Godard's In Praise of Love

[Jon Ford]

Michael-- I'd be glad to check Godard's newish  film out (even though the 
Paris I witnessed this summer was much more "aesthetically appealing" than 
what I remember from the 70s and 80s). I saw "Alphaville"  again last spring 
and concluded that Godard was a lot more shallow and self-indulgent than I 
remembered him to be in the 60s, when I watched that film obsessively for 
about three weeks. But where do I find this "Praise of Love" video? Or did 
you see it at UT on the " big screen"??


>From: Michael Eisenstadt <michaele@ando.pair.com>
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net, marie@inside-crew.net
>Subject: Godard's In Praise of Love
>Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 15:05:50 -0500
>
>Jean-Luc Godard's 2001 movie In Praise of Love is a
>meditation on what it means to have lived or, more
>exactly, the meaningless of having lived.
>
>We are told that life consists of youth, the regrets
>of old age and nothing in between.
>
>As Godard famously said, every movie has a beginning,
>a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order.
>In the case of this movie time slowly moves backward in
>2 year increments or decrements announced by title cards.
>
>A not young not old man has a project, either to do a
>novel a play or a film, he's not sure. At the end of
>the movie the project is abandonned; the film ends
>with the statement 3 times repeated that there is no
>word, no word, no word.
>
>life today in France is aesthetically ugly. this is
>demonstrated by fleeting views of beautiful old
>buildings and fountains followed by long scenes
>where actors quote gnomic one-liners from literature
>while standing with their backs to us in front of
>grafitti covered walls or abandonned industrial sites.
>
>today's life as a Frenchman" is defined by opposition
>with "America". France has a history, "America" has
>no history. French is mellifluous, an American speaking
>English has an ugly accent. Americans don't even have
>a name. This odd proposition is demonstrated by the
>existence of the united states of Brazil, Mexico and
>Canada whose citizens are variously Brazilians,
>Mexicans and Canadians whereas the citizens of the
>United States have no name at all.
>
>But according to the remarks desultorily uttered in
>the film, French history is a dead letter like an
>old person remembering his youth and French life
>today is a nullity. The characters attempt to
>construct for themselves a place to stand and a
>metric to evaluate events in the flux of the ugly
>everyday by quoting maxims from French literature
>like "Contentment is the godmother of the debris
>of time." The maxims which combine paradox (in the
>French manner) with utter banality jibe with nothing
>in the real world so they vanish from one's mind
>instantly after the saying of them. Of course this
>is Godard's intention: elsewhere in the movie the
>protagonist walks along a suburban railroad line
>where noisy trains pass while he reads from a book
>with blank pages.
>
>Finally (actually earlier according to the title
>cards) the movie journeys to Brittany where a
>representative of Spielberg and Associates is
>concluding a legal agreement with an aged survivor
>of the anti-Nazi Resistance during WW II for the
>purchase of his history (a la Schwindler's List).
>As it turns out, the man had turned his girlfriend
>in to the Gestapo on the orders of the British
>to conceal his resistance activities. She survives
>the Ravensbruck concentration camp returns and
>marries him. The two of them live on and on and
>on, he a handsome old man, she a quite ugly old
>woman, an emphysema sufferer wreathed in cigarette
>smoke breathing in labored gasps.
>
>Makes you think, dont it? ca donne furieusement
>a penser.
>
>Later on, at the beginning of the movie, a young
>woman is auditioned for a part in the project,
>a young man declares his enduring love for her
>drawing the conclusion that it is not necessary
>to see her again. The actress is asked if she
>understands the man's remarks. Yes she responds.
>She is further asked if they make any sense. No
>she responds.
>
>Thus the title of the movie In Praise of Love
>may be correctly deconstructed: there is no
>love and there is therefore no praise.
>
>Joe Bob Briggs says check it out!
>

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