summary of godard by colin mccabe pt 1
meat n potatoes
2. godard's maternal family was highclass bourgeoisie
3. godard's dad ducked out of WWI as a student in great britain. not
out of cowardice but for antimilitarist principles running deep in his
family.
4. godard's dad studied opthamology, anticipating godard's own visual
oriented profession.
5. godard's mom, Odile, met godard's father, Paul, when she was a
medical student(rare for women back then); she was 10 yrs his junior.
the union was opposed by her family but she didn't care.
6. godard and his older sister rachel were extremely close, almost
like twins--'two aspects of one being'. rachel said she considered
godard's films personal messages meant for her. yet, in the last 12
yrs of her life, they mostly remained apart.
7. godard thought of his childhood as paradisical. because his mom's
family was rich he had access to everything he wanted and developed no
material ambition unlike truffaut who grew up poor and hungry for the
good things in life. godard basked in family togetherness and
solidarity, warmth and protection. his grandparents were like gods to
him (was this echoed later in Le Mepris?)
8. godard's family was protestant on both mother and father's side.
protestants made up only 2% of french population but contributed
disproportionately to its political and intellectual life.
9. protestant vs catholic violence ws more serious in france than
elsewhere. calvin's orthodoxy made things worse, and bloodshed spread
everywhere and tension seethed over the centuries.
10. relgious persecution abated somewhat with the edict of
nantes(1598) by prince henri which gave protestants the right to
practice their faith in france while containing their influence.
11. a major protestant group in france were the hoguenots who embraced
what's known, thanks to max weber, as the protestant work ethic.
while the aristocracy was catholic, the hoguenots were central in the
development of towns and manufacturing. they were back in trouble when
in 1685 louis xiv revoked the edict of nantes.
12. for the next 100 yrs, protestants were forced to practice
catholicism or face imprisoment or death.
13. many protestants fled france or practiced protestantism secretly.
25% of protestants(250,000)of france fled and the nations that
received them benefitted from their manufacturing skills and work
ethic.
14. when french revolution rolled around, protestants understandably
played an important role. (i suppose like the jews tired of tsarism in
the russian revolution).
15. the monod family(godard's mother family) was one of the most
important protestant families in france.
16. godard went to church regularly as a kid but remembers little.
very democratic childhood. the protestant family was tightknit and
tribal. calvin had encouraged each family to be like a church onto
itself. also, families had to be closeknit in order to survive during
the centuries of oppression.
17. protestants in france mostly leaned leftward. but the monod
patriarch--odile's father--was a rightist and an antisemite.
18. godard was a football and skiing fanatic. a great goalkeeper and
excellent skiier. (could godard be seen as cinema's last goalkeeper?)
19. godard grew up in a well furnished and fancy apartment in a
provincial town in switzerland. very cultural family. attended
concerts, had access to lots of books on painting, architecture, etc.
odile was a great photograher according to godard.
20. it was strict upbringing. godard irritated his dad with endless
puns, balancing on chairs, and sardonically peering over his glasses
during dinner time.
21. at dinner time, children were not allowed to speak unless spoken
to.
22. family often played games together, like word association games at
which godard was the undisputed champ.
23. odile took kids to movies but cinema as a passion is something
godard developed later in paris. one movie much discussed in the
family ws 'gone with the wind', condemned for its immorality. godard
had to ask for permission to read the novel on his birthday.
24. godard was visiting with his grandparents when the nazis overran
france. unable to return to family in switzerland, he stayed in vichy
france for awhile, staying with friend of the family. with nothing to
do, he often went to the movies.
25. switzerland was, as usual, neutral during the war. its loose
federation allowed its various ethnicities to get along. congress of
vienna in 1815 recognized it as forever neutral. 1848 revolution
actually brought longlasting improvements to switzerland instead of
tearing it a new arsehole. also, in WWI, swiss french and swiss
germans tolerated eachother.
26. yet in WWII, swiss neutrality was threatened by possible german
invasion. switzerland survived by serving as reserve bank for the
Nazis. also, the swiss army, though small, had a reputation for
toughness, resolve, and badassness and so deterred nazi attack.
27. godard was back in switzerland in 1940. at the age of 11, godard
entered the college of nyon and got excellent education in french and
mathematics.
28. godard studied classics than science. he was a math wizard,
winning the top award in his final yr.
29. godard was athletic in his youth. sometimes he held onto the train
and was pulled along horizontally in the air, like jackie chan.
30. his teachers remembered godard mainly for the kid who liked to
play the FOOL.
31. godard was joined school theatre and played louis xi in Gringo.
32. in switzerland, godard had a chance to see films of both the axis
and the allies. sometimes, he saw the same newreel footages with
opposing commentary.
33. godard's parents did Red Cross work in france. they were
sympathetic with the Resistance. but odile's father admired petain and
the vichy government.
34. at 16, godard left for paris to study at the school of buffoon.
one reason was the tension between son and father, who at one point
got so pissed that he threw mashed potato at his son.
35. the marriage between mom and dad disintegrated. odile got bored of
provincial swiss town and missed paris and her extended family.
36. on weekends in paris, godard was invited by his relatives for
lunch. he was much adored and loved by his relatives.
37. godard began to slip in his studies. he began to have more
enthusiasm for movies than for the classroom.
38. worse, godard turned into a thief. mostly petty stuff but he later
stole from his uncle to finance rivette's first short film. godard
also lifted his grandfather's highly prized first editions of valery.
godard's grandfather found out when he came upon his books being
resold at a local rarebook shop. godard was thus exiled from the
edenic world of the monods.
39. for x-mas, godard made a pamphlet for parents, with quotations
from famous people(like in his later films). it was mostly a satirical
antibourgeois jokebook presumably from disappointment of being exiled
from monod's bourgeois splendor.
40. why did godard steal? godard's brother explained it as rebellion
against protestant stinginess. godard later said that it bought him a
degree of freedom, independence, power to do your own thing. (should
we steal from larry legallo to buy our freedom?)
41. godard left paris to continue studying at lausanne where the
family had moved.
42. godard failed his final exam in 1948 and passed it in '49. he
became more interested in cinema and writing screenplay. but still not
set on cinema as profession. also, deeply into painting.
43. in 1949 godard return to paris to study ANTHROPOLOGY, encouraged
by a monod relative, a leading specialist.
44. anthropology gained an ideological weight, arguing that savages
were not so savage and civilized folks not so civilized. a leading in
anthropology was claude levi-strauss, who influenced derrida, lacan,
barthes, and the laid the groundwork for structuralism. most
important is the argument that western culture and society need to be
studied just as dispassionately and anthropologically as savages and
barbarian folk.
45. godard later expressed great admiration for jean rouch, the
anthropological filmmaker.
46. godard's father suffered from the 'i live in fear'(kurosawa film)
syndrome. he feared that the cold war would turn into a hot nuclear
war. he decided to move to jamaica and continue his practice there. he
went there with his children and from there godard went on a journey
across south america.
47. godard didn't like the primitive conditions and the hot climate
much. he went from panama to lima to brazil where he ran out of money.
with help of the french embassy he made it to santiago, chile where he
worked in a factory for his uncle-in-law. then he flew back to
france.
48. godard's family had returned to france before he. his father
understand godard's interest in films and refused to support godard.
49. godard took on a job at a dam project. he stole from his
employers, served briefly in jail, and underwent psychotherapy.
(should we steal from larry legallo?)
50. godard went back to dam building job and saved enough money to
make a documentary on the dam project.
51. in 1954, godard's mother died in a scooter accident. he didn't
attend the funeral and godard's father(2 yrs divorced from his
wife)was turned away by the monod family from attending.
52. paris in the post war yrs ws the best place to watch and learn
about films, not just hollywood but international cinema. while anglo
and american cultural elites generally saw cinema as crass and vulgur,
french intellectuals embraced cinema as a great art even prior to WWI.
yet, even in france, there was a divide between those who cherished
it as Art and those as entertainment.
53. after WWI, there were cineclubs in paris among whose members were
frontrank avant garde artists and members of high society. they were
impressed, for example, by the surrealist films of bunuel.
54. parisians saw themselves as the main patrons of western culture,
trendsetters.
55. with the coming of sound, cinema turned from an international
language to national cinemas. and as sound technology was expensive,
hollywood gained the upperhand. countless silent films were destroyed
to reclaim the silver nitrate. henry langlois played an important role
in trying to preserve this threatened heritage.
56. langlois started a cineclub that also served as a cinematheque
storing silent films. he first rented a ruined house and stacked cans
of film everywhere, including in the bathtub. significantly, he saved
ALL the films of directors he deemed worthy of interest.
(foreshadowing of auteurism?)
57. langlois loved surrealism and cinema. indeed, he argued cinema
gave birth to surrealism. movies like feulliade's les vampires and
fantomas, he felt, inspired artists to explore dreamstates.
58. but langlois, though partial to avant gardists, also valued
hollywood and was one of the first to champion howard hawks.
59. langlois discouraged debates. his film schedules were interesting
and provocative; for example, chaplin followed by clair, soviet film
followed by german film, etc.
60. langlois in 1938 was the force behind bringing french
cinematheque, british film institute, and MOMA(in new york) together
into International Federation of Film Archives.
61. thanks to his cordial relations developed prior to the WWII with
frank hengel, a german cinema official, langlois was able to save
1000s of films banned by the nazis.
62. langlois showed films without clearing them with permission from
studios.
63. cinematheque was the meeting place for cinephiles. they formed
friendships and formed artistic and critical agendas. most were
academic dropouts, overwhemingly male, and many were cripplingly shy.
64. throughout the 50s, godard's activities and whereabouts were here,
there, everywhere. he mostly stayed in cheap hotels, showed up and
disappeared at the drop of a hat.
65. cineastes gathered for excellent informal lectures by their elder
maurice scherer, who changed his name to eric rohmer as film critic
because he didn't want his mom to know he was into movies.
66. rohmer often paid for expenses of his needy colleagues. he had a
successful job as school teacher unlike many of his cronies who were
not gainfully employed. he was 11 yrs older than godard.
67. godard and his pals loved to play pinball, which rohmer
disapproved.
68. rohmer ran a magazine called gazette du cinema. godard wrote for
every issue. jean-paul sartre declared in the very pages that cinema
was 'not a bad school'.
69. sartre was a biggie, very dominant figure due to trauma of WWII.
existentialism had therapeutic value though the later french
philosophers buried sartre as a fuddydud.
70. sartre was admired for his antibourgeois individualism. also,
sartre argued that after WWII, intellectuals MUST be political.
71. sartre highly valued and admired cinema. his journal--modern
times--was named after a chaplin film. he once gave a university
speech to graduates on the value of cinema which was rather scandalous
to the fuddydud academics.
72. bazin, unlike other intellectuals, didn't merely champion cinema
but devoted his entire life as its teacher. teaching was a passion.
73. bazin, influenced by social activist catholicism, was influenced
by immanuel mounier, the founder of journal espirit, the first journal
to take film seriously in the 30s. its main contributor, roger
leenhardt, was much admired by godard.
74. leenhardt didn't object to advent of sound unlike many who thought
sound mired the image in realism or ended the dream of universal
language. most important of all, the increased cost destroyed the
freewheeling independent filmmaker.
75. leenhart thought sound added another layer of truth and complexity
to film, at least potentially. bazin took this to heart.
76. bazin buried himself in cinema out of disgust with french defeat
and the vichy regime. he started a cineclub and lectured on film.
alain resnais had great respect for bazin.
77. bazin argued that good criticism begat good film, that critics can
teach the artist. that there must be a lively cinematic culture to
support and encourage excellence and freshness. he was a workaholic.
78. bazin wrote 17,000 pages of criticism in 15 yrs. he balanced the
specific with the theoretical.
79. bazin's essay 'ontology of photographic image', which
contextualized cinema in 1000s of yrs of history, is the foundation of
all of godard's view on cinema.
80. bazin argued that film captures reality, meaning faithfully
representing what's placed before the camera(regardless of its truth
in social terms). rohmer, rivette, and godard were deeply
influenced... rohmer was the 'geometicist', rivette the 'algebrian',
and godard the 'number theorist' of bazin's ontological view.
81. bazin's views developed along development of film. he stayed
contemporary. he was inspired by citizen kane and the films of roberto
rossellini.
82. sartre thought citizen kane was too arty and not political enough.
83. citizen kane was unavailable in france until the end of the
liberation in 1946.
84. georges sadoul, the marxist critic, along with satre attacked
citizen kane. bazin was not a meanie(he didn't like nietzsche like the
other french intellectuals) but he resolutely held to his defense of
kane.
85. bazin admired welles's deep focus, that it was an advancement
towards a fuller and more complex represensation of reality, one that
didn't do the homework for the viewer but engaged the viewer to search
within the frame himself. in this regard, it was implicitly political
by involving the viewer more deeply.
86. bazin earned a living as film critic of the parisian libere, a
newspaper. bazin tried to teach cinema to the Working classes.
87. as cold war intensified, the broadly united liberal left
splintered between the stalinists and the independent left. hard left
argued hollywood was decadent shit and that soviet stalinist
productions were all masterpieces. bazin's influence was reduced by
the left's 'with us or against us' stance.
88. bazin, banished from teaching cinema to the working masses, chose
to start a club and magazine targeting the intelligentsia. he opted
for the trickle down strategy, hoping that if intellectuals could be
engaged, the ideas would reach the masses in due time.
89. bazin decided to have a film fest featuring and and championing
dismissed or neglected films. there was the avantgarde left vs the
'young turks' under bazin's wing who championed american films. the
festival was presided by jean cocteau. welles was also there.
90. godard became friends with truffaut at the festival. they were
both under 20, truffaut one yr younger.
91. chris marker bumped into truffaut after the latter deserted from
the army. marker took truffaut to bazin, and truffaut and bazin became
like father and son. truffaut lived with bazin thru much of the 50s.
92. bazin argued that soviet cinema under stalin was a fraudulent
propaganda machine, not an heir to the cinema of pudovkin and
eisenstein. he was banished by the left for this sacrilege.
93. it was different to get a new journal started. bazin relied on a
rich cinephile patron. bazin stressed cinema as cinema, in contrast to
the more literary-centric journals and those of the anti-american
left.
94. bazin's partner in cahier du cinema was doniol-valcroze.
95. godard's first long essay(published in rohmer's la gazette du
cinema) was 'towards a political cinema' which argued cinema not only
represented reality but shapes it, that it justifies a certain
philosophical ideology, lends it validity.
96. godard's position seems utopian in the notion that reality and
cinema were united, therefore one, and that changing film could change
the world.
97. cahier du cinema was, according to mccabe, 'THE MOST SUCCESSFUL
CULTURAL MAGAZINE OF THE 20TH CENTURY'. weally? godard claimed
cahier first put hitchcock on the map as a great artist.
98. central to the notion of cinema as great art was the notion of the
great artist or auteur, pushed by alexander astruc, bazin, volcroze,
etc.
99. cahier's notion of the author, especially in relation to american
films, was a creative game on the part of the viewer to detect the
unique author working in a formulaic convention.
100. cahier was primarily interested in contemporary cinema, to
actively evaluate and CHANGE it.
----
more to follow.
Nick Macpherson
>96. godard's position seems utopian in the notion that reality and
>cinema were united, therefore one, and that changing film could change
>the world.
>
>97. cahier du cinema was, according to mccabe, 'THE MOST SUCCESSFUL
>CULTURAL MAGAZINE OF THE 20TH CENTURY'. weally? godard claimed
>cahier first put hitchcock on the map as a great artist.
>
>98. central to the notion of cinema as great art was the notion of the
>great artist or auteur, pushed by alexander astruc, bazin, volcroze,
>etc.
>
>99. cahier's notion of the author, especially in relation to american
>films, was a creative game on the part of the viewer to detect the
>unique author working in a formulaic convention.
>
>100. cahier was primarily interested in contemporary cinema, to
>actively evaluate and CHANGE it.
>
>----
>
>more to follow.
>
101. the library sent me a threatening letter today telling me to return
godard by colin mccabe since it was a month overdue. (i forgot i still had
it.)
larry legallo
wrote:
>101. the library sent me a threatening letter today telling me to return
>godard by colin mccabe since it was a month overdue. (i forgot i still had
>it.)
I just got an overdue notice about the the new Peter Biskind book that
I just cannot... seem... to... finish. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls went
down a bowl of pudding, and this one should too, but the relentless
Harvey-bashing just works like a bludgeon to my brain. I've even
completed 3 or 4 other books in the time since I started reading it.
But it's juuust interesting enough for me not to abandon it.
Nick Macpherson
>I just got an overdue notice about the the new Peter Biskind book that
>I just cannot... seem... to... finish. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls went
>down a bowl of pudding, and this one should too, but the relentless
>Harvey-bashing just works like a bludgeon to my brain. I've even
>completed 3 or 4 other books in the time since I started reading it.
>
I haven''t gotten around to the Biskind book yet. I'm probably wrong but I
can't see the book having much information that I haven't read from other
sources in the last 14 years, especially re: Harvey-bashing.
Another one I haven't gotten to is the Eszterhas book. The last one was junk
but if there's anything in the new one as mortifying as the bit from American
Rhapsody about how Sharon Stone stole Wes Craven's wife Mimi and sent him dead
roses afterwards then it'll be worth a quick speed-read.
meat n potatoes
what were the other books that you've read? just curious but what kind
of books do you generally read? marxist books? french philosophy?
feminist texts?
larry legallo
potatoes) wrote:
>what were the other books that you've read? just curious but what kind
>of books do you generally read? marxist books? french philosophy?
>feminist texts?
I like Christine Delphy, beacause she gives me all three. Actually,
she's a 'materialist' feminist (if you're wondering what the
difference is between materialist feminism and Marxist feminism,
she'll be more than happy to explain it to you at length).
Actually, my bookshelf probably doesn't look that much different than
yours Tony, as frightening a thought as that is (what's up with you
liking Mr. Show now?? go back to Frasier). And I imagine I'm more
into sabermetrics than you.
larry legallo
wrote:
>I haven''t gotten around to the Biskind book yet. I'm probably wrong but I
>can't see the book having much information that I haven't read from other
>sources in the last 14 years, especially re: Harvey-bashing.
I don't follow the studio dealings that closely, so most of the
stories are new to me. And Biskind does have a way of putting you
right at the scene, with his detailed accounts and supposedly verbatim
quotes. Though I'm not sure which is blander: his prose style or his
taste in movies.
If you pass by it in a book store and want an amusing 3 page story,
look up The Apostle (Duvall's film) in the index, and read about
Harvey in top form. It's pretty funny.
>Another one I haven't gotten to is the Eszterhas book. The last one was junk
>but if there's anything in the new one as mortifying as the bit from American
>Rhapsody about how Sharon Stone stole Wes Craven's wife Mimi and sent him dead
>roses afterwards then it'll be worth a quick speed-read.
If anybody was born to be a Hollywood diva, it's gotta be Sharon
Stone. It make you wonder what took her so long to move up the ranks,
because once she arrived, she settled into the eccentric glamour queen
role like it was ready made for her. Her interviews in Searching for
Debra Winger are inadvertantly the most revealing part of that film.
meat n potatoes
sabermetrics? is it at least prissymmetric?
meat n potatoes
> On 14 Apr 2004 19:07:13 -0700, bagelncr...@hotmail.com (meat n
> potatoes) wrote:
>
> >what were the other books that you've read? just curious but what kind
> >of books do you generally read? marxist books? french philosophy?
> >feminist texts?
>
> I like Christine Delphy, beacause she gives me all three. Actually,
> she's a 'materialist' feminist (if you're wondering what the
> difference is between materialist feminism and Marxist feminism,
> she'll be more than happy to explain it to you at length).
why? do you have her phone number? is she attractive at least?
>
> Actually, my bookshelf probably doesn't look that much different than
> yours Tony, as frightening a thought as that is (what's up with you
> liking Mr. Show now?? go back to Frasier). And I imagine I'm more
> into sabermetrics than you.
some questions:
1. how did you become anti-american? was it spoonfed by family
members, learned from friends, teachers, or did you just happen to
find a book that changed your life?
2. do you read rightwing stuff for balance?
3. are you a materialist or a marxist according to delphy's defintion.
4. do you prefer fiction or nonfiction?
5. among nonfiction, what's your fav category? politics, philosophy,
history, etc?
6. is being a male feminist a good way to pick up chicks? or do
leftwing chicks really crave for the fonz to come along?
7. what are your top 10 fav novels without any regard for political
correctness and obligation toward inclusiveness and diversity. in
other words, no need to include color purple just to sound progressive
and caring.
8. are leftwing chicks decent lovers, or do they talk too much?
9. would you date a rightwing chick if she was hot?
10. does girls in your harem like you for your masteful sexuality or
because you're oh-so-sensitive and gentle?
11. would you try to spoonfeed your kid antiamericanism or let him be
his own person? suppose he became a patriot. would you disown him or
kick his arse?
12. what if someone like me married your sister or daughter, and
everytime we got together over dinner, i trashed marxists, feminists,
and the whole antiamerican crowd? would you then think of purchasing
a gun?
brad
news:1d7e07b1.0404...@posting.google.com...
<snip>
i'm new to this newsgroup, so it's possible that i've missed something quite
obvious, but where is this coming from? i'm aware of mccabe and his work on
godard, but it seems a fairly large task to summarise his work in so many
words? are these 'notes' taken directly from his text, or ... what? :)
--
brad
"omg, body modding, when I die I want a chest
window and blue led internal lighting" - tim
meat n potatoes
> "meat n potatoes" <bagelncr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1d7e07b1.0404...@posting.google.com...
> <snip>
>
>
> i'm new to this newsgroup, so it's possible that i've missed something quite
> obvious, but where is this coming from? i'm aware of mccabe and his work on
> godard, but it seems a fairly large task to summarise his work in so many
> words? are these 'notes' taken directly from his text, or ... what? :)
no, just wild paraphrasing