My Brain Hurts Mr. Godard
Watched 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her in class last night.
Godard. French New Wave.
French New Wave requires a tremendous amount of mental energy. You can't watch passively. It requires all or nothing of its viewer.
With a few exceptions, every time I sit down to a French New Wave film, I always want to run from the room, clutching my cranium. I'm convinced it is residual pain from being forced to watch Godard's Weekend as an undergrad.
And then something weird happens. My antenna catches the signal. My breathing regulates and stabilizes. My cinematic reset button gets pushed and suddenly I find myself hypnotized.
posted by Brandon | 7:51 AM
1 Comments:
I find myself constantly having that same reaction to Godard's films. Usually, I spend the first half of the film scratching my head and hoping the pain will fade, then something just clicks and everything seems to fall into place.
It is as if Godard suddenly decides to open Pandora's Box and reveal what's inside.
...as a side note...have you seen any of Godard's more recent work...mid-eighties on...stuff like Notre Musique and In Praise of Love, or going a little further back his insane yet beautiful version of Shakespeare's King Lear? It's unfortunate that his more recent stuff is ignored in the face of his work in the 60's.
Oh and one other thing...being at NYU I'd imagine you have access to a pretty vast wealth of material. If you can get your hands on a copy of Godard's Histoire du Cinema watch it...simply boggles the mind
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