Jean-Luc Godard and Ludwig van Beethoven

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  • kernelbogey
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 5745

    Jean-Luc Godard and Ludwig van Beethoven

    Hearing the opening bars of Beethoven's 'Rasumovsky' Quartet in F major, no1 tonight on TTN took me back in memory to a Godard movie I saw in about 1965 while at University. This opening phrase appeared several times in the soundtrack. Even more striking was a repeated ten-note phrase from the extraordinary Op 131: the experience sent me out to buy an LP of this remarkable work, which nonetheless remained somehow inaccessible to me. (Anthony Hopkins once introduced a Talking About Music programme on one of the late quartets saying that it was traditional to think as though one must approach them having spent several hours with an icepack on one's head.)

    I wonder if anyone remembers this movie? I can remember nothing else, although no doubt it involved moody shots of Anna Karina looking soulful. I could do some online research and track it down, but I thought it more fun to see what anyone else might recall, and how much they liked or disliked those very much of-their-time Godard films. I haven't seen one in decades, but I suspect they would look both mannered and old-fashinoned now. Much as Godard was revered in my youth, I don't think he will actually be remembered as a great director, although he was undoubtedly influential.
  • kernelbogey
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 5745

    #2
    Bumping this up.

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    • Conchis
      Banned
      • Jun 2014
      • 2396

      #3
      The film you refer to is A Married Woman.

      I’ve not seen the film in question: the only Godard films I’m at all familiar with are Breathless and One Plus One, the latter because of its footage of the Rolling Stones recording Sympathy For The Devil.

      I didn’t like Breathless at all and I failed to finish watching Le Mepris.

      Godard’s reputation as a filmmaker seems to have collapsed in recent years. In the sixties, he was routinely described as a ‘genius’ but nowadays he’s only remembered as someone who was ‘big in the sixties’, though not everyone can remember for what.

      I’d agree that Anna Karina is about the best reason for watching his films.

      Comment

      • vinteuil
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 12815

        #4
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        EDIT - I see Conchis got there first...

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        • Richard Barrett
          Guest
          • Jan 2016
          • 6259

          #5
          Wasn't that Une femme mariée?

          I haven't seen any Godard films for many years either, and I was too young to catch the 1960s ones the first time around.

          Comment

          • vinteuil
            Full Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 12815

            #6
            .

            ... for those perhaps nostalgic for the days of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and the rest : I found this list of 'top ten films' from les Cahiers du Cinéma an absorbing read. Memory lane...



            .

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            • jayne lee wilson
              Banned
              • Jul 2011
              • 10711

              #7
              My favourite of the Godard Oeuvre - a vital part of the French Cinematic revolution in any sense - is Pierrot Le Fou; a remarkable, psychologically and cinematically multi-faceted work, visually stunning with an unforgettable cliff-top ending woven around the Rimbaud lines -

              Elle est retrouvée.
              Quoi ? – L’Eternité.
              C’est la mer allée
              Avec le soleil.

              Heard as the smoke drifts out over the ocean....(if only you knew what from...) would love to describe more but don't want to spoil it for any future viewers..
              But seek it out - it'll change your life...

              ​(With a film like Breathless - you have to see through the extreme stylishness to the themes of mortality - Love and Death with a lightness of touch, long before Woody Allen got hold of them...)

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