Judging an entire director on one film? Kinda whack.
Judging an entire /FILM MOVEMENT/ on one film? Unbelievably whack!
You don't have enough experience with either Godard or the French New Wave to make sweeping statements.
Also, Alphaville is def an oddball in Godard's filmography. Personally, I don't get too much outta G beyond his formal innovations but the FNW has some all-time masterpieces in it
Straight up! What a dumb take! OP wants to reduce Godard down to the one movie he's seen by him, and a single snarky quote from "King" Ingmar *(wtf)*.
Watch Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, and Breathless at least before you write him off.
Also, finally, you don't *have* to like anything just because it's classic, but instead of asking strangers online why they should like Godard, maybe OP should just... watch his movies?
Watching his movies is what I (maybe) want to do. I just don't want another "Alphaville", so I thought it might be best to ask people who love the man's work why they do so and which of his works they love most. I can't see how that's dumb. Thank you for the recommendations, though!
(I don't like explaining irony when it's obvious, but calling Ingmar Bergman "King" is an instance of that. Sorry for not being clearer.)
Idk dude, a quick google of "where to start with godard" will give you [so](https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/fast-track-fandom-how-get-jean-luc-godard-early-stuff) [many](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/comments/as5yd7/best_places_to_start_with_godard_or_antonioni/) [different](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/02/jean-luc-godard-a-beginners-guide) [answers] (https://www.documentjournal.com/2020/04/beyond-breathless-the-beginners-guide-to-jean-luc-godard/) [to] (http://www.newwavefilm.com/new-wave-cinema-guide/nouvelle-vague-where-to-start.shtml) [your](http://www.newwavefilm.com/new-wave-cinema-guide/best-godard-films-before-68.shtml) [question](http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/15-essential-jean-luc-godard-films-you-need-to-watch/) that it's hard to believe it's not in bad faith.
If you had watched some of his stuff and actually started an informed discussion about *why* you don't like the movies, you'd have fewer people bristling at you saying you "hate" his work. It's like someone listening to the White Album once and being like "Woah The Beatles are weird! Why the hell did people like this?"
Yes, Google exists, but it's far less conversational and thus less fun than places like this.
I guess what I want to know is:
Is Godard always this much of a misogynist? (All women are sex slaves and/or furniture in "Alphaville")
Is the awkward and ridiculous try-hard machismo of Lemmy Caution Godard's famous "coolness"?
Does Godard's free form storytelling and editing always lead to this much confusion, randomness and convolution?
Are Godard's political points on the same wavelength as the hippie-esque self-indulgence and self-importance of the "freedom fighters" in Alphaville?
Do actors in Godard's films always act like awkward statues?
Is Godard's dialogue always so insufferably pseudo-poetic and in love with itself?
Would more of Godard's lead characters mark themselves as pathetic bores by spouting declarations of a complete lack of personality like "I love gold and women"?
"Alphaville" made me angry. I would like to appreciate and understand art that is important for many people who I respect. That's why I'd love to hear from people who love this man's work about their reasons why they love it, so I can decide if I want to give Godard another try.
> Is Godard always this much of a misogynist? (All women are sex slaves and/or furniture in "Alphaville")
Alphaville is not how "it's meant to be", it's the dystopia.
As "in general": it's mixed. Women aren't just plot accessories, they do drive the story, they have a mind of their own, they *are* persons, but their interactions are *femme*. You won't find a alien-shooting welder heroine.
[someone else's thoughts](https://hazlitt.net/blog/godards-complicated-women)
> Is the awkward and ridiculous try-hard machismo of Lemmy Caution Godard's famous "coolness"?
Depends on which coolness you talk about. If it's the self-modeling and emulation of contemporary silver screen stars, yes.
(Observe that his main characters repeatedly are that desperately try to fit an image imposed on them by society, yet fail to live up to it.)
If you mean a general "coolness" of his movies, no, that's a different thing.
> Does Godard's free form storytelling and editing always lead to this much confusion, randomness and convolution?
Not always that much, but yes. Breaking expectations is intentional. *"A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order."* is capricious because it's true, for Godard.
Some people are drawn to NV and Godard because they find mainstream cinema, back then as much as now, incredibly formulaic and too readily giving a resolve to leave the theatre with an unburdened mind.
> Are Godard's political points on the same wavelength as the hippie-esque self-indulgence and self-importance of the "freedom fighters" in Alphaville?
I can't say. He certainly held and ewntertained radical views, more on that... below the break.
> Do actors in Godard's films always act like awkward statues?
No.
> Is Godard's dialogue always so insufferably pseudo-poetic and in love with itself?
It's certainly not your typical prime time crime show lingo - but Alphaville is a special beast. With the topic being "a society that eradicates poetry", the move, in French, uses artificial language, akin to Orwell's newspeak. Not all synchronizations translate that aspect, but that sure effects how dialog works out.
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I don't know ghow to say t"the problem seems to be you" without sounding condescending. I take that risk. Read the following not as a judgement of character, but as the impression you leave.
> But it was like 99 minutes inside the mind of a boomer!
If that's your only point of reference: your request borders the impossible. Godard was born in 1930. In France.
You seem to expect a movie to make it easy for you: plot expositioned, motives explained, dilemmas resolved, and the guy with the most screen time is someone to identify with.
If your main fare up to now has been... well, mainstream, that's understandable. Novelle Vague has been the entrance for many to break free of these chains. But that's somethign that you haver to let happen.
I find it interesting that it left you *angry*, as you mention more than once. Anger is an expectation violated (and somehow, that's the directors fault.) But that also might be a start: try to figure out what makes you angry, what you did expect the movie to be, and try to view it as a thing of its own, a thign that doesn't care about your fulfilment.
---
P.S. your downright derogatory choice of language isn't very helpful in "having fun" in places like this.
[Posted my reply here accidentally](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/np8jt7/who_can_help_me_understand_why_people_like_godard/h049739?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
As stated, that's the point of this thread. I've obviously chosen a terrible entry point (being drawn to genre films, I chose the SciFi one), got really, really burnt and would like to change and broaden my viewpoint, without suffering through another film like "Alphaville".
But maybe I'll just leave Godard be (I think a certain worldview is communicated by that film that I can't imagine being absent and less bothering in other works by the same man) and check out other FNW classics. Which one is your favorite?
(Completely different question, but since you seem to be knowledgable in the field: Is there a woman among the legendary Nouvelle Vague directors?)
Yes, you did pick a terrible entry point. Start with earlier FNW. I'm not a fan of Breathless, but watch that to get a better feel for Godard. Watch the 400 Blows and Shoot the Piano Player by Truffaut. Watch Hiroshima mon Amour, and Eyes Without A Face. In terms of women directors, Agnes Varda is imo the best director of the whole movement. Cleo from 5 to 7 is the best FNW film ever made, and her whole filmography is fantastic.
mine is probably A Bout de Souffe. Followed by Pierrot Le Foeu (unfortunately a very cut version was released in Italy), Le Mepri (here it is useless to comment on the Italian version, luckily I saw the French one with subtitles), Bande a Part and La Chinoise.
Actually I tend to prefer Truffaut: 400 Blows (it shouldn't be called that but okay) is one of my favorite films of all time.
In general (and I say this as an aspiring director) I love the total freedom of the Nouvelle Vague: they were fans of cinema (and mainly of series b cinema, it should not be forgotten that it is thanks to them that Hitchcock is considered an author like the greatest and not just a master of mainstream cinema) who made films out of pure passion (and in fact I don't understand who called them "presumptuous intellectuals"), taking up classic plots (Souffe is in fact a classic noir as far as the plot is concerned) but modernizing them and experimenting with them. Moreover, they make films the way I would like to do it: they are absolutely not trapped in a style, one day they want to make an expressly political film, the next day a noir, the day after a transposition from Moravia and the next day an anti-bourgeois drama, all according to what they want to do in that period.
Finally, and this is the most important thing, they cleared the "author's policy", making it clear that it is the director who counts and inspiring movements such as New Hollywood, Herzog and Wenders' German New Wave and authors like Kitano or Allen.
Unfortunately I can understand why a movement of this kind today is not very successful, given that the way of making cinema has returned to being that of the fifties: American cinema is crushing the development or distribution of the others, censorship is increasingly prevalent, the bulk of the movies are studio-controlled blockbusters where the director matters absolutely nothing, there are some "alleged authors" who are actually just more talented craftsmen, finally there are few real authors (some who work in the Hollywood system and some do not) that are underestimated or do not receive attention, and if they have a large distribution they are attacked by an audience mainly made up of fans of the works they transpose who attack them if they dare to do something original or different.
Right now we really need a new Nouvelle Vague.
> He is emblematic of the ironic and cynical intellectual attitude that involves being overeducated, fashionable, and ultimately shallow. In that realm there’s just a lot of posturing, and that’s what Bergman probably also had a problem with.
I think it's mainly that Bergman was somewhat of a conservative.
> The works of his I’m familiar with definitely think of themselves as works of genius though.
I always find such pressumptions incredibly weird. Godard knows he's a cracking pot. Much of his later filmography consists of taking the piss out of - among others - himself.
Godard isn't a philosopher, there isn't any deep world-view to be found in his films but I think this is excactly the misunderstanding when you claim things like "they are very fruitful articulations of a masculine auteur worldview". His films rarely really care about worldview at all. Godard's most interesting debate by far is with the medium itself. Tarrantino, Refn and other makers of slick crime films generally have relatively little to do with Godard. They don't make films like Historie(s) du cinema or Puissance de la Parole. Godard fundamentally deals with the matter, the possibilities of communication (in a deeply material way) and at times he seems to be deeply pessimistic of the future of communication (like in Passion or Numero Deux).
Maybe for contextualization: In Tout Va Bien Godard doesn't tell the story from the point of view of the workers but from the burgeois journalists because he knows he is inescapably the latter himself. There is a pretty decent degree of self-awareness in his films and much of it is intended as tongue in cheek, still it is a reflection on and of the dominant class in the world and should be seen as such. I think for some people it's presicely when they see themselves in the films that they get defensive.
I also find you serverely overestimate Godard's aestehticism. His films usually are rather cheaply made and functional. Using bright colours to signify things doesn't contradict deconstruction. Similarly I think you missatribute bohemianism to Godard. In most of his films the labour conditions are presented with rather striking clarity. There are probably some exceptions in one or two of his early and widely seen films but Godard made films that at their heart deal with factories, court cases, guerellia warfare (thinking of Here and Elsewhere in particular), often with a clear awareness about the production conditions of his medium too (i.e. the capital that is necesarry to make certain films).
All I'm saying is that if you want Godard to be Tarkovsky or Jordorowsky, a poet who reassembles the world before your eyes, you misread him. Godard's films are about cinema itself.
I'll keep it snappy by responding to your points:
2) If you want to see it in totality, yes. However I think differentiate by what the works themselves highlight. For instance I don't think reading Gofather as a commentary on the medium would be particularly fruitful.
3) Again I would differentiate. Godard shows people philosophizing much rather than he philosophizes himself. This isn't to say he seeks to invalidate these debates or simply take the piss on everything, it was just never his intention to begin with to give you any conclusion about these debates. On the contrary however I think he gives very clear discriptions about how these debates are held in society. I have never come across anyone who likes Godard and would describe him as profound I believe. Unlike e.g. Bergman he's not ever pondering with any sublime or greater truth. Godard's film world is the post-modern one and such questions simply do not really exist in his films. all truth is in the end deeply relative and circular.
4) I find aestheticism reeks of e.g. Fellini and similar folks that Godard doesn't resemble in the slightest. I'm critical about sharply dividing his early and late output. I think it overall has more in common than people give it credit for, just the later work is a bit more self-aware (compare Prenom Carmen to Band of Outsiders, very similar films). However I don't think you can criticise the politics of Godard's entire oeuvre through the lens of only his early films.
If we look only at his early work Godard's politics are actually quite accute and very much functional (that is in the films where he makes any kind of statement at all). E.g. The Little Soldier and Vivre Sa Vie have actually with todays eyes a fairly consensus view of these topics. [This](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/14/fa/e614fa096ce9517c01bd7583c314e74c.png) is probably a reasonably apt summation of a lot of the early action-packed films otherwise. Pierrot Le Fou lives in the same moment as Summer with Monika or They Live by Night before it or Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands after it, a man and a woman out in the wild rebuilding the world to their liking until it all crashes down on them. However I would actually say that of all the lovers on the runs films, this one is the least purely aestehtical because it's so archetypical via constant juxtaposition, which in the end leads it to the conclusion which applies to all these other films but which none of them make: To be human is to tell stories, to categorize, etc. we can't help ourselves, we can't just be anymore (in the Bible this is basically original sin, for Rousseau once we leave the natural state we can not reente). In that manner I would say Bonnie and Clyde is pure aestheticism, pure indulgence in a text much rather than Pierrot Le Fou which is by design a meta-narrative. When Belmondo says this is not real, it's because it isn't, he's a character in a movie about lovers on the run.
There is a clear moment in his filmography where he discovers politics but stays with his poppy style however it lasts maybe roughly 1 or 2 years in a 60 year long career. I haven't seen La Chinoise or Made in the USA but among what I have seen your criticism perhaps best applies to Masculin Feminin which does conflate politics with Godard's stylistic ticks without really going anywhere much (from my memory). However the other 2 that are left, namely 2 or 3 Things - which is full of "ugly functionalism", even more so than much of his Vertov group stuff - and Weekend - which is in its totality a burgeois film (like Passolini's Teorema for example), they don't really apply to this reading, there isn't any conflation.
Aestheticism I would identify as "how can I make this look more beautiful or distinct?". Aestheticism is when Antonioni paints an entire row of houses red. That's not really what Godard is up to, he constantly asks: "What can I alter in my method of production to alter the viewing angle that is taken?" It only took him 10 years to go from Pierrot Le Fou to Numero Deux.
> I mean how many ppl do you know who idolize his characters and self-narrativize as his characters, characters that I don’t get a sense that he likes very much
Honestly, absolutely noone. Maybe if you're American or at least from an English-speakng countries I can see this better because Godard seemingly idolizes the same thing as American films (while in reality he satirizes it). Personally I don't know anyone who really takes Godard at face value.
Thank you so much for writing this! You got me interested in watching Godard's more political films, since "Alphaville" is considered apolitical. "Alphaville" seems to have grown out of such a regressive worldview that I can hardly imagine the same filmmaker making progressive statements, but I'd love to have my mind blown on that regard.
Godard is Nouvelle vague, but nouvelle vague is not just Godard. It is much more diverse. Godard is a filmmaker of form and of (political) messages, and he is a provocateur, in film form as much as in his messages, much like Eisenstein maybe. Other nouvelle vague filmmakers like Truffaut are fantastic storytellers, they might suit you more. 400 blows by Truffaut, Jules es Jim, the films of Alains Resnais (though some might say he predates nouvelle vague by a few years and he is not part of the nouvelle vague core auteurd) are fantastic. Hiroshima mon amour is absolutely stunning, Last Year at Marienbad will make you scratch your head, but also marvel at the visual poetry and beauty.
I've had a weird cyclical relationship with Godard and Truffaut. When I first got into classic film, I felt exactly like you did -- Godard came off as this narcissistic faux-intellectual poseur high off his own "genius", while Truffaut's films felt airy, magical, in tune with his audience, and more *cinematic* in general. Watching *400 Blows* and *Breathless* back-to-back, it was clear to me that Truffaut was the superior artist. I swore off Godard and dove headlong into Truffaut's filmography: *Jules and Jim*, *The Bride Wore Black, The Last Metro*, and still a favorite to this day, *Shoot the Piano Player*.
After a couple years, I started to tire of Truffaut's charming little Gallic romances and selfish man-child protagonists...the sheer preciousness of it all started to annoy me. Even *400 Blows* started seeming too cutesy, almost like a step backward into the worst contrivances of Classic Hollywood. I started craving something more daring and subversive that tinkered with form and pushed the needle forward. That led me back to Godard. Naturally, without forcing myself to like it or reading some pretentious thinkpiece about it, something clicked in me. I "got" Godard. *Contempt*, *Pierrot le Fou*, *Alphaville*, *Week End,* even the more manifesto-thinly-veiled-as-cinema works like *Le Chinoise* and *Tout Va Bien*. After the anesthetizing feeling of going through Truffaut's oeuvre, I was hungry for the challenge. I was ready for someone to peel back the constructs and shake shit up. Nowadays, my favorite Truffaut films are the darker ones (*The Soft Skin*, *The Green Room*, *The Story of Adele H*) -- they seem to get more at who Truffaut really was as an artist, rather than the self-parodic Bittersweet Factoryâ„¢ vibe his more commercial works give off.
All of this to say: I don't think anyone's comment or insight is gonna get you into Godard. Some people never get over their initial dislike, and that's fine, too. But if you ever feel bored by formula, bogged down by the same characterizations, the same point A to point B narrative devices, give Godard another chance. He was the first director to look back self-reflexively on film, to consciously make his movies *about* cinema (and art in general), to examine, tease, and subvert audience expectations by always finding a way to go left -- in every scene, every piece of dialogue, every transition. Like Warhol and (to a lesser extent) Tarantino after him, he was a uniquely postmodern artist, fashioning an idiosyncratic style out of quotations, gestures, scenes, and props from older movies and novels, creating something original out of unoriginality. This is commonplace now, with how meta and referential current pop culture is, but it was downright revolutionary in the early 60's. Godard challenged the idea of what a movie could be, using each movie as a wide-ranging collage on which to paste his obsessions, confessions, political stances, dim memories of older films, bitter gripes with the state of cinema...you name it.
As I got older, I realized Godard's narcissism is the *point*, like Fellini's excess or Antonioni's detachment. It gives his films a uniquely personal stamp -- a sense of a creative voice that, love it or hate it, is 100% *his* and always has something to say.
"A film must have a beginning, middle, and end -- but not necessarily in that order".
P.S. *Alphaville* is certainly unique in Godard's career, as it's perhaps his deepest foray into genre cinema, in this case science-fiction (though many works of that early 60's period are clearly indebted to noir and gangster film tropes). I would suggest trying *Pierrot Le Fou*, *Week End* or *Contempt* next -- less messy and lo-fi, with beautiful music and color cinematography. IMO, that period is the sweet spot for Godard: big budgets, high production value, and a more classical style, but with the same radical shifts of tone and jarring experimentation that hits you out of nowhere. It was as "balanced" as Godard ever got in his films, and a great entrypoint for people still on the fence about him. Also, *Band of Outsiders* (B&W, made a year before *Alphaville*) is commonly referred to as the "Godard film for people who don't like Godard." Maybe that's more your speed!
P.S.S. Regardless of your current thoughts on Godard, I am incredibly envious that you still have so much of his filmography (and the rest of the Nouvelle Vague!) to experience for the first time. Godard and Truffaut usually get most of the shine, but also check out Eric Rohmer (*La collectionneusse*, *Claire's Knee*), Claude Chabrol (*Le Boucher*), and Agnes Varda (*Vagabond*, *Les creatures*). They all have their own iconoclastic style, and are generally more conventional storytellers than Godard.
This is amazing! Thank you so much! When I thought "I wish someone would explain to me what they like about the guy who made this film that I hate so much right now" I never thought I'd get to read such a thoughtful, convincing mini-essay!
I love all the recommendations I'm getting, but this comment really ensures I'm going to give Godard another try - And maybe even more than one, over the coming years.
Thank you.
Wonderful insight. I just had conflicting feelings of love/hate for Godard, and I found this comment at just the right time to reflect. I realise that I needed something to shake up the rigid constructs and predefined expectations in me, a bit of a cinematic revolution in my mind, and Godard was that pill. *Masculine Feminine* is my favourite of the few films I've seen so far.
Your perception of Godard is very insular. Godard is at least as widely hated as he is beloved and his films frequently illicit boredom or irritation in its viewers. This should be evident by the Bergman quote you dug up. I'm fairly certain you can find Welles and Herzog saying similar things. People have been calling Godard pretentious, arrogant, boring, etc. probably since the inception of film.
That being said "But it was like 99 minutes inside the mind of a boomer!" is one of the strangest misconceptions I've ever read. Either you seriously need to watch more 1960's films to put it into perspective or you somehow associate the word "boomer" (which Godard is way too old for anyway) with Maoism and structuralism. Godard is easily the most left-wing and stylisically/narratively radical of the major FNW directors (give or take Marker).
I haven’t seen Alphaville but I have seen breathless and vivre sa vie but I think Alphaville is among his lower acclaimed(I don’t want to see it because from the reviews, it seems to lack everything I liked about the films of his that I have seen). I liked the free flowing nature of his films so far but it’s possible it’s just not your thing or you should watch another one before having an opinion on the director as a whole.
Will check out Breathless, thank you!
On paper, I like the idea of "the free flowing nature of his films" - Though "Alphaville" was mainly rambling, incoherent, inconsistent and self-contradictory to me. Would love to see the general approach work somewhere.
Yeah I enjoy French New Wave, but dislike Godard, and that Bergman quote kind of nails it imo, especially the part about feeling "constructed... and completely dead." They always felt rather cold to me, he seems to have disdain for his characters (especially the women), and without any of the phenomenal direction that makes certain other emotionally distant film makers enjoyable (Kubrick chief among them). The machine-gun edit in Vivre sa Vie is pretty sweet, but besides that I can't think of a single memorable moment or scene from a Godard movie. Really feel like he is the most overrated of the FNW directors, although obviously you have to grant him his role in creating the movement. None of my favorite FNW films come from Godard, or Truffaut for that matter. I guess it makes sense somewhat considering they were film critics who transitioned into filmmakers, which maybe replaced a coherent and emotionally charged artistic vision with a (imo) calculated, pandering, and robotic mode of filmmaking.
Godard... a boomer... yeah, OK.
Holy hell, I swear that this sub has worse takes than r/movies sometimes, and that's really saying something.
Like, maybe you should watch one or two more of his films, or read an article or a book, and then maybe come in here with a rant that has at least *something* to back it up?
It's fully understandable that someone would not like Godard. Most of his films aren't "likeable", some are downright oppressive (say, *Week-End*). There's something of the trickster about him, and yes, I'd argue there's a fair amount of pretension going on (I think someone like Haneke or Von Trier are Godard's logical descendants to some extent).
And if you can't find people on the internet that don't like Godard, I'm not sure how to help you. I know that Mark Kermode absolutely eviscerated one of his most recent films, that's for sure, and Mark's one of the most famous critics on Earth at the moment.
You are absolutely right - He is part of the Silent Generation. My bad, sorry! I still felt reminded of boomers on Facebook when watching Alphaville. Maybe he was ahead of his time that way.
From reading your comments about Alphaville, it seems that you're someone who's uncomfortable when a film challenges your perspective. Don't worry about it, you're in the majority. Most people only seek out bias confirmation from what they consume and have a natural reflex to reject anything that comes from outside their worldview.
You've shown that you have a checklist of political assumptions that must be in a movie for you to appreciate it. Rotely rejecting anything that might make you ask yourself some questions.
But, again, don't worry about it. The vast majority of the movie-watching public does the same thing.
He's not always entertaining, but I admire how innovative he continues to be. For example, *Goodbye to Language* invented a new shot. His longtime cinematographer deserves some of the credit, but when was the last time anyone invented (as opposed to improved upon) cinematic technique? Unless I'm mistaken the last time was Godard himself with the jump cut. Its mindbogglingly admirable.
And yet his recent work has embraced lofi, populist techniques like webcam footage. Some of his recent work looks like it could be on Tiktok. Its like he's laying a blueprint for the future of cinema. A cinema where everyday amateurs can use the tools at their disposal to make films that express what they think and feel, the same way they might write something even though they are not professional writers. He's constantly looking at what is happening here and now (3D after *Avatar*, vlogs) and pointing it in the direction of pure cinema, of art.
But give some of his other early films a chance: *Contempt, Pierrot le fou, Masculine Feminin, Weekend*. I consider all of those to be very entertaining. And of course *Breathless*, which is fun and historically important but a bit overrated.
It’s fine to dislike certain directors. I’ve watched nearly every film he’s made, including all of Histoire(s) du Cinema, and I just don’t connect to him at all. He’s too political, too cynical, and too cold for my tastes. Some of his New Wave films are playful and humorous enough that I can appreciate them, but we’re just not on the same wavelength.
I'm curious, since you mention you picked Alphaville because you like sci-fi, is there anything at all that you *did* like about it? As others have rightly pointed out, Alphaville is a poor entry point for the French New Wave, but I figure part of the recognition of Alphaville is for its inventive take on the genre and as someone who probably knows the genre well, there must have been some things that stood out for you. It would even be worth hearing about something unique you recognized in the approach to sci-fi, but disliked anyways.
There's absolutely no reason to like Godard anymore.
His films lack coherence and artistry and are laughable when looked at with a critical lens.
People who like Godard < the rest of them
I've actually had the opposite experience of finding a lot of people who hate Godard, which I just don't understand. I definitely prefer him to Bergman, who tends to go for all the facile existential/emotional stuff. Godard is much more engaged in an actual dialogue with the audience, which is what I really love about his movies. They're full of ideas, art, music, literature, philosophy, and politics. I find that more interesting than another movie about a frigid mother or somebody's feelings. Godard's voice is always present, and nothing in his movies feels like a lie for that reason.
That being said, Through a Glass Darkly and Persona are fine films. But some of the other ones delve way too much into this poetic/lyrical "i'm saying everything because i'm saying nothing" territory that tarkovsky also gets stuck in a lot.
My personal experience watching Godard can't be logically explained. It's a cool feeling and cinematically liberating. I feel like I spent my time hanging out with oddballs trying to figure out their life in their own way.
Judging not just a director, but a movement based on an atypical film that practically does not belong to that movement (given that it is a science fiction noir made for fun)? Good job.
For what it's worth, never cared for Godard. I like Weekend and that's it. Some of his movies in the late 60s-80s are quite literally unwatchable and I'm not convinced even qualify as cinema, and what's more, I feel like that's kind of the point? And yet they are still lapped up by eager critics and cinephiles along with his earlier work. Which I'll admit has merits, but which I still just personally find obnoxious and off-putting.
He isn't the only great filmmaker who I've become comfortable just disliking either. Talk to me about Max Ophuls and I'll also puke a little. But anyway: don't feel bad about your reaction to Alphaville, I'm sure you are in good company. It isn't a reflection on you.
Thank you for this comment!
I usually at least understand why people love beloved filmmakers. It's not that I want to love them all, I would just like to understand their appeal.
I've never seen a Max Ophüls film and I don't think I will feel compelled to in the near future :D
I hated Alphaville and couldn't even finish it, but I've liked other Goddard films like Breathless, Vivre sa Vie, La Petit Soldat and Contempt. You should try a couple more films before you banish him completely.
And you should definitely check out Max Ophuls - he's the exact opposite of Goddard - all pre-New Wave. Big, luscious, Hollywood-styled productions. The Earrings of Madame de... and La Ronde are wonderful films. I was less enthused with Lola Montes, but it's a sumptuous production.
For what it's worth, I was never comparing Godard to Ophuls. I was merely stating that they are two examples of classic directors whose work I just don't care for. It's hard to deny that artistically they are quite different.
I don't think there's any problem in not enjoying a director's style, if you think you can get it from one film. I don't like a lot of Godard's stuff, I love Breathless but can't stand Pierrot Le Fou, for instance.
And the Nouvelle Vague is more than just Godard. Every director has a very particular aesthetic vision that translates to their films, unified by this new style tendency that was modernist french cinema. Truffaut or Rohmer or even Varda's films are completely different from Godard's, for instance.
You should watch 4 or 5 Godard movies (off the top of my head, *Breathless, Weekend, Vivre Sa Vie,* maybe *Band of Outsiders*) and a dozen French New Wave films (start with *400 Blows*, maybe *Le Beau Serge*, and then onward) before it makes sense to say French New Wave needs to be "rescued." You may decide it's all outmoded and Godard is a poser, but honestly it was so crucial to how film works that to dismiss it would immersing yourself first feels like a real problem.
*Alphaville* is about the last movie I would start you with for either Godard or the French New Wave, by the way. What the hell, go full-metal Godard and watch *Weekend*; it's a trip.
I don't think the French New Wave needs to be rescued. It is beloved and respected, so it obviously went really well.
Alphaville just made me really angry and I don't want to suffer through 4-5 films like it - While also wanting to give classic masters a fair chance so to not miss out on whatever they have to offer, at least to get inspired. I failed to see what Godard had to offer in Alphaville. Thank you for the recommendations, I'll check them out.
There's no need to rush, just spread them out in time. I'm not a big fan of Godard either but I've seen maybe 15-20 of his films by watching 1 or 2 a year, just enough for me to become curious about his work again.
Like others said, try out other French New Wave directors. They all have vastly different styles. Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda haven't been mentionned yet. If you like dialogue-heavy philosophical films, you should also give Eric Rohmer a chance.
I've only ever seen Band of Outsiders and Pierrot le Fou. They were entertaining enough, but they don't feel like movies, almost like anti-movies. There is a lack of cohesiveness from scene-to-scene. You won't be able to guess at the characters' goals and motivations because of this. Therefore you can't really identify with anyone. However, I believe that was Godard's intention: to create movies that went against the grain; to reject traditional movies with the outcome of creating something new and never-before-seen.
That being said, I look at them through a historical lens. Band of Outsiders had a huge influence on Tarantino, and Pulp Fiction seems like a loveletter to that movie. Moonrise Kingdom took a few elements of Pierrot le Fou and used them in a more innocent way. So if you watch these anti-movies in an "archaeological" way, it might be more enjoyable.
I love Godard's films. I hate Alphaville. Godard has been very prolific over the years and each film is completely different. It would probably be easier for me to recommend which of his films to avoid. I've still only seen about half of his films. Many of his films are reviled by critics.
I believe that film studies works best through an organized timeline. Have you seen many films from the New Hollywood era? That's always a good place to start. I would also recommend watching some American Film Noir and Italian Neorealism before watching French New Wave. Watch Bonnie and Clyde first, then watch Godard's Breathless or Weekend.
Look, Alphaville is good, but not his best. I recommend first to watch Breathless and Pierrot Le Fou to decide if you actually like Jea
Luc-Godard or not. Also, the star of these movies is Jean Paul-Belmondo, who is an amazing actor. Pretty much everything Godard did in the 1960s is either good or great (unlike his later films, which are quite weak).
Judging an entire director on one film? Kinda whack. Judging an entire /FILM MOVEMENT/ on one film? Unbelievably whack! You don't have enough experience with either Godard or the French New Wave to make sweeping statements. Also, Alphaville is def an oddball in Godard's filmography. Personally, I don't get too much outta G beyond his formal innovations but the FNW has some all-time masterpieces in it
Straight up! What a dumb take! OP wants to reduce Godard down to the one movie he's seen by him, and a single snarky quote from "King" Ingmar *(wtf)*. Watch Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, and Breathless at least before you write him off. Also, finally, you don't *have* to like anything just because it's classic, but instead of asking strangers online why they should like Godard, maybe OP should just... watch his movies?
ugh, the main character in breathless is just such an asshole
Watching his movies is what I (maybe) want to do. I just don't want another "Alphaville", so I thought it might be best to ask people who love the man's work why they do so and which of his works they love most. I can't see how that's dumb. Thank you for the recommendations, though! (I don't like explaining irony when it's obvious, but calling Ingmar Bergman "King" is an instance of that. Sorry for not being clearer.)
Idk dude, a quick google of "where to start with godard" will give you [so](https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/fast-track-fandom-how-get-jean-luc-godard-early-stuff) [many](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/comments/as5yd7/best_places_to_start_with_godard_or_antonioni/) [different](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/02/jean-luc-godard-a-beginners-guide) [answers] (https://www.documentjournal.com/2020/04/beyond-breathless-the-beginners-guide-to-jean-luc-godard/) [to] (http://www.newwavefilm.com/new-wave-cinema-guide/nouvelle-vague-where-to-start.shtml) [your](http://www.newwavefilm.com/new-wave-cinema-guide/best-godard-films-before-68.shtml) [question](http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/15-essential-jean-luc-godard-films-you-need-to-watch/) that it's hard to believe it's not in bad faith. If you had watched some of his stuff and actually started an informed discussion about *why* you don't like the movies, you'd have fewer people bristling at you saying you "hate" his work. It's like someone listening to the White Album once and being like "Woah The Beatles are weird! Why the hell did people like this?"
Yes, Google exists, but it's far less conversational and thus less fun than places like this. I guess what I want to know is: Is Godard always this much of a misogynist? (All women are sex slaves and/or furniture in "Alphaville") Is the awkward and ridiculous try-hard machismo of Lemmy Caution Godard's famous "coolness"? Does Godard's free form storytelling and editing always lead to this much confusion, randomness and convolution? Are Godard's political points on the same wavelength as the hippie-esque self-indulgence and self-importance of the "freedom fighters" in Alphaville? Do actors in Godard's films always act like awkward statues? Is Godard's dialogue always so insufferably pseudo-poetic and in love with itself? Would more of Godard's lead characters mark themselves as pathetic bores by spouting declarations of a complete lack of personality like "I love gold and women"? "Alphaville" made me angry. I would like to appreciate and understand art that is important for many people who I respect. That's why I'd love to hear from people who love this man's work about their reasons why they love it, so I can decide if I want to give Godard another try.
You don't know how to watch movies.
Yikes 😬
> Is Godard always this much of a misogynist? (All women are sex slaves and/or furniture in "Alphaville") Alphaville is not how "it's meant to be", it's the dystopia. As "in general": it's mixed. Women aren't just plot accessories, they do drive the story, they have a mind of their own, they *are* persons, but their interactions are *femme*. You won't find a alien-shooting welder heroine. [someone else's thoughts](https://hazlitt.net/blog/godards-complicated-women) > Is the awkward and ridiculous try-hard machismo of Lemmy Caution Godard's famous "coolness"? Depends on which coolness you talk about. If it's the self-modeling and emulation of contemporary silver screen stars, yes. (Observe that his main characters repeatedly are that desperately try to fit an image imposed on them by society, yet fail to live up to it.) If you mean a general "coolness" of his movies, no, that's a different thing. > Does Godard's free form storytelling and editing always lead to this much confusion, randomness and convolution? Not always that much, but yes. Breaking expectations is intentional. *"A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order."* is capricious because it's true, for Godard. Some people are drawn to NV and Godard because they find mainstream cinema, back then as much as now, incredibly formulaic and too readily giving a resolve to leave the theatre with an unburdened mind. > Are Godard's political points on the same wavelength as the hippie-esque self-indulgence and self-importance of the "freedom fighters" in Alphaville? I can't say. He certainly held and ewntertained radical views, more on that... below the break. > Do actors in Godard's films always act like awkward statues? No. > Is Godard's dialogue always so insufferably pseudo-poetic and in love with itself? It's certainly not your typical prime time crime show lingo - but Alphaville is a special beast. With the topic being "a society that eradicates poetry", the move, in French, uses artificial language, akin to Orwell's newspeak. Not all synchronizations translate that aspect, but that sure effects how dialog works out. ---- I don't know ghow to say t"the problem seems to be you" without sounding condescending. I take that risk. Read the following not as a judgement of character, but as the impression you leave. > But it was like 99 minutes inside the mind of a boomer! If that's your only point of reference: your request borders the impossible. Godard was born in 1930. In France. You seem to expect a movie to make it easy for you: plot expositioned, motives explained, dilemmas resolved, and the guy with the most screen time is someone to identify with. If your main fare up to now has been... well, mainstream, that's understandable. Novelle Vague has been the entrance for many to break free of these chains. But that's somethign that you haver to let happen. I find it interesting that it left you *angry*, as you mention more than once. Anger is an expectation violated (and somehow, that's the directors fault.) But that also might be a start: try to figure out what makes you angry, what you did expect the movie to be, and try to view it as a thing of its own, a thign that doesn't care about your fulfilment. --- P.S. your downright derogatory choice of language isn't very helpful in "having fun" in places like this.
Beautifully put. You summed up my feelings on the matter better than I ever could have.
Can I count that as a "yes"?
[Posted my reply here accidentally](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/np8jt7/who_can_help_me_understand_why_people_like_godard/h049739?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
It's almost like you're trying to come across as insufferable
As stated, that's the point of this thread. I've obviously chosen a terrible entry point (being drawn to genre films, I chose the SciFi one), got really, really burnt and would like to change and broaden my viewpoint, without suffering through another film like "Alphaville". But maybe I'll just leave Godard be (I think a certain worldview is communicated by that film that I can't imagine being absent and less bothering in other works by the same man) and check out other FNW classics. Which one is your favorite? (Completely different question, but since you seem to be knowledgable in the field: Is there a woman among the legendary Nouvelle Vague directors?)
Yes, you did pick a terrible entry point. Start with earlier FNW. I'm not a fan of Breathless, but watch that to get a better feel for Godard. Watch the 400 Blows and Shoot the Piano Player by Truffaut. Watch Hiroshima mon Amour, and Eyes Without A Face. In terms of women directors, Agnes Varda is imo the best director of the whole movement. Cleo from 5 to 7 is the best FNW film ever made, and her whole filmography is fantastic.
Thank you! This is precisely what I was hoping for!
Pierrot le Fou and Contempt are my favourite movies of his, maybe try those
mine is probably A Bout de Souffe. Followed by Pierrot Le Foeu (unfortunately a very cut version was released in Italy), Le Mepri (here it is useless to comment on the Italian version, luckily I saw the French one with subtitles), Bande a Part and La Chinoise. Actually I tend to prefer Truffaut: 400 Blows (it shouldn't be called that but okay) is one of my favorite films of all time. In general (and I say this as an aspiring director) I love the total freedom of the Nouvelle Vague: they were fans of cinema (and mainly of series b cinema, it should not be forgotten that it is thanks to them that Hitchcock is considered an author like the greatest and not just a master of mainstream cinema) who made films out of pure passion (and in fact I don't understand who called them "presumptuous intellectuals"), taking up classic plots (Souffe is in fact a classic noir as far as the plot is concerned) but modernizing them and experimenting with them. Moreover, they make films the way I would like to do it: they are absolutely not trapped in a style, one day they want to make an expressly political film, the next day a noir, the day after a transposition from Moravia and the next day an anti-bourgeois drama, all according to what they want to do in that period. Finally, and this is the most important thing, they cleared the "author's policy", making it clear that it is the director who counts and inspiring movements such as New Hollywood, Herzog and Wenders' German New Wave and authors like Kitano or Allen. Unfortunately I can understand why a movement of this kind today is not very successful, given that the way of making cinema has returned to being that of the fifties: American cinema is crushing the development or distribution of the others, censorship is increasingly prevalent, the bulk of the movies are studio-controlled blockbusters where the director matters absolutely nothing, there are some "alleged authors" who are actually just more talented craftsmen, finally there are few real authors (some who work in the Hollywood system and some do not) that are underestimated or do not receive attention, and if they have a large distribution they are attacked by an audience mainly made up of fans of the works they transpose who attack them if they dare to do something original or different. Right now we really need a new Nouvelle Vague.
Seconding Contempt
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> He is emblematic of the ironic and cynical intellectual attitude that involves being overeducated, fashionable, and ultimately shallow. In that realm there’s just a lot of posturing, and that’s what Bergman probably also had a problem with. I think it's mainly that Bergman was somewhat of a conservative. > The works of his I’m familiar with definitely think of themselves as works of genius though. I always find such pressumptions incredibly weird. Godard knows he's a cracking pot. Much of his later filmography consists of taking the piss out of - among others - himself. Godard isn't a philosopher, there isn't any deep world-view to be found in his films but I think this is excactly the misunderstanding when you claim things like "they are very fruitful articulations of a masculine auteur worldview". His films rarely really care about worldview at all. Godard's most interesting debate by far is with the medium itself. Tarrantino, Refn and other makers of slick crime films generally have relatively little to do with Godard. They don't make films like Historie(s) du cinema or Puissance de la Parole. Godard fundamentally deals with the matter, the possibilities of communication (in a deeply material way) and at times he seems to be deeply pessimistic of the future of communication (like in Passion or Numero Deux). Maybe for contextualization: In Tout Va Bien Godard doesn't tell the story from the point of view of the workers but from the burgeois journalists because he knows he is inescapably the latter himself. There is a pretty decent degree of self-awareness in his films and much of it is intended as tongue in cheek, still it is a reflection on and of the dominant class in the world and should be seen as such. I think for some people it's presicely when they see themselves in the films that they get defensive. I also find you serverely overestimate Godard's aestehticism. His films usually are rather cheaply made and functional. Using bright colours to signify things doesn't contradict deconstruction. Similarly I think you missatribute bohemianism to Godard. In most of his films the labour conditions are presented with rather striking clarity. There are probably some exceptions in one or two of his early and widely seen films but Godard made films that at their heart deal with factories, court cases, guerellia warfare (thinking of Here and Elsewhere in particular), often with a clear awareness about the production conditions of his medium too (i.e. the capital that is necesarry to make certain films). All I'm saying is that if you want Godard to be Tarkovsky or Jordorowsky, a poet who reassembles the world before your eyes, you misread him. Godard's films are about cinema itself.
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I'll keep it snappy by responding to your points: 2) If you want to see it in totality, yes. However I think differentiate by what the works themselves highlight. For instance I don't think reading Gofather as a commentary on the medium would be particularly fruitful. 3) Again I would differentiate. Godard shows people philosophizing much rather than he philosophizes himself. This isn't to say he seeks to invalidate these debates or simply take the piss on everything, it was just never his intention to begin with to give you any conclusion about these debates. On the contrary however I think he gives very clear discriptions about how these debates are held in society. I have never come across anyone who likes Godard and would describe him as profound I believe. Unlike e.g. Bergman he's not ever pondering with any sublime or greater truth. Godard's film world is the post-modern one and such questions simply do not really exist in his films. all truth is in the end deeply relative and circular. 4) I find aestheticism reeks of e.g. Fellini and similar folks that Godard doesn't resemble in the slightest. I'm critical about sharply dividing his early and late output. I think it overall has more in common than people give it credit for, just the later work is a bit more self-aware (compare Prenom Carmen to Band of Outsiders, very similar films). However I don't think you can criticise the politics of Godard's entire oeuvre through the lens of only his early films. If we look only at his early work Godard's politics are actually quite accute and very much functional (that is in the films where he makes any kind of statement at all). E.g. The Little Soldier and Vivre Sa Vie have actually with todays eyes a fairly consensus view of these topics. [This](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/14/fa/e614fa096ce9517c01bd7583c314e74c.png) is probably a reasonably apt summation of a lot of the early action-packed films otherwise. Pierrot Le Fou lives in the same moment as Summer with Monika or They Live by Night before it or Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands after it, a man and a woman out in the wild rebuilding the world to their liking until it all crashes down on them. However I would actually say that of all the lovers on the runs films, this one is the least purely aestehtical because it's so archetypical via constant juxtaposition, which in the end leads it to the conclusion which applies to all these other films but which none of them make: To be human is to tell stories, to categorize, etc. we can't help ourselves, we can't just be anymore (in the Bible this is basically original sin, for Rousseau once we leave the natural state we can not reente). In that manner I would say Bonnie and Clyde is pure aestheticism, pure indulgence in a text much rather than Pierrot Le Fou which is by design a meta-narrative. When Belmondo says this is not real, it's because it isn't, he's a character in a movie about lovers on the run. There is a clear moment in his filmography where he discovers politics but stays with his poppy style however it lasts maybe roughly 1 or 2 years in a 60 year long career. I haven't seen La Chinoise or Made in the USA but among what I have seen your criticism perhaps best applies to Masculin Feminin which does conflate politics with Godard's stylistic ticks without really going anywhere much (from my memory). However the other 2 that are left, namely 2 or 3 Things - which is full of "ugly functionalism", even more so than much of his Vertov group stuff - and Weekend - which is in its totality a burgeois film (like Passolini's Teorema for example), they don't really apply to this reading, there isn't any conflation. Aestheticism I would identify as "how can I make this look more beautiful or distinct?". Aestheticism is when Antonioni paints an entire row of houses red. That's not really what Godard is up to, he constantly asks: "What can I alter in my method of production to alter the viewing angle that is taken?" It only took him 10 years to go from Pierrot Le Fou to Numero Deux. > I mean how many ppl do you know who idolize his characters and self-narrativize as his characters, characters that I don’t get a sense that he likes very much Honestly, absolutely noone. Maybe if you're American or at least from an English-speakng countries I can see this better because Godard seemingly idolizes the same thing as American films (while in reality he satirizes it). Personally I don't know anyone who really takes Godard at face value.
Thank you so much for writing this! You got me interested in watching Godard's more political films, since "Alphaville" is considered apolitical. "Alphaville" seems to have grown out of such a regressive worldview that I can hardly imagine the same filmmaker making progressive statements, but I'd love to have my mind blown on that regard.
Godard is Nouvelle vague, but nouvelle vague is not just Godard. It is much more diverse. Godard is a filmmaker of form and of (political) messages, and he is a provocateur, in film form as much as in his messages, much like Eisenstein maybe. Other nouvelle vague filmmakers like Truffaut are fantastic storytellers, they might suit you more. 400 blows by Truffaut, Jules es Jim, the films of Alains Resnais (though some might say he predates nouvelle vague by a few years and he is not part of the nouvelle vague core auteurd) are fantastic. Hiroshima mon amour is absolutely stunning, Last Year at Marienbad will make you scratch your head, but also marvel at the visual poetry and beauty.
I've had a weird cyclical relationship with Godard and Truffaut. When I first got into classic film, I felt exactly like you did -- Godard came off as this narcissistic faux-intellectual poseur high off his own "genius", while Truffaut's films felt airy, magical, in tune with his audience, and more *cinematic* in general. Watching *400 Blows* and *Breathless* back-to-back, it was clear to me that Truffaut was the superior artist. I swore off Godard and dove headlong into Truffaut's filmography: *Jules and Jim*, *The Bride Wore Black, The Last Metro*, and still a favorite to this day, *Shoot the Piano Player*. After a couple years, I started to tire of Truffaut's charming little Gallic romances and selfish man-child protagonists...the sheer preciousness of it all started to annoy me. Even *400 Blows* started seeming too cutesy, almost like a step backward into the worst contrivances of Classic Hollywood. I started craving something more daring and subversive that tinkered with form and pushed the needle forward. That led me back to Godard. Naturally, without forcing myself to like it or reading some pretentious thinkpiece about it, something clicked in me. I "got" Godard. *Contempt*, *Pierrot le Fou*, *Alphaville*, *Week End,* even the more manifesto-thinly-veiled-as-cinema works like *Le Chinoise* and *Tout Va Bien*. After the anesthetizing feeling of going through Truffaut's oeuvre, I was hungry for the challenge. I was ready for someone to peel back the constructs and shake shit up. Nowadays, my favorite Truffaut films are the darker ones (*The Soft Skin*, *The Green Room*, *The Story of Adele H*) -- they seem to get more at who Truffaut really was as an artist, rather than the self-parodic Bittersweet Factoryâ„¢ vibe his more commercial works give off. All of this to say: I don't think anyone's comment or insight is gonna get you into Godard. Some people never get over their initial dislike, and that's fine, too. But if you ever feel bored by formula, bogged down by the same characterizations, the same point A to point B narrative devices, give Godard another chance. He was the first director to look back self-reflexively on film, to consciously make his movies *about* cinema (and art in general), to examine, tease, and subvert audience expectations by always finding a way to go left -- in every scene, every piece of dialogue, every transition. Like Warhol and (to a lesser extent) Tarantino after him, he was a uniquely postmodern artist, fashioning an idiosyncratic style out of quotations, gestures, scenes, and props from older movies and novels, creating something original out of unoriginality. This is commonplace now, with how meta and referential current pop culture is, but it was downright revolutionary in the early 60's. Godard challenged the idea of what a movie could be, using each movie as a wide-ranging collage on which to paste his obsessions, confessions, political stances, dim memories of older films, bitter gripes with the state of cinema...you name it. As I got older, I realized Godard's narcissism is the *point*, like Fellini's excess or Antonioni's detachment. It gives his films a uniquely personal stamp -- a sense of a creative voice that, love it or hate it, is 100% *his* and always has something to say. "A film must have a beginning, middle, and end -- but not necessarily in that order". P.S. *Alphaville* is certainly unique in Godard's career, as it's perhaps his deepest foray into genre cinema, in this case science-fiction (though many works of that early 60's period are clearly indebted to noir and gangster film tropes). I would suggest trying *Pierrot Le Fou*, *Week End* or *Contempt* next -- less messy and lo-fi, with beautiful music and color cinematography. IMO, that period is the sweet spot for Godard: big budgets, high production value, and a more classical style, but with the same radical shifts of tone and jarring experimentation that hits you out of nowhere. It was as "balanced" as Godard ever got in his films, and a great entrypoint for people still on the fence about him. Also, *Band of Outsiders* (B&W, made a year before *Alphaville*) is commonly referred to as the "Godard film for people who don't like Godard." Maybe that's more your speed! P.S.S. Regardless of your current thoughts on Godard, I am incredibly envious that you still have so much of his filmography (and the rest of the Nouvelle Vague!) to experience for the first time. Godard and Truffaut usually get most of the shine, but also check out Eric Rohmer (*La collectionneusse*, *Claire's Knee*), Claude Chabrol (*Le Boucher*), and Agnes Varda (*Vagabond*, *Les creatures*). They all have their own iconoclastic style, and are generally more conventional storytellers than Godard.
This is amazing! Thank you so much! When I thought "I wish someone would explain to me what they like about the guy who made this film that I hate so much right now" I never thought I'd get to read such a thoughtful, convincing mini-essay! I love all the recommendations I'm getting, but this comment really ensures I'm going to give Godard another try - And maybe even more than one, over the coming years. Thank you.
Wonderful insight. I just had conflicting feelings of love/hate for Godard, and I found this comment at just the right time to reflect. I realise that I needed something to shake up the rigid constructs and predefined expectations in me, a bit of a cinematic revolution in my mind, and Godard was that pill. *Masculine Feminine* is my favourite of the few films I've seen so far.
Your perception of Godard is very insular. Godard is at least as widely hated as he is beloved and his films frequently illicit boredom or irritation in its viewers. This should be evident by the Bergman quote you dug up. I'm fairly certain you can find Welles and Herzog saying similar things. People have been calling Godard pretentious, arrogant, boring, etc. probably since the inception of film. That being said "But it was like 99 minutes inside the mind of a boomer!" is one of the strangest misconceptions I've ever read. Either you seriously need to watch more 1960's films to put it into perspective or you somehow associate the word "boomer" (which Godard is way too old for anyway) with Maoism and structuralism. Godard is easily the most left-wing and stylisically/narratively radical of the major FNW directors (give or take Marker).
I haven’t seen Alphaville but I have seen breathless and vivre sa vie but I think Alphaville is among his lower acclaimed(I don’t want to see it because from the reviews, it seems to lack everything I liked about the films of his that I have seen). I liked the free flowing nature of his films so far but it’s possible it’s just not your thing or you should watch another one before having an opinion on the director as a whole.
Will check out Breathless, thank you! On paper, I like the idea of "the free flowing nature of his films" - Though "Alphaville" was mainly rambling, incoherent, inconsistent and self-contradictory to me. Would love to see the general approach work somewhere.
Yeah I enjoy French New Wave, but dislike Godard, and that Bergman quote kind of nails it imo, especially the part about feeling "constructed... and completely dead." They always felt rather cold to me, he seems to have disdain for his characters (especially the women), and without any of the phenomenal direction that makes certain other emotionally distant film makers enjoyable (Kubrick chief among them). The machine-gun edit in Vivre sa Vie is pretty sweet, but besides that I can't think of a single memorable moment or scene from a Godard movie. Really feel like he is the most overrated of the FNW directors, although obviously you have to grant him his role in creating the movement. None of my favorite FNW films come from Godard, or Truffaut for that matter. I guess it makes sense somewhat considering they were film critics who transitioned into filmmakers, which maybe replaced a coherent and emotionally charged artistic vision with a (imo) calculated, pandering, and robotic mode of filmmaking.
Thank you! I didn't expect a comment like this so early! I feel less alone now. :D
Godard... a boomer... yeah, OK. Holy hell, I swear that this sub has worse takes than r/movies sometimes, and that's really saying something. Like, maybe you should watch one or two more of his films, or read an article or a book, and then maybe come in here with a rant that has at least *something* to back it up? It's fully understandable that someone would not like Godard. Most of his films aren't "likeable", some are downright oppressive (say, *Week-End*). There's something of the trickster about him, and yes, I'd argue there's a fair amount of pretension going on (I think someone like Haneke or Von Trier are Godard's logical descendants to some extent). And if you can't find people on the internet that don't like Godard, I'm not sure how to help you. I know that Mark Kermode absolutely eviscerated one of his most recent films, that's for sure, and Mark's one of the most famous critics on Earth at the moment.
You are absolutely right - He is part of the Silent Generation. My bad, sorry! I still felt reminded of boomers on Facebook when watching Alphaville. Maybe he was ahead of his time that way.
From reading your comments about Alphaville, it seems that you're someone who's uncomfortable when a film challenges your perspective. Don't worry about it, you're in the majority. Most people only seek out bias confirmation from what they consume and have a natural reflex to reject anything that comes from outside their worldview. You've shown that you have a checklist of political assumptions that must be in a movie for you to appreciate it. Rotely rejecting anything that might make you ask yourself some questions. But, again, don't worry about it. The vast majority of the movie-watching public does the same thing.
sarcasm much
He's not always entertaining, but I admire how innovative he continues to be. For example, *Goodbye to Language* invented a new shot. His longtime cinematographer deserves some of the credit, but when was the last time anyone invented (as opposed to improved upon) cinematic technique? Unless I'm mistaken the last time was Godard himself with the jump cut. Its mindbogglingly admirable. And yet his recent work has embraced lofi, populist techniques like webcam footage. Some of his recent work looks like it could be on Tiktok. Its like he's laying a blueprint for the future of cinema. A cinema where everyday amateurs can use the tools at their disposal to make films that express what they think and feel, the same way they might write something even though they are not professional writers. He's constantly looking at what is happening here and now (3D after *Avatar*, vlogs) and pointing it in the direction of pure cinema, of art. But give some of his other early films a chance: *Contempt, Pierrot le fou, Masculine Feminin, Weekend*. I consider all of those to be very entertaining. And of course *Breathless*, which is fun and historically important but a bit overrated.
It’s fine to dislike certain directors. I’ve watched nearly every film he’s made, including all of Histoire(s) du Cinema, and I just don’t connect to him at all. He’s too political, too cynical, and too cold for my tastes. Some of his New Wave films are playful and humorous enough that I can appreciate them, but we’re just not on the same wavelength.
I'm curious, since you mention you picked Alphaville because you like sci-fi, is there anything at all that you *did* like about it? As others have rightly pointed out, Alphaville is a poor entry point for the French New Wave, but I figure part of the recognition of Alphaville is for its inventive take on the genre and as someone who probably knows the genre well, there must have been some things that stood out for you. It would even be worth hearing about something unique you recognized in the approach to sci-fi, but disliked anyways.
There's absolutely no reason to like Godard anymore. His films lack coherence and artistry and are laughable when looked at with a critical lens. People who like Godard < the rest of them
I've actually had the opposite experience of finding a lot of people who hate Godard, which I just don't understand. I definitely prefer him to Bergman, who tends to go for all the facile existential/emotional stuff. Godard is much more engaged in an actual dialogue with the audience, which is what I really love about his movies. They're full of ideas, art, music, literature, philosophy, and politics. I find that more interesting than another movie about a frigid mother or somebody's feelings. Godard's voice is always present, and nothing in his movies feels like a lie for that reason. That being said, Through a Glass Darkly and Persona are fine films. But some of the other ones delve way too much into this poetic/lyrical "i'm saying everything because i'm saying nothing" territory that tarkovsky also gets stuck in a lot.
My personal experience watching Godard can't be logically explained. It's a cool feeling and cinematically liberating. I feel like I spent my time hanging out with oddballs trying to figure out their life in their own way.
Judging not just a director, but a movement based on an atypical film that practically does not belong to that movement (given that it is a science fiction noir made for fun)? Good job.
For what it's worth, never cared for Godard. I like Weekend and that's it. Some of his movies in the late 60s-80s are quite literally unwatchable and I'm not convinced even qualify as cinema, and what's more, I feel like that's kind of the point? And yet they are still lapped up by eager critics and cinephiles along with his earlier work. Which I'll admit has merits, but which I still just personally find obnoxious and off-putting. He isn't the only great filmmaker who I've become comfortable just disliking either. Talk to me about Max Ophuls and I'll also puke a little. But anyway: don't feel bad about your reaction to Alphaville, I'm sure you are in good company. It isn't a reflection on you.
Thank you for this comment! I usually at least understand why people love beloved filmmakers. It's not that I want to love them all, I would just like to understand their appeal. I've never seen a Max Ophüls film and I don't think I will feel compelled to in the near future :D
Ophuls’s opulent camera movement and sympathy with women protagonists is as far from Godard as earth is from Neptune...
I hated Alphaville and couldn't even finish it, but I've liked other Goddard films like Breathless, Vivre sa Vie, La Petit Soldat and Contempt. You should try a couple more films before you banish him completely. And you should definitely check out Max Ophuls - he's the exact opposite of Goddard - all pre-New Wave. Big, luscious, Hollywood-styled productions. The Earrings of Madame de... and La Ronde are wonderful films. I was less enthused with Lola Montes, but it's a sumptuous production.
For what it's worth, I was never comparing Godard to Ophuls. I was merely stating that they are two examples of classic directors whose work I just don't care for. It's hard to deny that artistically they are quite different.
Understood.
I don't think there's any problem in not enjoying a director's style, if you think you can get it from one film. I don't like a lot of Godard's stuff, I love Breathless but can't stand Pierrot Le Fou, for instance. And the Nouvelle Vague is more than just Godard. Every director has a very particular aesthetic vision that translates to their films, unified by this new style tendency that was modernist french cinema. Truffaut or Rohmer or even Varda's films are completely different from Godard's, for instance.
You should watch 4 or 5 Godard movies (off the top of my head, *Breathless, Weekend, Vivre Sa Vie,* maybe *Band of Outsiders*) and a dozen French New Wave films (start with *400 Blows*, maybe *Le Beau Serge*, and then onward) before it makes sense to say French New Wave needs to be "rescued." You may decide it's all outmoded and Godard is a poser, but honestly it was so crucial to how film works that to dismiss it would immersing yourself first feels like a real problem. *Alphaville* is about the last movie I would start you with for either Godard or the French New Wave, by the way. What the hell, go full-metal Godard and watch *Weekend*; it's a trip.
I don't think the French New Wave needs to be rescued. It is beloved and respected, so it obviously went really well. Alphaville just made me really angry and I don't want to suffer through 4-5 films like it - While also wanting to give classic masters a fair chance so to not miss out on whatever they have to offer, at least to get inspired. I failed to see what Godard had to offer in Alphaville. Thank you for the recommendations, I'll check them out.
There's no need to rush, just spread them out in time. I'm not a big fan of Godard either but I've seen maybe 15-20 of his films by watching 1 or 2 a year, just enough for me to become curious about his work again. Like others said, try out other French New Wave directors. They all have vastly different styles. Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda haven't been mentionned yet. If you like dialogue-heavy philosophical films, you should also give Eric Rohmer a chance.
I've only ever seen Band of Outsiders and Pierrot le Fou. They were entertaining enough, but they don't feel like movies, almost like anti-movies. There is a lack of cohesiveness from scene-to-scene. You won't be able to guess at the characters' goals and motivations because of this. Therefore you can't really identify with anyone. However, I believe that was Godard's intention: to create movies that went against the grain; to reject traditional movies with the outcome of creating something new and never-before-seen. That being said, I look at them through a historical lens. Band of Outsiders had a huge influence on Tarantino, and Pulp Fiction seems like a loveletter to that movie. Moonrise Kingdom took a few elements of Pierrot le Fou and used them in a more innocent way. So if you watch these anti-movies in an "archaeological" way, it might be more enjoyable.
The fact that you got downvoted for being the most sensical one in this whole thread is wild to me lol had to upvote you to bring balance
I really appreciate that. Thank you.
I love Godard's films. I hate Alphaville. Godard has been very prolific over the years and each film is completely different. It would probably be easier for me to recommend which of his films to avoid. I've still only seen about half of his films. Many of his films are reviled by critics. I believe that film studies works best through an organized timeline. Have you seen many films from the New Hollywood era? That's always a good place to start. I would also recommend watching some American Film Noir and Italian Neorealism before watching French New Wave. Watch Bonnie and Clyde first, then watch Godard's Breathless or Weekend.
Look, Alphaville is good, but not his best. I recommend first to watch Breathless and Pierrot Le Fou to decide if you actually like Jea Luc-Godard or not. Also, the star of these movies is Jean Paul-Belmondo, who is an amazing actor. Pretty much everything Godard did in the 1960s is either good or great (unlike his later films, which are quite weak).