I like the mutants. The ones who come along as if from a new mold. It seems like they aren’t even born of man and woman. Artists who are so much larger than life, whose personalities override everything they do. Powerful personalities whose work can be confused with no other.
In my life there’s Frank Zappa and Harlan Ellison. Both are absolute iconoclasts.
Zappa came up through blues guitar, doo wop, and modern classical composition. He became one of the most recognizable, and notorious, musical artists in history. Zappa was ruthlessly intelligent with merciless wit and fathomless talent.
Ellison sprang from the world of science fiction fandom and juvenile delinquency fiction. He, like Zappa, was a formidable verbal opponent with scathing wit and searing intelligence. When he was at his best, Harlan Ellison wrote some of the best fiction, and nonfiction, in history.
I’ll add Jean-Luc Godard to the list.
Right from the beginning, Godard’s intention was to revolutionize cinema. He was a critic for Cahiers du Cinema and, like some others who worked for the magazine, went on to direct.
Breathless was the first feature film. Godard broke every filmmaking rule, infuriating his investors and frustrating his cast and crew The end result was a groundbreaking classic. As the saying goes, there was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. Cinema was never the same after Godard.
Godard followed that international success with a rapid fire series of movies, some more acclaimed than others. Band of Outsiders, Contempt and Alphaville are a few of the best.
After a few years of more-or-less narrative movies, Godard began to grow more political. He appeared to favor Socialism, if not outright Communism. He was acutely aware of class division, both in France and around the world.
La Chinoise is perhaps his first fully political movie. Politics played a role in some of the previous films, especially Alphaville, but La Chinoise is an example of guerilla filmmaking.
There isn’t much of a story in La Chinoise. The movie mostly deals with a handful of students discussing Maoist philosophies. They speak, read their little red books, have meetings, rage at the oppressive imperialists, but seem to do little else.
It’s hard to say for sure what Godard’s intentions were. I believe he sympathized with the Communist party, but La Chinoise appears to be an attack on ineffectual parlor revolutionaries.
It’s like the armchair social media quasi-pundits of today. They lecture, hector, and rage bait. They might even cheer on those who get their hands dirty by committing violent acts. Today’s online paper tigers are like the bourgeois students in La Chinoise. By and large comfortable and safe in their electronic wombs.
La Chinoise was a critique of ineffective revolutionary talk, but also a call to arms. As such it was successful. Released in 1967, La Chinoise was partially responsible for the historical student riots in Paris that took place in the following year.
La Chinoise is mostly a series of set pieces, but Godard employs startling imagery to drive his points home. There’s innovative use of color to catch the eye and to help engage the brain. The editing is disorienting. At some points I was agreeing with the students and at others I thought they were being hopelessly naive. It was ludicrous to the point of humor at times, like when they are playing with toy weapons. Their talk goes in circles, becoming a dizzying swirl of word soup, which is an effective technique used to confuse listeners.
Communist mumbo jumbo talk is considered a lark by many today, but in ‘67 it was completely radical. The Beatles’ “Revolution” didn’t come out until a year later. The song was, to a lot of young people, an introduction to the concept of Chairman Mao and his philosophies.
Don’t ask me what I think of it all. It seems to me that efforts to create classless societies have never worked, but Capitalism isn’t exactly great for most of the population either.
I can’t say I loved La Chinoise, but I did find it fascinating as a cultural study as well as a peek into the sometimes-cluttered mind of Jean-Luc Godard. The structure of the movie is unique, particularly considering its time period. I think his intentions were to shock viewers and make them question their values.
I certainly wouldn’t suggest Godard newbies to start with this one. Horror fans might prefer his following movie, Weekend. Weekend is an outrageous indictment of society. It’s more like an incindiary assault than a movie and it’s every bit as applicable today as it was in ‘68.
The truth is, Jean-Luc Godard’s movies aren’t for most people. He’s too obtuse, too inflammatory. It often seems like he’s fucking with his viewers.
Like his movies or hate them. Plenty of people do both. But Godard is a one-and-only. He was visionary, a seer, a provocateur, and a radical. You can’t watch his movies without considering the man behind them.
Like I said before, Jean-Luc Godard was a mutant. He did exactly as he wished, not caring what others thought. In fact, it sometimes seems like he was openly trying to get people to hate him. Rather like Zappa and Ellison.
I still have a long way to go. Godard made, depending on who’s counting, around one-hundred-and-twenty films. I’ve seen maybe ten of them.
Written by Mark Sieber
In my life there’s Frank Zappa and Harlan Ellison. Both are absolute iconoclasts.
Zappa came up through blues guitar, doo wop, and modern classical composition. He became one of the most recognizable, and notorious, musical artists in history. Zappa was ruthlessly intelligent with merciless wit and fathomless talent.
Ellison sprang from the world of science fiction fandom and juvenile delinquency fiction. He, like Zappa, was a formidable verbal opponent with scathing wit and searing intelligence. When he was at his best, Harlan Ellison wrote some of the best fiction, and nonfiction, in history.
I’ll add Jean-Luc Godard to the list.
Right from the beginning, Godard’s intention was to revolutionize cinema. He was a critic for Cahiers du Cinema and, like some others who worked for the magazine, went on to direct.
Breathless was the first feature film. Godard broke every filmmaking rule, infuriating his investors and frustrating his cast and crew The end result was a groundbreaking classic. As the saying goes, there was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. Cinema was never the same after Godard.
Godard followed that international success with a rapid fire series of movies, some more acclaimed than others. Band of Outsiders, Contempt and Alphaville are a few of the best.
After a few years of more-or-less narrative movies, Godard began to grow more political. He appeared to favor Socialism, if not outright Communism. He was acutely aware of class division, both in France and around the world.
La Chinoise is perhaps his first fully political movie. Politics played a role in some of the previous films, especially Alphaville, but La Chinoise is an example of guerilla filmmaking.
There isn’t much of a story in La Chinoise. The movie mostly deals with a handful of students discussing Maoist philosophies. They speak, read their little red books, have meetings, rage at the oppressive imperialists, but seem to do little else.
It’s hard to say for sure what Godard’s intentions were. I believe he sympathized with the Communist party, but La Chinoise appears to be an attack on ineffectual parlor revolutionaries.
It’s like the armchair social media quasi-pundits of today. They lecture, hector, and rage bait. They might even cheer on those who get their hands dirty by committing violent acts. Today’s online paper tigers are like the bourgeois students in La Chinoise. By and large comfortable and safe in their electronic wombs.
La Chinoise was a critique of ineffective revolutionary talk, but also a call to arms. As such it was successful. Released in 1967, La Chinoise was partially responsible for the historical student riots in Paris that took place in the following year.
La Chinoise is mostly a series of set pieces, but Godard employs startling imagery to drive his points home. There’s innovative use of color to catch the eye and to help engage the brain. The editing is disorienting. At some points I was agreeing with the students and at others I thought they were being hopelessly naive. It was ludicrous to the point of humor at times, like when they are playing with toy weapons. Their talk goes in circles, becoming a dizzying swirl of word soup, which is an effective technique used to confuse listeners.
Communist mumbo jumbo talk is considered a lark by many today, but in ‘67 it was completely radical. The Beatles’ “Revolution” didn’t come out until a year later. The song was, to a lot of young people, an introduction to the concept of Chairman Mao and his philosophies.
Don’t ask me what I think of it all. It seems to me that efforts to create classless societies have never worked, but Capitalism isn’t exactly great for most of the population either.
I can’t say I loved La Chinoise, but I did find it fascinating as a cultural study as well as a peek into the sometimes-cluttered mind of Jean-Luc Godard. The structure of the movie is unique, particularly considering its time period. I think his intentions were to shock viewers and make them question their values.
I certainly wouldn’t suggest Godard newbies to start with this one. Horror fans might prefer his following movie, Weekend. Weekend is an outrageous indictment of society. It’s more like an incindiary assault than a movie and it’s every bit as applicable today as it was in ‘68.
The truth is, Jean-Luc Godard’s movies aren’t for most people. He’s too obtuse, too inflammatory. It often seems like he’s fucking with his viewers.
Like his movies or hate them. Plenty of people do both. But Godard is a one-and-only. He was visionary, a seer, a provocateur, and a radical. You can’t watch his movies without considering the man behind them.
Like I said before, Jean-Luc Godard was a mutant. He did exactly as he wished, not caring what others thought. In fact, it sometimes seems like he was openly trying to get people to hate him. Rather like Zappa and Ellison.
I still have a long way to go. Godard made, depending on who’s counting, around one-hundred-and-twenty films. I’ve seen maybe ten of them.
Written by Mark Sieber
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