sorry, but every time anna karina looks at the camera, i get weak-kneed
Jeff and I just double-featured early Jean-Luc Godard with his first feature (Breathless) and his third (A Woman is a Woman). Like it needs to be said again, but I'm a huge, ridiculous fan of early Godard. Nothing else in all of cinema has been as obviously inspirational to me, except maybe Wong Kar-Wai. At the drop of a hat I will bore all my friends with my thoughts on how, why, and what Godard does/did that is/was special. A lot of it is just excitedly reiterating stuff I've read online, but some of it's original thought on the subject. Much of it boils down to examining how he breaks the rules of "conventional Hollywood cinema" and then ranting and raving about why he did it -- about how it's always in aid of something, never just for the sake of being cool.
But watching these two with Jeff, I was really struck by noting the rules he didn't break. Godard films still involve distinctly sympathetic and interesting characters, fully realized and portrayed, who want things, who have obstacles in their paths, who have personal conflicts and dramas with those around them, who change as the story goes and/or come to a resolution of their conflict by the movie's close. They still increase the stakes as the story goes, and each scene in fact stems organically out of what came before. In short, for all his Brechtian song and dance and all those deliberately jarring whistles and bells, he's still making narrative films. You may be able to do that without the same frills and syntax audiences are used to, but you can't do it without stories and characters, though god knows the genre called "comedy" sure seems to try.
Man, these early films do have some rough spots, slow moments where a scene drags or the handheld camerawork (though beautiful) feels a little inexpert, but rarely do performance, plot, or dialogue fall short. Which is to say that he may have been a brilliant and landscape-changing pioneer of the language and theory of cinema, but Jean-Luc Godard was also a real storyteller who took (during the early phase) his role seriously. I think that's something I love about these films. Not just the rulebreaking and the "sense of whimsy" as I so often find myself calling it, but that they are at their heart still good stories.
I'm exhausted. Exhausted but inspired. My brain is buzzing but my eyelids are drooping. Still, I had to gush, even if it was ineloquent and without a real point.
Talked to Jeff a little about ideas for #6 tonight. Before that, I burned my left hand surprisingly badly with molten burger grease. Before that, I got an Alphaville poster in the mail, an ebay purchase from so long ago that I'd forgotten I'd ever bought it. (It's Jean-Luc Godard day!) Before that, I spent the day at Laika, alternately scrambling to meet deadlines and shopping for bargain books on Amazon.com, building a list for when next I actually have money.
If today's Godard Day, then tomorrow is Stay Home And Write Day, Spend No Money Day, and Catch Up On Sleep Day.
I look forward to celebrating those days tomorrow. Think I'll start that last one right now.