Ask The Gold Trumpet

[godardian]

P.S. - In addition to the more complex and significant points about the film above, I personally find a great, vigorous beauty not just in the way the film was shot, but in its structure through editing. If there can be such a thing as sheer grace through disjunction, this film has it.

[aclockworkjj]

How about Quills?

[SHAFTR]

I guessed two reasons for such a motive: Could their backs to the camera symbolize their backs to each other? Sometimes,  when people talk to each other in a film, they sometimes speak at the camera which is invisible to them. Also, could Godard be forcing us to observe this situation without the benefit of just judging from the prettiness or ugliness of face and take the words for their words? Who knows. Its talk for the Godard elite.

Well, if that's not a convenient brushing-off, sidestepping the very relevant question of to exactly what extent common issues of "plot" and "character" could apply to Godard's work, I don't know what is!

I think your approach to Godard is completely off the mark, GT. Godard was never out to tell a story that made dramatic sense, not ever. You can blame him for this and disparage him for it and completely disagree with him, but that's the standard he set. His standard is to "film criticism," or "the film as film criticism." Each film becomes about something quite other than the "story." His films have little regard for story, that's true, but infinite regard for how the story is told. And that's not self-indulgent Tarantino-ness, either; he is very serious about uncovering the conventional mechanisms of narrative and revealing to the audience something very important about its relationship to what's on screen.

Now, you can argue with Godard's standards and goals and artistic purposes all you want; in fact, at a certain point I do that, as well. But by its own standards for its own professed intent, My Life to Live is probably the best, most pure example of what Godard does and is "about." It is not only a successful film on its own terms; it is also one of the few really unique achievements in cinema history.

I think what you say about My Life to Live reveals expectations of film as a medium that a) were very well understood by Godard and b) entirely rejected by him. Now, you have every right to hold your own expectations of a film, but from your attack on this film above, it seems to me you were looking for anything but what was actually there- as if you were unable to see the new way Godard proposed to go about things because you insist upon the old way. It doesn't seem there was much effort on your part to understand or see why he was doing what he was doing, just that he wasn't doing it the way a conventional film is expected to.

Susan Sontag says it better than I ever could hope to (of course!) in her essay devoted to the film. Some quotations:

"'The chicken has an inside and an outside,' wrote the little girl. 'Remove the outside and you find the inside. Remove the inside, and you find the soul.'

The story of the chicken is the first of many 'texts' in the film which establish what Godard wants to say. For the story of the chicken, of course, is the story of Nana. In My Life to Live, we witness the stripping down of Nana. The film opens with Nana having divested herself of her outside: her old identity. Her new identity, within a few episodes, is  to be that of a prostitute. But Godard's interest is in neither the sociology nor the psychology of prostitution. He takes up prostitution as the most radical metaphor for the separating out of the elements of a life."

...and then at the end of the essay (it really is required reading for film lovers, in my opinion):

"My Life to Live seems to me to be a perfect film. That is, it sets out to do something that is both noble and intricate, and wholly succeeds in doing it. Godard is perhaps the only director today who is interested in 'philosophical films' and possesses an intelligence and discretion equal to the task. Godard is the first director fully to grasp the fact that, in order to deal seriously with ideas, one must create a new film language for expressinng them- if the ideas are to have any suppleness and complexity."

I have to agree with Godardian on this one.  An interesting way to look at My Life to Live is 12 different ways to film a conversation.

[Gold Trumpet]

Don't count me out yet. I'm readying a reply for tomorrow. I knew this would come.

[Sanjuro]

i have to agree with godardian very much on this.  but im interested in what your reply is going to be

[Gold Trumpet]

I think your approach to Godard is completely off the mark, GT. Godard was never out to tell a story that made dramatic sense, not ever.

I'm not asking him to. Its just the art of Godard, as you have identified, I really disbelieve in entirely and I think his art is the nice excuse to disqualify a quite weak story, conventional or unconvential. I was hoping to get you to reply because you ignored my comments on Breathless, so I figured My Life To Live would do that.  And as you can quote Susan Sontag, so can I:

"...Godard proposes a new conception of point of view, by staking out the possibility of making films in the first person. By this, I don't mean simply that his films are subjectiveor personal...[He] has built up a narrative presence, that of the film-maker, who is the central structural element in the cinematic narrative. The first-person film-maker isn't an actual character...He is the person responsible for the film who yet stands outside it beset by more complex, fluctuating concerns than any single film can represent or incarcanate...What he seeks is to conflate the traditional polarities of spontaneous mobilethinking and the finished work, of the casual jotting and the fully premeditated statement."

By this measure, Godard's art is that he wants to stop his films from being fixed photographic record, but something happening at the moment we see it, a creation of spontaniety in which Godard is responding to everything around the film and everything in himself at the moment. The idea would serve as endless interpretation to the filmmaking and anything else. But, no film really can be spontaneous at all. The stages from photography to actual conception are too large and great to achieve that. Stanley Kauffman, the critic, when he always reviewed Godard film's, understood this and kept saying that the Divine Comedy, too, was made in similiar terms with similiar expectations but that the quality of writing is what made it able to work, even if still impossible to achieve in concept. Doing this on terms of writing and story that is weak reveal absolutely nothing because if the filmmaking stands on nothing to really reveal at all. To say he is not interested in the film but everything oustide of it is to excuse the poverty of the material and allow him to do almost anything.

Susan Sontag says it better than I ever could hope to (of course!) in her essay devoted to the film. Some quotations:

"'The chicken has an inside and an outside,' wrote the little girl. 'Remove the outside and you find the inside. Remove the inside, and you find the soul.'

The story of the chicken is the first of many 'texts' in the film which establish what Godard wants to say. For the story of the chicken, of course, is the story of Nana. In My Life to Live, we witness the stripping down of Nana. The film opens with Nana having divested herself of her outside: her old identity. Her new identity, within a few episodes, is  to be that of a prostitute. But Godard's interest is in neither the sociology nor the psychology of prostitution. He takes up prostitution as the most radical metaphor for the separating out of the elements of a life."

OK, the reasoning that excuses the lack of story between her going from debt to prostitution is there, but where do the essay excuse a story I think is written at the level of high school kids? None of the scenes are written well, they are dull in the most obvious sense and go from attention to every detail of a handwritten letter to a sophmoric philosophical discussion. Godard's art could be seen as one trying to be the most radical it can be but that in itself isn't an esthetics in which to judge on its own merits. Godard still must prescribe himself to creating things like a well written story, interesting characters and scenario. Is this also saying he has to go Hollywood? No!

...and then at the end of the essay (it really is required reading for film lovers, in my opinion):

"My Life to Live seems to me to be a perfect film. That is, it sets out to do something that is both noble and intricate, and wholly succeeds in doing it. Godard is perhaps the only director today who is interested in 'philosophical films' and possesses an intelligence and discretion equal to the task. Godard is the first director fully to grasp the fact that, in order to deal seriously with ideas, one must create a new film language for expressinng them- if the ideas are to have any suppleness and complexity."

I'll take Michelangelo Antonioni over Godard anyday in providing a new film language that can serve as operating for higher ideas.

[SoNowThen]

I don't wanna read all this that came before, but the reason Godard shot the opening scene of My Life To Live facing the back off Anna Karina was so that you would be forced to listen to what they were saying, rather than watching them.

Godard had just discovered direct sound with A Woman Is A Woman, and went nuts on it in this film.



If you even think for a second that anybody else influenced modern filmmaking more than Godard, you're wrong GT.

[SoNowThen]

When I first saw My Life to Live, I thought I missed something and wasn't able to appreciate the quality film everyone else talked about. I saw it recently again and realized there was little to appreciate. The film is quite bad.

Every single scene rolls out in emptiness. In the matter of little happening, vast amount of drama is talked about or symbolized, but no strength in the story to suggest any of that at all. The point of the story is that Karina is forced into prostitution because she faces poverty and while being a prostitute, is tragically killed because of the corruption of others around her. Its just the film is so thin in observation and so persistent in just following Karina through every banality that logic of drama obviously comes up: How was her situation so bad that she had to go into prostitution full time? It said she had to pay someone back 2000 francs, but made that and more on her first job, so why continue if she already has a job? What was the major problem between the dueling gangs that it led to her being shot because of it? In defense, every single answer will likely be a simple one, because there is little elaborate on with the story. It is almost non existent even though trying to be tragic.

Then there is the filmmaking, they key to everyone's admiration for this film. If the filmmaking is suppose to be large in symbolism because it is so purposely unconvential and positioned in each scene for a purpose, but what symbolism can it really bring when the drama is nearly non existent? The film is actually quite lame because it tries to be dramatic without anything to really help it. In analyzing the first scene with the quarrel between the lovers and the camera to each other's back in different shots, I guessed two reasons for such a motive: Could their backs to the camera symbolize their backs to each other? Sometimes,  when people talk to each other in a film, they sometimes speak at the camera which is invisible to them. Also, could Godard be forcing us to observe this situation without the benefit of just judging from the prettiness or ugliness of face and take the words for their words? Who knows. Its talk for the Godard elite.

Continuing with Godard, I must say Band Of Outsiders is the enjoyable film by him I've seen. Its problems aren't as present in this film as his others. For most of the film, a delicate realism of two petty criminals influence over a school girl is exciting to watch and interesting because it is so natural and not connected to any strings. Moments like the impromptu dance and 1 minute of silence only benefits to this nice air. For all of this, the film is nicely without pretension. Then to speak on the intrusion, Godard the critic appears and parts of the movie is narrated like a crime story sizing up up everyone but the point is, with this naturalism, these criminals aren't much for criminals and their sloppiness of robbing a house goes against expectations of the genre because they are real people. Well, just showing them as real people already does that without the narration being needed. The narration of the film is the worst part because it talks about the feelings of each character! The best part of the movie is that you don't really know how Karina is feeling toward these men she knows are betraying her but also fascinating her. There's a nice mystery in that. But, most of the film is quite engaging and exciting and almost feels like a good counterpoint to a film like Knife in the Water in simplicity, but Godard interferes in the end.

I'll do Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise very soon. Just wanted to make a Godard post. Haven't seen the other ones mentioned, sadly. I'm just glad to have time to reply to this thread.

Okay, firstly: the camera work is less symbolic than it is purely rhythmic. Godard approached shooting this picture (with the accompanying score) from a very mathematical point of view. The visuals are all about dialetics, and the content and conversations are more semiotics.

Secondly, Godard is not making the simple (and stupid) statement that Karina was forced into prostitution. He just present the banal reality of this life, and one possible tangent of it in the form of this girl. Hence, the reading of all the health stats at the 3/4 mark, which Godard did himself in VO, taking it straight from a city article about prostitute stats.

In actuality, this film is more about Godard and his relationship with his new wife Anna, and their partnership and filmmaking. The scene with Brice Pairn is the heart of the film, but the following scene with the oval portrait is the key to the central idea of the film. In the very back layers, this movie is a shrewd comment on Godard himself making movies, and using people's images (specifically Anna Karina) to tell a story, and whether or not this affects these people.

You force this shitty 2-d point on the film, GT. That's your hang up, not Godard's.

[molly]

question: should I read that 50 page long thread about Kill Bill before I see it, or not?
I'm not being sarcastic

[Pubrick]

question: should I read that 50 page long thread about Kill Bill before I see it, or not?
I'm not being sarcastic

no.

unless u want to spoil the movie.

[modage]

GT, sometimes when you are reviewing something or debating, it feels like i'm talking to a textbook or something.  like, godardian will speak intelligently about movies and tie in the occasional quote from a critic, but in a way where i am still interested and i feel like he knows what he's talking about.  but sometimes when you start bashing a movie with a bunch of film criticism nonsense, it doesnt feel like theres a real person behind the review but rather some textbook on film theory and criticism.  so, is it that you are so smart that your reviews go over my head, or that you are so boring that i stop caring about your reasons for disliking things?  but i guess my real question is: are you human?  

i think my sinking suspicion at this point is that you are some construct of the matrix and are just here to keep everybody confused.

[Pedro]

i think GT is super smart, but he could make the same points in a few sentences instead of a few pages.

[NEON MERCURY]

GT ..i see that your thread has moved from the "tom-foolery" idle chatter forum to the proper everything else cinema"...

and i would like to ask you of your opinion on the film....TRUE ROMANCE.

[SHAFTR]

GT,

I respect your opinion on this site but I think that sometimes you'd make a better literary or theatrical critic.  Often you ignore the importance of the actual filmmaking.  Godard is all about filmmaking and his stories, plot, etc is not important.  Godard's films are about an exercise in style.  I don't expect many of us to be moved that much by the story in My Life to Live or any of his other films.  The filmmaking is what is important.  My Life to Live, to me, is the best example of what someone can do in a film.  It has a little bit of everything and as I said before is an example of how to film a conversation 12 different ways.  There are so many interesting elements of My Life to Live that are there beyond the story of the film.  The social critique of prostitution (done in VO instruction manual style).  The relationship between Karina/Godard (the Poe story being told in Voice Over by Godard hilmself about a man who paints a portrait of his wife and takes all the life out of her).

I know how much you enjoy story and narrative construction, but when watching Godard you need to throw that out and just watch the film's aesthetics and style.  I'm not asking you to praise nor love Godard, just watch his films in a different way.

[Gold Trumpet]

i think GT is super smart, but he could make the same points in a few sentences instead of a few pages.

Thanks. I could definitely get better at my writing, but I think I've vastly improved as well. I could make the same points in a few sentences, yes, but I am explaining why I think that point. I don't just like saying something without backing it up and I think most of the time I am writing large to explain something instead of repeating a point over and over again. Maybe.

so, is it that you are so smart that your reviews go over my head, or that you are so boring that i stop caring about your reasons for disliking things?

Neither. 1.) I'm quite simple in english. Its just I have very little personality when talking and 2.) you do still care because just yesterday, you argued what I said on horror films and Kill Bill.  

but i guess my real question is: are you human?

Of course not. That's your problem with me. You have no way to relate me at all. I'm just a series of differing opinions to you.

and i would like to ask you of your opinion on the film....TRUE ROMANCE.

Didn't like it. The film was trenched in seriousness like a drama, but filled with so much unrealitistic gun play and killing that I felt that part of the movie was being too opportunistic for the good of the story. The story didn't have to lose violence, but try to understand it better.

Sadly, JJ, I missed Quills. I'll get to what SoNowThen said tomorrow. Hopefully Bunuel and Discreet as well.