Customer Reviews

In Praise Of Love

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

 

 

Jean-Luc Godard has once again created a wholly unique cinematic experience in his IN PRAISE OF LOVE. The film requires participation (yes, even work) on the part of the viewer, but the contents of this art piece are so refined and so significant that it begs for repeated viewings, much like the major novels of history. His technique of telling his 'story' is idiosyncratic: there is a narrator who is at the end of a ten-year love affair and wondering why it ended. He states at both the beginning and end of the film that a love afair is in four stages: meeting, sexual passion, separation, and rediscovery. And in exploring the impact of the miracle of love he proceeds to investigate memory and history and how they are inextricably bound in our perception of the world both past and present. To present his case the narrator begins to cast a film to explain his story and selects at least one young girl to play the lover, only to have her blend into the fabric of the remaining of the film just the way glimpses become pieces of memory - distorted, illuminated, altered, reinvented by our present and our past. Much of the film is shot in luminous black and white and then the latter portion is altered by the introduction of color. But in the color portion the fields of color are manipulated into bands of brilliance that are at times artificial, at times precise. An elderly couple is interviewed, homeless people populate portions, making derisive comments on society and especially capitalism, the streets of Paris are there for wandering: Godard free associates visually and philosophically and leaves us with so many beautiful thoughts and phrases and images that one viewing of this film simply cannot suffice to capture them all. Our 'present' as a viewer will be altered by our 'history' of having watched the film before. "When I see a new landscape, it is not really 'new'(it has been there forever) but it is new to us because we relate it to landscapes and places that compose our past". IN PRAISE OF LOVE is a journey inside the mind of Godard and as such it only whets the appetite for more. A beautiful, if difficult, film for people willing to engage.

If you only know Godard from his 1960's films this late phase masterpiece will come as a surprise. In Praise of Love could just as well be titled In Praise of French Culture as this film is like a testament to all of the things Godard loves most about his countries cultural traditions. We know Godards taste in philosophy, music, literature, painting and most importantly film because his favorite sources decorate every frame of the film. References abound within the film to Robert Bresson -- who I think could well be called the patron saint of French Cinema. The New Wave film makers were always fond of Bresson but here Godard not only shows a young man standing in front of a movie poster for Pickpocket but he also quotes from Notes of a Cinematographer-- this book provides wonderful insights into Bressons mind set but also Godards who obviously reveres him . There is also a moving reference to Vigo's L'Atalante. The Godard of the 90's is a much matured artist less concerned with shaking things up than with learning how and teaching us how we must look backward and remember in order to move forward. The view of an aging artist yes but also the view of a mature artist.

The first half of In Praise of Love is shot in black and white and the most memorable shots are of Paris at night -- the cinematography is achingly romantic which is fitting for the first halfs main theme is the search for romantic love. It is misleading to say this is the only theme though as while that theme is explored Godard also speaks of the current state of France and through his actors offers his insights into the modern state of French public life and politics which obviously leave him cold -- ie the state has no love for its people, and, anyone who makes over 10,000 francs a month in France no longer has a political conscience. As he films his young actors you can tell Godard is reminiscing about his own youth and own first love Anna Karina. For Godard politics are never far from love -- the two seem to go hand in hand for him -- because the search for love is intimately connected with our search for an ideal. Love will always fail, Godard seems to say, because we can never achieve our ideal of it -- or, searching for the ideal we cease to see the object that we love. In support of this examination of the early stages of love by a young man he offers an older gentlemans memory of his first love and how the memory of it still stings him. The film has a decidedly documentary feeling and a decidedly somber tone which is reinforced by the elegiac piano music. Though the narrative is not strictly linear it is fairly easy to follow. In addition each time Godard quotes one of his cherished sources (Chateubriand, Balzaz, Bataille's Blue Noon) the book is usually in the frame. The Godardian methods will be familiar to someone who has only seen his sixties work but you will also notice that those methods have mellowed, deepened, and become more intimate, and furthermore the pace of his films has slowed considerably reflecting the directors age and this is actually a welcome nuance as it allows one to absorb the content of each sequence. I am tempted to say I prefer this late phase of Godards career to his early phase but of course one would not exist without the other.

In the second part the main theme shifts away from love, although that continues to be a minor theme, and towards history -- in truth the two themes are interrelated and comments made about one topic invariably have significance for the other. Memory becomes an obsesion for the aging artist and Henri Bergson is a major reference point in this section of the film. Godard argues that until nations are willing to confess their crimes and own up to them and allow for open discourse they will remain in a kind of infancy. National identity and growth is dependent on memory and thus America is ridiculed for failing to have any kind of memory. In fact in the funniest part of the film a representative for an American film company is in France trying to purchase the rights to a resistance fighters memoirs. Godard has a character comment that America has no memories of its own and thus must buy them from other countries. America is seen to be suffering from the worst case of arrested development but France is also seen to be guilty of it as well.

The film is a rich essay with many themes which complement each other in unusual ways. I found it moving and thoughtful and infinitely rich -- at any given moment you will find yourself contemplating a particularly evocative reference which connects the past to the present. This is the kind of film you like immediately and the kind of film that invites you back to it. There is much here and I've only hinted at some of the things I noticed on a single viewing but I plan on watching this many more times.

I really love this film. Like most of Godard's best work, it yields itself to repeated viewings (I have seen it now 4 times) because it is such a rich work, including so many ideas (on language, love, memory, Paris, America, poverty, and of course cinema). The film is very much like a novel in that each scene is imbued with more and more layers one on top of the other. Highly complex, original, and intelligent cinema is hard to come by nowadays, so thank you Jean-Luc for making movies for INTELLIGENT people.

Jean-Luc Godard's episodic opus about a man who interviews various individuals about an unknown project called "Eloge de l'amour," which will involve three couples experiencing four stages of love. The first half of the film, shot in Paris, appears in 35-mm BW and displays some of Godard's most impressive footage. The second half, set in Brittany two years earlier, is shot in super-saturated, bright digital color, deliberately crafted to overwhelm the viewer. The film is oblique, contemplative, challenging, esoteric, and profoundly beautiful. Includes a haunting piano score from Ketil Bjornstad and Arvo Part. Not too be missed.

This is a movie which should really never be seen for the first time.

I bought the DVD after reading a reference to the movie in the New Yorker magazine. I was open-minded, not knowing at all what to expect. I had never seen a Godard film before, being much more familiar with German cinema than French.

Half way through the film, I was thinking - there is no plot, the dialog ranges from unintelligible to utterly pointless, absolutely nothing is happening, there are no characters I care the least bit for, the actors seem utterly oblivious to where the camera is (half the time their backs are turned to us while speaking, or doing whatever they are doing - which seems to be nothing of any interest most of the time). Most astonishingly, Godard at frequent intervals seems to despair of showing us anything at all, and the screen fades to black... and stays that way for lo-o-o-o-ng seconds, sometimes with (pointless) dialog, sometimes with nothing at all. When it was all over, I still had no idea whatsoever what it was about.

But - but, but, but.... I can't remember when I've last seen a movie I found so compelling, so arresting, so utterly mesmerizing, so ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL. I couldn't tear my eyes away. (With two annoying exceptions*) every scene was absolute perfection, every line precisely the right line. I keep re-playing it over and over again in my head. I can't wait to watch it again. THIS IS WHAT GOOD CINEMA IS ALL ABOUT. Highest recommendations - see it, buy it - it will change what you think about movies.

.... After three viewings of this movie, I need to amend my comments slightly. What marks this movie apart from most others one sees is its depth. There is no way to see everything that's going on in any particular scene in one go, and it seems that no detail was too small for Godard's consideration. The songs playing in the background, the movie posters on a wall, the casual mention of a name leads to a dizzyingly complex web of associations that can only be appreciated by pondering. You will not "get" this movie right away, but I guarantee it will haunt you. Despite its undeniable flaws, one of the most rewarding films I have ever seen, and I have definitely not watched it for the last time. Highest recommendation.

* The two (to me, at least) flawed scenes are:
1. Where the people are (apparently in a bookshop) listening to a radio broadcast about Kosovo. What is the point of this scene?
2. At the house in Brittany, where the lead female character goes off on a long rant about America having no history, so it must "steal" others' histories to make its movies. Huh? What about Westerns? Gone With the Wind? The grapes of Wrath? etc. This is nonsense.

By far the most amazing film I've ever seen.

Godard at his very finest. Images and ideas from the film will stick with you for months, even years.

Godard once again attempts to capture the retro-smitten flower of youth, only to run into a Cinematic Guajardian blockade. If not for the visuals (suspect in that they seem "borrowed" from previous pioneering visual techniques), this film would lend a mistaken hint of pseudo-parody, blemished by an over eager desire to recapture past glory.

"In Praise of Love" returns us to that intriguing "End To Beginning" tactic often utilized in cinema masterpieces like "Betrayal," but this artistry overrides the plot in an attempt to parody American film czars. By dividing this work into two parts, and subdividing the first part into contrived Buddhist expressionism (The Four Noble Truths), Godard seems to be trying to impress us with pseudo-archetypes, Gestruist-Symbolism, and subtle Guajardian "surprises." The result will leave even the most infantile film student shaking his head, wondering if Godard based the entire film on the cliffnotes of "Siddhartha."

There are bright spots, however, in this Wonderland of Mediocrity. This intense shining of chalky yet solid color-wheel effect known as "Speedcolor," was used in American cinema for one brief shining moment, by director Bill McGaha, in the 1967 art house classic "The Speed Lovers". McGaha, whose final directing credit was in a 1972 Norse epic "Iron Horsemen," seems humble enough not to flaunt his laurels. If Godard can express the "horror toppled by commercial sellout" embodied by the old couple trying to make sense of lives after the war, power to him.

All in all, am admirable attempt at recapturing glory days, but missing the mark completely.

It is important that "In Praise of Love" is watched by many ordinary intellectuals in US, for it is a beautifully stated manifesto. "We are all tricksters" states Godard, and here he tricks the cinema lovers into the formalist heresy of acknowledging his "masterful" technique, his "outstanding" cinematography.
However, the supposedy profound content of this film is actually nothing other than a set of actions, thoughts, and presumptions usually found in a teenager who is well read, lives in Europe, and never lived in US: extensive citations from unpopular books by the great (French) philosophers, paranoidal hate of the Americans, and the constant mention of death...
Has the great European film director Jean-Luc Godard become wiser and better with age, or the most horrible is true? That he has finally shown us the true face of his and of European intellectualism in general: an adolescent burdened by his own thoughts of love and death.
Aside from it all, this film has moments for which the author could get punched in the face. There is a mention of the "fact" that most Albanian "refugees" were in their home at the time of the Serbian army attack. Mr. Godard ommits the fact that they were not refugees at that precise moment yet.
It is neccessary to see and look deep into what Godard is saying and what he is showing us. The great repository of culture (Europe = France) has History on its side, and that makes all of US population - an inferior breed of humans. It is all very "profound" indeed!!!

Sounds pretty much like the experience of life, I suppose. In my life, fortunately, I don't have to spend the day watching and listening to men gracelessly weathering the pangs of inner turmoil. Most of the people I know have the good manners to hide their 'quiet desperation' until they're at home and the dog is within kicking range. I love Godard and foreign film, but this 'in-your-face' pretensiousness is inexcusable. Still, offensive anti-American content is worth at least 2 stars!