One of the grand paradoxes of Jean-Luc Godard is that he was a radical, an outlier, a filmmaker who guarded his purity and always looked askance at “the system,” yet because the nature of filmmaking is that it requires a lot of money, and is connected to fame, and produces images that can spread with iconic power, Godard was an outsider who was also an insider; a poet of cinema who made himself a celebrity; an artist who bridged the larger-than-life, old-school ethos of movies with the forbidding imperatives of the avant-garde.
All of that contradiction is on full display, with a luscious kind of resonance, in “Godard par Godard,” an hour-long documentary, written by Frédéric Bonnaud and directed by Florence Platarets, that was presented at the Cannes Film Festival today as a tribute to Godard, eight months after his death on September 13, 2022. The documentary was shown along with Godard’s final film,...
All of that contradiction is on full display, with a luscious kind of resonance, in “Godard par Godard,” an hour-long documentary, written by Frédéric Bonnaud and directed by Florence Platarets, that was presented at the Cannes Film Festival today as a tribute to Godard, eight months after his death on September 13, 2022. The documentary was shown along with Godard’s final film,...
- 5/22/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Prodded on by Jean Seberg’s Patricia, halfway through Breathless, a director played by Jean-Pierre Melville says his greatest ambition is “to become immortal, and then die.” It’s a line that might as well sum up the extraordinary career of Breathless’s own helmer and French New Wave doyen, Jean-Luc Godard, who died of assisted suicide at his home in Rolle, Switzerland, on September 13. He was 91. His longtime lawyer told The New York Times the director suffered from “multiple disabling pathologies,” while a relative told the press he “was not sick—he was simply exhausted.” The tributes that have since poured in from all corners of the world are as gargantuan and scholarly as his output. But though “the practice of honoring our artistic giants is one that thrives on analysis,” Justin Chang notes at the L.A. Times, “what feels more fitting to offer at this still-early moment...
- 9/22/2022
- MUBI
Elvis
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital HD
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
2022 / 2.39 : 1 / 159 Min.
Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks
Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
In 1960’s Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock dramatized a murder using 78 camera setups and 52 cuts. 62 years later the Australian director Baz Luhrmann employed the same techniques to tell the story of Elvis. Hitchcock’s harrowing shower scene lasts all of 45 seconds yet it still resonates—Luhrmann’s movie runs 159 minutes and for some in the audience, it may begin to fade before they hit the exit.
For better and for worse, Elvis moves like a bullet train. Thanks to the convulsive editing of Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond, the movie’s imagery—an onslaught of high energy jolts delivered in bite sized pieces—can dazzle the senses. And at nearly three hours it can dull them too. Still, the breakneck...
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital HD
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
2022 / 2.39 : 1 / 159 Min.
Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks
Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, Jeremy Doner
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
In 1960’s Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock dramatized a murder using 78 camera setups and 52 cuts. 62 years later the Australian director Baz Luhrmann employed the same techniques to tell the story of Elvis. Hitchcock’s harrowing shower scene lasts all of 45 seconds yet it still resonates—Luhrmann’s movie runs 159 minutes and for some in the audience, it may begin to fade before they hit the exit.
For better and for worse, Elvis moves like a bullet train. Thanks to the convulsive editing of Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond, the movie’s imagery—an onslaught of high energy jolts delivered in bite sized pieces—can dazzle the senses. And at nearly three hours it can dull them too. Still, the breakneck...
- 9/17/2022
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard’s lasting legacy on cinema was embodied by the thousands of tributes to the late “Breathless” director.
Godard died at age 91 of assisted suicide in Switzerland, where the elective injection is legal. “He was not sick, he was simply exhausted,” a Godard family member told press outlets. The director’s longtime legal advisor Patrick Jeannere confirmed to The New York Times that Godard suffered from “multiple disabling pathologies.”
“He could not live like you and me, so he decided with a great lucidity, as he had all his life, to say, ‘Now, it’s enough,’” Jeanneret said.
Fellow directors, film critics, and actors paid tribute to the late “Band of Outsiders” icon.
French President Emmanuel Macron honored Godard in a social media statement, writing, “It was like an appearance in French cinema. Then he became a master. Jean-Luc Godard, the most iconoclastic of New Wave filmmakers,...
Godard died at age 91 of assisted suicide in Switzerland, where the elective injection is legal. “He was not sick, he was simply exhausted,” a Godard family member told press outlets. The director’s longtime legal advisor Patrick Jeannere confirmed to The New York Times that Godard suffered from “multiple disabling pathologies.”
“He could not live like you and me, so he decided with a great lucidity, as he had all his life, to say, ‘Now, it’s enough,’” Jeanneret said.
Fellow directors, film critics, and actors paid tribute to the late “Band of Outsiders” icon.
French President Emmanuel Macron honored Godard in a social media statement, writing, “It was like an appearance in French cinema. Then he became a master. Jean-Luc Godard, the most iconoclastic of New Wave filmmakers,...
- 9/15/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
If the reverberations of Jean-Luc Godard’s life should ring well after we’re all gone, his passing could be nothing but seismic. As we revisit favorites, discover masterpieces, and discuss and debate in equal measure, filmmakers are taking time to pay Godard tribute—today feeling like the first step of what might become a new, postmortem chapter in cinema.
As is customary in such times, various filmmakers spoke to The Guardian about Godard. Rather than lift their entire feature, we’ll share some favorites and leave the rest—including Luca Guadagnino, Kelly Reichardt, and Mike Leigh—to the link. We’ve also added comments Leos Carax gave to Libération, dutifully translated by @pontdevarsovia.
Martin Scorsese:
From Breathless on, Godard redefined the very idea of what a movie was and where it could go. No one was as daring as Godard. You’d watch Vivre Sa Vie or Contempt...
As is customary in such times, various filmmakers spoke to The Guardian about Godard. Rather than lift their entire feature, we’ll share some favorites and leave the rest—including Luca Guadagnino, Kelly Reichardt, and Mike Leigh—to the link. We’ve also added comments Leos Carax gave to Libération, dutifully translated by @pontdevarsovia.
Martin Scorsese:
From Breathless on, Godard redefined the very idea of what a movie was and where it could go. No one was as daring as Godard. You’d watch Vivre Sa Vie or Contempt...
- 9/14/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The inarguably true cliché about Jean-Luc Godard was that the late filmmaker, who died this week at the age of 91, was a rule-breaker, an artist whose style changed the course of film history by revealing the medium for everything it had already been and pointing to the future of what it could eventually be. Obviously, his body of work has been influential — but that’s an understatement.
And not only for his extensive, time- and media-spanning filmography, ranging from his cucumber-cool debut, Breathless, to the didactic political experiments of the 1960s and 1970s,...
And not only for his extensive, time- and media-spanning filmography, ranging from his cucumber-cool debut, Breathless, to the didactic political experiments of the 1960s and 1970s,...
- 9/14/2022
- by K. Austin Collins
- Rollingstone.com
Jean-Luc Godard, who died Tuesday at 91, was the filmmaker who changed everything. He directed “Breathless,” the 1960 landmark that helped to launch the French New Wave, employing a new, fast, leaping-ahead technique and style — the jump cut — that altered the DNA of how movies were made. In the ’60s, he took his camera out into the streets and into cafés, stores, offices, and apartments, so that a Godard film often seemed like a documentary about fictional characters. He drew many of those characters from Old Hollywood, a world he’d grown up on and remained obsessed with, but one that he always made seem a million miles away, like some black-and-white Garden of Eden the world had fallen from. So even as you were watching Jean-Paul Belmondo play a glamorous hoodlum or Anna Karina play a femme fatale, you knew that you were also seeing an actor toy with the very...
- 9/13/2022
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Tributes are pouring in for the legendary French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, who died Tuesday at age 91. The Franco-Swiss director, who helped usher in a new era of cinema with titles like “Breathless” (1960) and “A Woman is a Woman” (1961), was mourned and celebrated across social media by scores of fans and fellow artists.
Martin Scorsese said that the director “re-defined the very idea of what a movie was and where it could go. No one was as daring as Godard.”
“He never made a picture that settled into to any one rhythm or mood or point of view, and his films never lulled you into a dream state. They woke you up. They still do, and they always will,” his statement continued. “It’s difficult to think that he’s gone. But if any artist can be said to have left traces of his own presence in his art,...
Martin Scorsese said that the director “re-defined the very idea of what a movie was and where it could go. No one was as daring as Godard.”
“He never made a picture that settled into to any one rhythm or mood or point of view, and his films never lulled you into a dream state. They woke you up. They still do, and they always will,” his statement continued. “It’s difficult to think that he’s gone. But if any artist can be said to have left traces of his own presence in his art,...
- 9/13/2022
- by Harper Lambert
- The Wrap
Internationally renowned filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan said that French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard changed the grammar of filmmaking and created his own path in making films. He was reacting to the passing away of the Franco-Swiss filmmaker on Tuesday, September 13, at the age of 91.
Adoor said Godard’s intellectual abilities were seen in his first movie ‘Breathless’. He questioned the traditional mode of filmmaking and created his own path. He has used a unique style of the character directly speaking to the audience. The acclaimed filmmaker said Godard had even developed a new methodology to make digital movies.
National Award-winning editor and artistic director of International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk), Bina Paul, said: “The Intellectual commitment of Godard was exemplary and he was fully devoted to movies. His movies themselves are a treat to watch and have revolutionised filmmaking.”
Last year, Godard was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th edition of the Iffk.
Adoor said Godard’s intellectual abilities were seen in his first movie ‘Breathless’. He questioned the traditional mode of filmmaking and created his own path. He has used a unique style of the character directly speaking to the audience. The acclaimed filmmaker said Godard had even developed a new methodology to make digital movies.
National Award-winning editor and artistic director of International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk), Bina Paul, said: “The Intellectual commitment of Godard was exemplary and he was fully devoted to movies. His movies themselves are a treat to watch and have revolutionised filmmaking.”
Last year, Godard was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th edition of the Iffk.
- 9/13/2022
- by Glamsham Bureau
- GlamSham
Click here to read the full article.
Hollywood and other movie industry representatives are paying tribute to Jean-Luc Godard on social media following the news on Tuesday that the Franco-Swiss legend had died.
A former film critic who wrote for the legendary Cahiers du Cinéma during its heyday of the 1950s, Godard burst onto the scene in 1960 with his debut Breathless, which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The Paris-set crime caper, starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, heralded the arrival of cinematic modernism. Using jump cuts, nods to the camera and other meta-fictional devices, it commented on the story as it was unfolding.
Goddard’s career would go on to span half a century, with the filmmaker directing upwards of 70 projects including features, documentaries, shorts and TV. His work was known at various times throughout his long career for everything from its pop-art homages and historical...
Hollywood and other movie industry representatives are paying tribute to Jean-Luc Godard on social media following the news on Tuesday that the Franco-Swiss legend had died.
A former film critic who wrote for the legendary Cahiers du Cinéma during its heyday of the 1950s, Godard burst onto the scene in 1960 with his debut Breathless, which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The Paris-set crime caper, starring Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, heralded the arrival of cinematic modernism. Using jump cuts, nods to the camera and other meta-fictional devices, it commented on the story as it was unfolding.
Goddard’s career would go on to span half a century, with the filmmaker directing upwards of 70 projects including features, documentaries, shorts and TV. His work was known at various times throughout his long career for everything from its pop-art homages and historical...
- 9/13/2022
- by Georg Szalai and Abbey White
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 13 (Ians) Internationally renowned filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan said that French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard changed the grammar of filmmaking and created his own path in making films.
He was reacting to the passing away of the Franco-Swiss filmmaker on Tuesday, September 13, at the age of 91.
Adoor said Godard’s intellectual abilities were seen in his first movie “Breathless”. He questioned the traditional mode of filmmaking and created his own path. He has used a unique style of the character directly speaking to the audience. The acclaimed filmmaker said Godard had even developed a new methodology to make digital movies.
National Award-winning editor and artistic director of International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk), Bina Paul, told Ians: “The Intellectual commitment of Godard was exemplary and he was fully devoted to movies. His movies themselves a treat to watch and had revolutionised filmmaking.”
Shyamaprasad, a National Award-winning director, said: “This is a great loss to world cinema.
He was reacting to the passing away of the Franco-Swiss filmmaker on Tuesday, September 13, at the age of 91.
Adoor said Godard’s intellectual abilities were seen in his first movie “Breathless”. He questioned the traditional mode of filmmaking and created his own path. He has used a unique style of the character directly speaking to the audience. The acclaimed filmmaker said Godard had even developed a new methodology to make digital movies.
National Award-winning editor and artistic director of International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk), Bina Paul, told Ians: “The Intellectual commitment of Godard was exemplary and he was fully devoted to movies. His movies themselves a treat to watch and had revolutionised filmmaking.”
Shyamaprasad, a National Award-winning director, said: “This is a great loss to world cinema.
- 9/13/2022
- by Glamsham Bureau
- GlamSham
The French-Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard, a key figure in the Nouvelle Vague film movement, has died aged 91. Godard was celebrated for his daring and almost improvised filming style. His first feature, Breathless, in 1960, established him as one of France's most experimental and exciting new talents. His streak of films continued throughout the decade during which he also released The Little Soldier, A Woman is a Woman and Alphaville.
His 2001 film In Praise of Love demonstrated his remarkable longevity and was selected for the Cannes film festival. He also received an honorary Oscar in 2011, which he did not collect in person. His 2014 release Goodbye to Language won him the the jury prize at Cannes. In total, Godard made more than 100 films. President Emmanuel Macron said 'we have lost a national treasure, a man who had the vision of a genius.'
Jean-Luc Godard, giant of the French new wave, dies at...
His 2001 film In Praise of Love demonstrated his remarkable longevity and was selected for the Cannes film festival. He also received an honorary Oscar in 2011, which he did not collect in person. His 2014 release Goodbye to Language won him the the jury prize at Cannes. In total, Godard made more than 100 films. President Emmanuel Macron said 'we have lost a national treasure, a man who had the vision of a genius.'
Jean-Luc Godard, giant of the French new wave, dies at...
- 9/13/2022
- The Guardian - Film News
Jean-Luc Godard, the legendary filmmaker who revolutionized the medium as a leader of the French New Wave of the 1960s, died Tuesday at age 91.
Godard’s partner, Anne-Marie Mieville, confirmed to the Swiss news agency Ats that he died peacefully at his home in the Swiss town of Rolle near Lake Geneva.
French President Emmanuel Macron also confirmed his death on Twitter, calling him a “national treasure” who “invented a resolutely modern, intensely free art.”
Godard burst on the international scene with his debut feature, 1960’s “À bout de souffle” (“Breathless”), which revolutionized cinematic storytelling with its fractured nonlinear narrative about a petty criminal and his girlfriend, improvisational choreography and rapid editing. The film became an international sensation, making a star of its lead actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and earning Godard the best director prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Also Read:
Marsha Hunt, Blacklisted Hollywood Actress, Dies at 104
He became...
Godard’s partner, Anne-Marie Mieville, confirmed to the Swiss news agency Ats that he died peacefully at his home in the Swiss town of Rolle near Lake Geneva.
French President Emmanuel Macron also confirmed his death on Twitter, calling him a “national treasure” who “invented a resolutely modern, intensely free art.”
Godard burst on the international scene with his debut feature, 1960’s “À bout de souffle” (“Breathless”), which revolutionized cinematic storytelling with its fractured nonlinear narrative about a petty criminal and his girlfriend, improvisational choreography and rapid editing. The film became an international sensation, making a star of its lead actor, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and earning Godard the best director prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Also Read:
Marsha Hunt, Blacklisted Hollywood Actress, Dies at 104
He became...
- 9/13/2022
- by Thom Geier
- The Wrap
Remember how you learned in school about “man’s inhumanity to man”? If the director Gaspar Noé has a theme, it’s “the humanity of inhumanity.” Noé’s shock psychodramas confront subjects like murder, sexual assault, and what happens when a roomful of flex dancers go out of their gourds on LSD. As a filmmaker, he’s drawn to extremes — to the sensational and the depraved, the sordid and the evil. His quest is to hold that darkness up to the light, to flip the cruelty on its head until we see an echo of ourselves. Noé takes off from the wide-eyed impulses of an exploitation filmmaker, but he possesses a technical bravura — and a devious sobriety of purpose — that has made him his own genre. Call it transgressive transcendence.
Yet as a Noé watcher from way back, I can’t deny that the only two films of his that...
Yet as a Noé watcher from way back, I can’t deny that the only two films of his that...
- 4/29/2022
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang)
Though far better known by its English title, the appropriately elegiac Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Tsai Ming-liang’s 2003 masterpiece bears a rather different name in Mandarin (rendered here via pinyin): Bú sàn, which roughly translates to “never leaving,” or—if one prefers the Sartre connotation—“no exit.” It forms the root of two distinctly contradictory Chinese idioms, which perfectly encapsulate the lamentation and beauty of Tsai’s film: Tiān xià méi yǒu bù sàn de yán xí, the infamous “all good things must come to an end,” and Bù jiàn bù sàn, which more or less means “even if we don’t see each other, don’t give up and leave,” or “I’m not leaving until I see you.
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang)
Though far better known by its English title, the appropriately elegiac Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Tsai Ming-liang’s 2003 masterpiece bears a rather different name in Mandarin (rendered here via pinyin): Bú sàn, which roughly translates to “never leaving,” or—if one prefers the Sartre connotation—“no exit.” It forms the root of two distinctly contradictory Chinese idioms, which perfectly encapsulate the lamentation and beauty of Tsai’s film: Tiān xià méi yǒu bù sàn de yán xí, the infamous “all good things must come to an end,” and Bù jiàn bù sàn, which more or less means “even if we don’t see each other, don’t give up and leave,” or “I’m not leaving until I see you.
- 12/31/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Mubi is closing the year out on a high note with their December lineup, featuring some of 2021’s most acclaimed U.S. releases.
Highlights include Tsai Ming-liang’s Days (along with his previous feature Afternoon), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, Andreas Fontana’s Azor, Anders Edströ & C.W. Winter’s eight-hour epic The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin), Frank Beauvais’ Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, and Michael M. Bilandic’s soon-to-premiere Project Space 13.
Also among the lineup is Arnaud Desplechin’s Esther Kahn, a quartet of Godard classics, Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña’s short The Bones, produced by Ari Aster, and much more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
December 1 | Pierrot le fou | Jean-Luc Godard | The Cinema of Marx and Coca-Cola: Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960s
December 2 | Le bel indifferent | Jacques Demy | Scenes from a Small Town:...
Highlights include Tsai Ming-liang’s Days (along with his previous feature Afternoon), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, Andreas Fontana’s Azor, Anders Edströ & C.W. Winter’s eight-hour epic The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin), Frank Beauvais’ Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, and Michael M. Bilandic’s soon-to-premiere Project Space 13.
Also among the lineup is Arnaud Desplechin’s Esther Kahn, a quartet of Godard classics, Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña’s short The Bones, produced by Ari Aster, and much more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
December 1 | Pierrot le fou | Jean-Luc Godard | The Cinema of Marx and Coca-Cola: Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960s
December 2 | Le bel indifferent | Jacques Demy | Scenes from a Small Town:...
- 11/23/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Above: detail from the Argentinian poster for Magnet of Doom. Artist unknown.Jean-Paul Belmondo, the great French movie star who died last week at the age of 88, had a marvelous face. He wasn’t a classic matinee idol like his friend and compatriot Alain Delon but with the combination of his soulful puppy-dog eyes, lopsided boxer’s nose, and luscious feminine lips he could play both hoodlums or heartthrobs (and in Breathless he played both at the same time). A classic tough guy best known outside France for art movies, he was initially synonymous with the angry alienation of the French New Wave and starred in films by Godard, Truffaut, Melville, Malle and Lelouch. But he could play comedy as well as action (he was renowned for doing his own stunts) and was for a while promoted as a French James Bond. By the ’70s and ’80s—when he was...
- 9/16/2021
- MUBI
French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, known for films like Breathless and Two Women, has died at age 88. The actor, whose death was confirmed by his lawyer to Afp News Agency, died at his home in Paris. No cause of death has been given.
Belmondo, born in 1933 in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, got his start in acting in the 1950s, first working in theater before moving into film. He collaborated with French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard in 1958 short Charlotte And Her Boyfriend, and went on to work with Godard several more times,...
Belmondo, born in 1933 in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, got his start in acting in the 1950s, first working in theater before moving into film. He collaborated with French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard in 1958 short Charlotte And Her Boyfriend, and went on to work with Godard several more times,...
- 9/6/2021
- by Emily Zemler
- Rollingstone.com
Actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, whose performance in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 “Breathless” helped usher in the French New Wave, has died at the age of 88. The actor’s lawyer confirmed the report to news outlets on Monday. No cause of death has been revealed. Belmondo starred in nearly 100 features, for both film and television including the aforementioned “Breathless” and “Pierrot le Fou.”
Belmondo was April 9, 1933 west of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Acting didn’t come immediately to Belmondo. He began as a boxer, making his amateur debut in the ring in 1949. The physical changes to his face, according to the actor, compelled him to leave the sport. He would eventually attend a private drama school , transitioning to the Conservatoire of Dramatic Arts in his twenties. He made his stage debut in 1953.
His first film role came in Jean-Pierre Cassel’s 1957 “On Foot, on Horse, and on Wheels,” but he wound up on the cutting-room floor.
Belmondo was April 9, 1933 west of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Acting didn’t come immediately to Belmondo. He began as a boxer, making his amateur debut in the ring in 1949. The physical changes to his face, according to the actor, compelled him to leave the sport. He would eventually attend a private drama school , transitioning to the Conservatoire of Dramatic Arts in his twenties. He made his stage debut in 1953.
His first film role came in Jean-Pierre Cassel’s 1957 “On Foot, on Horse, and on Wheels,” but he wound up on the cutting-room floor.
- 9/6/2021
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
Jean-Paul Belmondo, whose bad-boy presence in Jean-Luc Godard’s new wave masterpiece “Breathless” established him as the French idol of his generation, has died, Variety has confirmed. He was 88.
For more than a decade following the release of “Breathless,” Belmondo reigned as one of France’s top box office stars. The actor was likened alternately to James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando for his brooding, charismatic persona, and he proved able to work in virtually any genre. After “Breathless,” the cult that formed around him was dubbed le belmondisme by the French media. Unlike Dean, who was a rebel without a cause, Belmondo’s antihero persona was more existential, detached and irredeemable. With such magnetism, an American career could have been his for the asking, but he largely resisted studio-made productions and later in life openly criticized Hollywood for overly dominating film screens in France.
Though most closely associated with Godard,...
For more than a decade following the release of “Breathless,” Belmondo reigned as one of France’s top box office stars. The actor was likened alternately to James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando for his brooding, charismatic persona, and he proved able to work in virtually any genre. After “Breathless,” the cult that formed around him was dubbed le belmondisme by the French media. Unlike Dean, who was a rebel without a cause, Belmondo’s antihero persona was more existential, detached and irredeemable. With such magnetism, an American career could have been his for the asking, but he largely resisted studio-made productions and later in life openly criticized Hollywood for overly dominating film screens in France.
Though most closely associated with Godard,...
- 9/6/2021
- by Richard Natale
- Variety Film + TV
Jean-Paul Belmondo, one of the most iconic French actors of the 20th century and a leading face of the French New Wave, has died at the age of 88.
The actor’s agent confirmed the news to the Afp news agency. French press reported he died peacefully at his home in Paris.
Belmondo began acting in the theater in the 1950s before breaking into film later that decade. His first collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard came in the 1958 short Charlotte And Her Boyfriend. Shortly after, while having success on stage, he began to be offered lead roles in film, appearing in the 1960 gangster movie Consider All Risks with Lino Venture.
His next lead role was in Godard’s debut feature Breathless, which cemented the actor’s position as a leading man of the French New Wave movement. Starring Belmondo as a wandering criminal named Michel, the film was an instant hit, and...
The actor’s agent confirmed the news to the Afp news agency. French press reported he died peacefully at his home in Paris.
Belmondo began acting in the theater in the 1950s before breaking into film later that decade. His first collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard came in the 1958 short Charlotte And Her Boyfriend. Shortly after, while having success on stage, he began to be offered lead roles in film, appearing in the 1960 gangster movie Consider All Risks with Lino Venture.
His next lead role was in Godard’s debut feature Breathless, which cemented the actor’s position as a leading man of the French New Wave movement. Starring Belmondo as a wandering criminal named Michel, the film was an instant hit, and...
- 9/6/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic made Belmondo a major star and his craggy looks led to a stellar career in France and around the world
Jean-Paul Belmondo: the beaten-up icon who made crime sexyA life in pictures
Jean-Paul Belmondo, the French actor who shot to international fame in Jean-Luc Godard’s revolutionary new wave classic Breathless, has died aged 88. The actor’s lawyer confirmed the news to Afp.
Belmondo – nicknamed Bébel by French audiences – became one of the country’s biggest box-office stars in the 60s and 70s, his battered-looking face a contrast to the chiselled features of his rival and sometime-collaborator Alain Delon. Like Delon, Belmondo was a key figure of the outstanding generation of European film-making of the period, with the series of films he made with Godard – which included A Woman Is a Woman and Pierrot le Fou – making an indelible mark.
Jean-Paul Belmondo: the beaten-up icon who made crime sexyA life in pictures
Jean-Paul Belmondo, the French actor who shot to international fame in Jean-Luc Godard’s revolutionary new wave classic Breathless, has died aged 88. The actor’s lawyer confirmed the news to Afp.
Belmondo – nicknamed Bébel by French audiences – became one of the country’s biggest box-office stars in the 60s and 70s, his battered-looking face a contrast to the chiselled features of his rival and sometime-collaborator Alain Delon. Like Delon, Belmondo was a key figure of the outstanding generation of European film-making of the period, with the series of films he made with Godard – which included A Woman Is a Woman and Pierrot le Fou – making an indelible mark.
- 9/6/2021
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
IFFKLifetime Achievement Award for this edition will be presented to renowned French-Swiss filmmaker and critic Jean-Luc Godard.Tnm StaffCourtesy - Philippe R Doumic / Wiki Commons / Cc by Sa 4Online registration for the 25th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk) will begin on Saturday, January 30. All Covid-19 protocols will be followed at the festival venues. The Iffk, organised by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, will begin in Thiruvananthapuram on February 10 and end on February 14, following which it will be held in Kochi (February 17 to 21), Thalassery (February 23 to 27) and Palakkad (March 1 to 5). The online registrations will begin at 10 am on Saturday. Delegate fees for the general category is Rs 750 while for the students, it is Rs 400. Delegates should register at the venue closest to their hometown. Godard gets Lifetime Achievement Award The Lifetime Achievement Award for this edition will be presented to renowned French-Swiss filmmaker and critic Jean-Luc Godard.
- 1/29/2021
- by Cris
- The News Minute
Une Femme Est Une Femme: Taylor Tries Temptation in Derivative Neo-Noir
Infidelity, yet again, provides the impetus for a conveniently staged adult contemporary thriller from Deon Taylor in Fatale, reuniting with scribe David Loughery for a retrofit which tries to meld Adrian Lyne and Alfred Hitchcock. At times, its twists and turns feel unexpected, potentially ambiguous, before eventually devolving into something a bit more illogical and predictable, mainly for its lack of strong characterization—something which could have maintained the entertaining suspension of disbelief.
Still, an intriguing cast headlined by Hilary Swank and Michael Ealy elevates the offering above some of Taylor’s more recent forays into this territory and serves as a reminder of how easily enjoyable these pseudo-erotic potboilers can be.…...
Infidelity, yet again, provides the impetus for a conveniently staged adult contemporary thriller from Deon Taylor in Fatale, reuniting with scribe David Loughery for a retrofit which tries to meld Adrian Lyne and Alfred Hitchcock. At times, its twists and turns feel unexpected, potentially ambiguous, before eventually devolving into something a bit more illogical and predictable, mainly for its lack of strong characterization—something which could have maintained the entertaining suspension of disbelief.
Still, an intriguing cast headlined by Hilary Swank and Michael Ealy elevates the offering above some of Taylor’s more recent forays into this territory and serves as a reminder of how easily enjoyable these pseudo-erotic potboilers can be.…...
- 12/18/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
At the end of the 1950s, celebrated French documentarian François Reichenbach, whose lens captured the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Johnny Hallyday, spent eighteen months traveling the United States, documenting its diverse regions, their inhabitants and their pastimes. The result, America As Seen by a Frenchman, is a wide-eyed perhaps even naïve journey through a multitude of different Americas, filtered through a French sensibility and serving as a fascinating exploration of a culture that is both immediately familiar and thoroughly alien.
Prison rodeos; Miss America pageants; visits to Disneyland and a school for striptease; a town inhabited solely by twins; rows of newborns in incubators, like products on an assembly line all these weird and wondrous sights, and more, are captured, sans jugement, by Reichenbach s camera, aided by whimsical narration and a jaunty musical score by the late, great Michel Legrand (Une femme est une femme).
Titled L Amérique...
Prison rodeos; Miss America pageants; visits to Disneyland and a school for striptease; a town inhabited solely by twins; rows of newborns in incubators, like products on an assembly line all these weird and wondrous sights, and more, are captured, sans jugement, by Reichenbach s camera, aided by whimsical narration and a jaunty musical score by the late, great Michel Legrand (Une femme est une femme).
Titled L Amérique...
- 6/2/2020
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard
The Criterion Channel has recently put the spotlight on a pair of French New Wave icons: Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard–and it’s not just their iconic collaborations, but also films they made separately. The two separate series include A Woman Is a Woman, Vivre sa vie, Le petit soldat, Band of Outsiders, Alphaville, Pierrot le fou, Made in U.S.A, The Nun, Breatheless, Contempt, Film socialisme, Goodbye to Language, The Image Book, and more.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Bombshell (Jay Roach)
Although Bombshell is rather straightforward, it accomplishes its goal of telling this story with sufficient nuance,...
Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard
The Criterion Channel has recently put the spotlight on a pair of French New Wave icons: Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard–and it’s not just their iconic collaborations, but also films they made separately. The two separate series include A Woman Is a Woman, Vivre sa vie, Le petit soldat, Band of Outsiders, Alphaville, Pierrot le fou, Made in U.S.A, The Nun, Breatheless, Contempt, Film socialisme, Goodbye to Language, The Image Book, and more.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Bombshell (Jay Roach)
Although Bombshell is rather straightforward, it accomplishes its goal of telling this story with sufficient nuance,...
- 2/28/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
With the passing of Anna Karina, a curtain has fallen on the French New Wave, that fabled cinematic movement that brought fame to the man who made her name, Jean-Luc Godard. Yes, Godard is still with us, as is “Breathless” star Jean-Paul Belmondo (practically the last of the living New Wave legends), but his moviemaking compatriots François Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Jacques Demy, and, most recently, Agnès Varda are gone, and with them the spirit of playful abandon that Karina perfectly embodied.
In such Godard classics as “A Woman is a Woman,” “Pierrot le Fou,” “Alphaville,” and “Made in USA,” Karina appeared as a gamine and a femme fatale at the same time. Not since Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich had there been a director-and-star tandem so potent. The closest to it would be Philippe Garrel’s partnership with Nico — although the avant-garde blue plate specials made by...
In such Godard classics as “A Woman is a Woman,” “Pierrot le Fou,” “Alphaville,” and “Made in USA,” Karina appeared as a gamine and a femme fatale at the same time. Not since Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich had there been a director-and-star tandem so potent. The closest to it would be Philippe Garrel’s partnership with Nico — although the avant-garde blue plate specials made by...
- 12/16/2019
- by David Ehrenstein
- Variety Film + TV
Anna Karina, the model-turned-actress who became a French New Wave icon thanks to her collaborations with the director Jean-Luc Godard, has died at the age of 79.
France’s cultural minister Franck Riester announced Karina’s death on Twitter, with the actress’ agent later confirming that Karina died Saturday in Paris following a battle with cancer.
“Her gaze was the gaze of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave). It will remain so forever,” Riester wrote of Karina. “Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends.”
Born Hanne...
France’s cultural minister Franck Riester announced Karina’s death on Twitter, with the actress’ agent later confirming that Karina died Saturday in Paris following a battle with cancer.
“Her gaze was the gaze of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave). It will remain so forever,” Riester wrote of Karina. “Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends.”
Born Hanne...
- 12/15/2019
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
French New Wave star Anna Karina, who served as a muse for Jean-Luc Godard and appeared in eight of his films, has died. She was 79.
France’s culture minister, Franck Reister, announced her death in a tweet, as did her agent, Laurent Balandras, who attributed the cause as cancer.
“Her gaze was the gaze of the New Wave. It will remain so forever,” wrote Reister. “She magnetized the entire world. Today, French cinema is an orphan. It loses one of its legends.”
Karina’s best known roles include “The Little Soldier,” “Vivre sa vie,” “Band of Outsiders,” “Pierrot le Fou,” and “Alphaville,” all throughout the 1960s. She starred in “A Woman Is a Woman,” as well, in a performance that earned her the silver bear award for best actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961.
Karina also worked with other directors of the New Wave, including Agnes Varda, Jacques Rivette,...
France’s culture minister, Franck Reister, announced her death in a tweet, as did her agent, Laurent Balandras, who attributed the cause as cancer.
“Her gaze was the gaze of the New Wave. It will remain so forever,” wrote Reister. “She magnetized the entire world. Today, French cinema is an orphan. It loses one of its legends.”
Karina’s best known roles include “The Little Soldier,” “Vivre sa vie,” “Band of Outsiders,” “Pierrot le Fou,” and “Alphaville,” all throughout the 1960s. She starred in “A Woman Is a Woman,” as well, in a performance that earned her the silver bear award for best actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961.
Karina also worked with other directors of the New Wave, including Agnes Varda, Jacques Rivette,...
- 12/15/2019
- by Erin Nyren
- Variety Film + TV
Anna Karina, the French New Wave icon, has died at age 79, leaving behind an indelible body of cinema’s most charming and even radical work — including director Jean-Luc Godard’s “A Woman Is a Woman,” “Pierrot Le Fou,” “Alphaville,” “Vivre Sa Vie,” “Band of Outsiders,” “Le Petit Soldat,” and more.
Karina, who was born in Denmark and became a symbol of cinematic counterculture, died on Saturday in Paris. Reportedly, she died of cancer, according to her agent, Laurent Balandras. Karina’s last film was 2008’s “Victoria,” which she also wrote and directed. This was her second and final feature behind the camera following 1973’s “Living Together.”
Karina’s loss leaves a huge hole in the filmgoing community, and many have taken to Twitter to make tribute to the actress; see below. IndieWire spoke with Anna Karina in 2016 about her many storied collaborations with Jean-Luc Godard.
Rest In Peace, the truly iconic Anna Karina,...
Karina, who was born in Denmark and became a symbol of cinematic counterculture, died on Saturday in Paris. Reportedly, she died of cancer, according to her agent, Laurent Balandras. Karina’s last film was 2008’s “Victoria,” which she also wrote and directed. This was her second and final feature behind the camera following 1973’s “Living Together.”
Karina’s loss leaves a huge hole in the filmgoing community, and many have taken to Twitter to make tribute to the actress; see below. IndieWire spoke with Anna Karina in 2016 about her many storied collaborations with Jean-Luc Godard.
Rest In Peace, the truly iconic Anna Karina,...
- 12/15/2019
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Anna Karina, the Danish-born star of classic French New Wave films of the 1960s such as “A Woman Is a Woman” and “Alphaville,” died on Saturday at age 79.
Her agent, Laurent Balandras, tweeted that she died of cancer.
“Today, French cinema has been orphaned,” Franck Riester, France’s culture minister, wrote in his own tweet. “It has lost one of its legends.”
Also Read: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2019 (Photos)
Karina landed her first film role as a teenager in Jean-Luc Godard’s “The Little Soldier,” a drama about the French-Algerian War that was shot in 1960 but not released until three years later due to censorship issues.
In 1961, she won the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for her work playing a French striptease artist in Godard’s 1961 film “A Woman Is a Woman.”
By that time, she had also married Godard — with whom she continued to work on...
Her agent, Laurent Balandras, tweeted that she died of cancer.
“Today, French cinema has been orphaned,” Franck Riester, France’s culture minister, wrote in his own tweet. “It has lost one of its legends.”
Also Read: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2019 (Photos)
Karina landed her first film role as a teenager in Jean-Luc Godard’s “The Little Soldier,” a drama about the French-Algerian War that was shot in 1960 but not released until three years later due to censorship issues.
In 1961, she won the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for her work playing a French striptease artist in Godard’s 1961 film “A Woman Is a Woman.”
By that time, she had also married Godard — with whom she continued to work on...
- 12/15/2019
- by Thom Geier
- The Wrap
Karina was best known for the string of films she made with Jean-Luc Godard, including A Woman Is a Woman and Pierrot le Fou
•Anna Karina - a life in pictures
•Peter Bradshaw: an actor of easy charm and grace whose presence radiated from the screen
Danish-French actor Anna Karina, star of Bande à Part and Pierrot le Fou and collaborator with New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, has died of cancer at the age of 79, her agent said.
Karina, who epitomised 1960s chic with her elfin features and big kohl-rimmed blue eyes, starred in seven films made by her ex-husband Godard, including Alphaville.
•Anna Karina - a life in pictures
•Peter Bradshaw: an actor of easy charm and grace whose presence radiated from the screen
Danish-French actor Anna Karina, star of Bande à Part and Pierrot le Fou and collaborator with New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, has died of cancer at the age of 79, her agent said.
Karina, who epitomised 1960s chic with her elfin features and big kohl-rimmed blue eyes, starred in seven films made by her ex-husband Godard, including Alphaville.
- 12/15/2019
- by AFP
- The Guardian - Film News
Anna Karina, the French New Wave starlet who rose to international acclaim in films directed by her then-husband Jean-Luc Godard, has died. She was 79.
Karina died Saturday at 2:38 p.m. in Paris of cancer, her agent, Laurent Balandras, told The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband, Dennis Berry, was by her side.
She and Godard were married from 1961 to 1964, and she served as his muse in such memorable works as A Woman Is a Woman (1961) — for which she received a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival — Vivre sa vie (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964),...
Karina died Saturday at 2:38 p.m. in Paris of cancer, her agent, Laurent Balandras, told The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband, Dennis Berry, was by her side.
She and Godard were married from 1961 to 1964, and she served as his muse in such memorable works as A Woman Is a Woman (1961) — for which she received a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival — Vivre sa vie (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964),...
- 12/15/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Anna Karina, the French New Wave starlet who rose to international acclaim in films directed by her then-husband Jean-Luc Godard, has died. She was 79.
Karina died Saturday at 2:38 p.m. in Paris of cancer, her agent, Laurent Balandras, told The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband, Dennis Berry, was by her side.
She and Godard were married from 1961 to 1964, and she served as his muse in such memorable works as A Woman Is a Woman (1961) — for which she received a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival — Vivre sa vie (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964),...
Karina died Saturday at 2:38 p.m. in Paris of cancer, her agent, Laurent Balandras, told The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband, Dennis Berry, was by her side.
She and Godard were married from 1961 to 1964, and she served as his muse in such memorable works as A Woman Is a Woman (1961) — for which she received a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival — Vivre sa vie (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964),...
- 12/15/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Jean-Luc Godard has revealed details of his follow-up to “The Image Book,” which saw the French New Wave luminary take his experimental approach in bold new directions. Though his next project doesn’t yet have a title, it does have a narrative: “It will tell the story of a Yellow Vest woman who breaks up with her boyfriend,” Godard told Les Inrockuptibles. “The theme is inspired by Racine’s Bérénice. The character brings to mind Bérénice when Titus comes back to the State.”
“It won’t be made just of what you call archival images. There will also be a shoot. I don’t know whether I’ll find what one calls actors. I’d like to film the people one sees on news channels but plunging them into a situation where documentary and fiction blend,” Godard added.
He continued, “I don’t know whether they’ll agree to be filmed in relation to themselves,...
“It won’t be made just of what you call archival images. There will also be a shoot. I don’t know whether I’ll find what one calls actors. I’d like to film the people one sees on news channels but plunging them into a situation where documentary and fiction blend,” Godard added.
He continued, “I don’t know whether they’ll agree to be filmed in relation to themselves,...
- 4/29/2019
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
This diverse mix of composer Michel Legrand’s work for film is by no means comprehensive, Legrand’s phenomenal career spanned over sixty years. He scored over 200 films as well as theatre and musicals, won Oscars, Golden Globes, and Grammys (to name a few), and worked with a myriad of famed popular musicians. He made jazz records with Miles Davis and collaborated with the directors of the French New Wave. Later in life (and by no means slowing down), Legrand focused his time on classical music, creating concertos, sonatas, and ballet. He died this February at the age of 86 just a few months after the release of Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind, whose score he composed. When reminiscing on Legrand’s work I was taken back to two performances that have always resonated with me; I mused on how in both performances it is the score...
- 4/9/2019
- MUBI
The Osaka Asian Film Festival (Oaff) has started this year’s run, its 14th, with an opening ceremony packed with guests and film fans at the Hankyu Umeda Hall on March 08, 2019.
The evening launched with a star-studded appearance from some of the festival’s many guests who took to the stage at the opening ceremony in order to greet the assembled audience.
Led by Zhang Lu (張律), director of the Korean film “Ode to the Goose” the big names on the night included directors and a selection of their cast and crew. Lim Kah-wai (林家威) returned to Osaka following the recording of his latest Balkan adventure, “Somewhen, Somewhere” (いつか、どこかで) while Ayabe Shinya (綾部真弥) is presenting his latest film, “The Peers” (ピア〜まちをつなぐもの〜). Kawazoe Bilal (川添ビイラル) of “Whole” brought lead actors Kawazoe Usman (川添ウスマン) and Kai Sandy (海・星野・サンディー) and director Kishimoto Tsukasa (岸本司) of “Okinawan Blue” (ココロ、オドル...
The evening launched with a star-studded appearance from some of the festival’s many guests who took to the stage at the opening ceremony in order to greet the assembled audience.
Led by Zhang Lu (張律), director of the Korean film “Ode to the Goose” the big names on the night included directors and a selection of their cast and crew. Lim Kah-wai (林家威) returned to Osaka following the recording of his latest Balkan adventure, “Somewhen, Somewhere” (いつか、どこかで) while Ayabe Shinya (綾部真弥) is presenting his latest film, “The Peers” (ピア〜まちをつなぐもの〜). Kawazoe Bilal (川添ビイラル) of “Whole” brought lead actors Kawazoe Usman (川添ウスマン) and Kai Sandy (海・星野・サンディー) and director Kishimoto Tsukasa (岸本司) of “Okinawan Blue” (ココロ、オドル...
- 3/9/2019
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Tributes have begun pouring in for Michel Legrand, the three-time Oscar-winning composer of “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “Yentl” and “The Young Girls of Rochefort,” who died at his home early Saturday in Paris at the age of 86.
Gilles Jacob, the former president of the Cannes Film Festival, said that Legrand’s “notes were soft as caress, his umbrellas made us cry. By leaving us on the sly, Michel Legrand commits his first false note. Music, Maestro, please.”
On le fredonnait partout. Ses notes étaient douces comme des caresses, ses parapluies nous faisaient pleurer. En nous quittant en catimini, Michel Legrand commet sa première fausse note. Musique, maestro, please.
— gilles jacob (@jajacobbi) January 26, 2019
Pierre Lescure, the current president of the Cannes Film Festival, tweeted: “Michel Legrand composed cult songs. And some little fantasies, full of his pretty fierce irony. I remember this title ‘1964’ where a father tells the Yéyés to his children.
Gilles Jacob, the former president of the Cannes Film Festival, said that Legrand’s “notes were soft as caress, his umbrellas made us cry. By leaving us on the sly, Michel Legrand commits his first false note. Music, Maestro, please.”
On le fredonnait partout. Ses notes étaient douces comme des caresses, ses parapluies nous faisaient pleurer. En nous quittant en catimini, Michel Legrand commet sa première fausse note. Musique, maestro, please.
— gilles jacob (@jajacobbi) January 26, 2019
Pierre Lescure, the current president of the Cannes Film Festival, tweeted: “Michel Legrand composed cult songs. And some little fantasies, full of his pretty fierce irony. I remember this title ‘1964’ where a father tells the Yéyés to his children.
- 1/26/2019
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The retrospective Godard and the Dziga Vertov Group is showing from February 27 - March 26, 2018 on Mubi in the United Kingdom and United States.British SoundsThe execrable new film Redoubtable by Michel Hazanavicius reduces all aspects of Jean-Luc Godard and his career to the level of a cartoon. And not even a great, cinematically advanced cartoon—the Fleischer brothers, Chuck Jones, or Tex Avery, something that might actually capture some semblance of Jlg’s anarchic humor. No, Redoubtable is strictly Hanna-Barbara, two-dimensional animals lumbering about on an unchanging, depthless landscape. (Oh look! Silly Jean-Luc has broken his glasses again!) As if to drive home the childishness of the film, it is being retitled in the U.S. Now called Godard Mon Amour, it not only makes a mockery of an actually great film by Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras. It emphasizes Godard as little more than a brand name, a selling point.
- 2/28/2018
- MUBI
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)
In the hours since viewing Dunkirk – the newest film from surprisingly divisive blockbuster director Christopher Nolan – one sensory recollection has stuck out above all others. Every time that British spitfire pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) accelerates or banks his plane, the soundtrack fills with the noise of metallic rattling, an uncomfortable chorus of knocks and pings that lets you know exactly how much stress and force are...
Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)
In the hours since viewing Dunkirk – the newest film from surprisingly divisive blockbuster director Christopher Nolan – one sensory recollection has stuck out above all others. Every time that British spitfire pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) accelerates or banks his plane, the soundtrack fills with the noise of metallic rattling, an uncomfortable chorus of knocks and pings that lets you know exactly how much stress and force are...
- 12/15/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Mubi's retrospective For Ever Godard is showing from November 12, 2017 - January 16, 2018 in the United States.Jean-Luc Godard is a difficult filmmaker to pin down because while his thematic concerns as an artist have remained more or less consistent over the last seven decades, his form is ever-shifting. His filmography is impossible to view in a vacuum, as his work strives to reflect on the constantly evolving cinema culture that surrounds it: Godard always works with the newest filmmaking technologies available, and his films have become increasingly abstracted and opaque as the wider culture of moving images has become increasingly fragmented. Rather than working to maintain an illusion of diegetic truth, Godard’s work as always foreground its status as a manufactured product—of technology, of an industry, of on-set conditions and of an individual’s imagination. Mubi’S Godard retrospective exemplifies the depth and range of Godard’s career as...
- 11/19/2017
- MUBI
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Carol (Todd Haynes)
From the first note of Carter Burwell‘s magnificent score and opening shot of Edward Lachman’s ravishing cinematography — introducing a Brief Encounter-esque opening bookend — Todd Haynes transports one to an intoxicating world of first love and its requisite heartbreak. Carol excels at being many things: a romantic drama; a coming-of-age story; an exploration of family dynamics and social constructs of the time; an acting...
Carol (Todd Haynes)
From the first note of Carter Burwell‘s magnificent score and opening shot of Edward Lachman’s ravishing cinematography — introducing a Brief Encounter-esque opening bookend — Todd Haynes transports one to an intoxicating world of first love and its requisite heartbreak. Carol excels at being many things: a romantic drama; a coming-of-age story; an exploration of family dynamics and social constructs of the time; an acting...
- 9/22/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Every so often, usually while walking around Toronto on a busy day, I'll be struck by the vividness and accuracy of Agnès Varda's singular portrayal of a day in the life (barely two hours, really, making it even more remarkable) spent in the various layers and spaces of the urban environment. I speak, of course, of Cléo from 5 to 7, Varda's 1962 classic and the first film of hers I fell in love with. In those instances, I'll find myself returning to the moments I've cherry-picked as my favorites over the years, skipping across the linear sequence of events that follow the titular singer (Corinne Marchand) across Paris as she waits for the results from a medical examination within the film's designated timeframe (minus half an hour, as the film famously ends at the ninety minute mark). More than for any other film, engaging in these mental replays feels very much like replaying the events of a day I had once experienced myself long ago—albeit one that I’ve been able to revisit and come to know nearly by heart, complete with all of my favorite moments and details waiting in their proper places, so often have I gone back to that June 21st in Paris, 1961.Varda has even made it relatively easy for anyone who wishes to explore and investigate to their heart's content the events of that fateful first day of summer from so long ago now, not only by making such a crisp cinematic itinerary of the various locations visited in the film itself, but also by helpfully providing a map in her book Varda par Agnès complete with a color-coded legend indicating the locations of key scenes from the film, practically inviting the reader to recreate Cléo’s journey for themselves on the streets of present-day Paris. At once attentive and relaxed in its tour of the city (mainly focused in the Left Bank), Cléo is ably conducted in a number of different registers: as an uncommonly lovely essay-poem on the ebb and flow of urban life, an at-times somber meditation on the precarious balance between life and death, and a revealing and honest study of female identity and the ways it is scrutinized and distorted in the public’s relentless gaze. In a feat of remarkable economy and resourcefulness, the film was shot in chronological order across a five-week period, beginning on the date of the story’s events, synchronized as closely as possible to the times in the day Cléo experiences them, in keeping with narrative fidelity and proper quality of light for each scene. Neatly arranged into thirteen chapters, each with its duration clearly stated so we can easily keep track in real time, Cléo’s lucid odyssey through the various public and private spaces that make up her day is observational cinema at its most fertile, free, and magically attuned to its subjects, partly the result of Varda and her team’s carefully planned and executed shoot, partly that of simply being in the right places at the right times.Together, the films of the French New Wave make up one of the most valuable and immersive audiovisual documents of a specific time and place in history—namely France in the late 1950s and early 1960s—that we have. This is especially true of the Paris-situated films, which create the alluring image of an interconnected network of overlapping stories concentrated in a single city. The sharing of certain actors, cinematographers, writers, composers, and other key artists and technicians across different films by different directors especially helped make the impression of one Paris holding an eclectic anthology of New Wave tales. This perception was further reinforced by the cheeky self-referential winks and nods that so many of the New Wave directors—Jean-Luc Godard in particular—lovingly included in their films as gestures of solidarity and support with their nouvelle vague comrades. This is why the eponymous hero of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le flambeur, noted by many as a crucial New Wave precursor, gets name-checked by Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard’s Breathless, why Truffaut muses Marie Dubois and Jeanne Moreau both pop up in A Woman Is a Woman, with Moreau getting asked by Belmondo how Jules and Jim is coming along, and why Anna Karina’s Nana glimpses a giant poster for the same Truffaut film as she is being driven to her fate in the final moments of Vivre sa vie.Varda got in on the fun herself in Cléo from 5 to 7 not only by casting Michel Legrand, who provided the film with its robust score, as Cléo’s musical partner Bob (a part that gives the legendary composer a substantial amount of screen time and amply shows off his incandescent charm), but also by extending the invitation to Godard, Karina, Sami Frey, Eddie Constantine, Jean-Claude Brialy, producer Georges de Beauregard, and Alan Scott, who had appeared in Jacques Demy’s Lola. They all show up in Les fiancés du pont Macdonald, the silent comedy short-within-the-film that serves triple duty as a welcome diversion for our stressed heroine, a loving cinephilic tribute to the legacy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, and an irresistible, bite-sized New Wave party. And yet I find Cléo to be perhaps the most enchanting of all the New Wave films not for the aesthetic commonalities and cleverly devised linkages that bind it to The 400 Blows, Breathless, Paris Belongs to Us, and its other cinematic brethren, but rather for the tapestry of curious details that root it in its specific time and place and entice on the power of their inherent uniqueness and beauty. “Here,” Varda seems to say as she follows Cléo across the city, “let’s have a look at these interesting people and places on this first day of summer here in Paris, and see what we can see after watching them for a while.” The film’s opening scene continues to extend this invitation as it draws us in closer. It shows us, through the sepia-hued Eastmancolor that deviates from the rest of the film’s silvery monochrome and the “God’s eye” overhead shots (long before Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson adopted the technique as their own), the cryptic spectacle of Tarot cards being shuffled, placed down, and turned over to reveal the story of Cléo’s potential fate before we’ve even gotten a chance to properly meet Cléo herself. The slightly macabre illustrations to which Varda and cinematographer Jean Rabier dedicate their tight close-ups and the elderly card reader’s accompanying explanations of their meanings lend an air of prophecy to the events to come while also fueling Cléo’s anxiety surrounding her fate (when pressed for a clearer forecast of the future through a palm reading, the reader’s evasive response is less than inspiring). This introduction effectively locks us into Cléo’s perspective, preparing us for the next hour and a half that we will spend quietly observing as, following her distraught exit from the reader’s apartment, she grapples with her fears and insecurities, contemplates and revises her appearance and the identity behind it (tellingly, we discover late in the film that Cléo's real name is Florence), and comes to terms with the ultimately fragile nature of her own mortality. In our allotted chunk of time with her, we see the pouty girl-child subtly shift and adjust her attitude, inching a little closer towards a place of earned maturity, grace, and acceptance regarding her fate, wherever it may take her.Along the way, the film seems to expand to take in as much of the people and places around Cléo as it can. Scene by scene, her Paris makes itself felt and known through key peripheral details: a pair of lovers having an argument in a café near where Cléo sits, listening in; the procession of uniformed officers on horseback heard clip-clopping through the street on the soundtrack and seen reflected in the array of mirrors placed throughout a hat shop; a spider web of shattered mirror and a cloth pressed against a bloody wound, indicating some incident that occurred just before Cléo happened along the scene of the confused aftermath. Other stimuli fill a dazzling program of serendipitous entertainments for us to take in one by one: whirlwind rides in two taxis and a bus, an intimate musical rehearsal in Cléo’s chic, kitten-filled apartment (with Legrand, no less, clearly having a great time, his nimble fingers releasing ecstatic bursts of notes and melodies from Cléo’s piano as if they were exotic birds), the aforementioned silent short, a sculpting studio (the space alive with the indescribably pleasant sound of chisels being tapped at different tempos through soft stone), a frog swallower, a burly street performer who wiggles an iron spike through his arm, and the soothing sights and sounds of the Parc de Montsouris, among a hundred other subtle and overt pleasures scattered throughout this gently orchestrated city symphony, a heap of specificities found and sorted into a chorus of universal experience.Very much in her own way, across a body of work informed by a boundless spirit of generosity, Agnès Varda has gone about carefully collecting and preserving a marvelously varied assortment of subjects throughout her busy life, shedding fresh light on some of the most unlikely (and overlooked) people and places in the world. She refers to her self-made approach to filmmaking as ciné-criture (her own version of Alexandre Astruc's caméra-stylo), which, as we’ve come to know it through Varda’s intensely personal works, is a little like cinema, a little like writing, and uses aspects of both media to make a compassionate, genuine, and wholly original film language. Just as Antoine (Antoine Bourseiller), the dreamy young man whom Cléo encounters in the Parc de Montsouris, translates the world around them into a stream of fanciful observations and flowery speech, so too does Varda, in allegiance with poetry, ditch any semblance of objectivity, going instead for presenting the world simply as she sees it, investing it with her own unmistakable blend of charm, warmth, eloquence, and empathy, all somehow executed with nary a shred of ego or preachiness.“All these stories we simply can’t understand!” randomly exclaims a café patron to her young companion at one point late in Cléo’s journey, perhaps suddenly becoming aware, as we gradually have, of the unfathomable multitude of trajectories that trace themselves across every city every day in a dense tangle of narrative strands. In picking up Cléo’s and diligently following it with her camera for an hour and a half, Varda draws our attention to all those other strands that make up the lives of other people, leading off into their own directions, fated to become entangled with others still. Wisely, deftly, one discovered strand at a time, she helps us better appreciate, again and again, the humble miracle of so many lives coursing and thriving alongside each other, each one special and strange, each rooted in its own distinct flavor of being-ness. Cléo from 5 to 7 in turn roots us in another person’s life for its short time span and ends up giving us a whole universe, casually overflowing with meaning, life, lives, and the myriad details that shape and define them. No, we can’t understand all the stories we come across in a day. But then again, sometimes we don’t really need to understand so much as simply see. See, and accept, and appreciate what is...and then move along to whatever’s next.
- 6/20/2017
- MUBI
Director Michel Hazanavicius has unveiled the first teaser for his upcoming romance drama “Redoubtable.” In his latest project, the filmmaker behind the Oscar darling “The Artist” takes on the life of legendary French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, who has created iconic masterpieces such as “Breathless” and “A Woman Is a Woman.” Godard is portrayed by Louis Garrel (“The Dreamers,” “Love Songs,” “The Beautiful Person”).
Read More: Louis Garrel Channels Jean-Luc Godard In First Pics From Michel Hazanavicius’ Romance ‘Redoubtable’
Based on the autobiography “Un An Après” by Anne Wiazemsky, the biopic centers around the romance that flourished between her and Godard when they were making the 1967 film “La Chinoise.” They married shortly after and collaborated on “Week End” and “Sympathy for the Devil” before divorcing in 1979.
Read More: Academy Award-Winner Michel Hazanavicius’s 5 Tips for Filmmakers
Wiazemsky is played by “Nymphomaniac” actress Stacy Martin. The film also stars Hazanavicius’ wife Bérénice Bejo,...
Read More: Louis Garrel Channels Jean-Luc Godard In First Pics From Michel Hazanavicius’ Romance ‘Redoubtable’
Based on the autobiography “Un An Après” by Anne Wiazemsky, the biopic centers around the romance that flourished between her and Godard when they were making the 1967 film “La Chinoise.” They married shortly after and collaborated on “Week End” and “Sympathy for the Devil” before divorcing in 1979.
Read More: Academy Award-Winner Michel Hazanavicius’s 5 Tips for Filmmakers
Wiazemsky is played by “Nymphomaniac” actress Stacy Martin. The film also stars Hazanavicius’ wife Bérénice Bejo,...
- 3/29/2017
- by Yoselin Acevedo
- Indiewire
Episode Links Past Wish List Episodes Episode 63.9 – Disc 3 – Top Criterion Blu-ray Upgrades for 2011 Episode 110 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2012 Episode 136 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2013 Episode 146 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2014 Episode 154 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2015 Episode 169 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2016 DVD to BluRay Wish Lists Aaron: The Shop on Main Street Pickup on South Street Arik: Cleo from 5 to 7 Berlin Alexanderplatz Mark: Taste of Cherry Sisters David: Do the Right Thing Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters Ld to Blu-Ray Wish Lists Aaron: Blue Velvet (Announced as Ld Spine #219 but never released) Early Hitchcock Box (Sabotage, The Secret Agent, Young and Innocent, The Lodger, The Man Who Knew Too Much) Arik: A Night at the Opera Singin’ in the Rain Mark: 2001: A Space Odyssey The Producers David: I Am Cuba Letter From an Unknown Woman...
- 12/30/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Former army documentary cameraman worked on Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless [pictured].
Legendary French cinematographer Raoul Coutard who worked with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Pierre Schoendorffer, Jacques Demy and Costa-Gavras has died aged 92.
Coutard worked on more than 80 features in a career spanning from 1958 to 2001 but is best known for his work with New Wave pioneers Godard and Truffaut.
He got his big break working with Jean-Luc Godard on 1960 classic Breathless, which was credited with reinventing cinema at the time for its stripped-down, fast-paced aesthetic.
Godard — who wanted to shoot the film as much as possible with a handheld camera and natural lighting — had partly hired Coutard for his background as a documentary cameraman for the French army.
Coutard spent five years working with the army’s press service, mainly in French Indochina (today Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) in the late 1940s and early 50s.
Prior to that, he worked in a Paris photography lab, having dropped...
Legendary French cinematographer Raoul Coutard who worked with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Pierre Schoendorffer, Jacques Demy and Costa-Gavras has died aged 92.
Coutard worked on more than 80 features in a career spanning from 1958 to 2001 but is best known for his work with New Wave pioneers Godard and Truffaut.
He got his big break working with Jean-Luc Godard on 1960 classic Breathless, which was credited with reinventing cinema at the time for its stripped-down, fast-paced aesthetic.
Godard — who wanted to shoot the film as much as possible with a handheld camera and natural lighting — had partly hired Coutard for his background as a documentary cameraman for the French army.
Coutard spent five years working with the army’s press service, mainly in French Indochina (today Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) in the late 1940s and early 50s.
Prior to that, he worked in a Paris photography lab, having dropped...
- 11/9/2016
- ScreenDaily
Dear Danny,Ah, puzzle films. Many of my most deeply moving cinematic memories—think of Resnais or Ruiz or Wong—have come from such works, where the intricacy and even obscurity of storytelling jostles and fuses with the frankness of emotions. La La Land has little use for puzzles, unless they’re part of the technical complications that go into the choreography of its slam-bang musical numbers. (Why have the introductory highway hoedown just unfold in one take, when you can also include Matrix-style camera swivels to capture bicycle pirouettes in mid-air?) No, Damien Chazelle’s goal in his follow-up to Whiplash is a boldly direct one: to flood the screen with charm, to bring down the house with joy. Walking into my screening after having had my fair share of dour and difficult festival entries, I could scarcely think of a nobler aim for cinema. Less than twenty minutes later,...
- 9/16/2016
- MUBI
All of my fantasies about meeting and talking to Anna Karina have been set in France, at her home, under constant worry of arrest, having just knocked on her door without an invitation. I ask her questions and she answers them all with tears in her eyes: "What was it like to act for Jean-Luc Godard, the man you loved, even when you were fighting like cats and dogs, even when he broke your heart? And how, in God's good name, did you manage to create performances that never age, that show no sign of origin, no influence, that absolutely confound me in the best possible way? How did you do it?” These fantasies found nourishment in the assumption that the icon of the French New Wave was fairly reclusive, not wanting to be bothered, certainly not wanting to talk anymore about those films, that time, that man. So imagine...
- 7/6/2016
- MUBI
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Museum of the Moving Image
Before his masterful Sunset Song begins its U.S. run, Terence Davies will be given a complete retrospective at MoMI. His self-titled trilogy screens on Saturday and Sunday; the latter day also brings Distant Voices, Still Lives and, with a post-screening Q & A to boot, The Long Day Closes.
Metrograph
“Welcome...
Museum of the Moving Image
Before his masterful Sunset Song begins its U.S. run, Terence Davies will be given a complete retrospective at MoMI. His self-titled trilogy screens on Saturday and Sunday; the latter day also brings Distant Voices, Still Lives and, with a post-screening Q & A to boot, The Long Day Closes.
Metrograph
“Welcome...
- 5/6/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
I know just how hagiographic it sounds when I say, and nevertheless say with full sincerity, that being in Anna Karina’s presence is sort of a shocking thing. The French New Wave’s feminine icon — perhaps the screen icon of ‘60s cinema, period, at least if her recent immortalization in innumerable GIFs could count for anything — has often seemed inscrutable: as quick-witted as she is goofy, as likely to indulge in cartoonish physical gestures as she is to display her preternatural beauty, and always hiding something behind the eyes. With that perception established, you might understand why, as she walked down the steps of BAMcinématek’s theater 3 for a Q & A following Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman, the seemingly innocuous figure almost immediately elicited this thought from myself and, I’d imagine, several others: “Holy shit — that’s Anna Karina.”
That feeling will soon dissipate — not...
That feeling will soon dissipate — not...
- 5/4/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
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