2.07.2009

Bloody Godard's Valentine to Cinema

Lads,

I'm about two excruciating hours into Godard's Histoire(s) de Cinema and fading fast. I thought that I could get into the rhythm of the piece but I think it might be beyond me. I'm finding the whole thing rather annoying, which may speak more to my lack of sophistication than specifically to the merits of Godard's free association cinematic exploration of film. I mean I get what he's doing – the investigation of cinema using a variety of cinematic techniques, but the endless cross-cuts, fades, washes, and text trickery feels like I'm being attacked by noisy French mimes.

This was undoubtedly a massive undertaking by Godard, an experimental film project ten years in the making covering a huge swath of the history and culture, but I can't help in these early stages thinking that the whole thing is a bit of a bloated act of hyper-pretension. I'm going to ponder on this a bit striking my “The Thinker” pose and sit on a globe for a while.

Alright...so it's now a few hours later and I can't wait to get back to the stupid thing. Go figure. I'm loathe to put the 3rd season of the Mighty Boosh on hold and yet too compelled to to see where Godard's going with this thing to let it go.

I'll keep you posted.

Sporgey.

3 comments:

the coelacanth said...

i have been looking forward to this for 10,000 years. and when has godard ever not been hyper-pretentious? goes with the territory, and that's why we love 'im...

the coelacanth said...

i'm sure you'd enjoy it much more if it was in 3D...

La Sporgenza said...

It's growing on me.

AND, I'm starting to like Histoire(s) too.