tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494160638739613756.post764895765462627989..comments2024-03-28T02:30:08.913-04:00Comments on Not Just Movies: Le Vent d'EstJakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09078001374402400232noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494160638739613756.post-88708251752532494442011-01-03T18:34:10.804-05:002011-01-03T18:34:10.804-05:00Yeah, this is the first time that, while I was sti...Yeah, this is the first time that, while I was still frustrated by the deliberately incomplete nature of the DVG films, I felt that something fully interesting came out. If the DVG films are about leaving things unfinished so one can come back and fill in the gaps later (a sort of interactive lecture that preaches to the audience but then lets them supply their own interpretations without judgment), then we're clearly advancing in class years. The earlier films left less to the audience and showed the basics, basics Godard and Gorin were still trying to sort out, but here there are more concrete ideas to build off of, and it's a welcome relief.<br /><br />I agree with the Gai savoir comparison: I think it demonstrates Godard's ability to "return to zero" but also start rebuilding immediately. There were aspects of Le Vent d'est that frustrated me but that playfulness was back in full force, and Godard can move mountains with it.Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09078001374402400232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494160638739613756.post-68389174689145524732011-01-03T14:03:39.382-05:002011-01-03T14:03:39.382-05:00You write so much here that I seem to have lost tr...You write so much here that I seem to have lost track of your Godard posts, sorry about that — and I'm glad our Twitter discussion reminded me to go looking for the ones I'd missed.<br /><br />Although I haven't seen <i>Pravda</i> yet, which seems to be the DVG film you like the least, I find this period of Godard's career as fascinating as it is frustrating. I have pretty high tolerance for all the agitprop lectures and endless dialectical back-and-forth, and what redeems these films for me is the quality of self-criticism and self-questioning that you identify here. Godard never intended for these films to be finished works. He considered them "blackboard" movies, and that make-it-as-we-go quality of construction shows through in most of them; <i>Vladimir and Rosa</i> and <i>Tout va bien</i> being the exceptions as Godard took a few steps, however modest, back towards narrative and commercial moviemaking. In the DVG films, nothing is permanent or finished, nothing is definitive. They're films about struggling with ideology and how best to express that ideology.<br /><br />As for <i>Wind From the East</i>, I actually watched this recently and will be posting a review later this month. Like <i>Le gai savoir</i>, the Godard film it most resembles thematically if not visually, it's a film about its own making, about the difficulty of making a film that embodies the ideas that Godard wanted to explore. I loved the clever implied reference to Magritte in Godard's discussion of Hollywood and horses, and in general loved the loose genre parody here, a nod to Godard's earlier films, which had more thoroughly engaged with genre. It's often surprisingly funny, and just as often thought-provoking, and sometimes merely impenetrable. But it's never boring.Ed Howardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18014222247676090467noreply@blogger.com