breathless i could understand if it made it cos it's good and many hav seen it.
my life to live prolly got in there cos of the snob factor, it must be doing the rounds in film schools or sumthing. just like PDL made it cos of the "boogie nights is too ancient to vote for and i hav no memory" crowd..
*sigh*
No, no, no... y'know, there
is the possibility that My Life To Live is just a damn fine masterpiece, and deserves to be on the list. We never got to watch any Godard in film school. They made us watch The Big Chill, and Butch Cassidy, and most of the other students went to all the new movies in the theatre. All my Godard watching came 2 years after film school, when I decided to actually watch some movies, not just the usual stuff. People may not like My Life To Live, but there's no fucking reason to pick this one, of all on the list, to harp on. It's stood the test of time, it's regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema. Quite honestly, I didn't even think it would get on the list. I hadn't really talked to anyone about it, but it's always been my favorite Godard. I figured 8 1/2 might have a chance, because of the Criterion dvd, which brought many more to it than if it would have been an obscure alt video rental. But for the few hardcore fans of Godard on the board, for My Life To Live to make it, must say something about the quality and staying power of this movie, at least among his fans. Breathless may have been hugely influencial on cinema, but it is an amateur hack job compared to My Life To Live. And the list wasn't "most influential" anyway, we were picking our favorites.
So enough with the snob comments. They're derogatory, and they're hurtful.
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary: the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.
When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.
