In Michel Hazanavicius' idol-toppling GODARD MON AMOUR, an "untouchable" gets touched

It was probably a good idea to have a relatively "mainstream" French director like Michel Hazanavicius (of the OSS movies and the Oscar-winning The Artist) be the one to make a movie about that French filmmaking icon Jean-Luc Godard. I mean, what has Hazanavicius got to lose? Something like this could ruin in perpetuity the reputation and maybe even the career of a French ''art' filmmaker. But by giving us a kind of mini-biopic of only a few years in Godard's life (the time when he claimed as his girlfriend one, Anne Wiazemsky,

whose memoir of those years this movie is based on) and then turning the result into more of a comedy than anything else, Hazanavicius (shown at right) has provided us an entertainment that at least cursorily explores the man and his ideas, politics and filmmaking.

While the resulting movie has already inflamed the hearts and minds of those who hold up Godard as some kind of filmmaking god (which gives TrustMovies yet another reason to remain an atheist), GODARD MON AMOUR (Le redoubtable, in its original French title) is mostly a smart take-down of a man who has been idolized and lionized just a little too long and hard.

As played -- very well, too -- by the ubiquitous French actor Louis Garrel, above, our Jean-Luc is shown to be smart, talented, and onto some genuinely ground-breaking cinematic stuff. Unfortunately, he is also petty, pompous, jealous and something of an overall twat. His determination to "change" (because of the current political/social situation), without realizing that the result of this change would produce neither better nor more accessible movies, seems to be the point of this Wiazemsky/Hazanavicius collaboration. (Or perhaps that's just my own opinion of this guy's career.)

In the role of Anne, the lovely Stacy Martin (above) does more than a credible job of creating an intelligent and lively young woman, greatly enamored of her famous man, who over time begins to see the feet of clay and cracks in the facade. In the supporting cast, Hazanavicius regular, the gorgeous Bérénice Bejo (below, right), takes the role the grounded best friend, and a number of other good actors fill out the more minor roles.

But the movie belong mostly to Garrel and a little less so to Martin, and both actors come through with colors flying. Garrel, in particular has the look, the attitude and the coldly withholding quality said to be Godard hallmarks. You can easily imagine, in fact, that the man we see here will turn into the man whom we never see in the recent Faces Places documentary because he refuses to answer the door to Agnès Varda and JR.

There's plenty of humor to be found in the film -- from Garrel's performance in general to Jean-Luc's near-constantly breaking eye-glasses and most of all in the evolution of his film theory from something individually helmed to a kind of nitwit collectivism.

Bonus treat: we also get a nice, long, and very impressive look at M Garrel, naked and full-frontal, which, for all I know may have really sent poor M. Godard around the bend, jealousy-wise. As I say, there's lots of good fun to be had here, and just as with that documentary made a few years back about J.D. Salinger, the critical response seems much more to do with "How dare you sully the reputation of such a great man?!" than with the quality and worth of the actual movie itself.

From Cohen Media Group, in French with English subtitles and running a just-about-right 107 minutes, Godard Mon Amour opened two weeks ago in our cultural capitals and today hits South Florida and elsewhere at art theaters near you. In Miami, look for it at the Coral Gables Art Cinema, and in Palm Beach County at the Movies and Delray and the Movies of Lake Worth.

Godard's A MARRIED WOMAN hits Blu-ray & DVD -- and holds up pretty damned well

Anyone who follows this blog probably knows that TrustMovies is no fan of Jean-Luc Godard. I find the guy intellectually callow, pretentious to a fault and with a battery of films that range from so cutesy you could barf (Breathless and especially Pierrot Le Fou) to deliberately inscrutable enough to bore you to distraction (Film Socialisme and Goodbye to Language). I have not seen all of his work (what kind of a masochist do you think I am?), but along the way, I've viewed a few good films, the best of which I find to be Le Petit Soldat, followed by Weekend and the movie that arrives in a spanking new high-def edition this week, A MARRIED WOMAN (an exact translation from its French title, Une femme mariée).

First off, for his star, Godard (shown above, on set for the film) managed to get -- instead of Stefania Sandrelli, whom he wanted but who was pregnant at the time -- the absolutely lovely, diffident, quite entitled (before we even knew what that word meant) young actress, Macha Méril, who, beside being drop-dead gorgeous, also defines the word "pert." (You'll learn this "casting" fact and so much more from the very interesting interview with Miss Méril, done in 2010, which appears on the disc's "extras," in which she spills beans about nearly everything. This actress is as much of a Godard fan as I am not.)

The stunning black-and white cinematography that makes up the film is by the great Raoul Coutard, Godard's cinematographer of choice for many years, and it is just about as good as it gets: pristine, elegant, can't-take-your-eyes-away amazing. The compositions here are phenomenal and exactly right -- all on a budget that could hardly be believed, even back in the day when movie budgets were much smaller. (To save more money, Ms Méril tells us, Godard did some of the costuming himself.)

Plotwise, Godard, who also wrote the film, has his leading lady involved in a heavy-duty affair with a somewhat noted actor (Bernard Noël, above), while living with her husband and taking care of his young son. In the course of the movie we learn that the hubby -- the very hot but only somewhat jealous Philippe Leroy (below and two photos above), knew about her "flirtation" (he had her followed) but remains in the dark about just how far that flirtation has evolved.

Ms Méril is on screen for nearly the entire movie and in almost every frame -- or at least some part of her is. In that interview the actress explains that she never knew whether Godard was filming all of her or only a part of her (or which part). She commands this movie in an even a stronger manner than did another Godard star, Anna Karina, in her several films.

As played by the actress, Charlotte is shallow and almost completely incurious intellectually or even socially. She thinks the German use of Auschwitz has to do with Thalidomide rather than with the Holocaust (the movie takes place and was made in 1964, remember, when many of the facts about the Holocaust were still kept somewhat under wraps). Yet, as privileged and uncaring as Charlotte is, Méril makes her real and just important enough as a French woman of her time that we come to care about and appreciate her.

Sure, Godard makes certain we notice all the consumer advertising and media nonsense by which Charlotte is surrounded and to which she gives herself rather gladly. And there's the usual social critique, too: bourgeois life and its discontents. But thanks to Méril, there's greater depth of character here, while Godard's dialog is better than in many of the "master's" movies, making full use of the French penchant for philosophy but more charmingly so than usual -- without toppling over into cutesiness.

Too often this filmmaker gets bogged down in appearing to make an exercise in intellectual one-upmanship, rather than a full-fledged, intelligent and emotionally engaging movie. The guy can't resist showing us how smart he is -- which can only go so far in terms of real filmmaking. Deconstruction is fine, but construction is better. But if you, too, want to try feeling superior, by all means give Godard's oeuvre a good going over.

Meanwhile, take a gander at the excellent Blu-ray transfer that the Cohen Film Collection has given this near-classic release. Part of Cohen's Classics of French Cinema collection, A Married Woman makes its Blu-ray and DVD debit this Tuesday, May 24 -- for purchase or rental.

The latest in a series: Jean-Luc Godard's spastic but fun-to-watch-in-3D GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

Well, he likes dogs, at least (see poster, right). Which is better than he's done with women over the years. Yes, Jean-Luc Godard is back, this time in 3D. And if 3D seems the least expected format for a filmmaker such as this, that is probably the entire point. Ever the provocateur, M. Godard intends to show us what we don't understand. And if this leads to the pitter-patter of pretension, all the better. That just adds to the fun of yet another increa-singly spastic movie from the "master."

As much as I consider Godard ( in chair at left) to be the epitome of The Emperor's New Clothes -- come on now: he was only half-dressed back in the days of Breathless, which gave us something new, yes, but beyond that, simply attitude over content -- I must admit that I had no trouble watching most of GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE, silly as some of it is. This was due mostly to the quite ravishing 3D cinematography (by Fabrice Aragno, who also worked on the director's also pretty Film Socialism). Watching this movie is often pure dimensional pleasure.

Not that Godard and Aragno give us stuff jumping out of the screen. Please. There does seems to be one segment in which there is a kind 3D within the 3D ("6D?" as a friend of mine questioned). But mostly, this is just nice cinematography with the extra addition of "space"

You can see, nearly feel, the planes here. Branches of trees against the river bank, nature in its glory, even a pair of very attractive breasts protruding toward you and a cock bouncing its way along (yes, there's some full-frontal nudity, too).

A story? Not really. There's a man and a woman present, so you can maybe find one if you look hard. But it doesn't count for, or come to, much. There is that lovely dog who appears almost throughout. And the usual late-Godardisms: dialog that sometime goes untranslated, or even unheard (Goodbye to Language, indeed!), as the director seems to be tweaking us but good.

I took a few notes at the screening I attended, but they appear now to have disappeared, but I am recalling my viewing experience as not at all a bad one. Still, I am either too dumb to get on this guy's wave-length, or maybe, as I suggest, it is one that offers neither much intellectual nor emotional reward.

Goodbye to Language 3D -- from Kino Lorber and running just 70 minutes -- opens this coming Wednesday, October 29, in New York at the IFC Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Elsewhere? Actually, yes: In another eight cities across the country. (But not, I notice, anywhere in the Los Angeles area. Those cretins! Or maybe they're just too smart for this con job.) You can view all currently scheduled playdates by clicking here and scrolling down.

That old panderer Jean-Luc Godard gives us something to ponder in FILM SOCIALISM

Oh, am I using that headline word incorrectly?  I don't think so. According to my dictionary, a panderer, in addition to a sexual procurer, can be someone who "caters to or exploits the lower tastes and desires of others." While one does not necessarily think of intellectual pursuits as part of the "lower" tastes and desires, it seems to me -- and has for some time now -- that Jean-Luc Godard has become, intentionally or not, a fake who appeals to our pretensions more than anything else. And to my mind our pretensions qualify as lower tastes and desires.

Once upon a time, this filmmaker (shown at right) made a ground-breaking but not-very-good movie (Breathless) and then a much better one (Le Petit Soldat -- so important that France banned it for a long while). Otherwise, he's mostly been jerking us around. Misogynistic and misanthropic (the latter can be more easily forgiven than the former because it is at least all-inclusive), like Warhol in art, Godard makes us look at things differently. But not, unfortunately, in ways particularly edifying. So, having given up on JLG some years back, I decided to take a look at his latest, FILM SOCIALISM, with as open a mind as possible (what? You say it's sieve-like?) under these already greatly prejudiced circumstances.

Surprise! I wouldn't call the film a complete waste of time. Here are so many verbal and visual tricks and tics -- subtitles that sometimes do and sometimes don't translate what's being said in the dialog, plus a soundtrack that goes in and out at odd times, and subject headings that seem deliberately unhelpful -- that for a time you can't help but marvel at the filmmaker's use of distraction. Much of the film was also shot aboard a cruise ship, on which we're sailing with a bunch of tourists. Until we're not. (That ship, a friend of mine pointed out this morning, is the lately-infamous Concordia, the captain of which was recently immortalized by the NY Post, in one of its better recent headlines, as "Chicken of the Sea.")

I think you might call this movie another provocation by a provoker of long-standing, in which -- after all the nonsense (with maybe some sense buried deep within) -- the speech and the written word begin to somewhat coincide. Along the way we get a llama (above, left) and a mama (below, right).

We're treated to some Chopin and some Patti Smith (shown below), and on Blu-ray, the movie is often drop-dead gorgeous, with its scenes of the sea and sky pretty damned ravishing. (One character's blue eyes almost look like a special effect.)

We're whisked off briefly to the Palestine of 1926 and elsewhere, and moments from famous old movies are woven in throughout. And, oh, yes, there's politics, consumerism and immi/emigration, too -- though anything Godard might be saying about them that even approaches originality is lost on me. It's all style (I use the word loosely) but little real content here.

Then, near the end, we are shown a wise, old owl (no doubt a stand-in for our filmmaker), followed soon by the words NO COMMENT. Which is why TrustMovies decided to make his own comment via the above post.

Film Socialism, at a rather long 102 minutes, is available now -- for sale or rental -- on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Or you can watch it via Fandor, where it has just become available.  Bonne chance, mes amis!