Of the 12 films I've seen at Cannes, the most warmly cheered has been the South African "Life, Above All." That's possibly more significant than in other years.
The audiences at Cannes this year have been oddly restrained, and there's less clapping at the names of directors; even Jean-Luc Godard received only perfunctory applause. Is this becoming less a directors' festival and more a trade fair?
Perhaps I leap unfairly to conclusions. Some traditions remain. Before every screening at the Auditorium Debussy, for example, someone in the dark is sure to call out "Raoul!" There's laughter and a little buzz as old-timers explain to their neighbors that once in dim antiquity a moviegoer entered after the lights went down, was unable to find his friend, and shouted out "Raoul!" The search continues.
Oliver Schmitz's "Life, Above All" has been the best heart-warmer and tear-jerker so far--and when I write from Cannes I use the term "tear-jerker" as a compliment, because this is a hardened crowd and when you hear snuffling in the dark you know it has been honestly earned. The film is about deep human emotions, evoked with sympathy and love.
"Life, Above All" takes place entirely within a South African township, one with moderate prosperity and well-tended homes. It centers on the 12-year-old Chanda, who takes on the responsibility of holding her family together after her baby sister dies. Her mother is immobilized by grief, her father by drink, and a neighbor woman helps her care for two younger siblings.Suspicion spreads in the neighborhood that the real cause of the family's problems is AIDS, although the word itself isn't said aloud until well into the film. More plot details can await my review, but let me particularly praise the performances of young Khomotso Manyaka, in her first role as Chanda; Keaobaka Makanyane as her mother, and Tinah Mnumzana as the neighbor. The film's ending frightens the audience with a dire threat, and then finds an uplift that's unlikely enough in its details to qualify as magic realism.
"Life, Above All" must be particularly effective in South Africa, where former president Thabo Mbeki persisted in puzzling denial about the causes and treatment of AIDS. This contributed to a climate of ignorance and mystery surrounding the disease, which in fact increased its spread. By directly dealing with the poisonous climate of rumor and gossip, the film takes a stand. But in nations where AIDS has been demystified, "Love, Above All" will play strongly as pure human drama, and of two women, one promptly and one belatedly, rising courageously to a challenge.I saw "Life, Above All" not long after posting a few comments critical of my previous blog entry about Jean-Luc Godard's new "Film: Socialisme." His film failed to impress or engage me, and seemed an obscure exercise in stylistic arrogance, with disdain for the audience. A critical comment by Jeremy Fassler was affectionate about his sometime hero, but Ezra Scalzo informed me: "There was a time when the critic had a duty to propel artists into new territory, which Godard has gone to despite your libel, and if we should be so lucky, he will continue to stimulate cinematic discussion in every way that your petty lifetime anecdotes, tawdry punk scripts and political ramblings do not."
As I read this, I recalled writing similar things myself in the 1960s about the philistines who did not embrace Godard. I felt that way about his films made then, and I still do, but I believe he has grown needlessly obscure and difficult, and I ask: Who does he make movies for? Those who will extrapolate meanings from them? Those who will helpfully explain what we missed? Or people who go to a movie and would appreciate a fair chance of figuring out what the damned thing is about?I assume anyone who goes to a Godard film is unlikely to be stupid--is likely, indeed, to know a great deal about film. But this hypothetical person, however well-meaning, is unlikely to extract anything comprehensible, moving or useful from "Film: Socialisme." It is a sterile exercise.
Returning to the hotel three movies later (one of them was "Life, Above All"), I found Todd McCarthy's review of the Godard. He had a response similar to mine: "This is a film to which I had absolutely no reaction--it didn't provoke, amuse, stimulate, intrigue, infuriate or challenge me. What we have here is failure to communicate." McCarthy concludes: "Whereas Godard's one-time comrade-in-art-and-arms and subsequent favorite whipping boy Truffaut adhered to Jean Renoir's generosity of spirit, Godard has long since become the mean-minded anti-Renoir, someone who can say nothing good about anyone except himself. Like his film, it's not a worldview that says anything to me at this point."
I feel much the same. Because Godard meant something years ago, because he had a towering presence and a considerable influence, we continue to see his films, for smaller and smaller rewards. I believe he has contempt for the mass of moviegoers. Truffaut once described the beautiful sight of walking to the front of a cinema and seeing all those eyes uplifted to the screen, sharing the director's dream. What are Godard's dreams? We cannot know, because he chooses not to share them.I don't have a problem with difficult films, those that are about themselves, those that challenge the audience. Consider a film like Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, N.Y.," which is as Brechtian as Godard could possibly desire. Kaufman has something he desperately wants to say about the nature of life, and he says it in a complex way suited to his message. He wants to communicate, not to withhold.
Thinking of these films, my choice is clear: I prefer those that want to tell me something, to feel empathy with its characters. I reject those that are sealed off and sadistically enigmatic. I'm sure Godardians will be able to provide an explanation of his film--indeed, many explanations, all different. But we will be reading what they bring to the film, not from it.
![IMG_1462[1].JPG](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2010/05/IMG_1462[1]-thumb-350x262-20813.jpg)
![IMG_1465[1].JPG](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2010/05/IMG_1465[1]-thumb-350x262-20816.jpg)
![IMG_1466[1].JPG](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2010/05/IMG_1466[1]-thumb-350x262-20819.jpg)
Post 60's Godard can be quite difficult to swallow yet I think there is merit to those works. For instance Germany Year Nine Zero in my opinion is an excellent footnote to the Cold War with a phenomenal performance by Eddie Constantine, and In Praise of Love is an excellent meditation on filmmaking, which I consider among his best.
However there is no denying that Godard makes film with no audience in mind. In fact his friendship with Truffaut broke up after he wrote a scathing letter against Day for Night to Truffaut during his Maoist period, calling a Truffaut a sellout (and then politely asking for funds). Truffaut replied "Once a shit always a shit.", and I understand that many feel the same way due to films that seem more like symbolist political tracts and installation pieces. I know I felt the same way when I saw the beautiful yet inaccessible Notre Musique (although he may have accidentally created a pro-american piece, with the U.S. military guarding Paradise).
But should we view films in terms of narrative? There is nothing wrong with images and sound purely up to interpretation, it certainly doesn't diminish the works of filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage or Michael Snow. It's a different type of film. I haven't seen Film Socialism, but my guess is that it should be judged more along the lines of video art than narrative film, though there may be a narrative in the loosest of senses running through.
On a separate note, have you seen Certified Copy? I know you're no fan of Kiarostami, but in many ways it seems to be different from previous works such as Taste of Cherry or The WInd Will Carry Us, with a focus on romance and conversation. I would love to hear your opinion.
forgive me because i should not even comment as i have not yet seen "film socialisme"
that said: regarding who godard makes his film for,
godard has always been a tough pill for some people and i realize that you are a champion of most of his films.
as someone who admires godard's late period even more than the more popular 60's "f*ck yeah godard", i have to say that most of these late films require multiple viewings and i never watch a godard film to understand what he is trying to say.
only godard would be able to explain them and i probably wouldn't totally get it then.
i don't think that artists make works for anyone but themselves and that is what we are talking as opposed to popular filmmakers and popular films which are more about that digestible communication thing and more importantly selling tickets and popcorn.
a few weeks ago, godard had a conversation with Daniel Cohn-Bendit and said this, "...Bachelard says there are two kinds of images: the explicit image, and the implicit image. I try to make an implicit image. It can't be made consciously."
i think that it is fine to be completely mystified and confused by a film.
and that is the way i read your report on "film socialisme"
i do take exception to a discussion that sounds like an implication of a filmmaker or an artist's responsibility to convey a meaning or even a purpose to an audience that for the most part just wants to lose themselves in a movie theatre, a screening room or perhaps an iphone.
godard is apparently shutting down Sonimage and selling all of his equipment. his audience has dwindled and he knows it more than anyone.
i think that it is too bad that perhaps his last film would be merely dismissed because it didn't make any sense to the critic lucky enough to be befuddled by it.
oh well
on to the next romantic comedy!
thank you mr ebert for allowing me to comment on your blog. you are true gift to cinema and i admire your thoughtfulness and willingness to engage in these discussions!
r s e
If Godard truly wanted to revolutionize and shock the film industry these days, he would make a film with a coherent narrative with an understandable motive.
I mean, I love Godard as much as the next cinephile. I am proud to own several of his titles in my personal collection. But I think that everything that he has made after "Weekend" has been complete junk. I remember watching "Tout va Bien" and thinking, "This is the worst film I have ever seen in my life." I think that his best work contained a basic storyline from which he could delineate. I still think that his finest work is "Pierrot le Fou." I eagerly await the day that it joins your Great Movies collection (although Weekend would be a nice addition, too).
Oh well.
Anyway, I want to thank you for introducing me to flattr via your twitter. I would be honored if you went to my site and flattred (flattered?) me, good sir.
Have fun with the rest of your time at Cannes!
The last paragraph is perfect. I agree with every word.
I remember you saying "It is an old fact about the cinema that a film does not exist unless there is an audience between the projector and the screen" in one of your reviews. Godard seems to forget that, but not Oliver Schmitz.
I was not able get into "Synecdoche, NY" so I know I won't be able to get into "Film: Socialisme." I am neither a Kaufmaniac nor a Godardian. I like to be entertained.
I don't have a problem with difficult films,
That you even have to say that, in your own defense, says enough about the Godard.
For anyone who knows your work, you don't have to say that. :)
I think that what you bring to a film can be just as important as what you can get out of it, and even then I'm not sure that the two are mutually exclusive.
Come to think of it, this is true not only of fiction but also of essays; as Aldous Huxley said, the best essays are the ones that tell us what we already know, but don't know we know.
This strikes closer home, if you ask me:
I'm beginning to get that faint tingle somewhere at the bend in the spine which tells me something New is happening somewhere, and I'm getting it about South Africa.
I would not be at all surprised (no, only delighted) were it to turn out a cinematic hotbed was burgeoning there, and it joins Korea and a few other select places in offering a response to the withering of the major national schools as we have known them to date.
Godard has never been satisfied being confined into a single recognizable form the way Truffaut was. He's constantly rejecting himself and everyone else for that matter and starting anew. I think at this point he makes films that challenge people's perception of him as they try to reconcile his reputation with his nonsense and of course academics will feel intellectually obligated to defend him in order to validate their own intellectual capacity. Godard is like Von Trier in a way but he provokes through formal elements rather than content.
Your reaction to this most recent Cannes seems to be more subdued than in years past; I'm not getting the usual sense of excitement. Could it be that we're looking forward to a particularly bland year for cinema?
Your comparison between Truffaut and Godard reminded me of why I've always preferred Truffaut. Truffaut loves people and movies, which comes through quite strikingly in all of his films. Godard seems to loe only two things: himself and attention.
Interesting post; one I feel which was more perceptive than the last. I cannot myself vouch for Film Socialism as I myself have not seen it. Nevertheless, I feel as though with Film Socialisme, Godard has attempted to make an "unconcious film," judging from his comments as well as the nature of his last two works.
I echo some of the previous posters questions as to whether you have seen Kierostami's Certified Copy. This film as well as Film Socialisme and Oliveria's Angelica are the ones that I most anticipate seeing at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and I would like to hear your opinion on it as well.
Beyond "Breathless", I saw two films--"Histoires de Cinema" (part 1A) and Notre Musique. "Histoire" was a quite rivetting montage of images suggesting the history of more than cinema, with the cadenced clattering of the type-writer imaging the writers creative process--an unusual type-writer sonata of a musical score. "Notre Musique" also was a fairly coherent essay on the times.
In any case, takes all sorts to make a world.
HI ROGER:
I´m writing you from Spain, such a PIG country if you read WSJ, what i guess - if you do it, will be just for fun!! -
I beg your pardon if you consider my opinion untolerable.
I would like to do an statement in your (such a blog!).
I dare to write here because i´ve read your - i repeat SUCH A JOURNAL FROM CANNES !! - during last year and this one.
I´ve enjoyed your last year´s two posts about Lars von Trier´s Antichrist very much.
I hope you can forgive my poor ¿english or american? language.
The point (mine one, almost) is that Godard´s a SWISS film maker who would like to have been ¿birthed? and raised in France like Truffaut did (despite all the "matters"? he wonderfully described us in The 400 Coups)
The fact (i beg you and the whole of the US & Canada´s readers, Who should be blaming on me in the way i write! MY APOLOGIZE) is that HE - JLG - would like to solve ALL THE PROBLEMS WE HAVE HERE IN ( i know i´m writing from the south of EUROPE; obviously not LA France............ just Spain), but he´s just a Swiss person aka - a long time ago - A FILM MAKER who likes to live there, but NEVER HAD THE GUTS!! to complain on/or against Swiss´? BANKS - yes, those who hold and, still hide? the NAZI GOLD.
I´m not writing about THE FED. I´m spanish OK? Please believe me !!. I CAN´T vote Ron Paul there in the lovely USA.
I´M NOT A JEW, OK?, though i admire Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Woody Allen, Polansky & Larry David... pretty pretty pretty good !!
This fact is available both here in Spain & USA.
It´s time to finish my...well. I hope you don´t ban what i wrote.
Don´t hesitate Roger!!
PLEASE !!!, don´t read what other´s might write about films. I (we? - your reader´s -)want just your opinion.
You are SUCH A CRITIC & JOURNALIST !!.
GREETINGS FROM A PIGS´ CITIZEN...
I still, i´m 45, don´t understand why Orson Welles is buried here in Spain, in the south of THE SOUTHENER - Jean Renoir´s one!!
Enjoy CANNES FILM FESTIVAL Roger, and give a big hug to Pierre, Todd and all your fellows there i discovered reading your blog.
At any rate you have sold me Socialisme.
Have you seen "Certified Copy"?
Why didn't you write about it, what's your opinion?
You said you eagerly awaited Kiarostami's new film, now we eagerly await your opinion.
"Is this becoming less a directors' festival and more a trade fair?"
- R.E.
I reckon it's been a trade fair for a very long time indeed - as the festival website's FAQ clearly states, the public are not admitted to screenings:
"The Festival de Cannes is an event reserved for film industry professionals who need an accreditation to gain access to the Palais des Festivals. Accreditations are assigned according to the professional activity and requests for them must be made with the relevant professional organisation."
I'm starting to feel sealed off and sadistically enigmatic myself. I have only seen "Hail Mary". I liked it, it was kind of like "Juno".
Oh ok, not really.
"Life, Above All" is based on the novel Chanda's Secrets by Canadian author Allan Stratton, and was adapted by Vancouver screenwriter Dennis Foon.
The trailer can be found here, at the official site for Cannes 2010:
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/mediaPlayer/10599.html
Smile.
It seems to me a terrible waste of human endeavour to make a film so willfully inaccessible. Meaning in film doesn't need to be explicit, but as a medium it exists to communicate something to the audience, whether that takes the form of a statement or an expression of emotion. Intentionally obscuring that to the point that even intelligent viewers with a lifetime of film knowledge are nonplussed defeats the purpose of making a film at all. If the intent is a criticism of film as a message medium, which is the only explanation that comes to mind from descriptions, why make a film? If the viewer has to bring all of the thoughts with them, and the film adds nothing to the viewer's opinions, knowledge, or emotion, then the film seems a bit pointless considering that using that time to play around with wikipedia would provide a far more stimulating and informative experience. Of course I can't pretend to speak with any depth of knowledge about Godard's films, I've seen only Contempt and In Praise of Love, and while I enjoyed the idea of the film-making process being turned inside-out and displayed on the screen in Contempt the same material left me cold in the second film.
I look forward to seeing if this discussion has anymore legs to it. :-)
I don't know how to use Twitter, but here is more Sam Rockwell dancing (he also danced in Iron Man 2):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByPtY_spGWw
Perhaps it is fate that I remembered this, on this post, but I stole from you. Is stole the right word; appropriated, used? I read something you wrote and had it inspire in me a thing, and I used it. I feel guilt now in not letting you know, although now I'm not even remembering where it was I read it. "Life is a series of lost causes," Godard might say as he wraps dynamite around King Tut's face calling him 'Mao' before they go 'BOOM.'
Anyways, you inspired in me a short story about human relation. It was a quote you gave, or had, you thought of-- Twitter, maybe? Hopefully the artful thievery isn't in bad taste, and if it was, is, and continues to be, I'll take it down.
You said, "Everyone is beautiful when they look at you with love in their eyes."
And this is my robbery:
http://freelancepallbearer.blogspot.com/2010/05/third-person-dysphoria.html
There, now I've told you something.
Maybe Godard doesn't dream anymore.
The Godard-Brecht connection is telling: While Brecht's "epic theater" encouraged self-conscious, distancing performances and staging, it was a dialectical effort, an attempt to hold the Thesis accountable for making its own Antithesis--with a glimpse of Synthesis. Brecht may have rejected "culinary" art--tasty but unhealthy--but not the audience's role in the dialectic.
Just look at the shifts he made in his play Galileo, as he attempted to "interrogate" Galileo's life from (a) a German-Marxist perspective, (b) an "American" perspective--and finally (c) a post-WWII perspective. In each version, though, the audience understands that, although they contribute to the play's meaning, it has its own meaning--historical, social, synthetic--that we must discover. It is a partnership between author and audience and history.
Conclusion of self-indulgent lecture: Godard is cool, but so much so that he disdains the Brechtian partnership, and thus compromises his own version of Marxism.
p.s. Hooray for emerging South African cinema! Here's a people on the real front lines of the human struggle for dignity and freedom, and they respond with color and light and dedication. It's easy to self-indulge (boy don't I know it; see above) when all you have to suffer is snide blog comments.
Am I imagining this, or are you getting more down on the Godard film the more you think about it? Your original post didn't seem quite as negative.
I was really surprised at the vitriol you received for your critique of Godard's late work, since I'm pretty sure you're not in a minority in finding frustration with his post-Weekend work. As I said in my last post, Godard is easily one of my top five favorite directors, but in my book the only films of his that are worth watching are his magnificent run from Breathless to Weekend (but even some of those films get bogged down by insufferable political head-bashing). I agree with Nathanael Hood up there that Tout Va Bien is a god-awful movie (despite containing a tracking shot worthy of his legendary shot in Weekend) and, with the exception of Notre Musique, which contained enough elements of coherent cinema that it was actually possible to find footing in it, every film of his I've seen since then has been equally god-awful.
I suspect that those people who attacked you with such outrage for your critique of Film:Socialisme really don't understand his work any better than the rest of us. Marie Haws nailed it in the last entry when she said "The most obtuse person in the room is often confused with being the smartest." Obscurity is a great way to mask the fact that you have nothing meaningful to say and, personally, I'd take a simple film of great profundity like Sunrise over unintelligible drivel like Passion (probably the worst of Godard's later films) any day of the week and three times on Sunday.
Hi,
I know this is off topic, but your opinion piece, Hey! Don't call ME a dirty Commie! does not allow comments and I cannot send personal e-mail from work. You state, "Cinco de Mayo's purpose is to celebrate Mexican-American culture in the United States." ok, so what you are saying is that reflexive hatred and presumtive violence at the sight of the American flag is representative of Mexican-American culture? Since the Mexicans defeated the FRENCH at the Battle of Pueblo, your examples would have made more sense to say "showing up at a Cinco de Mayo celebration wearing the French Tricolor" is asking for trouble. If these kids were getting in the face of Latino students and saying "USA rules! Mexico sucks!" (and there is no evidence they did) then your observations might hold some weight. What should have happened is that the principal could have used the incident as a "teaching moment" to educate Latino students about tolerance and the First Amendment.
Dear Roger,
As someone whom you could probably call one of Godard's "disciples," I have a very different reaction to his latest films than you do. I can't defend Film Socialisme, since I haven't seen it yet, but regarding his other recent films I'd like to try to offer a sense of what I take from them, rather than simply what I bring to them.
First off, though, I would argue that any work of art requires that we bring something of ourselves to it. Art invites us into a dialogue; the artist opens himself in one way or another to us, and so doing invites us to open ourselves to the work and to the world. In my experience, Godard is an exemplary artist in this regard, and many of his post-1968 works are equal to those that came before. What I find in films like Nouvelle Vague, In Praise of Love, and Histoire(s) du cinema is a filmmaker who invites us into a process of searching, a seeking of new ways to understand the world and live in it, and an artist who shares his dreams in a very bold way.
He has made the choice, in representing the searching, fragmented quality of existence, to move further and further away from traditional narrative and to make little concession to our traditional expectations of character and story; this accounts for the difficulty of the work, but does not mean that he feels contempt for the audience. He makes films out of a genuine desire to express his thoughts and find a kind of dialogue with the audience, and he has followed the artistic conviction that the best way to do so is to seek new forms of cinema, to create new experiences of watching cinema. These films are comprehensible- to understand them requires great effort at times, because they often run counter to our expectations, but there is great joy to be found in following the path along which Godard invites us to accompany him. He knows that he makes works that are very dense and that will not appeal to a mass audience; but this does not mean that he could care less about finding an audience.
To speak from my personal experience, I first began to fall in love with Godard's films when, as a college sophomore with a passing interest in films, I took a day trip to New York and wandered into a theater showing In Praise of Love. I had only seen Breathless, on VHS, and had gotten rather little from it, so I was not bringing to this film a reverence for Godard the Master. I hardly understood what was happening on screen, but I emerged 90 min later stunned by the sensual beauty of the film and haunted by the emotion that had communicated itself to me. This haunting stuck with me for a long time and eventually led me to Godard's other films, through which I fell in love with the cinema as a whole. I've returned to In Praise of Love numerous times since, and have found that there is indeed a great deal of substance there; but what drew me in first was the immediate joy offered by the film, through it's use of sound, it's editing, it's attention to the beauty of faces and figures- for me, still the most primal elements of cinema. That first time, I brought little to the film other than my vague expectations of what a film would be, and Godard frustrated those expectations in a beautiful way, a way that called me beyond myself and ultimately enriched my life in countless ways.
I imagine that this is the kind of experience Godard dreams of people having with his films; I imagine that this is, in part, what has inspired him to keep working.
All the best,
Sam
PS: I don't intend to be harsh at all, but, as you can tell, I am fiercely partisan, so I apologize if I get too carried away.
The closest I've come to watching anything like the artiness you depicted in your short assessment of Godard's latest movie was in "I'm Not There". But wouldn't you say that if it's beautifully pulled off, a director (or an artist) indulging himself or just being plain highbrow can be wonderfully fulfilling, even if he didn't have anybody else in mind? I don't really know for whom Fellini made 8 1/2, but that's the most personal and deeply affecting movie I've watched. I don't think there was a real come-on to the audience from Fellini's part in that movie, but there probably didn't need to be. There's also Philip K Dick's VALIS, he didn't particularly ingratiate himself with readers but he probably possessed the art of opening himself and his creativity to his readers which Godard has been unable to replicate.
I agree with your opinion there. People often mistake challenging films for masterpieces. It's true some challenging films by Godard, Bunuel, Bergman, Kaufman, and Kubrick are masterpieces...in fact most of their films are masterpieces.
However, sometimes directors come up with films so challenging that it reaches a point that there is no challenge to begin with. There's a limit to both our interest and our will to understand.
"Synecdoche,New York", "2001:A Spcae Odyssey", "Persona", "The Exterminating Angel", etc. etc. All of them are great for being challenging and connecting with the viewer on a very personal level. From what I read of your take on Godard's new film. It seems challenging but with no link or connection to the viewer whatsoever. Maybe Godard just cut that link and is sitting back observing critics and audiences react to what may seem a masterpiece yet isn't.
I wonder if this is what Godard was trying to express in his new film. Hmm..
Dear Roger,
As someone whom you could probably call one of Godard's "disciples," I have a very different reaction to his latest films than you do. I can't defend Film Socialisme, since I haven't seen it yet, but regarding his other recent films I'd like to try to offer a sense of what I take from them, rather than simply what I bring to them.
First off, though, I would argue that any work of art requires that we bring something of ourselves to it. Art invites us into a dialogue; the artist opens himself in one way or another to us, and so doing invites us to open ourselves to the work and to the world. In my experience, Godard is an exemplary artist in this regard, and many of his post-1968 works are equal to those that came before. What I find in films like Nouvelle Vague, In Praise of Love, and Histoire(s) du cinema is a filmmaker who invites us into a process of searching, a seeking of new ways to understand the world and live in it, and an artist who shares his dreams in a very bold way.
He has made the choice, in representing the searching, fragmented quality of existence, to move further and further away from traditional narrative and to make little concession to our traditional expectations of character and story; this accounts for the difficulty of the work, but does not mean that he feels contempt for the audience. He makes films out of a genuine desire to express his thoughts and find a kind of dialogue with the audience, and he has followed the artistic conviction that the best way to do so is to seek new forms of cinema, to create new experiences of watching cinema. These films are comprehensible- to understand them requires great effort at times, because they often run counter to our expectations, but there is great joy to be found in following the path along which Godard invites us to accompany him. He knows that he makes works that are very dense and that will not appeal to a mass audience; but this does not mean that he could care less about finding an audience.
To speak from my personal experience, I first began to fall in love with Godard's films when, as a college sophomore with a passing interest in films, I took a day trip to New York and wandered into a theater showing In Praise of Love. I had only seen Breathless, on VHS, and had gotten rather little from it, so I was not bringing to this film a reverence for Godard the Master. I hardly understood what was happening on screen, but I emerged 90 min later stunned by the sensual beauty of the film and haunted by the emotion that had communicated itself to me. This haunting stuck with me for a long time and eventually led me to Godard's other films, through which I fell in love with the cinema as a whole. I've returned to In Praise of Love numerous times since, and have found that there is indeed a great deal of substance there; but what drew me in first was the immediate joy offered by the film, through it's use of sound, it's editing, it's attention to the beauty of faces and figures- for me, still the most primal elements of cinema. That first time, I brought little to the film other than my vague expectations of what a film would be, and Godard frustrated those expectations in a beautiful way, a way that called me beyond myself and ultimately enriched my life in countless ways.
I imagine that this is the kind of experience Godard dreams of people having with his films; I imagine that this is, in part, what has inspired him to keep working.
All the best,
Sam
PS: I don't intend to be harsh at all, but, as you can tell, I am fiercely partisan, so I apologize if I get too carried away.
A more elegant and perceptive post this time around, I feel. Again, I feel like Godard is attempting to make a unconcious film, judging from all the reviews of Film Socialisme so far, his own comments, and the nature of his past three films, including Histore(s) du Cinema. Like another poster mentioned, he is constantly reinventing himself. Granted, I do not feel as though academics are feeling obligated to defend him, as the same poster mentioned him, and I myself am not academic in the least. I rather feel that with each progressing film Godard addresses his feelings with more directness and simplicity than before.
Anyways, I echo another previous poster in whether you have seen Kierostami's Certified Copy as yet. I (now) realize that you are not the biggest fan of his work either, but I am still interested on your take on the film, as the reviews of Kierostami's film seem to overall be negative in comparison to the mixed positive/negative views on Godard's.
By the way, may I suggest a film for a future great films essay? Josef von Sternberg's The Docks of New York, one of the most moving films I have ever seen. Then, also perhaps, Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March, his greatest film.
At least Goddard has what can't be taken from his past. It's sad to see a great director alienate himself from his audience, but each time it happens a new one can rise in his place. It seems from this blog entry that "Life, Above All" was enough to make Cannes worth sitting through something like "Film: Socialisme."
Every time I'm ready to say "R.I.P. Good Taste, ca. 40,000 B.C.E. to 2010," I'll discover something that will change my mind again.
Meant to write positive under Kiarostami, sorry.
This is reposted from the Godard blog, which is part of a Mike Figgis interview from the DVD "Weekend", which I typed by ear.
One thing you'll notice is he doesn't try to explain his films.
"What is unique about him as a director is that he has a better understanding of music than than any director that I can think of. Not only his knowledge of music, but also the fact that he understands in a way, to me, in a very poignant way the psychology of music. So he'll use music to--again--distance, but to actually, in a way, by distancing and having that critical artistic eye, you end up actually filling up with more emotion than a director who would throw him or herself into it in a very emotional and involved way: sometimes there's very well-meaning films made in those periods, or other periods; 20 or 30 or 40 years later, when we look at them, in way, they haven't survived for that reason because they haven't enough detachment. Now, some people might see that a form of cynicism; I don't. I see it as a correct artistic temperature. And I think that that's why, for me, the film seems very, very modern in the same [way]--I think I discussed this--that I find Eric Dolphy's "Out to Lunch" also has that same quality and it allows it, you know: like all great music...the late Beethoven quartets. They have the same cool detachment, and yet they have such intensity of emotion. And I think Godard has always managed to key into those musical elements...and the way he'll use a piece of music and at the same time understand that there's a degree of bullshit about visual manipulation and that we shouldn't really take that too seriously. It is, after all, only a sort of poetic image or metaphor for something else...and that if you can maintain that coolness, the strength of your ideas may endure a lot longer. And I've noticed that about theater writing; I've noticed that about the novel: ALL aspects of art: painting. Al the examples have retained a kind of coolness and a controlled distance, sometimes losing their cool, but usually maintaining it. Those are the ones that seem to have the ability to survive outside of their own period."
"The reason why I return to Godard and why I still see him as a modern filmmaker...as an avant garde film more so than most of the younger filmmakers who are supposedly doing that job right now is because he understands the theatrical. In other words, cinema comes out of a theatrical tradition. It hasn't really departed from theater in that respect. And in theater, we have this contract called the suspension of disbelief, which allows us to go into a dark space and watch actors, often wearing ridiculous costumes and using ridiculous voices to project to the people in the back and using outlandish gestures: which are called, you know, the language of theater. We compare that with, say, the school of naturalism or let's say method acting that has emerged in American cinema: for example: Brando, Dean and so on and then the belief that cinema should be real, backed up by a kind of technical giant, which is really the backbone of the film industry, where cameras and equipment in general all go hand and in hand towards a sort of super-realism; hyper-realism. And what I love about Godard always is that he says, No, no. We're still working within a theatrical tradition where the farcical is acceptable because the idea is more important than the false sense of illusion. So, with him, I'm always able to deal with ideas and then despite--or actually because his ideas are so interesting--I may be bored...very, very, deeply bored by something he does for a period of time: I have no problem with that, and I don't think that it's an issue of qualitative judgement about his film. It's just part of the process because I know that it will be followed by something that is Absolutely scintillating...and I'm suddenly riveted and my attention is Entirely captivated again. So, it allows me to come in and out of his films in a way without this obsessive need for me to be entertained or this obsessive need for me to be stimulated ALL THE TIME because I find that is the cinema of diminishing returns; by the time I get to the end of the film I feel exhausted and I feel I've been totally cheated by the attempt at realism."
"His concern with the audience, compared with, say, Michael Moore or pretty much any other contemporary filmmaker, is minimal. I think he feels his responsibilities and his loyalty is to his own pursuance of ideas, as part of the great intellectual tradition and that if you assume a higher common denominator, rather than a lower common denominator--and also if you don't need to desperately be loved by the entire world--that you can sustain yourself intellectually in a smaller group, of both your peers and your audience, then the possibility for a higher level of dialogue and exchange of ideas is going to be far healthier. So I feel that these sections of the film where political ideas are put forward, they're put forward in a way that is farcical. At the same time what is being said, one assumes what is being said came from the heart of the filmmaker, but at the same time, like all great artists, he's aware of the fact at that he must retain some distance from the argument, otherwise I think, quite rightly, you will be viewed as a propagandist: and someone who, in those kind of films, is preaching to a converted audience anyway. I think in some ways he defies description with those devices and again, perhaps, that's one of the things I'm really drawn to is the fact that I find him refreshingly indefinable."
"I think he's a truly great filmmaker and artist: I think first and foremost, he's an artist and I also think he's a philosopher and to me, he's one of the great artists of the 20th century and continues into the 21st, because he's still functioning intellectually in a strong way. That should be interesting to us, because in the past we would have looked to our elder intellectual or artists as having great significance in our community. We're, in a sense, in a cult of the young right now to such a degree that that seems to have gone by the by."
"I would compare this [his use of text] to, say, in a genre of music and songwriting, I've found it very clearly defined that there are people who say about Bob Dylan's songs, "Wow, the lyrics are amazing!" and I'll go "Oh, I can't say I've ever really thought about the lyrics. It's such a lovely song and the lyrics seem appropriate for that song." So, you're either listening to the music as a total or you're listening to the words And one of the problems with someone like Godard is he uses text--and I think deliberately so--(he uses provocative statements which don't seem to make sense, or whatever); I view it differently in that I think in the flow of the film, I have a feeling that he thinks it would be a good idea to cut to black with some red letters flashing. "What could the red letters be? Oh, I they could be this..." I think he thinks of something very, very quickly, and it seems to be something that organically that would fit in with the flow of the film: and I always agree with it. I don't particularly remember them, but I never have a problem with why that's existing there at that point. Often it's accompanied by a sound, a musical sound, which also seems to make sense. To me, he is a complete filmmaker in that he's thinking with all of his senses and never ever biasing towards the visual, which, to be honest, most filmmakers do: they think they're in a visual medium; they're not. He's one of the view artists in cinema who has understood the power of text: because text engages a different part of the brain from sound; so, if someone says something and you're listening to it, intellectually you're engaging in a certain way. If you then repeat that as pure text with a piece of music underneath it a different part of the brain will engage in a different way and you'll end up with a different result; so, he was pushing those ideas. And so, often, I think it's a mistake to sort of literally ask the question, "What does that mean?" It's more a question of "Does that feel correct to you that he went into that mode at that point: of using text?" and I always say, "Yes, that's a point when..." To put it another way, I have used text because I've been influenced by him; he's forced me to think about all those elements: how I use sound, how I use text, how I use voice, and so on, how the camera moves, as being all part of a bigger picture of how you make a film: not as separate elements at all. In other words, he ends up, I think, with a compound. Other people end up with a mixture, and it's a very different thing."
"I don't look at a Godard film in that way of having a message of good or bad or positive or negative or anything like that. I would say, overall, most of the time, with most of his films, I come out with a positive feeling, which I would translate in a different way: I come out wanting to make films and I don't articulate in my mind exactly why or what or what his films mean. I know that I come out with an energy. I might go into his films with no energy; I come out WITH energy, including the last film of his that I saw, Eloge d'lamour. I found it profoundly moving and it reaffirmed all my ideas about filmmaking and in a way, with great artists, that I don't feel the need to find a way to articulate why I feel that; I just know that I do.
"...As a snapshot of a sort of French bourgouise moment in time, I think it's emotionally pretty accurate--not just French--of our culture at that time, but as it is specifically French in it's flavor, you know, "Le Weekend" and the bourgois couple. Even in their sex life, they're bored with each other: even though he manages to make an erotic scene out of it. It's an erotic scene almost because it's so boring, or the content is erotic, but they're boring; so I find it far more accurate than a kind of realistic film from that period would have been. In other words, like a good painting that's almost a cartoon, there is somehow more truth to it, because, really, what's interesting is the artist's interpretation, rather than the attempt to impersonate."
"The reason why he has few obvious imitators is because it would require a considerable talent to imitate him and I don't see that much talent on that level; I still think of him, amongst other filmmakers, as a sort of a giant. And I think, technically, he's awesome. People don't understand his technique: because he throws away ideas and doesn't capitalize [referring to what he said earlier in the interview; the first about him discussing an idea in his film and then disposing of it whenever he's done discussing it; the second about him not capitalizing on his success and turning it into an industry], and culturally, critics and so forth, are much happier when they are able to start to spot from a director, the fourth or fifth movie, and start to say, "Yeah, I recognize that style": then they can be cruel, from time to time. What they very much like is to have the power to touch the should of...the kind word here and there: and we become dependent on their kindness. If you have a filmmaker like Godard, who, really, doesn't seem to give a damn what they think...and every film he makes he can say "well If I'm going to change my style...if I'm going to start shooting on video, I'll do that"...If you create an unquantifiable style for yourself, then you're going to alienate yourself, and also, how can you impersonate that? To impersonate that, you're going to have to be changing your style regularly."
He goes on to say filmmakers have stolen little "bits" from his movies, because they are "stylistically iconic or something like that" and almost just reproducing them in their films. Also, "the way he worked with actors, the way he chose actors, the way he uses the camera...the way he encourages the cameraman to take liberties has so been a part of the mainstream approach. Let's face it, there would be a movement called Dogme if there wasn't a movement called the Nouvelle Vague [the French New Wave] and I think we would correctly put Godard as one of the leading lights of that movement; so, his influence is radical. Inconceivable to imagine what cinema would look like without the influence of that period of film making."
"I would say to someone watching, say, Weekend, for the first time that you will be confused from time to time. I'm still confused by elements of the film, but it doesn't bother me; in fact, I quite like being confused by a film: I prefer to be confused in an interesting way than to be completely in possession of all of the facts of the film--and be bored. And with most films, usually about ten minutes in, I could probably tell you the ending and I could spot scenes half an hour before they came up, because most films are being made in such a predictable way now that it's almost like a dream that just keeps repeating. I never have that feeling with Godard."
Godard has become a bit like Chauncey "Gardener" in Being There. Nothing to say, but many ardent admirers and fans.
I'm sympathetic to many of the points you raise with regards to Godard. Just the other day I was debating them with a fellow cinephile and ended up citing a passage from Stanley Cavell's The World Viewed, which is something I've found rather persuasive on the matter. Perhaps it may be of interest to you as well:
Ebert: "... even Jean-Luc Godard received only perfunctory applause."
This is most probably because his show ended 16 years ago. He certainly was the best captain though, and I learned of the existence of Earl Grey tea through him.
Filme Socialisme was just my second Godard film (first one was Breathless) and I didn't understand the movie. My French is bad and my brain gave trying to understand the subtitles.
I actually thought that I was in the minority not getting the movie until some of French friends told me that they think Godard has become elitist. I was told to watch his earlier films, if I really wanted to watch Godard movies.
--
On a side note, it was me who said hello and shook hands with you on Sunday evening (though I doubt if you will remember me). It is nice to see famous people walk unrecognized most of the time on the streets. I saw a couple of Indian film directors tonight walking nonchalantly.
Greetings, Roger.
Beyond controversy, who's the director who succeeded in every single film he made to convey his utmost emotionalism on the screen?
I have a lot of directors in mind, but I think I know whom you will choose?
Thank you.
You must answer.
Ebert: Among recent directors, Ramin Bahrani.
His show has yet to end.
The work of Godard from Slow Motion on has been by far his best work, totally blowing away his early work (aside from maybe Week End and Pierrot Le Fou). How can any serious movielover deny BRILLIANT films like Oh Woe Is Me, Passion, Notre Musique, First Name: Carmen, Hail Mary, Nouvelle Vague, King Lear, etc? He has only made one truly bad film, Detective, and that's easy to forgive, out of a brilliant career of 50-60 AMAZING movies... Let's not forget Historie(s) du Cinema, one of the most important works of art.. um... ever.
I've noticed in reviews for Socialisme, people often comment on Godard himself -- his influence, his personal life, his "message", without discussing the movie itself. That's understandable -- most critics simply aren't smart enough to grasp what he's doing. Ebert, I know you ARE quite intelligent, but I get the feeling that the older you get, the less patient you are for this type of stuff. Godard has always been ahead of everyone else, and I think people are just now catching up to something like "Week End". It'll be many years before everyone else catches up to the stuff he's doing now. He's easily the greatest director of all time.
I must agree with Poodle Doop, even on the fact that Detective is his worst film. I don't think the problem is Godard not trying to communicate, but rather, those not opening themselves up to Godard's seemingly unorthodox methods of communication, which has been evident in many American critics so far. He is still so far ahead of everyone else in that he is taking his challenges towards our preconcieved notions of what a film is to a complete other level. Even the subtitles, thought as an insult toward English speakers, is really a significant part of the film.
This method allows for a more direct connection to the image, as the subtitles are part of the film itself, rather than a tool. One of the films lines, "Money was invented so we don't need to look God in the eye," is shown on screen as simply "Money Invented." This hits those open to Godard's attempt to communicate much harder, as well as really being a more accurate way of translation. Through this, as a non-French speaker,we are able to connect much closer with what we are seeing on screen(those images often being very beautiful). Godard is aware that his films are substantially more difficult than those which the general moviegoer watches, and this is his attempt to communicate more clearly to a non Francophone audience. He is aware that the usual subtitles one would put under his films are too diverting from his images, espically with such an intricate sound design, and this "Navajo English" method is an attempt to keep the thread between his Sound and Image intact.
Lines are also simplified as "space is dying" and "don't talk about the invisible show it a smile that dismisses the universe". Even these "simplifed" titles are truer to the nature of all of Godard's late work rather than the subtitles which we are usually being provided.
Its an interesting idea too, "Navajo English", as the struggle to express something in a language foreign to them usually allows for a more profound and clearer statement, much truer to the nature of what the person had in their mind rather than what is usaually expressed by them.
And Mr. Ebert,
http://cinemasparagus.blogspot.com/2010/05/jean-luc-godard-interviewed-by-jean.html
This is a interview with M. Godard dated May 18 2010, one in which he is very articulate. Please read it, as I feel it may perhaps alter your opinion on Godard's work. If it doesn't, then no real matter I suppose.
When I first got interested in Cinema, Mr. Ebert, it was your Great Movies column that I would constantly refer to, until I found myself seeking out the films themselves, before I stopped looking at the column, or the vast majority of critics for that matter, as I continued to discover the cinema. Nearly ten years later it was intially frustrating and disheartening that our takes on something that I was throughly moved by would be so radicaly different.
Anyways, this interview shows a man more than eager to communicate, and perhaps this interview may allow you to have perhaps a deeper insight into the film.
Thank you.
*Who does he make movies for? Those who will extrapolate meanings from them? Those who will helpfully explain what we missed? Or people who go to a movie and would appreciate a fair chance of figuring out what the damned thing is about?*
Roger,
I suggest another posisbility: People who are willing to look at _what_ before they worry about _why._ Those who are concerned about and fascinated by the interplay between image and sound for their own sake, the beauty of the surface, rather than those whose first step is always interpretation (i.e. What does it mean?)
This was the appeal that Jim Jarmusch's "Limits of Control" had for me. A glorious ambient soundtrack, the filming of seemingly mundane objects for their own sake, and the creation of codes that would be destroyed if you did something silly like try to figure them out. You were very dismissive of the Jarmusch and I find that in general you are much less interested in form than in content, or at least your writing focuses almost exclusively on interpretation (why) rather than formal analysis (what). There are exceptions, of course, such as your appreciation of "Last Year at Marienbad" just to name one of several.
You no doubt represent the majority in doing so and everyone has his or her own tastes, but if the possibilities in your quote are the only ones you've considered, I think you may be trying to mash square pegs into round holes.
Godard's films from the 70s-on aren't always fully accessible to me because I am not as politically literate as I need to be to understand the context in many cases, but for the pure display of image and sound, sound and image in his films, I find few other directors so compelling. Films like "Hail Mary," "King Lear," "Germany Year 90 Nine Zero," and "Notre musique" are all among his very best works, and if they are somewhat hermetic, well, that's hardly a bad thing.
I agree with what Sam (By Sam on May 19, 2010 12:08 PM ) said about Godard.
I consider him as a philosopher who meditates with the combination of images, sounds and words as a whole. We will never see such a great director as Godard in the history of cinema.
He refuses to sell cheap, banal images (just une image, une image juste…). On the contrary, what we see through images in most of Hollyood movies nowadays are nothing but dollar bills.
In that sense he should be considered as the most ethical film director of all.
He always reminds us in his movies that this is just a cinema, not a reality. He refuses to make us think the images are based on reality. He is a true Brechtian in this sense. On the other hand, image sellers in Hollywood forces us to think their images are real. Godard allowed us for a space to think about what the images in his works were all about.
We as audience should ask ourselves, do we consider cinema as an art form or just an entertainment for passing time. Was there ever an art form existed which had an easier access to reach full appreciation, including literature, painting, classical music? We have to positively participate in the works of art, not to be a passive participant by following the ready made stories.
I would be rather happier with being poured with fragments of images, sounds and words than passively accepting banal story lines.
We can see only a handful of such directors in the post-Godard era. For example, we have Abbas Kiarostami and Pedro Costa.
Eloge de l’Amour; no critics that I recalled were sensitive enough to notice that this was an elegy for love (between two individual), and also an elegy for cinema, which reached adolescence prematurely, then suddenly became senility. Like Edgar, Godard was seeking what the maturity means to us. This was the primary theme for Godard after Histoire(s) du Cinema and For Ever Mozart. Sadly most audience and critics alike noticed only his anti-american sentiment, and rejected it.
Notre Musique; I would say it is the most beautiful/painful movie I have ever seen in a decade. Godard is at the most ethical in this movie, mediating over relationship between two individual and between two states. We should be acute enough to notice how he showed the conversation between Judith Leaner and Mahmood Darwich, just as he did at a scene with Edgar and “Elle” overlooking Seine in Eloge de l’Amour.
I had no intention to offend any one, but I had an urge to put my two cents in when I heard that Godard had to sell his studio=house including his equipments, and that Film Socialime may be his last. I was deeply saddened by the fact…….
Todd McCarthy wrote about Film: Socialisme, "This is a film to which I had absolutely no reaction.."
From watching the two trailers, I'm pretty sure I know what my reaction would be: anger. Because that is always my reaction when I see a so-called "artist" creating something that's deliberately impossible to connect to or understand. Music, painting, film - these are all things designed for an audience. If an artist fails to recognize this, then he's not doing his job. Yes, an artist typically creates something because he feels he has something personal to say - but if the only person he's speaking to is himself, why bother sharing it? Put it on a tape-recorder, a notepad, a home-movie, but keep it away from me.
There is a truly sad scene towards the end of the 2006 film "Conversations With Jean-Luc Godard" (DVD available in France only, I think ) where Godard is on the verge of tears after surveying the reduced retrospective of his work- originally planned as a full scale exhibition - at the Centre Pompidou. After much intense planning and enthusiastic preparation on Godard's part - all shown in the film - the Pompidou decided to cut back and show only small models of his ideas. I like to imagine that this moment was a crucial and decisive one for Godard - when he realized what a tiny fish he now was and how crowded and muddy the pond had become.
Or just don't look at it.
There is a truly sad scene towards the end of the 2006 film "Conversations With Jean-Luc Godard" (DVD available in France only, I think ) where Godard is on the visibly teary eyed after surveying the reduced retrospective of his work- originally planned as a full scale exhibition - at the Centre Pompidou. After much intense planning and enthusiastic preparation on Godard's part - all shown in the film - the Pompidou decided to cut back and show only small models of his planned exhibits. I like to imagine that this moment was a crucial and decisive one for Godard - when he realized what a tiny fish he now was and how crowded and muddy and pointless the pond had become.
Non sequitur:
Mr. Ebert,
I don't know where else to post this, but I noticed you have not written a review for the 1973 version of The Wicker Man with Christopher Lee. It is an enigma of a film and I hope you eventually decide to review it. I am personally curious to hear your thoughts and I think your review might give it the validation it deserves.
Whenever I see a movie I like, first I think, "I wonder what (my friend) Ian would think about this one, what my uncle would think, and what Roger Ebert thinks."
Ebert: For reasons unknown, I've never seen it.
I don't understand something, do you dislike all of Kairostami's works or just a few?
Also, how could you think Tahar Rahim's acting inferior to Niels Arestrup's in Une Prophète?!
Sad to hear some of your comments about a festival we have come to expect so much. Looking at the list of all winners and the names of all the great directors it's enough to make you nostalgic. . It is a strange time: we lost bergman, we lost tarkovsky, we lost siskel, among others and the directors alive don't seem to inspire awe. 2010 will always be marked as the year I realized I was none of these people. Every director wishes that his first feature announces to the world that a great director is born, a sensitive soul. I blew that. Left is the realization that it will be a long road to a perfect review by someone like you. sorry. self pity party is over. back to work now.
Godard reminds me a little of Woody Allen (not the types of movies he makes) in a sense. He's pretty much riding earlier successes in the industry to churn out one sub-par product after another.