Godard’s Oblique Socialism

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Godard’s Oblique Socialism
The French director has always been dogmatic—he’d rather ask questions.

By Michael Atkinson


To grab hold of the angry snake that is Jean-Luc Godard’s new film, Film Socialisme, let’s consider one more time the sum of the French director’s revolutionary half-century intercourse with cinema.

Godard himself couldn’t care less, of course—always the most recalcitrant of world-class auteurs, he has stood outside of fashion for so long he comes close to defining a separate outlaw idea of what movies are. That’s only been the story after the ’60s, when Godard owned the era’s generational mojo as no other international filmmaker did and had a run of some 15 masterpieces in that span, from Breathless (1960) to Le Gai Savoir (1968), that is unparalleled in the medium’s history.

From the very first, Godard has been a rule-breaker to whom some audiences intuitively respond and others find maddening. Because Godard requires active filmwatching—the left side of your brain cannot doze—he has acquired a reputation as a cold, intellectually forbidding filmmaker. This notion is decimated by a second look at his ’60s movies, which are quintessentially spontaneous, intimate, heartfelt and sometimes as messy as a lover’s morning bed. These movies don’t merely depict things or tell neatly conceived and performed stories. They throb with life.

But Godard is now 80, and the ’60s are long gone. In the decades since, his films have dealt capriciously with narrative, and morphed testily into feature-length film essays that pick at anti-imperialist politics even as they still sigh in awe at the sight of sunlight in a girl’s hair. His films have aged as he has, and Film Socialisme (invading U.S. theaters this summer) is just as filled with ambivalence, bitterness, longing and bemusement as your average octogenarian. It’s also, by a notable stretch, Godard’s most irascible film ever, a defiantly incohesive rumination on … everything? .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11788/godards_oblique_socialism

[xchrom]

1. love him. nt