Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

chaos-rampant In my ongoing quest to penetrate the mind of Godard, I figured few films would be more poignant than this self styled portrait. This is not merely about what he has or is willing to say on the subject because we can glean that from any number of the films he made during that period, JLG/JLG is no more a self portrait in that aspect than Nouvelle Vague or the Histoire(s) films, but how does he frame himself, literally? In the finale of Children Play in Russia from the previous year he left us with an image of himself stubbornly cranking at a camera to make it work. What images here? Two stand out for me, patterns that recur: Godard the old crone, a sunken face in the dim light of his library, ruminating quotes from old dusty books. Then Godard the kid, excitedly a prankster, now preparing to edit a film or playing tennis with a wry smile. He feels comfortable in both roles, or we wouldn't be shown. Both pertain here.He begins this with a childhood photo of himself. In the voice-over he's anxiously rehearsing for the occasion, will he be judged a success or a failure? JLG/JLG gives us a fascinating rare glimpse of how he shapes his thought, this should be a treasured artifact for the avid Godard fan. Usually we arrive at the process too late, when the thought has been reduced to a provocative slogan. For example, "the rule of Old Europe is to destroy the art of living". Here we can see the method by which we arrive at that admission, born schematically on a piece of paper.The less said about the childishness with the star of David though, the better. An embarrassing failure of humour, if it was intended as such. But having stuck with him for so long, I view these fallacious missteps with a hint of sympathy.But the vantage point I get is this: why does Godard feel he matters, at least enough to pose for his own self portrait? It's folly to expect a very lucid picture, or a particularly honest one, but it's important for me to see how the question is formulated, what conditions is it posed under. For this I must go back to the premise I had touched on in one of my first Godard writings, his ouevre seen as the koan of the Zen Buddhists, the enigmatic phrase that means nothing in the face of it yet demands an answer by the initiate, the answer again meaning nothing, serving only as proof that the mind is unlocked.To my surprise I discovered as I was watching this that I could read the typically inscrutable musings like they were a simple text. What used to demand real effort of concentration, now flows naturally. The question then is formed by two admissions, both magnificent.One is the realization of the illusion of ego: a man who feels cold says "I am cold", but in the silence before and after the utterance only the cold body exists. The other is the promise of love: promising to love, a man becomes the embodiment of love, the only reward being this; after the hardships of a lifetime, he can look back and see that he has loved.What I get from all this, is the state of awareness that emerges. The mind is not transcended yet, and the Buddhist koan remains inscrutable, but it does not dictate desire and ego anymore. Like the citations that burrow his works, his early New Wave period then exists as an original text (itself the product of citations) to be dismantled, a gradual constant process of the shedding and destruction of self. For the majority of viewers this early period is a stumbling block, a hindrance, whereas as a lot of Godard fans conclude the coming of age happens in the 90's. This is his truly great period (and onwards perhaps).Having pursued the political chimera that failed him, he knows this is not our saving grace so he turns inwards. Having pursued, upon that realization, the mind, he discovers that only illusions inhabit it.Godard matters then because he came this far. I'm curious as ever to see where he goes from here.

Melisa I really don't want to be to hard with this movie just because I didn't liked it. The film has very interesting ideas and thoughts but well, they are just to boring for me. It is a typical postmodern movie which in my opinion would be better understood on a book. After all, self portraits are more usual found in paintings or who knows, perhaps even books, but films are a visual form of art. The film could be compared with Bergman's films because they both handle existentialism and are a good sample of the post modernism wave. Godard's self portrait is not an autobiography,it reflects how he feels about several subjects which include death and cinema. In my opinion, it is like he would have plugged a tape recorder into his brain in order to record his thoughts and then put this tape together with some images to produce a film. Perhaps if Virginia Wolf had lived in the 60's she would had been a very good friend of Godard and instead of becoming a writer, she could have become a filmmaker. So,I guess this movie is for the very intellectual kind of person who can bare a 102 Minutes boring to dead film, or, perhaps if you rent it, you can press the "stop" button every 10 minutes in order to think about what you just heard and then continue with the film, otherwise, you'll get lost with so much ideas in such a short period of time. oh! and Just for the record, I do like other Godard Films.

ncrln This was the movie I wish I had made. To watch it in a theater was quite an experience and I was so moved by it that I stayed seated and watched it for a second time. The movie is, as the title says, a self portrait. Images of places the author loves, music that moves him, pieces of films' dialogs, quotes, objects, all put together. It is like looking into one's soul through what he loves. I was lucky because I have a similar taste in literature, art, cinema and music, and overall the experience was one of self exploring. Otherwise I don't think I would have found it the least interesting. It is a film about the author himself, and should be regarded as a film and as an audio-visual self portrait.

rino-5 This film, a companion piece to Hélas pour moi, is so rich in theme and idea that one can only begin to write about it. Godard's artistry (which as always, is total) works like a gadfly across many levels, and so maybe the best way to go about this is to list its main themes.* Swiss/French Nationality (father, homeland and identity)* Semiotics of Imagery (composition and idea, the duality of reality, technology)* Editing (blindness and sight)* Perception (phenomenology, the humanity of the image)* Music (the layered nature of sound association/interpretation)* Politics (current affairs and historical, Europe/America)* History (literature: in quotation - Rimbaud, Diderot, Kafka etc. and socio-political)* Oeuvre (reference and statement, responsibility and reputation)* Time (memory and culture as co-dependent, predictions and 'passing', death.)* Love (the portrait GIVES, JLG as affect)* Meditation (the reflective writer, interpretation & truth, translation and puns)* Cinema Industry (distributors, censors/classification)* Tennis (Proust)With so many themes, all patiently painted in close to an hour, we should admire Godard for his patent fluency. Even in the early 90s he is still at the height of his powers (despite the 70s rumours), much like the peak of the Baroque period several centuries ago.rino breebaart