Like the more cumbersome New York Stories 24 years later, 1965’s Six in Paris, now on Blu-ray (Icarus Films, $25.52), is an anthology film whose central theme is its setting. Rightly believing that Paris is an “inexhaustible” subject for cinema, as he tells an interviewer in one of the Blu-ray’s extras, producer Barbet Schroeder enlisted six directors, mostly associated with … [Read more...]
The View From Home: Jean-Luc Godard’s final film — and a celebration of his complicated legacy
Released a year after Jean-Luc Godard’s death at age 91 in September 2022, writer-director Cyril Leuthy’s 2022 documentary Godard Cinema (Kino, $29.99 Blu-ray, $19.99 DVD) is an informative and engrossing endeavor to unravel the mysteries and contradictions behind the movies’ most disruptive trailblazer. Leuthy interviewed subjects from in and outside of Godard’s circle, … [Read more...]
Hard-to-classify ‘Image Book’ a rigorous challenge from Godard
Just a few weeks ago on this site, I reviewed Guy Maddin’s ludic film-history pastiche The Green Fog. In it, I referenced one of the movie’s more rigorous forbears: Histoire(s) du Cinema, Jean-Luc Godard’s eight-part philosophical treatise, completed over a 10-year period and collaged entirely from upcycled images. This must be a boomtime for film essays composed of … [Read more...]
‘Godard Mon Amour’ depicts renowned auteur with real humor
Like writing a traditional biography about James Joyce, composing a conventional symphony in honor of John Cage, or painting a realistic portrait of Picasso, directing a standard narrative feature about Jean-Luc Godard risks alienating the very audience that would consume the — yes, I’ll say it — product. Squaring experimentalists into familiar forms insults their genius. Or … [Read more...]