Godard Mon Amour

Movies to See Right Now

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THE RIDER

Two reminders:  First, check out my running list of Best Moves of 2018 – So Far.  You can already stream some of them.

Second, remember that tonight PBS airs Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.  Set your DVR.

OUT NOW

  • The MUST SEE is The Rider. A young man’s rodeo injury threatens to keep him from his passions. Filmed in South Dakota with non-professional actors, The Rider is emotionally powerful and genuine – and not a bit corny.
  • Tully, the insightful and compelling dark comedy from the brilliant and brave team of Diablo Cody, Jason Reitman and Charlize Theron.
  • A Quiet Place is as satisfyingly scary as any movie I’ve seen in a good long time. Very little gore and splatter, but plenty of thrills. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, but I enjoyed and admired this one.
  • Godard, Mon Amour is, at the same time, a tribute to the genius of Jean-Luc Godard’s early cinema and a satire on the insufferable tedium of the political dilettantism that squandered the rest of Godard’s filmmaking career. This is a very inventive film, written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist). The more Godard films that you’ve seen, the more you will enjoy the wit of Godard, Mon Amour.
  • Thom Zimny’s excellent HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher explores Elvis’ artistic journey.
  • I liked Al Pacino’s portrayal of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno as his storied career was killed by scandal in HBO’s Paterno.

ON VIDEO
Because Mackenzie Davis brings such a magical quality to her title role in Tully, my video pick is an earlier starring role in a little-known indie. That film is a fine first feature with a GREAT title for a contemporary noir thriller: Bad Turn Worse. Bad Turn Worse is available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis star in Jason Reitman’s TULLY, playing at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 4 – 17, 2018. Courtesy of SFFILM.

Movies to See Right Now

by
THE RIDER

The MUST SEE is The Rider, which I’ll be writing about this weekend. A young man’s rodeo injury threatens to keep him from his passions. Filmed in South Dakota with non-professional actors, The Rider is emotionally powerful and genuine – and not a bit corny. It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2018 – So Far.

OUT NOW

This week’s other top picks:

  • A Quiet Place is as satisfyingly scary as any movie I’ve seen in a good long time. Very little gore and splatter, but plenty of thrills. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, but I enjoyed and admired this one.
  • Claire’s Camera is the latest nugget from writer-director Hong Sang-soo, that great observer of awkward situations and hard-drinking.  Stars Min-hee Kim (The Handmaiden) and Isabelle Huppert.
  • Godard, Mon Amour is, at the same time, a tribute to the genius of Jean-Luc Godard’s early cinema and a satire on the insufferable tedium of the political dilettantism that squandered the rest of Godard’s filmmaking career. This is a very inventive film, written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist). The more Godard films that you’ve seen, the more you will enjoy the wit of Godard, Mon Amour.
  • The wonderfully dark, dark comedy The Death of Stalin is still in a few theaters, and it’s worth the drive.
  • Outside In: Now on Netflix (and in one Bay Area theater), this fine Lynn Shelton drama about a man returning to his community after 20 years in prison is an acting showcase for Kaitlin Dever (Justified), Jay Duplass (Transparent) and, especially, Edie Falco. Falco’s performance is stunning.
  • Thom Zimny’s excellent HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher explores Elvis’ artistic journey.
  • I liked Al Pacino’s portrayal of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno as his storied career was killed by scandal in HBO’s Paterno.

Not to see:

  • The completely indecipherable Ismael’s Ghosts, a waste of a talented cast and my time.
  • Bobby Kennedy for President – a disappointing Netflix documentary that recycles the best of RFK’s video clips but ignores many pivotal aspects to RFK’s journey, most especially his personal feud with LBJ.

ON VIDEO
Actress Charlize Theron, director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody are coming out with Tully this weekend. So this week’s video pick is their game-changing comedy Young Adult. Its cynicism reminds me of a Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder screenplay (high praise). Note: This is NOT a film for someone expecting a light comedy. Young Adult is available on DVD from Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV
On May 5 and 6, Turner Classic Movies presents one of my personal favorites, and it will be introduced by the Czar of Noir Eddie Muller on Noir Alley. Director Richard Fleischer’s overlooked film noir masterpiece The Narrow Margin (1952) is a taut 71 minutes of tension. Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train. Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target. It’s highly recommended on my list of Overlooked Noir.

Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN

GODARD, MON AMOUR: squandering artistic genius with political dilletantism

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Louis Garrel in A scene from Michel Hazanavicious’s GODARD, MON AMOUR, playing at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 4 – 17, 2018. Courtesy of SFFILM.

Godard, Mon Amour is a bitingly funny portrait of flawed genius. Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) pays tribute to the genius of filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s early career while satirizing Godard’s personal excesses.

Godard, Mon Amour traces the three pivotal years after Godard married Anne Wiazemsky, the 19-year-old star of his La Chinoise. Godard (Louis Garrel) is age 37. In the preceding seven years he has helped revolutionize cinema as a leader of the French New Wave. He has made three masterpieces: Breathless, Contempt and Band of Outsiders. This is the Godard of “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.”

But now Godard has become a doctrinaire Maoist and rejects his past work. He sees himself as a thought leader of revolutionary politics – but that is a delusion. He’s just a political amateur, a poseur, a tourist.

Stacy Martin (center) in a scene from Michel Hazanavicious’s GODARD, MON AMOUR, playing at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 4 – 17, 2018. Courtesy of SFFILM.

“Godard is dead”, Godard declaims. But young Anne (Stacy Martin) has hitched her star to the old Godard, the master of cinematic innovation and rock star, not this new dogmatic Godard.

This is also a snapshot of 1967, when many on the French Left believed that revolution in France was around the corner.  By 1969, it was apparent to virtually everyone that this had been a mirage, that revolution was not going to happen.  To everyone but Godard, who stubbornly stuck with his dogma.

Louis Garrel, his dreamboat looks glammed down with Godard’s bald spot, is often very funny as he deadpans his way through Godard’s pretensions.  In Godard, Mon Amour, Godard’s thinking has become so devoid of humor, nuance, texture and ambiguity that his art has become one-dimensional and boring.  Indeed, I have found all of the Godard films since 1967’s Weekend to range from disappointing to completely unwatchable.  Godard is alive at age 87 and still making movies today – and they all suck.

In his very biting send-up of Godard’s personal failings, Michel Hazanavicius pays tribute to Godard’s groundbreaking cinematic techniques.  We see jump cuts, breaking the fourth wall, shifting between color and negative imagery,
subtitling the characters’ interior thoughts over their spoken dialogue and references to earlier movies.  It’s all very witty.

There’s even a motif of repeatedly broken spectacles as an jomage to Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run.  In one of the more obvious jokes, Godard and Anne debate whether either would choose to appear nude in a movie while they walk around their room in complete, full-frontal nudity.

The more of Godard’s films you have seen, the more enjoyable you will find Godard, Mon Amour. If you don’t get the allusions to Godard’s filmmaking, you may find the protagonist of Godard, Mon Amour to be miserably tedious.  I saw Godard, Mon Amour at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). It opens this Friday in the Bay Area.