Capo
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Post by Capo on Aug 4, 2007 22:09:22 GMT
Pierrot le fou
Jean-Luc Godard 1965 France / Italy
A married man bored with his life runs away to the south of France with his babysitter.
Drenched in colour, politics and philosophy, this is often credited as the film which combined all of Godard's preoccupations. Most interesting is the constant self-reflexivity, attractive not only in itself but because of the sparkling performances from Karina and Belmondo; it looks absolutely gorgeous, too, with some incredible long-take sequences, the most impressive of which has the present and a flashback happen in the same take, with actors disappearing out of frame and re-entering in a different time, but the same space. Almost impossible to sum up.
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Post by Michael on Aug 4, 2007 22:19:08 GMT
His name is Ferdinand.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Aug 4, 2007 22:32:59 GMT
I know.
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Post by Michael on Nov 16, 2007 4:34:43 GMT
I've been trying on and off for months now to write a full review for this film. I just can't do it. I can't find the right words. Perhaps because the right words have already been said by the artist himself;
"It is not really a film, it's an attempt at cinema. Life is the subject, with [Cinema]Scope and color as its attributes...In short, life filling the screen as a tap fills a bathtub that is simultaneously emptying at the same rate."
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Post by Michael on May 24, 2008 21:22:06 GMT
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RNL
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Post by RNL on May 24, 2008 22:38:47 GMT
Irritating stand-offish sound design, one-dimensional didactic politicising, literary name-dropping as integral element of mise-en-scene. Check. Check. Check. I was, no lie, on the verge of buying this, since I've seen none of them, but I think I'll stick to downloading. Thx. |
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Post by Michael on May 24, 2008 22:46:48 GMT
Irritating?
Irritating?
You can't be serious.
More like sublime.
From .28 to .33 in that clip I posted makes me wet.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on May 24, 2008 22:58:30 GMT
That's all fine. It's the ad nauseum repetition of the same sound effect that's not.
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Post by Michael on May 24, 2008 23:08:50 GMT
I love how he plays Pierrot and Marianne's dialogue while showing the Americans on screen.
Their little re-enactment is almost too surreal. And hilarious.
The way the guy claps his hands makes me lol.
I love the way Godard uses sound.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on May 24, 2008 23:19:51 GMT
I think you and I had better go read some Gerald Norton.
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Post by Michael on May 24, 2008 23:23:07 GMT
I have no idea who that is.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on May 24, 2008 23:30:21 GMT
Neither do I. I guess we'll never be able to quite wrap our heads around the subtle, unseen evils of Western imperialism, like futile, devastating wars.
We should do something though, like maybe write 'Mao' on the ground or rock a Che shirt, or, y'know, something politically incendiary like that.
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Post by Michael on May 24, 2008 23:39:59 GMT
"When making political art, one should never neglect the art."
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Post by Michael on May 24, 2008 23:58:18 GMT
Saying you have to be a Maoist to appreciate Godard is like saying you have to be a homosexual male to like The Smiths or a Communist to enjoy Imagine by John Lennon.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on May 25, 2008 0:03:10 GMT
"When making political art, one should never neglect the art." Well, that clears everything up. In fact, I feel inspired to make a loud, shallow film espousing that very sentiment. I'll have a character intone it solemnly into his coffee while his girlfriend sits engrossed in whatever Godard-related book it's a pull-quote from. I really don't get this shit at all. Whatever about differences in taste regarding his approach to sound and imagery, I can't see how anyone could think it's politically or philosophically provocative. |
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RNL
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Post by RNL on May 25, 2008 0:06:11 GMT
Saying you have to be a Maoist to appreciate Godard is like saying you have to be a homosexual male to like The Smiths or a Communist to enjoy Imagine by John Lennon. I didn't say you have to be a Maoist to appreciate Godard. What I meant to convey via my sarcasm was that scenes in which characters do things like writing 'Mao' on the ground do not make for a film of substantive political content. |
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Post by Michael on May 25, 2008 0:12:50 GMT
I don't think Godard expects his audience to take the politics in his films seriously. I think you're misjudging his tone regarding that. I've never thought of his films as political anyways, I always saw his politicizing as smaller parts of a larger picture. To me his films stretch the boundaries of the medium, they exist to showcase his style, a loud, unsubtle style that features virtualy soulless characters and works on multiple levels.
It's kinda like dissecting Sonic Youth's lyrics. There's no need.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on May 25, 2008 0:41:38 GMT
I know his tone is supposed to be humourous (doesn't work for me at all), but he is definitely attempting to make political art. You even quoted him saying so. He wrote essays pondering how best to do it, how to make "not political films, but to make films politically."
Is it not telling that in so much of the praise Godard's films receive appears the critical faux pas of focusing on what the film isn't rather than what it is, on what it doesn't contain rather than what it does. He 'rejects' this and 'explodes' that and leaves a vapid amalgam of slogans and isms for his champions to talk around.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on May 31, 2008 17:07:55 GMT
Is it not telling that in so much of the praise Godard's films receive appears the critical faux pas of focusing on what the film isn't rather than what it is, on what it doesn't contain rather than what it does. I think this is a misassumption; a lot of stuff does address his films in this way, but anything with critical or academic weight doesn't - at least not in my experience. I don't think having a character write 'Mao' on the ground is politically substantial, but I'm not convinced Godard wishes to enlighten us by it anyway. It's a sort of filmic shorthand; it exposits these (otherwise blank) characters and situations as canvases for something else. What do you make of his tendency to kill these characters off? I really ought to revisit all of the films I have of his, and I do intend on reading up on a lot of it; I used to think the need to follow-up a screening with secondary analysis was somehow a sign that the work itself was lacking, but I'm past that now, and can't wait to start reading cultural and social treatments of his work. I'd stay away from the Dziga Vertov stuff; not that you were in any danger of delving, anyway.  |
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Capo
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Post by Capo on May 31, 2008 17:33:15 GMT
I've just watched that little clip again (it's been ages since I saw the film, and even then only once); it's either very charming or very vulgar or both: symbolism resulting in gross cultural stereotypes (the dumbass Americans hailing Kennedy and responding positively to a re-enactment of the Vietnam War, which is in itself very one-dimensional).
It might be crude exposition, but I think it's knowingly so: look at the cinematography, all over-saturated and cartoonish. I also find it very funny, probably because in some way it strikes me as true - he's very perceptive of human relationships, and his rendering of them is at once subtly cryptic and over-simplified.
Do you think Godard finds his characters endearing? He certainly had a knack of casting beautiful people - but beyond that, there's a certain disdain, even for the protagonists who appear to embody the politics he embraces himself.
Like the director, these "communist" characters owe more to America than they are ready to admit (look at the fondness with which Breathless seeks to replicate old Hollywood gangster movies; it's dedicated to Monogram). He's incredibly self-aware, though, and would probably give a little smirk and wink himself were we to question him on this contradiction.
Still, whatever of political convictions, I remember finding this film immensely enjoyable to watch (I knew little to nothing about Maoism at the time, and not much more now). And I've not forgotten this scene:
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