The films of Jean-Luc Godard have been written about perhaps more than any other cinematic works, often through the lens of cultural theory, but not nearly enough attention has been paid to the role of designed objects in his films. Collages of art, literature, language, objects, and words, Godard’s films have an instant, impactful, graphic quality, but are far from simple pop artifacts. The thesis this presentation derives from, “Objects to be Read, Words to be Seen: Design and Visual Language in the Films of Jean-Luc Godard 1959–1967,” explores and interprets the role of visual language within the films—title sequences, intertitles, handwritten utterances, and printed matter in the form of newspapers, magazines, and posters.
By examining le graphisme within the cultural context of Paris during the 1960s, this thesis seeks to amplify the significance of graphic design in Godard’s first fifteen films, beginning with 1960’s À Bout de Souffle (Breathless) and ending with 1967’s Weekend. While Godard was not a practicing graphic designer in the traditional sense, he was an amateurde design, an autodidact whose obsession with designed objects, graphic language and print media resulted in the most iconic body of work in 1960s France. [Laura Forde]
David Hudson is gathering links to online tributes to the filmmaker. Below, FSFF has assembled an (updated/expanded) list of links to online and freely accessible studies of Chabrol's magnificent cinematic legacy.
"What Rohmer does, in essence, is precisely to give space to this elusive life of the heart, expanding the arena for those subtle and important personal choices which most of the time, for most of us, are squeezed below the surface made up of work and more conscious or pressing demands", Judith Williamson [Deadline at Dawn: Film Criticism 1980-1990, Marion Boyars, London, 1993, p. 180]
“After all I do not say, I show. I show people who move and speak. That is all I know how to do, but that is my true subject.” Eric Rohmer ["Letter to a Critic Concerning my Contes moraux"]
"Rohmer remained true to a restrained, rationalist aesthetic, close to the principles of the 18th-century thinkers whose words he frequently cited in his movies. And yet [his] work was warmed by an undercurrent of romanticism and erotic yearning, made perhaps all the more affecting for never quite breaking through the surface of his elegant, orderly films"
A shocked Film Studies For Free mourns the passing of Eric Rohmer, one of the key directors of the French New Wave and one of the most eloquent founders, audiovisually and verbally, of the discourse of modern cinema.
David Hudson of The Auteurs is busily gathering links to a fantastic range of eulogies to, and other worthwhile material about, this filmmaker. Below, FSFF offers up its own (customary) tribute in the form of a list of links to online, freely accessible, and notable scholarly resources which explore Rohmer's magnificent body of cinematic work:
YouTube videos (part 1 and part 2): excerpts of Claire Denis's film of Serge Daney interviewing Jacques Rivette on his early interest in filmmaking, his days with Cahiers du cinéma, and his first meetings with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer (from 3 mins 30 secs). A must watch for those who haven't yet seen Denis's Jacque Rivette, The Watchman.
Film Studies For Free was delighted to discover that Douglas Morrey's wonderful PhD thesis on the work of Jean-Luc Godard was now openly accessible online. Then, ecstatic, it found two more, highly worthwhile pieces of graduate research work on that filmmaker. The direct links are given below for your own delectation, delight, and film-educational betterment....
Film Studies For Free is working on a longer post on video essays, but it had to rush to its readers, in the meantime, with the hot news of a great podcast interview with French director and film essayist Agnès Varda by a longstanding admirer and acquaintance of hers, radio journalist Ruth Seymour for the Politics of Culture slot at KCRW. Their principal topic of conversation was Varda's latest documentary Les Plages d'Agnès/ The Beaches of Agnès (France, 2009). The interview has been online since yesterday and FSFF sends its thanks for the rapid tip-off to Sasha Berman.
'In 1975, it was the Year of the Woman. [French TV channel] Antenne 2 asked seven female filmmakers the question : “How does it feel to be a woman?”. They had to answer with a seven-minute movie. Agnès Varda chose to answer with the cine-leaflet “Réponses de femmes”. It is a possible answer concerning women’s bodies and the feminine condition. In this short movie, women, from female children to old women, chat about sex, desire, advertising and children (to have some or not) : “our object-body, our taboo-body, our body with or without children, our sex, etc...”. How can we experience our body? How can we experience our sex? On a white set, women, dressed or naked, try to answer the question “What is a woman?”. One answers: “To be a woman is to be born in a female body”. Nothing more, no idea of feminine essence, or predisposition to motherhood, ideas against which the feminist movement was struggling. A pregnant and naked woman, dancing and laughing loud, made a lot of viewers react : Antenne 2 got a lot of written reproaches. This cine-leaflet was aired on Antenne 2 the 23rd of June 1975. It was also nominated to Cesars 76, category documentary short-movie.' By Feminism in Cinema weblog.
The exercise probably only shows that there's a mighty long way to go with this format for this author before anything near full proficiency in it can be claimed (for example, the voiceover commentary would have sounded a lot better had the person delivering it not been quite so nervous/terrified during the recording). But it's a good enough beginning for what FSFF sincerely hopes will go on to be a regular, if occasional, feature.
The essay has been produced, as previously promised, to coincide with, and thus to contribute to, the final day of the wonderful Chabrol blogathon hosted by Flickhead's blog (see HERE for a list of all the fantastic contributions, so far, to the event).
Some supplementary material about this strange, beguiling film Les Bonnes femmes/The Good Time Girls(France/Italy, 1960, directed by Chabrol), together with a link to a full transcript of the video essay's commentary and some pedagogical and critical reflections on the process of making it, wlll be added to this post as soon as possible. So, do please come back for that. (Updated July 8, 2009: transcript accessible HERE).
But, time was of the essence to join in with the blogathon. So all else can wait. Here below, then, is the essay, archived at FSFF's new supplementary site, for related videos, at Vimeo. It contains a few significant plot spoilers (as few as possible...). Also, please note that, for the purposes of its critical-scholarly analysis and commentary, the essay transforms many of the original elements of the film that it 'quotes', employing newly created still images (and new sounds), slowed motion, and quite heavy (at times) re-editing (including reordering) of image and sound/music.
In other words, you must see the original film, if you haven't done so already.Les Bonnes femmes is currently available on DVD thanks to Kino Video (Region 1 only). It can be ordered from that company's website HERE, or from Amazon.com HERE
To paraphrase the kind of clichéd British crime drama dialogue in which the classy Chabrol himself would never indulge, Young has 'plenty of previous' when it comes to the films of this near octogenarian: he is the author of the Claude Chabrol Project website which, among other great resources, hosts detailed interviews with and articles about Chabrol.
The Flickhead blogathon is sure to link to further comprehensive web resources on Chabrol, so below, just to flag up the e-event, is Film Studies For Free's little list of links to online scholarly highlights pertaining to this as yet most under-studied great director.
