becomes a 6 episode miniseries.
| [deleted]
| Bayart wrote:
| You should hang out around small cinemas and niche
| festivals, you'd see everything can be and is made.
| There's a universe beyond studios. I just saw
| Cronenberg's Futur Crimes (the direct successor to
| Videodrome and eXistenZ) a few days ago, and Maps to the
| Stars yesterday. The man is as nuts as ever and he can
| still get his films made, it just takes producers who do
| it for fun and inventive financing. Films are the easiest
| they've ever been to make.
| js2 wrote:
| Indeed. And all noir films. American cinema is a lot more
| than just its best picture nominees. Why is OP ignoring films
| like _Rebel Without a Cause_ , _East of Eden_ , _The Defiant
| Ones_ , _Anatomy of a Murder_ , _The Hustler_ , _Paths of
| Glory_?
|
| I love French New Wave and _Breathless_ is one of my favorite
| films, but OP overstates their case.
| eqbridges wrote:
| OP was simply referring to nominees as best picture in the
| Oscars between 55-65 to make his point.
| js2 wrote:
| With cherry picking you can make any point you want. It
| not only ignores most of the films in that era, it even
| ignores most of the best picture Oscar nominees, to say
| nothing of the fact that OP so wildly mischaracterizes
| _12 Angry Men_ and _Sweet Smell of Success_ that I wonder
| if they 've seen the films in the first place.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I have to agree with OP, 12 angry men is a fantastic
| movie on many levels, but it really feels more like good
| Shakespeare than 12 real dudes discussing execution and
| their consience
| bazoom42 wrote:
| The noir films was a significant inspiration for the
| nouvelle vague. They were highly regarded by french
| critics, which even gave the genre its name.
| goto11 wrote:
| 12 Angry Men is pretty stiff and theatrical. Not a criticism
| since it is a great movie, but it it wolds apart from say
| Five Easy Pieces.
| slibhb wrote:
| Stiff and theatrical are better descriptors. Or mannered
| and a bit stilted.
|
| I've only seen Breathless and A Band Apart. My sense is
| that Godard played a big part in transforming cinema from
| mannered to free-form. But I'd caution against framing that
| transition in terms of quality. Lots of stiff, theatrical
| movies are excellent, many of them have really good
| camerawork, and Godard certainly didn't invent moral
| ambiguity.
| dazdaz wrote:
| That's also due to the fact that it's a classical chamber
| play. I'd say a "theatrical" feel was definitely intended.
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| Marty had pompous acting/writing? Seriously?
|
| How is Brando in "On the waterfront" all that different from
| Brando in "The Godfather"?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| 1955-1965 could be described as Hollywood's McCarthyist era,
| characterized by Cold War hysteria, the blacklisting of anyone
| and anything even vaguely associated with Communism, the end of
| film noir, etc.
|
| French cinema didn't go that way, another important director of
| the period was Jean-Pierre Melville.
|
| https://www.indiewire.com/2015/08/the-essentials-the-10-grea...
| pnathan wrote:
| > . The movies were about heros of impeccable character doing
| heroic things and there always was a happy ending.
|
| I confess, I rather prefer that approach. Really don't like
| anti-heros and villains as protagonists.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| The Deer Hunter. A great movie I will never watch a second
| time. Too much reality.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| The Deer Hunter is also a great example of how movies have
| changed. I enjoyed the movie but it's just sooooooooo....
| daamn.... slooooooooow. Nothing happens for the first hour.
| That doesn't make it _bad_ , but it goes to show - audiences
| in 1978 must have had very long attention spans. I can't
| imagine such a glacially slow movie being a hit if it came
| out today, when the average person can't pay attention to
| anything longer than a TikTok video (and even that needs to
| be played on double speed.)
|
| People's brains have changed.
| smcin wrote:
| Glacially slow, a lot of existential brooding and inner
| conflict. Curious if Godard was never considered to direct
| 'Dune', seems like his sort of thing, he might have done a
| good job.
| graderjs wrote:
| What, you can't spend an _hour_ just watching someone
| else 's creation? Your leisure free time's too important?
| You gotta quick-flick-swipe through endless new
| distractions on the web? C'mon. Just watch an old film.
| Once can't hurt. Don't apply the modern bullshit
| standards to the past.
|
| Alphaville. Worth a watch. Not everything has to be what
| you expect. Be confused. Be challenged. At least then you
| know someone's not making it trying to push your buttons
| and manipulate you. Maybe you just need to get in the
| moment.
|
| There's more entropy and information in something
| unexpected. And how is there not something unexpected to
| find, something new, in even the slowest oldest film?
| Just watch it with focused awareness. The quality of your
| attention determines the quality of your experience. :P
| ;) xx ;p
| smcin wrote:
| I object to your tone, and I don't understand why you're
| taking it with me, or wrongly assuming that I didn't see
| 'The Deer Hunter'; I did see it. I had heard rave reviews
| about 'The Deer Hunter' but as things happen, I only got
| around to seeing it ~15yrs after it was released. It was
| decent, De Niro and Cazale are standouts, but not as
| great as the accolades it had been showered with. I like
| most De Niro (Scorsese, Cimino, or other director), but
| for a slow-boiler character study of a man's descent into
| insanity, 'Taxi Driver' (or the little-known but superb
| Danish film trilogy 'Pusher' (1996-2004-2005)) are IMO
| far superior. Or maybe even Takeshi Kitano. As far as TDH
| goes, I think the last chapter suffers a break in
| coherence, and it doesn't advance the narrative to see De
| Niro unravel in slow-motion at the end. As far as anti-
| Vietnam war films go, Bogdanovich's 'Saint Jack' made the
| point more deftly; we don't necessarily need to see
| people literally blowing their brains out to get the
| point that they've been systematically dehumanized.
| Perhaps it's the Oscar hype machine rather than Cimino's
| directing that's responsible for the perpetual hype
| around 'The Deer Hunter', and the lack of hype around
| Nicolas Winding Refn. In any fair universe, foreign
| directors like Refn would have won an Oscar for his early
| work, regardless that it was in Danish; which is a
| Hollywood attitude that persisted until 'Parasite'
| (2019).
|
| Be assured I've "watched old films" aplenty. (I
| referenced 'Alphaville' above, earlier; and the David
| Lynch 'Dune'. I was even gong to reference Tarkovsky). My
| comment wondering if Godard was ever considered to direct
| 'Dune' is obviously praise for his work.
|
| Have you seen Pusher Trilogy? or Bogdanovich's 'Saint
| Jack'? How do you think they compare?
|
| (Also, 'The Deer Hunter' running time is 3h3m, so the _"
| you can't spend an hour just watching someone else's
| creation"_ misassumption is offbase for multiple reasons.
| Ask questions, rather than make wrong assumptions.)
| Bayart wrote:
| For what it's worth, Refn has always been hyped up in
| Europe, too much for my taste. He never really topped
| Pusher 2 IMO. With time his cinema just got more
| performative.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| There's a difference between someone's personal
| experience/capabilities and making observations about the
| broader cultural appeal of a thing.
|
| I can still put in the _personal_ effort to read
| Charlotte Bronte or watch North By Northwest and take on
| the appropriate context required to understand that these
| are landmark works for their era, while simultaneously
| understanding that they have limited appeal to a general
| modern audience.
| retcore wrote:
| It's definitely slow, but I don't know what else could
| draw you into the social intimacy that's dissolved with
| devastating emotions engagement later in the film.
| There's a tolerance and intimacy established in the first
| scenes that I believe fuels the culmination of
| disassociation in self destruction, despair and rage in
| the numerous infamous scenes I'm uncertain could have had
| as much impact otherwise. Another theme may arguably be
| counterpoint between tolerance or understanding of
| mediocrity and individual desires for inestimable even
| incomprehensible realization both in terms of ff
| everything (the simplest contemporary expression become
| inseparable from New generation post Viet Nam national
| identity, and seeking private assessment when all
| meaningful references are lost. These are only some is a
| frequent contemporary messages conveyed by making
| seventies filmmakers reflecting a crumbling human
| infrastructure. It's possible to imagine the contemporary
| viewer, as I once could, appreciating the establishing
| scenes as something other than vicarious observation and
| more akin to a negotiation of sympathy and even solace.
| Today, I find the same extraordinary and beautified
| scenes, Cimino foreshadowing Heavens's Gate hubris had
| the winter location grass and trees decorated with green
| paint and faux foliage only for color balance,
| frustrating. We're ostensibly living in economic good
| times in unremitting contrast, and yet so little seems to
| have changed. I'm eagerly looking forward to viewing the
| moment I can discard my present perspective.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I think The Deer Hunter hits a lot harder for folks that
| lived through the Vietnam war. My dad (a boomer who was in
| his 20s during the war) connected deeply with the film
| because it portrayed what was really happening to people in
| that time. The movie wouldn't have been nearly as powerful
| or impacting if it just cut straight to the Vietnam and
| capture scenes, you need the first act to establish the
| deep and real friendship of the folks going to war. You see
| their life before the war and how amazing and perfect it is
| --how it could be your life. And then you see the horror of
| the war and how it completely fractures and destroys this
| group of friends. A lot of people that lived through the
| war experienced the same kind of shock and the film is
| quite cathartic for them.
|
| If you just want a Vietnam war movie that cuts right to the
| gory chase about the horror of conflict, watch Platoon. If
| you want to experience what life was like for a young adult
| in their 20s and 30s being drafted or going to fight in the
| war and its impact on their life, watch The Deer Hunter.
| criddell wrote:
| And people's brains continue to change.
|
| When I was in my mid-20's, I rented Jaws and couldn't
| believe how boring it was. Twenty years later I gave it
| another go when I saw it on some streaming service and I
| absolutely loved it.
|
| On one hand, people love short videos but at the same time
| many of them will settle in for a multi-hour podcast or
| binge-watch six hours of some streaming series on a slack
| weekend.
| amp108 wrote:
| It isn't that movies like _The Deer Hunter_ are slow,
| necessarily. It 's that the scenes are doing things other
| than advancing "the plot". Things like revealing a hidden
| character trait or depicting the quality of the
| protagonist's world. I remember someone telling me that
| _The Zero Effect_ (1997) was "too slow", when I thought it
| was moving along at a fast clip; I finally realized it was
| the difference in what we were getting out of (or _looking_
| to get out of) the movie that accounted for our differing
| perceptions.
|
| Not that that can't be done poorly, either. But _The Deer
| Hunter_ never struck me as slow, and I 'm a kid who grew up
| with _Star Wars_ as my template. But I got really into what
| we might call (erroneously) "character-driven" movies in
| the '80s.
|
| (Dammit, I liked _Chariots of Fire_ , but there was no way
| it should have taken Best Picture over _Reds_. Same with
| _Ordinary People_ and _Raging Bull_.)
| zwaps wrote:
| Maybe HN can help: Years ago I watched a French movie, I think
| black and white, involving a young guy living in Paris. I don't
| remember much: Scenes where he jumped the iconic Parisian metro
| entrances without a ticket, and also a bourgie party with an
| American astronaut (?) staring at the moon? Maybe New-Wave, maybe
| not. I always wanted to find it again.
| js2 wrote:
| Try https://old.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/ if HN doesn't come
| through for you.
| bravo22 wrote:
| Maybe it was Masculin Feminin by Godard?
| jeanl wrote:
| I think you're talking about "Boy meets girl" by Leos Carax. I
| do remember the scene when the hero jumps the metro still by
| somersaulting over it... (the somersault is in the trailer
| https://youtu.be/uA-jdQIWGKA?t=88)
| CalRobert wrote:
| I wish I could understand him more. My wife and I tried to watch
| Breathless and it was insufferable watching this complete jerk
| mope his way around. We didn't even manage to finish it. On top
| of that, Godard himself came off as rude in 2017's Visages
| Villages (Agnes Varda).
|
| Is there something of his I might appreciate more?
| wazoox wrote:
| Try _Pierrot le fou_ , _Contempt_ , _Alphaville_... However
| _Breathless_ is (one of?) the easiest of Godard 's movies.
|
| Notice that you're _supposed_ to suffer to watch many of his
| movies. It 's part of the experience, to prove that you're part
| of the intellectual elite that "gets it".
| kingkawn wrote:
| His films take apart the mannerisms of film and French
| society. anti-intellectual shots at him are only a lost
| opportunity to know a moving, meaningful artist
| wazoox wrote:
| In fact it's the opposite: I'm a staunch intellectual, snob
| Frenchman. I can't stand brain-damaged Hollywood
| entertainment (I'd rather stand 2 hours under the rain than
| watching any _Avengers_ movie). The cultural gap may
| require time and effort to cross to be able to appreciate
| Godard (or Bergman, or Rohmer, ...) when you 're into mass
| culture.
| eternalban wrote:
| LOL, this reminded me of Gene Hackman's character in
| _Night Moves_ on Rohmer:
|
| https://vimeo.com/8688973
| [deleted]
| kingkawn wrote:
| attempt to scramble to the top of some crumbled European
| high-cultural ground to throw stones at low culture is
| just as dumb as being dismissive of Godard
|
| but, that said, i was responding to the parent comment
| and accidentally got nested under you
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| If you are suffering watching _Breathless_ and _Pierrot le
| fou_ , I feel a bit sad for you.
| wazoox wrote:
| I'm not, but for some of his movies it's obviously part of
| the project.
| Zealotux wrote:
| I would suggest looking into Pierrot le Fou, and Bande a Part
| (Band of Outsiders in NA).
| Namari wrote:
| It's the only one I've watched and that stopped me from
| watching more of his movies, it just bored me so much, I
| wonder if all his movies are at the same pace or if I should
| give another try to `A bout de souffle`.
| [deleted]
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Why do you want to? If you prefer movies about likable
| characters overcoming challenges and setbacks but eventually
| prevailing due to their core of goodness, then there are plenty
| of great movies to watch. This is just not Godard.
| mypastself wrote:
| Eh, "moping insufferable jerk" and "good, likable overcomer"
| can be thought of as ends on a potentially broad spectrum of
| character types. Perhaps the commenter doesn't care for
| either.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| CalRobert wrote:
| Well, people whose opinions I respect say they're great
| movies and there's a lot to appreciate about them, so I
| suppose I'm wondering if there's a way I could learn to enjoy
| them more. The responses here have been helpful!
|
| I really enjoy Koyaanisqatsi but I can understand how someone
| else might not like it at first, but perhaps enjoy it more
| after the theme and intended meaning become more clear.
| hippie_queen wrote:
| No promises, but I would recommend trying Weekend (1967). I
| felt the same way about Breathless for a long time, until I
| watched it the third time and it just "clicked." It's easy to
| take that film way too seriously and miss the point.
|
| That said, I don't really know why I've watched so many Godard
| films, since I almost never actually enjoy them (the reason is
| probably Anna Karina et al. hnngh). Still, he was undoubtedly a
| genius and I have the uttermost respect for his craft. RIP.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I've watched a significant amount of his 60's output and
| yeah...he's pretty insufferable and sexist. Brilliant and
| innovative, sure, but the man could not write a film without
| deeply unlikable characters and an incoherent plot. The closest
| he got was Vivre Sa Vie which has some really poignant moments
| with Anna Karina.
|
| IMO Eric Rohmer and Agnes Varda are more my style. Rohmer can
| be rather talk-y but that's not necessarily bad. Definitely
| influenced the Woody Allen/Noah Baumbach school of directing.
|
| Edit: And don't feel guilty if you don't care for Godard. Great
| filmmakers like Werner Hertzog and Ingmar Bergman shared your
| views. Hertzog famously said he'd prefer a good Kung fu movie.
| Which in fairness, I'm not sure Godard would have objected; he
| did love his B movies.
| BryantD wrote:
| Pierrot le Fou was the one that clicked with me. I'd already
| appreciated Breathless, Contempt, and Bande a Part but I didn't
| feel a lot of emotional connection to them. Pierrot le Fou
| delighted me.
|
| Can't say why, but in part perhaps his use of color and in part
| I'd been reading a lot on the Algerian War at the time, so
| there was some resonance there. I think it's also just lighter
| in spirit, despite some serious themes.
| klik99 wrote:
| My advice: watch it like a movie that just came out, not as a
| "really important and heady film". If not, you might miss the
| whole concept is funny - it's about a French guy who looks like
| bogart who watches American films and wishes he was American,
| who falls in love with an American who wishes she was French.
|
| I love Breathless but I think my interpretation is different
| than most - to me it's about the meaningless of art, how the
| main characters drift aimlessly because they model their lives
| after superficial understandings of the other gleaned from
| media. Also there's an artist character who iirc explicitly
| says that art is meaningless. But yeah its a difficult watch,
| it's almost an easier watch if you watch it superficially since
| it's so well shot.
| bsaul wrote:
| "Contempt" is much more accessible and enjoyable.
| lloeki wrote:
| I did not watch Breathless, but the feeling you describe
| reminds me of what I experienced watching La Piel Que Habito by
| Pedro Amlodovar (a loose adaptation of a novel: Mygale by
| Thierry Jonquet).
|
| It was an incredibly difficult movie for me to watch, the
| amount of psychological violence was so unbearable I barely
| made it to the end, couldn't help but think what could possibly
| go through the mind of the writer to give birth to such a
| twisted story.
|
| (Note that Breathless has Godard for direction and screenplay
| but the story is Truffaut and Chabrol)
| prmoustache wrote:
| oh yes that Almodovar movie was really weird. I remember
| feeling a bit nauseous in the end.
| dereg wrote:
| As always, an Ebert review will help you at least set the table
| for the discussion about it.
| https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-breathless-19...
| bambax wrote:
| Excellent critic, thanks!
| coldtea wrote:
| > _and it was insufferable watching this complete jerk mope his
| way around._
|
| Well, the key is not to let some rigid moralistic sentiments
| color the experience.
|
| Cinema is for experiencing the point of view and lives of other
| people. Not for watching behaviors we already approve of.
| laserlight wrote:
| I didn't approve of what Raskolnikov did, yet I could
| empathize with him thanks to the writer's prowess. I don't
| see why cinema would be different than literature. The guy in
| Breathless was a jerk and the director failed to make the
| audience empathize with him.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'm striking out with Jean-Luc Godard. I've seen seven of his
| films now from the "1001 Films to See Before You Die" and have
| found them all tedious.
|
| It's too bad because there are parts of each that can stay with
| you like the "car scene" in "Week-End". But often they are
| peopled with unlikeable characters, have a meandering plot that
| feels made-up on the spot, are punctuated with obtuse
| poetry....
|
| I appreciate what he did for cinema in showing all the things
| that it could be, but perhaps I like some of the films from
| other directors influenced by him that instead struck something
| of a balance.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| Why would you watch seven movies from a director you dont
| enjoy? I can understand giving a director a second chance,
| but seven?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Well, I suppose it's possible I need to ease into his style
| and one film might not do it. But in fact I'm a completist
| and all 7 are included among the "1001 Films to See Before
| you Die". So I suffer 6 more because I want to see all the
| films in the list.
|
| Now, despite not enjoying his films (and others in the
| "1001" list, c'mon Warhol!) I was in fact able to
| appreciate that he has died and the impact he had made on
| cinema (whether I enjoyed his work or not). So I suppose I
| look at "1001 Films" as my "film school" class. (That has
| been going on for several years now, ha ha -- and I'm only
| just closing out the 1960's.) I'm less film-stupid than I
| was a few years ago -- maybe still not erudite (?) enough
| to appreciate New Wave though.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Thats a really weird way to work, if it doesnt click with
| you just move on, life is too short to follow some
| other's ideas and values. Being completionist may not be
| the best direction if it drags you like that.
|
| Especially since you are getting consistent feedback from
| your own sub-consiousness. Or just go with the masses and
| watch top imdb rated ones if lists must be
| js2 wrote:
| Try Eric Rohmer for a different taste of French New Wave.
| He's most well known for _My Night at Maud 's_ which is part
| of his "Six Moral Tales", but my favorite of them is _La
| Collectionneuse_.
|
| I subscribed to Criterion a while back just to watch all six.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Rohmer_filmography
| pyb wrote:
| Highly recommend "l'Amie de mon Ami", my favorite Rohmer.
| "Maud" is probably second.
| 50 wrote:
| Probably still the best piece introducing him is by Craig
| Keller (@evillights) for the Senses of Cinema's Great Directors
| series: https://archive.ph/ncWrG
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I didn't really care for the characters in Breathless either,
| but I did really enjoy seeing how avante garde (for the time)
| the filmmaking was with fast cuts, hand held camera, etc. It
| looks like a modern TV or streaming show but you have to
| remember this was 1960 and _no one_ was making stuff that
| looked like that (the big hollywood films were John Wayne
| westerns, huge epics like Ben Hur, etc.). It's pretty amazing
| that Godard pioneered a style that we all see and take for
| granted today.
|
| It's been a while since I've seen it but I remember liking
| Masculine Feminine more than Breathless, at least liking the
| characters in it more. Give it a look:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRiVKoW18Fw
| lou1306 wrote:
| I've only seen Bande a Part, but found it charming.
| blfr wrote:
| Le Mepris (Contempt) is by far my favourite movie, peak cinema.
| Absolutely stunning Mediterranean cinematography, beautiful
| coastal and indoor shots, a decent plot with Odysseus in the
| background, and certainly not hurt by Brigitte Bardot's onscreen
| presence. Overall unbeatable aesthetics.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF0Ju0ONwGU
|
| Watching it is like taking a short vacation. Phenomenal.
| Renaud wrote:
| And that score by Delarue, so beautifully haunting.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3W86RN_TsE4
| dumb1224 wrote:
| > Absolutely stunning Mediterranean cinematography, beautiful
| coastal and indoor shots, a decent plot with....
|
| I had the same feeling when watching Pierrot le Fou (the only
| Jean-Luc Godard film I watched, possibly new wave...). It was
| introduced by a french colleague of mine, during a very small
| international film festival in Dublin early 2000. I wasn't into
| any art house movies but it made such an impression on me that
| I always had a nice (and saturated colourful) memory of the
| film.
| eternalban wrote:
| Hm, I'll be honest in the spirit of JLG's unabashed expressions
| of desire for the opposite sex. I reached for it because of
| Brigitte Bardot, but it is a solid film.
|
| My absolute favorite JLG is "JLG/JLG".
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110173/
|
| Apparently no torrents for this, too bad. Here is a taste:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk1AK-G6UF4
|
| [p.s. RIP, Jean-Luc.]
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Apparently no torrents for this
|
| I found a few
| nicoco wrote:
| > Apparently no torrents for this, too bad
|
| I guess someone has not heard about our lord and savior,
| https://prowlarr.com/ It aggregates search results from
| various torrent search engine. You choose which search
| engines you want. The list is impressive and it supports
| private trackers too.
| a_d wrote:
| Tarantino mentioned Godard as an influence at the beginning of
| the Reservoir Dogs script (Here he is talking about it:
| https://youtu.be/F4DkfxEv7ZU). He says that the seminal moment
| when he recognized his key aesthetic as a director, was when he
| read Pauline Kael's review of a Godard film (A band apart), where
| Kael says in her review: "It was as if a bunch of movie mad young
| frenchmen had taken up a banal American crime novel and
| translated the poetry that they had read between the lines".
| Tarantino says that when he read that he knew that this was his
| aesthetic -- this is what he wanted to do as a director.
|
| Tarantino called his production company "A Band Apart" (in my
| opinion) for that reason.
|
| (Tarantino's comment: https://youtu.be/vb7oUEVjFjo)
| rodgerd wrote:
| It's funny, because after I watched _Breathless_ for the first
| time I was struck by how modern it seemed - and how little
| directors like Tarantino have added in the intervening years;
| normally when going back to the early works of pioneers, one
| can see why they were important and meaningful, but they age in
| light of all that's been built on them.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Weird that it doesn't seem to mentioned he died by assisted
| suicide, right when France is starting to talk about legalising
| assisted suicides
| skywal_l wrote:
| An interesting take from The New Yorkers' movie critic Richard
| Brody from twenty years ago:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/profiles/2000/11/20/exile...
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