Le chinoise.Most serious writing about Jean-Luc Godard tends to be both high-flown and forbidding, rather like the films it’s discussing. Translations from French to English or vice versa can make things even dicier. But according to the literary scholar Fredric Jameson, who contributes an enthusiastic preface and afterword, Reading with Jean-Luc Godard—a compendium of 109 three-page essays by 50 writers from a dozen countries, announced as the first in a series—launches “a new form” and “a new genre.”The brevity of each entry tends to confirm Jameson’s claim. The book can be described as an audience-friendly volume designed to occupy the same space between academia and journalism staked out by Notebook while proposing routes into Godard’s work provided by his eclectic reading—a batch of writers ranged alphabetically and intellectually from Louis Aragon, Robert Ardrey, Hannah Arendt, and Honoré de Balzac to François Truffaut, Paul Valéry,...
- 1/30/2024
- MUBI
With a knowledge of cinema history simply unparalleled even when it comes to the greatest film scholars, a new Martin Scorsese film also means a wealth of commentary as it pertains to the films that he thought of during development and production. As for his crime epic The Irishman, he’s been fairly tight-lipped about influences, but has now revealed a handful during an insightful conversation with Spike Lee. Check out the films (and a book mention) he discussed below, a few of which are now available in new brand-new restorations on Blu-ray.
Jean-Pierre Melville x 2
While Scorsese said he didn’t screen many cinematic influences with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto regarding the look of the film, it was important to get the tone of the movie right. “The tone of the movie, it had to be contemplative and an epic, but it had to be an intimate epic,” he said.
Jean-Pierre Melville x 2
While Scorsese said he didn’t screen many cinematic influences with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto regarding the look of the film, it was important to get the tone of the movie right. “The tone of the movie, it had to be contemplative and an epic, but it had to be an intimate epic,” he said.
- 10/27/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Arnaud Desplechin (with Anne-Katrin Titze) on an Ingmar Bergman film: "I remember this scene that I saw so young … in Cries & Whispers, where Erland Josephson is visiting Liv Ullmann.” Photo: Ed Bahlman
Arnaud Desplechin’s Oh Mercy!, co-written with Léa Mysius, shot by Irina Lubtchansky, music composed by Grégoire Hetzel stars Léa Seydoux, Roschdy Zem, Sara Forestier, and Antoine Reinartz.
Arnaud Desplechin on his Oh Mercy! composer: “It was not a Bernard Herrmann inspiration or George Delerue inspiration. It was just pure Grégoire Hetzel. It was a perfect fit with the plot. ” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the first instalment of my in-depth conversation with the director the morning before the North American premiere at the New York Film Festival we discussed his work with editor Laurence Briaud, listening to Ryuchi Sakamoto and Toru Takemitsu, not having a Bernard Herrmann or George Delerue inspiration for Grégoire Hetzel’s score, what...
Arnaud Desplechin’s Oh Mercy!, co-written with Léa Mysius, shot by Irina Lubtchansky, music composed by Grégoire Hetzel stars Léa Seydoux, Roschdy Zem, Sara Forestier, and Antoine Reinartz.
Arnaud Desplechin on his Oh Mercy! composer: “It was not a Bernard Herrmann inspiration or George Delerue inspiration. It was just pure Grégoire Hetzel. It was a perfect fit with the plot. ” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the first instalment of my in-depth conversation with the director the morning before the North American premiere at the New York Film Festival we discussed his work with editor Laurence Briaud, listening to Ryuchi Sakamoto and Toru Takemitsu, not having a Bernard Herrmann or George Delerue inspiration for Grégoire Hetzel’s score, what...
- 10/12/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Emmanuel Bourdieu on who could play Louis-Ferdinand Céline: "One is Denis Podalydès, who is my best friend. And the other was Denis Lavant whom I knew only as a fan." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Emmanuel Bourdieu, director and co-screenwriter of Louis-Ferdinand Céline (based on the book The Crippled Giant by Martin Hindus and starring Denis Lavant), spoke with me about the casting of the lead role, shooting in Belgium with cinematographer Marie Spencer and screenwriter Marcia Romano and editor Benoît Quinon on board, working with composer Grégoire Hetzel on creating a tune for a William Blake poem to characterize Philip Desmeules' portrayal of Hindus, and how Géraldine Pailhas helped with the costumes for Lucette (designed by Florence Scholtes and Christophe Pidre).
Denis Lavant as Louis-Ferdinand Céline with Bébert: "He could change the mood very very fast. And Denis knows how to do that.
At the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Emmanuel Bourdieu, director and co-screenwriter of Louis-Ferdinand Céline (based on the book The Crippled Giant by Martin Hindus and starring Denis Lavant), spoke with me about the casting of the lead role, shooting in Belgium with cinematographer Marie Spencer and screenwriter Marcia Romano and editor Benoît Quinon on board, working with composer Grégoire Hetzel on creating a tune for a William Blake poem to characterize Philip Desmeules' portrayal of Hindus, and how Géraldine Pailhas helped with the costumes for Lucette (designed by Florence Scholtes and Christophe Pidre).
Denis Lavant as Louis-Ferdinand Céline with Bébert: "He could change the mood very very fast. And Denis knows how to do that.
- 1/5/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Denis Lavant rotates the Alamo cube on Astor Place in New York: "Chaplin, burlesque, Buster Keaton, masque, Commedia dell'arte - it's the same." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Denis Lavant, Leos Carax's M Merde in Tokyo! and so much more in Holy Motors (with Edith Scob as Céline), Alex in Carax's debut film Boy Meets Girl, and opposite Juliette Binoche in Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood) and The Lovers On The Bridge (Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf), speaks about the creation of his most famous character and time with cinematographer Caroline Champetier in Paris before going to Tokyo. He gives background on the role he plays in Emmanuel Bourdieu's Louis-Ferdinand Céline and tries to come to grips with his relationship to tourist guest cats back home.
Denis Lavant goes into his special language that has become one of the most unforgettable personas in cinema when I ask him where M Merde came...
Denis Lavant, Leos Carax's M Merde in Tokyo! and so much more in Holy Motors (with Edith Scob as Céline), Alex in Carax's debut film Boy Meets Girl, and opposite Juliette Binoche in Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood) and The Lovers On The Bridge (Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf), speaks about the creation of his most famous character and time with cinematographer Caroline Champetier in Paris before going to Tokyo. He gives background on the role he plays in Emmanuel Bourdieu's Louis-Ferdinand Céline and tries to come to grips with his relationship to tourist guest cats back home.
Denis Lavant goes into his special language that has become one of the most unforgettable personas in cinema when I ask him where M Merde came...
- 12/28/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grande Bellezza” (The Great Beauty) (2013)
Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty has two small yet important facets in common with Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Both films begin with a profound quote that provides a key to the viewer for a full understanding of the film that follows. Both films use the music of “Dies Irae” (Requiem for my Friend, which includes Lacrimosa 2) by Zbigniew Preisner (the talented composer of Kieslowski’s Dekalog and The Three Colors trilogy) and Henryk Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony.
Just as Mallick used an interesting quote from the Book of Job, the opening quote for The Great Beauty is from Sorrentino’s favorite author Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night.
The quote is “To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary,...
Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty has two small yet important facets in common with Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Both films begin with a profound quote that provides a key to the viewer for a full understanding of the film that follows. Both films use the music of “Dies Irae” (Requiem for my Friend, which includes Lacrimosa 2) by Zbigniew Preisner (the talented composer of Kieslowski’s Dekalog and The Three Colors trilogy) and Henryk Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony.
Just as Mallick used an interesting quote from the Book of Job, the opening quote for The Great Beauty is from Sorrentino’s favorite author Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night.
The quote is “To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary,...
- 2/24/2014
- by Jugu Abraham
- DearCinema.com
From Dziga Vertov’s Camera-Eye to Buñuel’s sliced-up eyeball, along through Samuel Beckett’s cyclopic Buster Keaton, the lone eye returning its regard from the screen is an ocular sign of reflexivity, of cinema looking not only at us but at itself as well.
The two-eyed regard is the human gaze occurring inside of cinematic artifice, of one character looking at an object. One eye less and the regard becomes the camera’s gaze, reaching from within the film out into the viewer’s space. Whereas binocular vision asserts its perception of the world as truth, the monocular vision is the world elevated into photographic artifice. Close one eye, reduce perception by a dimension; open it again, and reveal the artifice of binocular vision too.
In Les Amants du Pont Neuf (English title: The Lovers on the Bridge), when Denis Lavant’s monomaniacal tramp Alex falls incorrigibly in love...
The two-eyed regard is the human gaze occurring inside of cinematic artifice, of one character looking at an object. One eye less and the regard becomes the camera’s gaze, reaching from within the film out into the viewer’s space. Whereas binocular vision asserts its perception of the world as truth, the monocular vision is the world elevated into photographic artifice. Close one eye, reduce perception by a dimension; open it again, and reveal the artifice of binocular vision too.
In Les Amants du Pont Neuf (English title: The Lovers on the Bridge), when Denis Lavant’s monomaniacal tramp Alex falls incorrigibly in love...
- 4/15/2013
- by retinalechoes
- MUBI
Lars von Trier's inclination to think and say things that seem unusual and insensitive is vital to the genius of a director who's here to trouble us, not entertain
The plan of accounting for Lars von Trier in just 700 words or so is fanciful; it cannot be done. Added to which, I haven't yet seen Melancholia, which may be one of his most personal, important and infuriating films to date.
So, let's begin with that trio of attributes, and notice that Von Trier is one of those movie directors beset by a manic-depressive personality. Like it or not, he reckons we are in a degraded and fatally ill culture in which the artist or the film-maker is bound to do an autopsy on the decay. He must shock, offend and get under our skin, if only to prove that the old diagram of skin, skeleton, heart and soul still functions.
The plan of accounting for Lars von Trier in just 700 words or so is fanciful; it cannot be done. Added to which, I haven't yet seen Melancholia, which may be one of his most personal, important and infuriating films to date.
So, let's begin with that trio of attributes, and notice that Von Trier is one of those movie directors beset by a manic-depressive personality. Like it or not, he reckons we are in a degraded and fatally ill culture in which the artist or the film-maker is bound to do an autopsy on the decay. He must shock, offend and get under our skin, if only to prove that the old diagram of skin, skeleton, heart and soul still functions.
- 9/22/2011
- by David Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
April 13-18
Fifty years after Jean-Luc Godard, Serge Bozon and the .young turks. of Cahiers du cinéma resolved that the best way to criticize movies was to make their own films. The result was the creation of another exciting .new wave. of critic-filmmakers, hailing from the iconoclastic film magazine La lettre du cinéma(1997-2005), boldly storming the gates of the French film establishment.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center brings writer, director, actor and DJ, Serge Bozon to New York to present this first major North American survey of films by the Lettre du cinéma circle as well as to curate and present a series of screenings of rarities (along with Anthology Film Archives) that have influenced his work. Also introducing and discussing their films will be his fellow filmmakers, Jean-Charles Fitoussi and Aurélia Georges. And if that weren.t enough, Bozon will also put his DJ skills on display,...
Fifty years after Jean-Luc Godard, Serge Bozon and the .young turks. of Cahiers du cinéma resolved that the best way to criticize movies was to make their own films. The result was the creation of another exciting .new wave. of critic-filmmakers, hailing from the iconoclastic film magazine La lettre du cinéma(1997-2005), boldly storming the gates of the French film establishment.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center brings writer, director, actor and DJ, Serge Bozon to New York to present this first major North American survey of films by the Lettre du cinéma circle as well as to curate and present a series of screenings of rarities (along with Anthology Film Archives) that have influenced his work. Also introducing and discussing their films will be his fellow filmmakers, Jean-Charles Fitoussi and Aurélia Georges. And if that weren.t enough, Bozon will also put his DJ skills on display,...
- 3/15/2011
- by Melissa Howland
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Paris - When you want to escape to the Riviera without spending the vacation time, you can always catch a foreign film that captures the sea, sun and fun. The Girl From Monaco transports us to the principality nestled along the French coastline.
Fabrice Luchini plays a Parisian lawyer who heads to the coast to defend a client accused of killing a Russian mobster. He gets distracted from the courthouse drama by a local weather girl (Louise Bourgoin). Can he get his mind back on the homicide? Or has he gone on vacation?
The film is now out on DVD from Magnolia Home Entertainment. Director Anne Fontaine was willing to answer a few questions via email. Fontaine had been an actress in French cinema during the ’80s before stepping behind the camera as a writer-director. She also recently wrote and directed critically praised Coco Before Chanel.
Party Favors: What was...
Fabrice Luchini plays a Parisian lawyer who heads to the coast to defend a client accused of killing a Russian mobster. He gets distracted from the courthouse drama by a local weather girl (Louise Bourgoin). Can he get his mind back on the homicide? Or has he gone on vacation?
The film is now out on DVD from Magnolia Home Entertainment. Director Anne Fontaine was willing to answer a few questions via email. Fontaine had been an actress in French cinema during the ’80s before stepping behind the camera as a writer-director. She also recently wrote and directed critically praised Coco Before Chanel.
Party Favors: What was...
- 12/28/2009
- by UncaScroogeMcD
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