Jean-Luc Godard

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domino harvey
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#901 Post by domino harvey » Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:55 pm


accatone
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#902 Post by accatone » Tue Dec 23, 2014 6:03 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDC_9xBWe7A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Les trois désastres online.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#903 Post by Lowry_Sam » Sat Mar 07, 2015 12:19 pm

So has anyone seen JLG's commercials? In the Godard retrospective @ BAM/PFA there's a program of 2 hours of his commercials.. I missed the shorts program & now trying to decide if the drive to see the commercials is worth it.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#904 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Mar 07, 2015 12:50 pm

Some of them - Schick, Volkswagon, etc. - are on the web. Sample those first, see if it's worth the drive for the rest.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#905 Post by accatone » Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:53 pm

Greetings from JLG
http://www.schweizerfilmpreis.ch/en/ehrenpreis-2015/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re:

#906 Post by Numero Trois » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:59 pm

Ovader wrote:APRES LA RECONCILIATION is available with ELOGE DE L'AMOUR from CDJapan for 9600 Yen but only with Japanese subtitles naturally.
Maybe Miéville needs her own thread, but does anyone know if Après la réconciliation is available anywhere? The Japanese edition listed above appears to be out of print. Same with the Portuguese edition that was on Wook and Fnac. There was a rip on youtube for several months that got pulled recently. I only got around to watching part of it. Highly annoyed.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#907 Post by accatone » Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:42 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHORNBKNtUE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#908 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Aug 24, 2015 2:47 pm

The rare video short Puissance de La Parole. Originally commissioned as a promotional video for a telephone company, now with English subtitles!

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filmyfan
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#909 Post by filmyfan » Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:53 pm

Just found this on the BBC.

Great little vids...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/article ... luc-godard" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and this Radio show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yfjdm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#910 Post by StevenJ0001 » Sun Feb 21, 2016 5:08 pm

filmyfan wrote:Just found this on the BBC.

Great little vids...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/article ... luc-godard" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and this Radio show.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yfjdm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Wonderful! Thanks!

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#911 Post by Drawingoflamporstick » Tue May 24, 2016 3:15 pm

I just noticed that Godard's Introduction to a True History of Cinema and Television is available for half off until the end of the month and you also get a free title from their Kino-Agora series.

Seems like a rare occurrence so I figured I'd pass it on.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#912 Post by Oedipax » Thu Jul 28, 2016 12:13 pm

Look who turned up on Google Streetview!

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#913 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:17 pm

Hah - wouldn't surprise me if this became an inspiration of sorts for Godard.

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domino harvey
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#914 Post by domino harvey » Fri Nov 25, 2016 10:12 pm

Hey, who likes original research?

So, for whatever reason, to my knowledge none of the books on Godard have ever collected his occasional appearances in Cahiers du Cinema's "Conseil des dix" (Council of Ten), which featured a rotated assortment of Cahiers regulars plus special guests ranging from filmmakers (Resnais and Melville pop in sometimes-- Melville helpfully approving of Breathless, in which he appears) to rival critics (Robert Benayoun from Positif seems to be invited solely to automatically bullet every single Godard film without fail). By my count Godard weighed in in the CDD 22 times between 1957 and 1965.

Why does this matter? Well, as ever with lore and myth built around the Young Turks, seeing Godard's actual ranking illuminates his actual approaches to things like auteurism and disproves false notions such as the Cahiers critics automatically rubber-stamping a film by their chosen auteurs (see Godard's varying rankings for Nicolas Ray, of whom he made some of his more florid critical writings). It also gives a peek into random samplings of what the film market looked like in any given month in France-- who knew American military comedies received so much play in France? It also shows that Godard, like many of the Cahiers critics, is brutal in his assessments-- he likes far less than he hates, and the lowest ranking "bullets" are flung freely at many now-sacred cows. So it is also another notable example of the mysteries of taste-- and of course, while Godard mentions some of these films in his writing for Cahiers (Collected in English in Milne's essential Godard on Godard), a large number of these are dismissed or bolstered without explanation. It's worth keeping in mind that the Young Turks often viewed films morally and films with specific story attributes automatically got them dismissed, among other highly subjective personal metrics in play.

(As a side note, dear God was it a pain trying to figure out what some of these films were based on their French titles!)


LE CONSEIL DES DIX : JLG

French titles kept for French films, all other films translated to the most universally known international titles. Keep in mind that some of the years when these films came under review by Cahiers are way, way off from the official release dates, since these were assessed by the panel when they either played in France, either for a revival or on a belated first-run. The number before the date is the issue number.

**** FOUR STARS : Masterpiece
*** THREE STARS: Must see
** TWO STARS: Should see
* ONE STAR: See if in a pinch
• BULLET: No need to bother


74 September 1957

TWO STARS: the True Story of Jesse James

ONE STAR: Crime in the Streets, the Last Hunt, Patrouille de choc, Seven Men From Now, the View From Pompey’s Head

BULLET: L’Ami de la famille, Méfiez-vous fillettes, the Proud Ones, Three Men in a Boat


75 October 1957

TWO STARS: the Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Seven Waves Away

ONE STAR: the Bachelor Party, Julie, Le amiche, Les Suspects, Œil pour œil, Oklahoma!, Top Secret Affair, 12 Angry Men

BULLET: Island in the Sun, La Peau de l'ours, Les Œufs de l'autruche, Man Afraid, Shadow (Cień), Tribute to a Bad Man


80 February 1958

ONE STAR: Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, Jeanne Eagels, the Killing, Sweet Smell of Success, the Ten Commandments

BULLET: Les Violents, Tamango


85 July 1958

THREE STARS: L’Eau vive, Touch of Evil

TWO STARS: Baby Face Nelson

ONE STAR: the Cranes Are Flying, Liberté surveillée, the Long Hot Summer

BULLET: Chaque jour a son secret, En légitime défense, Gideon’s Day, Rose Bernd


86 August 1958

FOUR STARS: the Quiet American

TWO STARS: Jet Pilot

ONE STAR: the Cobweb, From Texas to Hell, Legend of the Lost, Lo scalopo

BULLET: the Buster Keaton Story, Edge of the City, Tea and Sympathy


89 November 1958

THREE STARS: Dreams (Bergman), the Goddess, La Grande Illusion, the Left Handed Gun, Une Vie

TWO STARS: La Vie à deux, the Tarnished Angels

ONE STAR: Cette nuit-là, En cas de malheur, the Key, Le Gorille vous salue bien, Les tricheurs, Sans famille

BULLET: Desire Under the Elms, Fortunella, God’s Little Acre, La Fille de Hambourg, Soldats inconnus


92 February 1959

THREE STARS: Man of the West

TWO STARS: the Last Hurrah

ONE STAR: the Good Soldier Švejk, Masters of the Congo Jungle, Poslednyaya noch', the Vikings

BULLET: Christine, Le Cerf-volant du bout du monde, Muhomatsu no issho, the Old Man and the Sea, the Roots of Heaven, South Pacific


93 March 1959

FOUR STARS: Vertigo

THREE STARS: A Time to Love and a Time to Die, Les Rendez-vous du diable, Run of the Arrow

TWO STARS: the Naked and the Dead, Ztracenci

BULLET: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the Defiant Ones, La Loi, Les Naufrageurs, Raintree County


94 April 1959

THREE STARS: Brink of Life

TWO STARS: Le Beau Serge

ONE STAR: Nachts wenn der Teufel kam, Twilight for the Gods

BULLET: Asphalte, Faibles femmes, Gigi, Guinguette, In Love and War, the Inn of Sixth Happiness, La Femme et le pantin, Le Petit prof’, Parash Pathar, Separate Tables


95 May 1959

FOUR STARS: Ivan the Terrible, Ugetsu

THREE STARS: La Tête contre les murs, Les Cousins, Moi un noir

TWO STARS: Prison (Bergman), Wind Across the Everglades

ONE STAR: the Hanging Tree, Les Motards, the Perfect Furlough, the Quiet One, Toi le venin, Une simple histoire

BULLET: Bell Book and Candle, the Big Country, Bobosse, Derrière la grande muraille, La Tempesta, the Sheriff of Fractured Jaw, Torpedo Run


96 June 1959

FOUR STARS: Wild Strawberries

THREE STARS: Goha

TWO STARS: Les Tripes au soleil, Rock-A-Bye Baby, Tarawa Beachhead

ONE STAR: I Want to Live!, Les Dragueurs,

BULLET: the Black Orchid, Des femmes disparaissent, La prima notte, Marie-Octobre, the Proud Rebel, Un témoin dans la ville


97 July 1959

FOUR STARS: Hiroshima mon amour, Les Quatre cents coups, Rio Bravo

THREE STARS: Middle of the Night

TWO STARS: Some Came Running

ONE STAR: Don’t Go Near the Water, Du Rififi chez les femmes, the Fly

BULLET: Compulsion, Nella città l'inferno, Room at the Top


99 September 1959

THREE STARS: Rally Round the Flag, Boys!

ONE STAR: Day of the Outlaw

BULLET: Das Mädchen Rosemarie, La venganza, La violetera, the Reluctant Debutante


101 November 1959

THREE STARS: Deux hommes dans Manhattan

TWO STARS: the Horse Soldiers, Imitation of Life, Ossessione

ONE STAR: Anatomy of a Murder, La passe du diable

BULLET: Europa di notte, Fate of a Man, L'ambitieuse, Le Chemin des écoliers, the Magician, Some Like it Hot, the 39 Steps (1959)


111 September 1960

TWO STARS: When Comedy Was King

ONE STAR: Cash McCall, Le legioni di Cleopatra, Who Was That Lady?

BULLET: Das kunstseidene Mädchen, La Dragée haute, La sfida, SOS Pacific, Une gueule comme la mienne


124 October 1961

THREE STARS: La morte-saison des amours, Underworld USA

TWO STARS: Le Monocle noir

ONE STAR: Ocean’s 11, Odissea nuda

BULLET: Antinea l'amante della città sepolta, Cry For Happy, Il ladro di Bagdad (Vailati), La Fête espagnole (Vierne), La Fille aux yeux d’or, Le goût de la violence, Mourir d'amour, the Young Savages


126 December 1961

FOUR STARS: Two Rode Together

TWO STARS: Chronique d’un été

ONE STAR: Flaming Star, L'Enclos, La Pendule à Salomon,

BULLET: Amours célèbres, Le Rendez-vous, One-Eyed Jacks, Return to Peyton Place, the Sundowners, Tout l'or du monde, Victim


138 December 1962

THREE STARS: Ride the High Country, Sweet Bird of Youth

ONE STAR: Cape Fear, Electra, La Poupée, the Longest Day, Vom Zaren bis zu Stalin

BULLET: A Cold Wind in August, Birdman of Alcatraz, the Counterfeit Traitor, Et Satan conduit le bal, L’Oiseau de paradis, Le Chevalier de Pardaillan, Virginie


150 / 151 December 1963 / January 1964

THREE STARS: the Nutty Professor

TWO STARS: Als twee druppels water, Cleopatra (Mankiewicz), En compagnie de Max Linder, Hands Over the City, Hallelujah the Hills, the Mistress (Sjöman)

ONE STAR: Cronaca familiare, Peau de banane

BULLET: Chair de poule, Château en Suède, the Condemned of Altona, D’où viens-tu Johnny?, La Foire aux cancres, Le Journal d’un fou, Méfiez-vous, mesdames!, Pouic-Pouic, the Wastrel


158 September 1964

THREE STARS: Bande à part (hey, wait a minute…)

TWO STARS: Guns of Wyoming, La vie à l'envers

ONE STAR: Le Gros Coup, Paris — When It Sizzles, Station Six Sahara

BULLET: Alta infedeltà, La donna scimmia, Lilies of the Field, Pourquoi Paris?, Sedotta e abbandonata, Un soir... par hasard, Une souris chez les hommes, the Visit


169 August 1965

THREE STARS: A High Wind in Jamaica, Cry of Battle

ONE STAR: the Knack (and How to Get It)

BULLET: the Dirty Game, Furia à Bahia pour OSS 117, La grosse caisse, Le bambole, Merveilleuse Angélique, 36 Hours


170 September 1965

THREE STARS: L'Amour à la chaine, Marie-Chantal contre le Dr Kah, Young Cassidy

TWO STARS: Je vous salue Mafia!, Les Baisers, Viva Las Vegas

ONE STAR: Flucht nach Berlin, La bugiarda, Sex and the Single Girl, Tokyo Olympiad, Un mari à prix fixe

BULLET: A Very Special Favor, Attack and Retreat, Avec amour et avec rage, Casanova 70, En fremmed banker på, L’Enfer dans la peau, Le Lit à deux places, Marco Polo


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Rayon Vert
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#915 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Nov 25, 2016 11:35 pm

Thanks for your work! Especially given this:
domino harvey wrote:(As a side note, dear God was it a pain trying to figure out what some of these films were based on their French titles!)

(When I read the Godard Cahiers reviews in the original French, I frequently have to refer to Milne to know what films he's talking about!)

Surprised at how low he ranks a lot of films, like Seven Men from Now or Sweet Smell of Success.

4 stars for Vertigo! That's terrific. Based on reading his reviews, most of the time I've found myself in agreement with a lot of his opinions (with notable exceptions, like Two Rode Together), and he's a pleasure to read. Going through this list, I feel validated when I see that he didn't think much of The Magician, especially given how he loved Bergman during these years (and I have to agree with him that Dreams is splendid), but then he really overestimates Brink of Life.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#916 Post by domino harvey » Fri Nov 25, 2016 11:52 pm

Dreams made such an impact that it actually had a surprise repeat appearance a couple months later in the Counseil Des Dix from January of 1959 (where it once again garnered almost universal praise from participants, mostly three or four stars)-- I'm not sure if this is the only film to be featured more than one month, but it's the only one I noticed during my research at least. I don't care much for Dreams or Brink of Life, but the former certainly cast its spell on the Cahiers crew.

Godard was the only one to bullet the Magician, but it was not as warmly received as other Bergman films (I'm trying to think what they may have objected to here thematically and am coming up blank-- I guess I need to give it a fresh revisit in advance of our forthcoming Bergman List), with Rivette and Moullet giving the film one star, though it received three stars from three of the other in-house panelists, including Pierre Kast.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#917 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:19 am

The four star movies are almost all nearly undisputed masterpieces these days, apart from the aforementioned Two Rode Together, but- not having seen it- surely the most mysterious is the CIA funded The Quiet American? Is there some context I'm missing there?

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#918 Post by jsteffe » Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:40 am

domino harvey wrote:La Dernière nuit (dir. “Y Raisman” — Note: I have no idea what this movie is!)
It's The Last Night / Poslednyaya noch' (1937) by the Soviet director Yuli Raizman.

Excellent work, by the way! Thank you for compiling this.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#919 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Nov 26, 2016 1:00 am

matrixschmatrix wrote:apart from the aforementioned Two Rode Together, but- not having seen it- surely the most mysterious is the CIA funded The Quiet American? Is there some context I'm missing there?
I haven't seen it either, but Godard in '58 was far from the radical left-winger he later became.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#920 Post by domino harvey » Sat Nov 26, 2016 1:02 am

jsteffe wrote:
domino harvey wrote:La Dernière nuit (dir. “Y Raisman” — Note: I have no idea what this movie is!)
It's The Last Night / Poslednyaya noch' (1937) by the Soviet director Yuli Raizman.

Excellent work, by the way! Thank you for compiling this.
Awesome, thanks-- miraculously it was the only one I couldn't figure out! Legit gave myself a headache squinting at Cahiers's shitty typeface while compiling this (and of course they overhauled the look in the mid 60s to look cleaner/more legible, just when Godard started contributing less and less!)

Matrix, Godard went on to name the Quiet American as the Best Film of 1958 BTW. You can read Milne's translation of Godard's effusive (and elusive) Quiet American review in Godard on Godard, though I'm not sure it will make it any clearer. Essentially Mankiewicz's film fascinated Godard for how it engaged with cinematic questions Godard was beginning to wrestle with, the first concerning Mank's conflicting roles in the filmmaking process as both author of the sound and author of the image. He also cast Giorgia Moll in Contempt as Jack Palance's endlessly-translating secretary based on her work here, and the elements of language and international "redubbing" in that picture are echoes from observations raised here, fueling Godard's career-long fascination with sound in visual mediums.

Also worth noting for those wanting to check it out that one of the rarer three star titles in this round-up, Pierre Kast's otherwise unavailable La morte-saison des amours, is streaming free on Amazon Prime with English subs as the Season of Love. It's, uh, not a three star film.

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#921 Post by swo17 » Sat Nov 26, 2016 1:23 am

domino harvey wrote:Also worth noting for those wanting to check it out that one of the rarer three star titles in this round-up, Pierre Kast's otherwise unavailable La morte-saison des amours, is streaming free on Amazon Prime with English subs as the Season of Love. It's, uh, not a three star film.
Because it's better or worse?

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domino harvey
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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#922 Post by domino harvey » Sat Nov 26, 2016 1:31 am

It is utterly unremarkable. I know Kast and Godard were friends and co-workers, but Godard had no problem giving Chabrol two stars early on so he must have responded to something in Kast's film. But, as the Quiet American situation shows, it's not always easy to figure what-- I mean, Dabat's Et Satan conduit le bal gets soooo much more mileage out of the lovers romping around an estate thing, and that was unilaterally bulleted by every CDD panelist, not just Godard!

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#923 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Nov 26, 2016 6:59 am

Thanks domino, this is great!

You know, something I'd love to see is someone who started out as a critic and then moved into filmmaking return to film criticism later in life and reassess some of their earlier writing (not Godard in particular. I'd just as much love to see Paul Schrader's thoughts on his body of work, etc). I'm really curious whether there would be any particularly radical shift in opinion from that, or presumably whether people prefer to move on without looking back at previous opinions, or overwrite them with new ones.

I'm also curious about what seeing a glut of films that are popular at a particular time does to 'rankings'. I often wonder whether someone tired or desperate for some novelty evaluates yet another western (or these days superhero film!) from that perspective, which is different from a future era looking back and enjoying seeing how westerns were dominating the release schedules at a particular time (which might have caused annoyance at the time because the flood of a particular type of film might be seen to be endless! Especially to a critic who might have to sit through them all!). General audiences have moved on and people who find a particular genre or trend especially interesting get to explore the films, from big blockbusters, to box office failures, to quirky offshoots, etc in much more elaborate detail, finding exciting connections and throughlines of connection to make an era even more valuable. (Isn't that kind of how film noir came about, in the way that post-war French critics were exposed to cyncial American thrillers 'all at once' and therefore were able to formulate a genre that linked such films together?)

I would also say that the wonderful thing about these lists (and our own list projects, and something like those 42nd Street or video nasty trailer compilation DVD) is just the chance to hear about rarer films that have slipped into obscurity for various reasons. Even if it is just hearing the title, that is a start! In something like this list, it can also show the seemingly unassailable classics like Vertigo at their contemporary moment of release surrounded by other films that had less staying power in the culture. That's always a valuable thing to be given an awareness of that helps to give context to 'masterpieces', as well as raise awareness of the overlooked, in any period.

Plus of course there's the specific conversation about Godard and his role in criticism that this is important for too. The next thing we really need to see is how everyone else on this Council voted, and whether Godard maybe countered some particularly effusive praise, or opposition for a particular film in his own rankings! (This is where just a ranking is a start but never enough in itself - you need a bit of discussion to hash out the rankings, and even better if it turns into a roundtable discussion between critics on their opinions!)

For example I'm amused by the three star rating to Grand Illusion, which I presume is relating to the then recently reconstructed by Renoir re-release of the film. How was Renoir seen by the 'Young Turks' at that point?

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#924 Post by domino harvey » Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:14 pm

These are great thoughts!

You're right to want to compare Godard's rankings to his co-panelists, but honestly, they're rarely all that different from the in-house staff's overall impressions by more than a degree. I don't think this is evidence of conformity as much as it is proof that these men banded together because they generally agreed on the same movies and broadly shared the same vision and impressions of the medium. I don't want to get into just posting the full CDD charts (which is why I included the issue numbers, so those curious can look them up themselves), but using your Grand Illusion example, here’s that full chart for that month:

Image

Renoir was always universally beloved by the Cahiers crew, and Godard liked his late-period work more than even his fellow Cahiers critics.

One thing to keep in mind is that Godard threw around four star ratings at a far lower rate than his co-Conseilers, and many of the films he gave three stars to ended up making his yearly Best Of lists. Take, for instance, Astruc's Une Vie, which is probably the most widely-read of Godard's Cahiers articles given that it's the one anthologized in the French New Wave Reader. No one could read the bombastic praise Godard dollops out and think it was "only" a three-star affair for Godard. So clearly ratings are a bit skewed for the reviewer-- it's best to think of three stars, for Godard, as a four-star review (and the Conseil initially only used to go to three stars, though the option for the fourth came before Godard joined) and a four-star review being like an A+ in relation to an A for three stars.

You’re quite right that these charts show that much of what we think we know about film history is fleeting— I’m working on compiling a "full" study of Nouvelle Vague works and directors from this period and while most people only associate ten or so names with the movement, at the time Cahiers themselves included over 150 young French filmmakers who made movies in the wave during the first couple years of the movement (and yes, they even include the directors they hated). Several contemporary books and journals on the New Wave highlight that a conservative estimate puts the tally of directors generally regarded as part of the movement closer to a hundred than a handful. And yet it’s just sickening how few of these films are available anywhere on DVD or Blu-ray, much less how few of those are in English-friendly releases. One of the most fascinating eras of film-making is already all but erased, and like a lot of complex movements, we’re left with the most visible participants without getting a fuller picture. If you don’t have access to back channels where film-lovers are compiling rare TV screenings and foreign release rips and often providing superb custom subs, then your chances of even beginning to scrape the surface with regards to the movement are microscopic, unless you lived in France or near an art house circuit during the sixties. Take the aforementioned Une Vie, which is now better-known through Godard's perspective on it than it is from people watching it, as there's no commercial release of it anywhere!

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Re: Jean-Luc Godard

#925 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Nov 26, 2016 1:23 pm

domino harvey wrote:One thing to keep in mind is that Godard threw around four star ratings at a far lower rate than his co-Conseilers, and many of the films he gave three stars to ended up making his yearly Best Of lists.
On this point, it seems important to really consider the description of the different star-rankings. If I was just seeing 3 out of 4 stars without any description, I'd assume it's "good to very good". But actually it says "absolute must-see". That's a lot more like a 3.5 out of 4, or a 4.5 out of 5 even.

Same with the lower rankings. 2 out 4 I'd blindly take to mean "OK, but mediocre". Actually it's a "must-see". Which in my mind I would associate more with a 3 out of 4. Only the bullet ranking indicates a bad film actually.

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