Posts by Michelle Howard2

The USS Missouri (2017), which aired during the Special Features marathon this Saturday to honor his passing.

So, I finally powered through all 18 movies on that list above—which, let’s be honest, was a total grind toward the end—but this particular Godard flick, where he wasn't even really directing himself, felt like such a breath of fresh air. It’s surprisingly tight, both in terms of the writing and the actual filmmaking. It’s basically a collection of vignettes seen through the eyes of his then-wife, that actress and writer with the heavy pedigree, Anna Wiazemsky, who actually wrote the book the script is based on. The story spans from 1967, when she was just a teenager marrying a Godard who was seventeen years her senior, all the way to 1969 and his suicide attempt. There's this line in the film where she narrates, "That day, Jean-Luc didn't die. But the Jean-Luc I loved vanished forever. That suicide attempt was a violence I'll never forgive. We split up about a year later." You can tell the whole thing was made with a certain level of love and tenderness for him; even its alternative title, "Godard Mon Amour," says it all. Beyond being this deeply intimate confession featuring folks like Bernardo Bertolucci and Marco Fererri, it serves as a stylistic retrospective of various eras of his work—you know, bits of the Chinese woman, Contempt, the married woman, mad Pierott...

Toward the end, Godard admits, "I don't know exactly when I lost the thread. Something inside me snapped, and I just wasn't the same anymore." (If you ask me, Godard effectively died when he stopped working with his cinematographer Raoul Coutard; their last collaboration was Weekend back in 1967.)

Between the tenderness of this specific movie and everything else we know, the big picture is pretty clear: Godard was a brilliant creator but a complete jerk of a human being. To borrow a phrase from Coutard, who was essentially responsible for half of his fame: "He can be a shit... but he's a genius."

Anyway, I paid my respects to the master. How about you guys? 🙂

FIN.

Contempt (1963). François Truffaut has... American NightIt’s basically like pitting a Jean-Luc Godard "Contempt" up against a Fritz Lang flick. You’ve got these two polar opposites clashing—one is this dreamy, romanticized deep dive into the whole filmmaking process that just oozes love for the craft, while the other is gritty, heavy, and absolutely dripping with disdain. It makes the movie industry look like the root of all evil for these characters; if they hadn't gotten caught up in the Hollywood machine, they probably could have just lived their lives happily ever after.



Just spotted this Italian poster for *Live Your Life* and honestly, I can't stop staring at it.

There’s this one heavy-hitting line from a Fritz Lang film that always sticks in my craw: "Always finish what you start." 🙂

So, Careful With The Carbine (1963) stands apart from the >; it’s a sharp, timeless piece of political (anti)war cinema. Why? Because it doesn't get bogged down in the daily grind of politics. At its core, every war is essentially the same thing. In this film, it doesn't actually matter which conflict we're talking about—it could just as easily be Napoleon's era if they had tanks, and it definitely feels relevant to the recent mess in Ukraine involving Vladimir Putin.



Since the film is based on a play, you don't get that typical Godard philosophical rambling where characters spout entire paragraphs from books—mostly because there aren't even any books here, just comic strips. 🙂 It’s a brilliant piece of work that really sticks with you.



Take the mobilization scene, where it’s basically like how a king like Putin calls people up for service.

- We have a letter for you.
- From whom?
- From the king.
- The king?
- What a joke!
- No, seriously, a letter from the king.
- I don't believe you.
- Here it is.
- "Mo-bi-li-za-tion." What does that even mean?
- War.



(Woman) - The king used to write to Ulysses and Michelangelo!
- Well, isn't that great!
- There's something I don't quite get.
- What's that?
- Why would the king write to *me*?
- He wants you to do him a favor.
- The king? For me? If the king wants a favor, he must consider me a friend.
- Exactly.
- Really... the king considers me a friend.
- Yes.
- "Mobilization." So that means we have to go to war?
- That's right.
…
- War isn't exactly a party.
- On the contrary. You'll be rich.
- How so?
- We'll explain. You'll broaden your horizons by traveling abroad. Then you'll become incredibly wealthy. You'll be able to have whatever your heart desires.
- Okay. But where is all this stuff?
- Out there, with the enemy. You take it from them. Not just land and cattle, but houses, palaces, cities, cars, cinemas, shops, stations, airports, pools, casinos, theaters, triumphal arches, cigarette factories, plants, lighters, planes... even the women of the world. Freight trains. Fountains, jewelry stores... Rolls-Royces, Maseratis... women who undress...
- We can really have all of that?
- Yes, everything.
- I have one question. Wherever I go, can I just take whatever I want?
- Yes. I just told you that.
- Wonderful!
- What do you say?
(Woman) - Go on, you idiot! Get to war! Move it!



- Won't we get punished for stealing?
- No. In war, anything goes.
- Where's the proof?
- The proof is the king's letter... Every soldier can do whatever he wants in the king's name.
- I have one more question.
- Shoot.
- In war, can we steal machines?
- Yes.
- Won't we be sued if we take an old man's glasses? Can we break a child's arm? Both arms? Stab someone in the back? Loot apartments? Burn down cities? Set fire to women?
- Yes.
- If we feel like it, can we massacre innocent people?
- Yes.
- Can we eat at restaurants and not pay?
- Yes. That's what war is.

Honestly, the fact that his little soldier, his second feature, got banned for a few years because of political tensions—it was filmed right during the height of the war for independence over in Algeria—feels like a massive stroke of luck for Godard. That relatively weak flick stayed tucked away while heavy hitters like "Masculin féminin" and "to live one's life" were already out making waves. By the time "little soldier" finally surfaced in 1963, it didn't really matter anymore; it wasn't going to dent his reputation as a major auteur.

At its core, it’s just a mediocre political movie with that tired old "girl and a gun" trope tacked on. The issue is that Godard’s politics feel way too heavy-handed and forced; I’m sitting there watching a movie, not trying to catch up on a nightly news broadcast from sixty years ago. Politics is almost always poison for art—it tends to corrupt the whole vibe. And the other theme was supposed to be love, but what do we actually get?



There are two specific scenes where this "romance" between the leads supposedly unfolds. First, there’s the photo session where the guy tries to relax her and charm her by hitting her with a barrage of deep, heavy questions. It feels like Godard views women primarily through a voyeuristic lens, seeing them as mere potential for photography or, well, cinema. Then there’s that ten-minute monologue from the lead, where Godard basically dumps every random thought he’s ever scribbled down in his notebook. There’s zero emotion in it, just dry, intellectualizing rambling. That’s "love" according to Godard, I guess. Plus, the lead actor lacks even a fraction of the charisma and charm you see in someone like Jean-Paul Belmondo, who could probably deliver even the most idiotic lines and still make them work.



What really fascinates me about Godard, though, are his endings. 🙏 They’re incredibly brief, sharp as a razor, minimalist, punchy, and totally jarring. So much happens in that final minute—sometimes more than in the entire rest of the film. Either way, the point lands, and it leaves you thinking. There isn't some drawn-out credit sequence either; it's just "FIN" and then the lights come up.



Godard is clearly trying to be the next Hitchcock. 🙂 Like a three-second cameo popping up at the nine-minute mark.

Watching Pierrot (1965), I couldn't help but wonder how a movie like this would actually land with a modern audience. Honestly? It feels a bit thin. My main question is just how many minutes it would take before the average viewer decides to check their phone and bail. And if that's the case, does the film even hold its own? Don't get me wrong, Godard's messy style and his total disregard for traditional plotlines don't bother me too much—he famously didn't "make movies," he "made cinema"—but you still need some kind of glue to hold the whole thing together and give it purpose. People say a work of art should be self-sustaining, but this doesn't feel that way; it feels like it needs outside context to really click. I ended up digging around for more background on the production, and turns out, that info is absolutely vital to making sense of what's happening on screen.

Godard had acquired Pierrot’s literary source – Lionel White’s American novel Obsession – as early as February 1964. The book concerned the affair. Godard’s first thought on casting was Richard Burton as the man, and he considered Sylvia Vartan as the girl. When he came to make the film he settled for Belmondo and Karin. Something else had happened in the meantime. They had an affair.

So Pierrot is essentially a post-mortem of a crumbling romance, performed by two people—Karin and Godard—who had already lived through the exact same drama in real life. Why on earth would they choose to relive that particular brand of torture? Well, Godard always said at the time that he didn't know how to make a film without Karin—Pierrot was their sixth film together in four years. Maybe he, or maybe her—though perhaps never both of them simultaneously—was secretly nursing a hope for a reconciliation.

The two of them could barely exchange a word without it devolving into snarls and bitter groans.

Maybe Anna Karina occasionally felt like Godard cast her in this role just to drag her through the mud—playing into that idea of her being "his" and somehow disposable (that dark shadow of prostitution is always lurking in Godard's work). But personally, I don't think anyone could argue that the film is lacking in raw, emotional pain.

When Godard looks at Karin, we feel the absolute wreck and desperation of being abandoned. It honestly feels like Godard, ever the cynical analyst, made the film out of a purely masochistic impulse—just to watch an ex-lover crush whatever feelings are left every time she stares into his lens.

It’s almost as if Godard saw the writing on the wall, sensing he wouldn't be able to make romantic films like this again. That whole cycle of finding a girl, molding her into an actress, and keeping her close in both his life and his films was bound to spiral into campiness after Pierrot. It’s like he realized that by 1965, life had set him on a long, slow slide downward.

Sure, the rest of his work is "interesting" and holds plenty of value. But during those hyper-competitive years between 1960 and 1965, Godard was in a league of his own when it came to playing with old storytelling tropes while wrapping them in that bittersweet vibe you only find in the best pop music of the era. (Sight & Sound)

There's also another great essay for the Criterion collection written by a true Godard scholar.

“In my other films, when I had a problem, I asked myself what Hitchcock would have done in my place. While making Pierrot, I had the impression that he wouldn’t have known how to answer, other than ‘Work it out for yourself.’” Godard had had trouble working it out...

He described the shoot as “a kind of happening, but one that was controlled and dominated,” and remarked regarding Pierrot, “It is a completely unconscious film.” During production, Godard let his emotions run wilder than usual, and man, they were heavy: Pierrot was essentially a raw, angry indictment of Anna Karina, mixed with this deeply self-pitying wail about how she tore down both him and his craft.

Man, the sad stuff actually makes sense here. It’s such a beautiful yet gut-wrenching confession of love. Honestly, Jean-Paul Belmondo feels a bit out of place in a Godard flick, but I’d much rather see a cheerful Belmondo than some brooding, dark version of Godard.

And it’s true—after Pierrot, Godard was never quite the same person again. Once you lose your muse, you basically lose that armor of invincibility, that core spark of inspiration and creative juice, and he just started stumbling and tripping over himself. I’ve always wondered where that irreversible slide came from. Suddenly, love isn't the heartbeat of his work anymore; it’s all just politics. And without love, things feel cold, dry, hollow, and thirsty. Only occasionally shocking.

Maybe Godard should have asked himself how Hitchcock would have handled that situation, too. It sounds a lot easier to have a quiet, unassuming wife providing constant support and enjoying a long, legendary career, rather than marrying a rising star who’s eventually going to walk away from you. 🙂

bluecyclist64 said:What makes you say it's trash?

Because honestly, calling it "trash" feels like the closest way to describe how you actually enjoy watching this kind of flick. 😁 For a lot of people, it’s just going to be some cheap comedy or total garbage, while others are gonna see pure genius in it. Personally, I found it to be a pretty decent, low-stakes "B-movie" style sci-fi. 🙂 It actually made me curious about the director, so now I'm planning to check out Office Space and Extract.

A woman to be a woman (1961). Honestly, you’d almost swear this was a Truffaut film. It feels like Godard decided to play it safe after his little soldier project got shut down—which was actually his second film, even if the official credits list this one as his second. This one is a bright, colorful comedy that practically sings through its love triangle. It’s got a sharp little twist at the end that really sticks the landing (though I won't spoil it here).

There’s this moment in a bar where Jeanne Moreau pops up—she’s uncredited and we don't see her again. Belmondo asks her...



She just says, "Moderato." Now, Jules and Jim hit theaters just a year later in 1962, and in Godard's next flick, live one's life, there’s this scene showing a massive line outside a theater waiting to see Jules and Jim. It's pretty obvious that back then, Godard and Truffaut were still tight.

As for the title? It comes from the very end. Émile snaps, "Angela, you're terrible," and she fires back: "No, I am a woman." She looks straight into the lens, and that's it. The subtitles don't quite capture the wordplay, so if you don't speak French, you might miss the whole point. 🙂

live one's life (1962). I honestly don't get how or why someone who grew up on the heavy hitters like Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock decides to drop an eight-minute scene just philosophizing about language, followed immediately by five minutes of someone reading Edgar Allan Poe. I actually agree with Ingmar Bergman on this one (and really, only this one)—it’s just a total slog. When you head to the movies, you aren't looking for a literary salon, especially not one conducted in French. No amount of subtitles is going to save that kind of pacing. And then, of course, Mr. Tarantino goes and picks up those scraps from Godard. It's all quite funny considering what Anna Karina (who, by the way, has those tiny nails she's always trying to hide)



Coming back to the same vibe later on—Band of Outsiders - Minute of Silence. 😁

Otherwise, it's great. 🙏

Every Man for HimselfBack in 1980, we saw the release of "Every Man for Himself" and "Slow Motion"—titles you can find listed over on IMDb—though if you were looking at a literal translation, it would basically mean "Save yourself who can" (as in, just try to survive life).

I actually got sucked into this whole movie thing after I heard about it. On The Dick Cavett Show So, you could practically call it Godard's "second first film," if you think about it—since he basically hit the reset button and crafted this right after taking a massive breather from making "normal" movies, exactly twenty years after his very first one.

So, basically, the guy in the movie—this character Paul Godard played by Jacques Dutronc—is a filmmaker who’s just going through it all. He’s dealing with a messy divorce, raising an eleven-year-old daughter on his own, getting dumped by his girlfriend, and then to top it all off, he gets harassed by this gay hotel employee. It’s a lot. He actually describes his whole headspace using a quote from Marguerite Duras: "I make films just to stay busy. If I actually had the strength to deal with everything, I wouldn't do anything at all. But since I can't stand the thought of doing nothing, I make films."

The guy seems totally lost, though it’s hard to pin down exactly what's eating him alive. It isn't some external crisis or a practical mess; it's more like that heavy, existential dread you see in an Ingmar Bergman film. The characters all feel like they stepped right out of his universe—you've got these incredibly strong women and then this guy just drifting through a void of meaninglessness, completely incapable of actually connecting with anyone, whether it's a partner or even someone working a street corner. There's even this unsettling, almost incestuous undertone when it comes to his daughter. Everyone around him just treats him like a pinball being bounced around a machine, waiting for the inevitable moment he drops into the gutter, which is exactly what happens when that car ends up taking him out at the end.

It’s got all that signature Godard pretension—you know, the scattered thoughts, the sudden political outbursts, those massive chunks of text read aloud, the jokes, the little nods to various filmmakers, and even that playful messing around with slow motion—but honestly, it feels way more conventional than his earlier stuff. There’s this palpable sense that he’s actually trying to be considerate of the audience (and the producer) for once.

Look, if you ask me, a movie just can't really hit its stride if it’s anchored by some weak, defeated protagonist. Sure, but that's just the typical male perspective—it's exactly the kind of thing Godard brought up during his sit-down on The Dick Cavett Show. And honestly, once you actually take a second look, the women in this story are totally fine; all four of them, even the daughter. Even the whole prostitution angle is treated like any other job, especially when you view it as running a small independent business. Every single woman eventually moves on, making her own choices, which is actually why there's a sense of optimism there. Meanwhile, he’s just left lying in the middle of the road, caught somewhere between living and dying. It feels a bit like something out of Breathless, though it doesn't quite reach those heights. 🙂

It actually turned out to be a pretty damn good movie in the end.

Yeah, get this—Charles Bukowski actually did the English titles for him (!), and apparently Godard was absolutely thrilled with how they turned out.

Just a little bit of autobiographical flavor here: Godard's mother actually happened to be the daughter of Switzerland's most famous banker. In the movie, Paul Godard—who, by the way, was also his father's name—says right after he's finished wrestling and hugging with this girl, "She’s got a stubborn streak; she's a banker's daughter."



----
(Just a quick tip from the bar)
"Father, am I going to heaven? Please, Father, just tell me."
Look, I love you guys, really, but I can't just drop all that sentimentality out of nowhere like some cheesy Hallmark card. It’s just not how I roll. So, do me a favor and swing by again this Saturday, alright?
Man, I've been dragging my feet all week just waiting to hit the weekend, and now that it's finally here, I'm already heading over to see the priest.
So, what's the verdict, Father?
I’ve got two pieces of news for you—one good, one bad. The good news is that I finally sorted everything out regarding paradise. You're actually going to make it there.
Man, you just can't help but get swept up in it all. It’s one of those moments where you're just completely floored.
And what’s the bad news?
You’re heading there this Wednesday.

What a total disaster. Honestly, this thing is just going to pick up more fans over time, and you can see it right here in this thread—it’s attracting everyone from the sharpest minds to the crowd that's basically running the show these days. And trust me, the future they’re heading toward isn't nearly as bright as the movie tries to pretend. 😁

I'm not sure if anyone actually bothered to check the subtitles or see what else was tucked away in there... there's an entire alternative ending. 😁

Band of OutsidersIt starts off feeling like your run-of-the-mill film noir, but thank God, it doesn't stick to the script when it comes to the ending. Mr. Tarantino is obsessed with this flick—I mean, besides naming his entire production company after it, he basically tried to rip off that specific scene as a massive homage in Pulp Fiction. Still, nothing beats the original. There’s this one shot where you see all three of them, and of course, Godard is right there in the mix, practically reading the protagonist's mind while keeping the whole thing moving at such a killer pace. You definitely want to watch this full screen.

Ran into it. So, I was revisiting that classic moment from The Dick Cavett Show where Godard sat down with Dick Cavett, and man, it just hits different when you watch it now. There’s this incredible, almost electric tension in how they navigate the conversation, like watching two master tacticians playing a high-stakes game of chess where the pieces are ideas rather than wood. You can see it in the way Godard carries himself—that specific blend of intellectual intensity and a sort of restless, avant-garde energy that defined an entire era of filmmaking. It wasn't just a standard talk show interview; it felt more like a deep dive into the soul of cinema itself, wrapped in that polished, late-night American television aesthetic. Watching him navigate Cavett's questions is like watching someone try to capture lightning in a bottle while simultaneously explaining why the bottle shouldn't exist in the first place. It's brilliant, really. Back in 1980, right around the time his work hit the scene... Every Man for Himself So, you've got someone over there claiming that Every Man for Himself is actually his second debut. Honestly, it’s such a funny way to look at it, isn't it? It's like someone trying to tell you a specific chapter in a book is the start of the whole story just because the previous stuff felt like a different genre entirely.

You just need a reason to get moving. You know how they say: death is basically just a career move. 🙂

Alphaville Looking back at his 1965 work, you can really see how much Godard was rooting for humanity, love, and raw emotion within that dystopian world stripped of its soul. It’s such a stark contrast to his more recent stuff, where he doesn't lean nearly as hard into that romantic or sentimental vibe. In his modern films, people feel almost as detached and hollowed out as those characters in Alphaville. It’s like he’s constantly swinging in the opposite direction.

Godard doesn't give a single damn about flashy sci-fi sets, yet somehow he still manages to serve up a vision of the future that feels totally convincing. It’s pretty obvious that this movie isn't riding on high-end production design or massive special effects; instead, it’s all about the core story and the people living it. Honestly, why don't more directors try taking that kind of leap? Godard just lives and breathes cinema, and he expects the audience to keep up, constantly pushing the boundaries further than anyone else in the game. He isn't terrified of a total flop either, even though he’s basically dancing on the edge of a disaster every chance he gets.

That scene where the Alpha 60 computer grills Caution feels like a total echo of that moment in Blade Runner where they use those rapid-fire questions to unmask a replicant. But here’s the twist: it’s actually the exact opposite. Instead of hunting for machines, the computer is scanning for anything "abnormal"—basically trying to sniff out the humans who still cling to their humanity.



Tough guy Eddie Constantine responds... "Poetry." 🙂

Let's see how the "experts" interpret cinema. Here's what Bergman for Godard had to say:

I’ve never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a fucking bore. He’s made his films for the critics. One of The Movies, Masculin Féminin (1966), was shot over in Europe. It was mind-numbingly boring.

That's a pretty massive departure from the way people vibe with someone like Quentin Tarantino, Wim Wenders, or Werner Herzog... Some folks walk away with nothing, while others feel like they just sat through a masterclass. How does that even work? Is it actually about having "knowledge," or is there something else going on?

Regarding that surrealist guy, Matić. It’s not like he just went out and inserted himself into the front matter of someone else's book. I don't really know much about him personally, but I've always been a huge fan of how Slobodan Novaković approaches his film criticism and writes about the medium.

Steven Newman50, if you'll indulge me, I want to throw out a little metaphor for this whole debate over how we interpret cinema:

when people watch the exact same movie, they end up uncovering totally different layers of meaning.

👍 That’s exactly how it should be. Honestly, I'm not exactly sitting on the edge of my seat waiting, but if they actually bring it to the local theater, I'll probably head down and catch it.

I finally sat down and watched it for the very first time. Married Honestly, it’s kind of a sleeper hit because it got sandwiched right between two heavy hitters like Band of Outsiders and Alphaville. Most critics didn't really know what to make of it, but personally? I thought it was absolutely fantastic.



It’s giving me major vibes of Godard's Jules and Jim. 😁 Look, let’s be real: Godard isn't some wide-eyed romantic pouring his heart out like Truffaut; he’s more of this detached, cold cynic—a pure intellectual who acts like he doesn't even have a pulse. Because of that, the whole vibe of his work hits completely differently. But honestly? If you’re the type of person who actually digs Godard, you’re going to find exactly what you're looking for.



So you’ve got a wife, a lover, and a husband all swirling around in the mix, and now you're stuck staring down a questionnaire trying to figure out which one actually wins out. She’s gorgeous, sure, and pretty shallow too—not exactly the type to win any Nobel Prizes—but let's be real, when you're deep in the throes of passion, being a genius isn't exactly high on the priority list. And honestly? Most guys are cut from the exact same cloth.

Godard just doesn't seem interested in showing actual emotion—or maybe he just doesn't care. His characters keep dropping lines like "I love you," but they come off more like programmed dolls than real people. Then again, maybe that’s just how the guy sees humanity, and honestly, if that's his vision, it works for him.



An average viewer might find themselves scratching their heads because the movie doesn't exactly follow a traditional plot; it’s more like a single, sustained situation. That's why you get this flood of disconnected, interesting details—random thoughts, anecdotes, big philosophical concepts, jokes, and endless nods to other movies. You’ll see Godard spend five or six minutes just flipping through a women's magazine featuring lingerie, but a sympathetic viewer would probably argue that since it’s a film about a married woman, that’s basically just how she spends half her day.

Sayng a movie has "great cinematography" feels like such a lazy, surface-level take most of the time, but honestly, with this one, the visuals are practically half the draw. I’ve gone through and grabbed about a hundred screenshots, and every single frame looks like a high-end gallery print; the dialogue almost feels like nothing more than captions running underneath these stunning images. It’s truly something else. Raoul Coutard.



If you really want to wrap your head around what’s happening on screen, it wouldn't hurt to get a quick handle—even if it's just a brief summary—on Racine's tragedy "Berenice," which is what the woman and her lover end up reading at the very end of the film. A quick breakdown of "Berenice." Don't go walking into this expecting a traditional Hollywood blowout, because, let's face it, it's still Godard. The Memory of All Three will remain in the annals as an example of the most tender, fiery and hopeless love.

---
I once ran into this guy on the street in Germany and asked him, "What if tomorrow I just go out and kill every Jew and every barber in town?" And he just looked at me and went, "Why the barbers?" And then his wife pipes up from out of nowhere like, "Yeah, why the barbers?"

Right at the start of the book "opening time," which is where I grabbed the snippet to kick off this thread, there’s this quote sitting there:

"If we differ from any of the eras that came before us, it would be in that very act of opening ourselves up to an unfinished infinity... In that incompleteness lies our entire modern essence. If the works of modern painters look unfinished to you, then finish them yourselves. If poems and texts seem incomplete, finish them yourselves..."

Dušan Matić (an American surrealist who taught at the Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1947 until his retirement in 1967, and was a respected academic)

The guy doesn't even bother with quotation marks. 🙂

northerncrane4 said:Great auteur cinema isn't about whether a movie feels unfinished or if it’s wrapped up in some pretentious "artistic" quotation marks—it's about whether you can actually feel the director's soul breathing through the screen. He didn't exactly lay it all out, draw up the blueprints, or circle the fine print for us.So, how exactly would you go about pulling an audience into that kind of deep, mental engagement? Rounding things off. It all really comes down to the specific elements he poured into the work itself.

Oh, come on, don't start with me too. 🙂 Look, what's my point? I’m saying that rounding something off is essentially the act of "finishing" it. (And yeah, those quotation marks are doing a lot of heavy lifting here.) I bet you’ve got some movie in your collection that you feel was perfectly wrapped up like that, so just throw it out there. That’s the whole point of this conversation.

northerncrane4 said:So, Claude Chabrol finished college. Coppola and Scorsese did too. And honestly, what are we even supposed to do with that information?

It’s kind of wild when you stop to think about how much weight is carried by a simple aspect ratio—like looking at the heavy-hitting DNA shared between Orson Welles and Quentin Tarantino through that specific 4:3 lens. It’s like comparing a vintage, high-octane muscle car to a modern custom build that’s clearly obsessed with the classics; they both lean into that tight, claustrophobic framing that forces you to actually look at what's happening in the frame instead of just letting your eyes wander. There's this certain grit and intentionality there, where the boxiness makes everything feel more immediate and raw, almost like you're trapped in the room with the characters, whether it's some noirish shadow play or a stylized explosion of violence. 🙂

I mean, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s actually something to be said for a solid formal education. It’s all pretty much the same. Pros and cons? Sure, you can weigh those out if you want to be clinical about it, but passion... man, that’s a whole different beast entirely. 🙂 I could honestly make a case for that—both when it comes to the creators behind the lens and the folks sitting in the audience.

Here's to Godard, the last of the true greats, so I’m proposing we kick off a "Godard cycle" where we revisit his work—whether for the first time or just to see if our old perspectives still hold up—and drop our fresh impressions here. To get ready, I’ve gone ahead and rebuilt my own collection, which currently sits at 18 films:

1. Breathless (1960)
2. Woman to be a woman (1961)
3. Live one's life (1962)
4. Little soldier (1963)
5. Carbines (1963)
6. Contempt (1963)
7. Band of Outsiders (1964)
8. Married (1964) (1964)
9. Alphaville (1965)
10. Pierrot (1965)
11. Masculin féminin (1966)
12. made in USA (1966)
13. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
14. The Chinese Woman (1967)
15. Weekend (1967)
16. Far from Vietnam (1967, omnibus including Godard)
17. Godard (everything is fine) (1972)
18. Every Man for Himself (Every Man for Himself / Slow Motion, 1980)

So, let's aim to hit everything through 1967; honestly, the later stuff doesn't grab me much right now unless someone points out a hidden gem worth the watch. My plan is to power through this list, even the ones I've seen before. I’m throwing down the gauntlet—who’s joining me? 🙂

Finding the films wasn't an issue at all, and it feels like there's no better time than now to dive deep into Godard. Why sit around waiting for some special marathon on PBS or a screening at Central Park when you can just start right now on your own? 🙂

Or take that final sequence where he’s just watching this mime playing tennis. They’re using an imaginary ball, right? It flies off the court, and these guys start hunting for it, and he actually gets sucked into the bit—he goes out to grab it and brings it back. A total phantom ball. But then he starts tracking it with his eyes, and suddenly he’s hearing the thud of the hits... the illusion becomes tangible. It makes you wonder: what’s actually "real"? Is it the stuff you physically saw captured on film, or is it that vivid illusion you just collectively decided to accept as reality?