Try Bande à part, perhaps? It's more light hearted, and doesn't have so many conscious quirks. But I don't think there's any shame in failing to like them, since they can be a bit dry. You have Truffaut and Varda if you want more emotionally engaging cinema.

I’m really sad to hear that, though he was very, very old. Top tier in my brain library, I fell so hard for his work my critical lens is completely bust when his work is brought up.

Also, just to be clear, one cannot comment on his work before watching all eight hours of “Histoires du Cinèma”. Twice.

kokorodoko wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 4:42 am Holy crap, didn't know that bastard was still alive either.

A guilty displeasure of mine - I haven't been grabbed by any of the Godard I've seen (Vivre sa vie, À bout de souffle, Alphaville and some other I can't remember the name of) EXCEPT Masculin Féminin which is superb. Too much of time-specific quirk and modernist cliches (or what has come to be recognized as such). I would probably find them interesting on a theoretical level though, and I guess I should rewatch them since it's been a long time.

In either case RIP.

Same here. I haven’t enjoyed any of his movies, and god knows I’ve tried.

Still, there’s no question at all that he inspired an entire generation of filmmakers and, indirectly, revitalized American cinema. RIP.

woah it's true godard's films aren't that great ... maculin feminine why? she brushes her hair and doesn't look like your mom more like a sister

that's the joke about clooney on SNL from tv funhouse that he's famous as movie star and his movies are like the peacemaker and one fine day

kokorodoko wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 4:42 am Holy crap, didn't know that bastard was still alive either.

A guilty displeasure of mine - I haven't been grabbed by any of the Godard I've seen (Vivre sa vie, À bout de souffle, Alphaville and some other I can't remember the name of) EXCEPT Masculin Féminin which is superb. Too much of time-specific quirk and modernist cliches (or what has come to be recognized as such). I would probably find them interesting on a theoretical level though, and I guess I should rewatch them since it's been a long time.

In either case RIP.

Give La Petit Soldat a shot. I'm not a French New Wave expert by any means, but I don't think he reached the highs of Truffaut.

pldms wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 4:27 am In further nonagenarian news: Jean-Luc Goddard died at 91. Was he the last one standing from that generation of film makers?

Any excuse.

Up for debate, perhaps, how serious or earnest a sendoff JLG deserves--he was a bit flip/cross at times, and not always one to take himself or his legacy seriously. But he can certainly do better than some of the above prattle, which reads like, I dunno, bored college kid's shit.

This is Jean-Luc friggin' Godard we're talking about here, not some dime-a-dozen careerist who played it safe much of his life. Even if his films didn't add up to much, what he contributed to film discourse alone, since about the mid fifties on, was and is invaluable. Yeah, he and some of the other Cahiers folks did low ball a few directors (Carné, Clouzot, etc.) to negative effect--he wasn't on the money with all of his takes--but just the way in which he got people to think about films, and care about them, is no small beer. Watch his segment in Wenders's Room 666 for a sample of this. See his interview with Dick Cavett for more. I could go on.

This is the same person who cut together an official trailer for Au Hasard Balthazar. He filmed the Rolling Stones writing and recording "Sympathy for the Devil." He helped pioneer the polemic essay film as we know it. He had Jean-Pierre Melville do a cameo in his debut feature and made Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belomondo household names. Fuckin' leftover stock from Masuline Feminine was given to Jean Eustache to shoot Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes, a great film. He documented Palestinian struggles in Ici et Ailleurs, drove Philippe Garrel around in his sports car to document the May of '68 uprisings. There's more!

It's fine, I guess, if one doesn't take to his work. I haven't seen all of it, and there are unmistakably some duds. But here's a handful of titles I think of as very good and worth hunting down:

Pierrot Le Fou
JLG/JLG: Self-Portrait in December
A Married Woman
La Gai Savoir
Every Man For Himself
All The Boys Are Named Patrick
Alphaville
Masculine Feminine
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her
My Life to Live

...some things (like Contempt and A Woman is a Woman and Week-End) I haven't seen in ages, but he left behind more than a few swell ones.

R.I.P. Jean-Luc Godard - One of the greats, without question.

DaveA wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 3:02 pm Up for debate, perhaps, how serious or earnest a sendoff JLG...

I met him twice (early in my career; he, in his early seventies), and I can't imagine anything he would have wanted less than an earnest send-off. The main reason I posted Je T'aime John Wayne upstream was out of affection for how much it tickled him.

Regardless of taste, I can't imagine anyone viewing him as anything less than a titan.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote:

DaveA wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 3:02 pm Up for debate, perhaps, how serious or earnest a sendoff JLG...

I met him twice (early in my career; he, in his early seventies), and I can't imagine anything he would have wanted less than an earnest send-off.

LOL, figured as much, and this might go toward explaining why this recent blu-ray of his has a spine at the top:



Still, I think it was probably all too easy for someone like him to take for granted the sheer amount of ground that was covered during his heyday, and ultimately, how fortunate he was - something he probably liked to downplay. I feel reverent toward the better aspects because, if nothing else, there's not a surplus of things from the current era that are on par and have enjoyed the same visibility.

Anyway, fortunate of you to have crossed paths with him.