Richard Brody

Godard still had sixteen rows of American films in his library; he had been deceived, but the illusions were beautiful ones, beautiful to believe in, even after their fraud was revealed.


This was a sublime albeit painful experience. Joel bought this for me upon its release nine years ago but I never pursued such as I didn't wish to encounter spoilers per the films depicted within. I'm rather sure Godard would find my explanation bullshit.

rel="nofollow" target="_top">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz0ZdVZrw9Y


This is a biography of an ultimately nebulous presence, hidden behind those dark glasses and the swirl of cigar smoke. The whirr of the projector blends with his raspy voice. This is a warts and all endeavor: misogyny and anti-Semitism percolate. Both were difficult for me to absorb.

What wasn't a challenge was viewing a half dozen of his film per week recently and I'm sure Amazon approves of my obsession. Godard is quoted repeatedly, "At the cinema, we do not think, we are thought. I find the Slavic soul at the core of that. Maybe that is why Solzhenitsyn figures so prominently in Goodbye To Language - but then why all the scenes of people defecating? There is considerably gravity in making Godard an institution. Much like his counterpart Bob Dylan, he doesn't easily conform to such expectations. Whether it was his Maoist phase or when Jack Lang as Minister of Culture assured JLG of funding -- the results were astonishingly singular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx37fO25k-4… (mehr)

This is a really well-done book, I quite enjoyed it. My only qualms are that the author continuously refers to Godard as having anti-Semitic tendencies and also that almost all of his films were made to solve some problem Godard was having with Anna Karina at the time (to save the marriage). This kind of repetitive reasoning points toward simplistic thinking, and causes me to doubt the validity of whatever the author is saying. Not saying he is wrong, of course...I obviously do not know as much as Brody does about Godard.… (mehr)