Godard On Godard (Da Capo Paperback) (Paperback)

~ Jean-luc Godard (Author) "Jean-Luc Godard was born on 3 December 1930, in Paris..." (more)
Key Phrases: des oeufs durs, ten best films, contre les murs, Une Vie, Bout de Souffle, Nicholas Ray (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Jean-Luc Godard, like many of his European contemporaries, came to filmmaking through film criticism. This collection of essays and interviews, ranging from his early efforts for La Gazette du Cinéma to his later writings for Cahiers du Cinéma, reflects his dazzling intelligence, biting wit, maddening judgments, and complete unpredictability. In writing about Hitchcock, Welles, Bergman, Truffaut, Bresson, and Renoir, Godard is also writing about himself—his own experiments, obsessions, discoveries. This book offers evidence that he may be even more original as a thinker about film than as a director. Covering the period of 1950–1967, the years of Breathless, A Woman Is a Woman, My Life to Live, Alphaville, La Chinoise, and Weekend, this book of writings is an important document and a fascinating study of a vital stage in Godard’s career. With commentary by Tom Milne and Richard Roud, and an extensive new foreword by Annette Michelson that reassesses Godard in light of his later films, here is an outrageous self-portrait by a director who, even now, continues to amaze and bedevil, and to chart new directions for cinema and for critical thought about its history.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 21, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306802597
• ISBN-13: 978-0306802591
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #156,616 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Godard and Films, January 31, 2000

By	David Cromwell (Provo, Utah United States) - See all my reviews

I've just read the book and though it dragged at some points because I wasn't familiar with a couple of the films he was talking about it, the overall experience was uplifting. If you have the slightest interest in Godard and the New Wave read the book and get inside a New Wave director's head and see how he looks at films. The book contains a number of his Cahiers du Cinema reviews and articles, and some interviews he gave later in life. By the end of the book you finally begin to understand a little of how this genius thinks.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and arresting articles !, December 20, 2004

By	Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Godard displays all his unimaginable masterful in this set of reviews originally written for Les Cahiers du Cinema in the far Fifties .
The charm , of this enfant terrible is present all alnog the text .
The reviews about Orosn Welles , Ingmar Bergman , Francois Truffaut , Mizoguchi and his favorite western Seven men from now of Budd Boeticher (I have not watched it) are specially revealing .
Acquire this book , because despite the fact you may argue these reviews are dated , constitute - and who denies? - a crucial period in the cinema story .

7 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Negation of all surreal (capitalist) values.", December 24, 1997

By	[e-mail] (USA) - See all my reviews

"Weekend (best pre-packaged volition)." -Premature Positivity