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Jan 30, 2007
Why I like Jean-Luc.
A soccer team of reasons why I like Jean-Luc Godard :
-he speaks slowly,
-he looked fifty at thirty and looks fifty and a half at seventy five,
-his glasses are uglier than mine,
-when he talks about tennis, he is always interesting,
-when he talks about cinema, nobody has a clue, and nobody is supposed to : this is restful,
-though he refurbished his house many times, he never sold it to direct a « James Bond » movie,
-he likes John Wayne in « The Searchers »,
-he need not marry Katie Holmes and rave about Scientology to be weird,
-when ambushed with a cream pie, he does not run amok, but eats it,
-I have not seen one of his films in many years,
-I have never met him.
(Initially posted on July 6, 2006)
08:05 Posted in Godard | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
Comments
Mr. Marmiesse:
As they say in Japan for hello, konichiwah.
Loved your answers.
Who am I ? Does it really matter? (No matter but I be an amigo of Krister Olson. Krister bears no responsibility for my crazy ideas. Krister is a decent man of good humor and a friend true; civilized.)
Chief centres of interest ? To write in passable English about French films. (Your English is better than most native speakers of it. I do not speak French. I've forgotten much of my mother tongue Pennsylvania Dutch which is a low German with English meshed in; my Hoch Deutsch is bad, my Portuguese is worse; my English is only slightly better. I watch few movies. Pain they say is good for one, but there are limits of tedium endurance. My ignorance of movies is nigh as low or high as a Professor of English's ignorance is of good English.)
My favourite films ? Read this blog, you will find out. (Mine is Life of Brian.)
My favourite books ? Who says I can read? (I oft read and re-read: Hesiod, Juvenal, Horace, Rabelais, Conrad, Mencken, etc. The latter was an American with the noble goals of committing free-speech and stirring-up the animals.)
My Citizenship ? French, I am afraid. (Was born in the USA and live there again in my dotage as I edge into senility but shun any label as vulgar as a nationality.)
And now for a few silly comments that I play at creating under the nom de jeu, Rufuss Sumachcuss:
Enjoyed much the blog. Love the flippant wit. To me, nigh all movies are for the ages; the ages betwixt infant to 7. I do have a quibble; films is not the precise word which is movies. And, to me, movies are a minor art by committee that has yet to get up off its hind legs. I once read somewhere that in France they call an actor or actress, "m'as-tu-vu," which anglicized, means have you seen me? To me an intelligent actor is an oxymoron. Rare exceptions are such as Peter Ustinov, the Pythons and others I am ignorant of. One of the severe tediums of now is listening to an actor warbling and pontificating on his esoteric art. Bullshit. They remind me of Van Morrison's "Rave On." O' well. Prefer the literal bleating of sheep and braying of jackasses and squealing of pigs.
Flaubert captured the essentials of being a movie star with: “To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”
A quirk of growing up Amish without movies is that one comes to them as an adult and finds it nigh impossible to see adult behavior. One sees the puerile, jejune, asinine.
The twenty first century continues the twentieth century's tradition in which no amount of timorousness and hackneying is a defense against the labels “bold and original.” Perhaps movies are the apogee or nadir of that gig. But to play fair we must not be so harsh as to demand an art produced by group to be above inane, asinine, puerile, moronic. We think of great art produced in solo loneliness: – Beethoven, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Stendhal, Picasso, etc. We fail to see a herd activity.
Thank you. Saying such things is my defense against being as insane as the sane of this world are.
Hoc est praeceptum meum: omnes homines stulti sunt -- My maxim is that all men are crazy. Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Insanity in individuals is rare but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Nietzsche
Posted by: Troyer | Jul 06, 2006
Hello,
Krister's friends are my friend.
When it comes to the Pythons, my favourite film -sorry, movie- is "Meaning of life".
Based on your comment, you may be on your way to your own blog.
Thanks for your nice words and come back.
Posted by: pierre | Jul 07, 2006