Customer Reviews

Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The thing that struck me as I read this was that Brody seems more enamored of the idea of what he thinks Godard was doing as an artist than he is with the actual films he made - at least with the films he made during the first decade or so. Colin MacCabe's Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy seems more readable and more able to see the films as something other than opaque autobiography. Needless to say either book will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Godard's personal life, although MacCabe, unlike Brody, shows some reticence in exploring his love life.

This book is a must-have for any fan or person interested in the work of Jean-Luc Godard. It is a comprehensive critical biography detailing the working methods and conditions surrounding each film in Mr. Godard's ouvre. It is a massive and lengthy tome filled with erudition.

I break my rating down as follows:

Skipping the childhood and parental history: 5 Stars (because his childhood and parental history does not interest me... and was already covered in MacCabe's book.)

Late 40's/Early 50's background on French critical theory: 5 Stars (for the Astruc/Bazinian/etc. cinema theory... mixed with Satrean/etc. existentialism... along with a dash of vermouth named Brecht)

The financing/producing of the films and a history of various working methods: 5 Stars (great for any cinephile)

The Karina/Godard relationship: 5 Stars (not enough can ever be said about one of the true goddesses of cinema!)

May 1968: 5 Stars (some exciting stuff that I lived through at the time)

Comprehensively talking about every short, middle and feature-length film or video that has even been publicly seen in a movie theater, on television, or at various screenings: 5 Stars (`nuff said...)

Critical Taste in the analysis of films: 2 Stars

I find this to be Mr. Brody's only failing but his taste is somewhat different than mine in the appreciation of the relative merits of Mr. Godard's individual films. To wit:

Brody speaks much more highly of King Lear than Band of Outsiders. He rates Prenom: Carmen much more highly than the film that immediately preceded it (Passion). He is not much of a fan of Two or Three Things yet raves about A Married Woman. He doesn't have much use for Les Carabiniers. Or British Sounds.

(Huh?)

King Lear over Band of Outsiders? Band of Outsiders was poetic AND fun at the same time. Looks easy but hardly anyone can do it.

Les Carabiniers is a dadaist masterpiece and includes one of the high points of cinema... (and I paraphrase the dialogue...) ... "You mean we get to steal, rape and kill and get away with it?" "Yes." "SIGN US UP!"

(Isn't this as good, if not better, than Bergman's God-is-a-spider-crawling-on-the-wall??) (!!)

I liked Prenom: Carmen very, very much. But I liked Passion very, very, very, very, very, very, very much. I guess I preferred the ecstatic/epiphanal shots of art tableux in Passion to the repeated shots (in Carmen) of Ms. Detmers' pubis.

Mr. Brody can't see the forest for the trees on this one! As Chuck Heston once said when confronted with wooly beasts, "Get away from me you d--n dirty ape!"

(Apologies to Ms. Detmers who more than proved her acting chops/oral skills in Marco Bellocchio's DEVIL IN THE FLESH. A fine lass, she...!) (And I did very much enjoy Carmen as well as her performance... but Passion is a superior work of art.)

The best cup of coffee in the history of the world was Godard's Two or Three Things... and even Hamlet never faced the poetic quandary Godard did when he wondered "Should I speak of Juliette... or the trees?" as an Edenic shot of creation is framed within the 1.66:1 ratio. Or was it 2.35?

And if you've ever worked on a factory line... you'll admire the perfectly chosen perfection of the ear-drone-hammer-industrial-noise soundtrack in British Sounds.

Perhaps Mr. Brody never was an industrial wage-slave or he would have more admiration for the truth in much of what Godard/Gorin expressed in their Vertov films. Sometimes the truth ain't pretty. And sometimes the truth may hurt your ears.

IN SUMMARY, though you may disagree with Mr. Brody on his critical analysis of individual films... (taste in their relative merits may simply be akin to taste in ties)... the reading of his critical biography was sometimes fascinating, and almost always interesting. Well worth each capitalist penny spent!

This book is extensive and really focuses on Godard's intellectual process, how he has viewed film as art, and how he differed from the other French New Wave auteurs. The author also examines how Godard's personal life, especially with Anna Karina, intertwined with his work. The chapters are chronologically divided by film, which made it easy to watch each corresponding movie as I read the chapters. Not many comprehensive, well-researched books on the French New Wave era of film making exist, so this one is really welcome. Highly recommended biography.

I must congratulate Mr. Brody for his in-depth examination of one the the great auteurs of cinema, a man who has consistently defied convention and created a body of work unlike anyone else in his profession.

Writing about Jean Luc Godard in an exercise in exasperation because the director is deliberately elliptical, leaving his films, methods and aesthetic open to discussion and varied interpretations. Branded, alternately, a fascist sympathizer, a communist, an anarchist and everything in between, Godard continues (to this day) to work at his own pace, exploring the themes that fascinate him without apology to critics, colleagues or even his most devoted followers and acolytes.

It is very easy to look foolish when discussing an artist as fluid, ever-evolving and unabashedly personal as Godard, but Mr. Brody's book treats its subject with finesse, subtlety, erudition and respect.

A superb meditation on a cinematic master.

if you love godard, you must have this book,by THE NEW YORKER film reviewer, richard brody.he offers an insightful biography of godard, and his influences, the reviews are in chronological order, and are MUST READS, after watching the dvds. his treatment of BREATHLESS is packed with information and astute observations. it is absolutely amazing that BREATHLESS was godard's first film. keep this book by your dvd player!

An excellent overview of the life and work of Godard. Although some may quibble at elements of Brody's approach, it would be impossible to write a book on Godard that pleases everyone. Brody's work is an interesting companion to Colin MacCabe's biography, published a few years back. Read both, watch the films and Godard will mean what he means as you stare out from within your human skull.

Dark Windows

Excellent portrait of JLG & the complexities & foibles of a person driven
to question the very form of filmaking. Thoroughly engrossing read, written in an easy flowing style without the inflections of worship or prejudice. A primary source for the understanding of a demanding intellect & a fascinating insight to private life/public art manifestation. Thoroughly recomended.

Source: http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs38/feat_krohn_brody.html

i would have preferred this post to be titled "Kinbrody and the Ceejays", similar to its source, but the said would do. The form as much as the content matters, as all JLG fans know. "Sliced and diced like a package of subprime mortgages," Brody's feat fails on both counts.