Godard's latest provocation, and a tribute to his "brother" in cinema

This week on the Funhouse I’m paying tribute to filmmakers whose work I love: the Kuchar brothers, Nicholas Ray, and Marco Ferreri. Thus, I thought it would be only fitting to pass along links to two new short works by a gent who dwells in the top of my personal Pantheon, Jean-Luc Godard, aka “Uncle Jean” for those who care.

Godard’s “older brother” Eric Rohmer died some weeks back, as I chronicled here. Well, there was a very special night Feb. 8th at the Cinematheque Francaise, where various friends and collaborators of Rohmer shared their memories of the man. The participants included Barbet Schroeder, Arielle Dombasle, and Claude Chabrol. Uncle Jean was present in the form of a short film that he and the Cinematheque have allowed to be shown on the Internet. The page containing Godard’s film and tributes by the other celebrities (in French, no subs) can be found here.

However, for those who don’t speak/read French, and would like to have the “in” references to Rohmer and Godard’s friendship decoded, I’d recommend visiting “The Auteurs” website to read the comments that were posted below the film, which basically translate Godard’s narration, and also explain what his references are about. The film is beautifully done (no surprise) and perhaps the grace note is JLG’s final citation of the last line of Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, “That was the happiest time we ever had.” Uncle Jean is getting sentimental in his old age, and it’s very touching. We’re very lucky to still have him around.

And because he is still primed and ready to make cinema, I should direct you to the weirdest “stunt” associated with any of his recent-vintage films. Various trailers have been posted online for his latest film, Socialisme, which is set to do the film festival circuit shortly. I linked to the original trailer for the film here.

Because he will always be a provocateur in addition to one of the premier cinema poets, though, he also has provided two other trailers that are wholly unique: their visuals comprise the *entire movie* played at very fast speed. Thus, you can “see” the whole film in its visual state, which means that Godard is either commenting on the nature of trailers “revealing” the heart of a movie — or he is possibly pissed at his producers or distributors. In any case, it’s a very weird experience to watch what is surely a 90-minute film flying by in four minutes, with onscreen titles explaining what one will encounter in the film (things, words, etc.).

Here is the four-minute version of the trailer:



And for those with real ADD, here is Godard’s one-and-a-half minute version:



And for those who’d just like to see the actual, “normal” trailer for the film, replete with English subtitles, here it is. The fact that “god” is part of the man’s name is not at all in accurate.

The "eldest brother" of the New Wave: Deceased Artiste Eric Rohmer

Eric Rohmer remains for me a “subject for further research” (phrase courtesy Andrew Sarris). I have thoroughly enjoyed the films of his I’ve seen, and yet I haven’t seen a good deal of his oeuvre. Perhaps this is due to the fact that he grouped his films in themed series, and although the films can be viewed individually with no loss of comprehension, the completist in me always wants to watch a series of films in the order it was released in. Perhaps it’s because Rohmer’s films are inherently literary in nature, and as such are chockfull of dialogue and characterization, as opposed to the poetry (Godard) and mystery (Rivette) found in my favorite New Wave films (although without question Rohmer stayed “purer” to his own vision of an intellectual cinema than Truffaut and Chabrol did to their initial rebel tendencies). Perhaps it’s simply because Rohmer made films the way Woody Allen has here in the U.S. — and although Woody favors Bergman as his model, I do see him more firmly following in the footsteps of Rohmer. Which is to say, he produced a steady flow of films that ranged from mini-masterworks to deftly realized but forgettable character studies (with his view of Paris and other locales being akin to Woody’s magical depictions of NYC). Sometimes the more films a filmmaker produces, the more I need to see everything he or she has made; sometimes I just see the “classics” and wind up losing track of the artist’s work in midstream.

In any case, what Rohmer did well, he did extremely well. And that was depicting the nuances of male-female relationships, keeping the viewer focused on the action by avoiding all “frills” (close-ups, flagrant musical soundtracks), and, let’s be honest here, casting really beautiful women as objects of desire, usually found in bathing suits on a beach.

A very early Rohmer work, shot in the early Fifties but not released until 1960, is the short Presentation, ou Charlotte et son Steak, starring none other than Uncle Jean himself, our hero Godard. He is so young here he’s not wearing glasses, has hair, and is ridiculously thin. He dubbed his own voice when Rohmer released the film in 1960, and Anna Karina and Stephane Audran dubbed the voices of the two actresses.



Rohmer’s first feature, Le Signe du Lion (1959), is very rarely seen on these shores. Here is a pretty thorough trailer from its initial release, running three minutes long:



And here is a key scene for Uncle Jean lovers, JLG does with a record player what Jean-Pierre Leaud later did with a CD in his terrific Grandeur et Decadense…. So does that mean Rohmer came up with this bit, or did Godard do it at parties to drive everyone nuts?



The opening of the short Nadja a Paris (1964), sans English subs (it’s all about location and girl here):



Rohmer’s first venture in color is BRIGHTLY colored, perhaps because it was released in the magic little year of 1967. La Collectioneuse can be found in its entirety here. This is a peek at the film's opening, and the quite lovely Haydéee Politoff dressed for some conversation:



Pauline at the Beach (1983) was one of Rohmer’s bigger arthouse hits over here. This is the U.S. home video trailer for the film. I love these odd artifacts of VHS Past:



Another underseen Rohmer title, starring the terrific Pascale Ogier (who died tragically at the age of 26), Full Moon in Paris (1984). Here, my friends, is a a little slice of the Gallic Eighties:



Rohmer’s final series was the “Tales of Four Seasons.” Here is the trailer for A Tale of Summer (1996):



I hate just linking to trailers, but Rohmer’s films are notoriously hard to excerpt. Here is the preview for The Lady and the Duke (2001), a period piece in which Rohmer made brilliant use of CGI to render period atmosphere:



And a wonderful rarity, Rohmer’s film of Jean Renoir and Henri Langlois speaking about the Lumiere bros, Louis Lumiere (1968):



My own offering is a slice of Rohmer acting for his friend Jacques Rivette in the intricate and wonderful miniseries Out 1 (1970). Rohmer plays an expert on Balzac who lectures Jean-Pierre Leaud on the mysterious group known as the “Thirteen.” This very dialogue- and seemingly plot-portent-laden scene comes in the series’ third episode after there has been *very* little dialogue. Thanks to Zach for pointing the existence of this English-subbed print out, and Paul for transferring it so awesomely:



And the chunkier second part of the scene:

Voices of the New Wave: translated vintage Cahiers

As the world mourns the passing of a guy (that Hughes dude) whose career started with fairly decent articles in National Lampoon, proceeded with some era-defining cute comedies (remember, the Eighties was the Empty Decade, kids), and then morphed into being involved with some seriously awful films (Dutch, Flubber, Beethoven, and the scarily atrocious Curly Sue), I sit around reading very rare translated articles from Cahiers du Cinema about the great American filmmakers, including le cineaste to the right (I'm so proud I own that book).

The location for this is the Blogspot of J.D. Copp, which can be found here. Copp has been translating from French to English lists, “thumbnail” director portraits, reviews, and snippets from interviews that appeared in Cahiers du Cinema in the magazine’s golden age (the Fifties and Sixties, when the staff was comprised of many fledgling filmmakers and wannabe auteurs). I found that the best way to review Copp’s blog is to simply move from page to page (read: month to month), but you can also use the search function atop his blog to search the names of certain directors who are discussed in the items he has translated.

One caveat: Copp’s mode of translation leans to the literal and in fact might be declared "stiff” in certain linguistic regards (sorry, I’m a copy editor by day, I notice this stuff). One could argue that he could be a little more liberal in terms of rewording the French text into truly smooth English, but the service he’s providing to those who don’t read French at all, or who can, but don’t have ready access to the Cahiers archives, is indeed invaluable. To add to the positive side of the ledger, he also translates passages from books he’s reading in French (thus far untranslated into English, obviously) that have anecdotes concerning the Cahiers “posse,” most notably Truffaut and Godard.

Copp’s specialty are the “best” lists compiled by the magazine, which included a special feature called the “Conseil des dix,” which found ten critics assigning critical “ratings” to the latest releases showing in Paris. Included were the “Glimmer Twins” of the nouvelle vague (right), as well as their many compatriots including Rohmer, Rivette, and Chabrol. In the process, Copp’s blog presents many oddball pairings of critic and subject, including this note from our fave, Uncle Jean (Godard), who was looking forward to seeing South Pacific:

Such is the opening of South Pacific from the Rodgers and Hammerstein operetta where Joshua Logan has redone these couplets in his own words. Apart from that, Todd-AO, six million dollars, the Hawaiian Islands, Mitzi Gaynor, Rossano Brazzi, John Kerr and under the paternal eye of Buddy Adler, introducing France Suyen [sic]. Doubt is not permitted, esthetically speaking, the next film of Joshua Logan will be colossal."

Copp’s blog also focuses a great deal of attention on Truffaut, who of course was the most radical critic of the New Wave group — therefore the head-scratching that occurs when one confronts the fact that his later films were like the ones he was raking over the coals in the Fifties. His original storyline for Godard’s A bout de souffle (Breathless) can be found here.

Copp has been doing posts that group together excerpts from Cahiers reviews of certain director’s work. Among these are Wilder, Wise, Wyler (no, no Welles yet), Mankiewicz, and even the critics’ fellow cineaste Alain Resnais. The two things that Copp has included that are invaluable for me especially are translations of Godard’s narration for his epic Histoire(s) du Cinema, which still doesn’t have a legal release in this country, because ALL the distributors are terrified of having to clear the clips Uncle Jean used without legal clearance. Copp’s translations of JLG’s cinematic poetry (the words, that is) begins here.

Oh, and yes, Copp has provided us with translations of excerpts from dozens of Cahiers reviews of the films of (you guessed this one, right?) Jerry Lewis —seen in the pic to the right, reading the magazine! I heavily recommend you check out Copp’s survey-post which can be found here.

But being a major fan of Joseph Levitch et son cinema (and that of Frank Tashlin, the man he arguably lifted his directorial style from), I must repeat some of the juicer passages here. In this case Copp’s literal translation produces some passages that appear as if they were made up by a humorist trying to prove a point about “the French and their love of Jerry Lewis” (my response to that one is always to remind the scoffer that they also loved Ford, Hitchcock, Ray, Fuller, Cassavetes, Altman, and Scorsese before we did):

Today, it is possible to define Lewis's character, yet, it is not possible to define the respective roles of the director, the actor and the character which he embodies. But is not the key to this universe precisely this division? And is not his visage, metaphorically, the mirror?

At the beginning, the Cahiers boys were not very kind, referring to Scared Stiff as containing the “usual clowning of two half-wits of American film.” The Money From Home review refers to Martin and Lewis as “a pair of nitwits even more nitwit than all the others.” A later Godard review of Hollywood or Bust found Uncle Jean proclaiming that “in 15 years [it will be seen] that The Girl Can't Help It functioned, in its time, meaning today (1957), as a fountain of youth where the cinema of now, meaning tomorrow (1972) drew a renewal of inspiration.”

The very curious review for The Ladies Man (which in French was titled “the Stud for these Ladies”) gets into what the reviewer calls “argument Lewis” (“argument for Lewis” or "the case of Lewis" would be a more liberal translation). The last sentences of the snippet Copp reproduces say “Yes, there is a depth to laughter but there is also a shame of laughter. From one to the next, the argument Lewis, to our mind, offers a good example.” I assume this means one should feel, by turns, deeply happy and full of shame watching a Jerry picture.

Other odd remarks include one about Visit to a Small Planet: “Ever since he has gone out on his own, Jerry Lewis no longer bases his films on homosexuality, but on powerlessness.” Whoa, baby. And of course there are the moments where the praise was incredible, as with a positive review of the unbelievably indulgent The Big Mouth: “The refinements of construction, the physical-metaphysical reach of the slightest gag, the tidal wave of madness which bowls over the dimensions of space, time and cinema, force us to dedicate a special issue to their analysis. The Big Mouth marks the center of gravity, the inevitable outcome of the previous films of Lewis.”

That's a far cry from the first review of a solo Jer movie, The Delicate Delinquent, which was one of many times the critics mentioned that Jerry was at his best when directed by Tashlin (which is definitely true): “With Tashlin absent, Dean Martin's partner is not the equal of Fernandel on his worst day.” Damn, that hurts.

Thanks to friend Paul for the discovery of Copp’s treasure trove of translation!