French Directors - Jean-Luc Godard

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French Directors - Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard Box Set Passion / First Name: Carmen / Detective / Oh Woe Is Me Jean-Luc Godard A collection of four late films from New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard, available for the first time on DVD: Passion (1982, 88 mins.), Godard's satire of filmmaking and lovemaking; First Name: Carmen (1983, 85 mins.), a gun-crazy romance that reexamines the entire femme fatale tradition; Detective (1985, 95 mins.), "a cross between a Grand Hotel for the 1980s and film noir" according to Tony Rayns; and Oh, Woe Is Me (1994, 84 mins.), starring Gerard Depardieu. 3-DVD set. Includes an exclusive documentary, Jean Luc Godard: A Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma. In French with English subtitles. France, 1982-1994, 414 mins. DVD $54.95

Jean-Luc Godard: Essential Director Series Breathless / Le Petit Soldat / Les Carabinieres / Notre Musique Jean-Luc Godard This set includes three art cinema touchstones and one recent experiment from the French New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard. Breathless (France, 1960, 89 mins.) is both an ode to American film noir and B movies and the debut of innovative, politicized filmmaking style. The director's second feature, Le Petit Soldat (France, 1960, 88 mins.), was banned in France for its razor-sharp reflection of the Algerian war in a politically divided nation. Les Carabiniers (France, 1963, 80 mins.) is one of the important early-period films from Godard, as well as a parable about the stupidity and ugliness of war. Decades later, Godard continued his lifelong inquiry into the nexus between aesthetics and politics with the tri-fold essay on history, conflict, identity, and culture titled Notre Musique (Switzerland, France, 2004, 80 mins.) In French with English subtitles. France/Switzerland, 1960-2004. DVD $79

Alphaville Jean-Luc Godard Eddie Constantine is Lemmy Caution, inter-galactic private eye, in this bravura mix of comic strip, science fiction and film noir in what is ultimately a new style of cinema in which form and content are identical. Lemmy sets out to dispose of diabolical scientist Leonard von Braun (a.k.a. Leonard Nosferatu) from Alphaville, the futuristic city run by an electronic brain, where love has been banished. A film in which poetry mixes freely with pulp to create a new dimension, a new cinematic reality. French with English subtitles. France, 1965, 100 mins. DVD $44.95

Band of Outsiders Jean-Luc Godard Anna Karina plays the young beauty drawn into the poorly planned crime scheme of Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur in Godard's playful, audacious, and emotionally complex New Wave classic. "It's as if a French poet took a banal American crime novel and told it to us in terms of the romance and beauty he read between the lines...perhaps Godard's most delicately charming film" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker). French with English subtitles. The DVD is a Criterion Collection Edition, and includes interview excerpts and rare behind-the-scenes footage of Godard, interviews with Anna Karina and cinematographer Raoul Coutard, "visual glossary," theatrical trailers, and more. France, 1964, 95 mins. DVD $44.95

Breathless Jean-Luc Godard The landmark film by Godard that helped to usher in the French New Wave. Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as a small-time hood on the run from the law, having an affair with an American girl in Paris (Jean Seberg). A film that owes much to American film noir and even B movies (it is dedicated to Monogram Pictures), yet its innovative visual style revolutionized the world of film. Based on a story by Francois Truffaut. "Godard's great innovation lies in the identification of the title to the camerawork and aesthetics of the film. With fast editing and unresolved camera movements, Godard disseminated the very essence of his hero's lifestyle..." (Spiros Gangas, Edinburgh University Film Society). In French with English subtitles. France, 1960, 89 mins. DVD $44.95

Contempt Jean-Luc Godard One of the best "movie movies" ever made, Contempt stars Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter called in to doctor the script of a film version of The Odyssey as his marriage to his stunningly sexy wife (Brigitte Bardot) falls apart. The legendary Fritz Lang plays himself as the movie's director and Jack Palance is hilariously arrogant as the American producer. References to the Homer tale and contemporary movie culture abound in this endlessly fascinating movie shot in Cinemascope and Technicolor. Colin MacCabe went so far as to call it "the greatest work of art produced in post-war Europe," in Sight and Sound. French with English subtitles. The DVD is a Criterion Collection edition. This letterboxed, 2-disc set includes audio commentary by film scholar Robert Stam; The Dinosaur and the Baby, an hour-long conversation between Godard and Fritz Lang from 1967; theatrical trailer; interview with cinematographer Raoul Coutard; and two short 1964 documentaries by Jacques Rozier: Contempt: Bardot et Godard and Paparazzi. France/Italy, 1963, 103 mins. DVD $59.95

In Praise of Love Jean-Luc Godard This mesmerizing meditation on love, history and human consciousness is one of Jean-Luc Godard's saddest and most beautiful films. Exquisitely shot on both 35mm film and digital video, In Praise of Love tells the story of a filmmaker fascinated and haunted by a young actress. Godard tells their tragic story in two parts, first showing their interaction at a film audition, and then flashing back to the moment they first met. "A film soaked in loveliness" (Anthony Lane, The New Yorker). Switzerland, 2001, 97 mins. DVD $44.95

Keep Your Right Up! (Soigne Ta Droite!) Jean-Luc Godard With a tip of the hat to Jerry Lewis, Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati, and (for good measure) Dostoyevsky, Jean-Luc Godard wrote, directed, edited and stars in this mind-boggling comedy. The rambling plot involves a hapless filmmaker (Godard) and his attempt to meet a deadline for delivering a film. From there the movie branches out into an abstract, episodic structure. "...engages even as it baffles...The confusion that results, punctuated by glimmerings of understanding, is the point" (A.O. Scott, The New York Times). In French with English subtitles. France/Switzerland, 1987, 82 mins. DVD $44.95

La Chinoise Jean-Luc Godard A caustic farce from Godard's "political" phase, this fast-paced 1967 work is essentially a Maoist teach-in set to film. Five members of a Parisian political cell discuss the implications of the Chinese cultural revolution and the effectiveness of terrorism amid a dizzying collage of slogans and poster art. Though his sympathies lie with Maoism, Godard's treatment of his naive, pompous characters is scathing. The result is a difficult, ambiguous film infused with a current of revolutionary electricity. In French with English subtitles. France, 1967, 93 mins. DVD $44.95

Le Gai Savoir Jean-Luc Godard Two alien beings, brought together in an empty earth space, are exposed to our culture via its popular images--a compelling experiment that not only foreshadows the use of these images in Godard's later films but also explains precisely why these images are the building blocks of any film. As Godard explains at the end, "This film is not and cannot be an attempt to explain cinema or embody its object, but merely suggests effective ways to achieve it. This is not the film that should be made, but if a film is to be made it must follow some of the paths shown here." With Jean-Pierre Leaud and Juliet Berto. In French with English subtitles. France, 1969, 95 mins. DVD $44.95

Le Petit Soldat Jean-Luc Godard The debut feature of Anna Karina, and Godard's second feature, this film was banned in France for its razor-sharp reflection of the Algerian war in a politically divided nation. It was not released in France for nearly three years. Michel Subor is a French secret agent on an assassination mission. The film's depiction of brutality and torture, used by both sides in this bloody war, infuriated both the Left and the Right. In French with English subtitles. France, 1960, 88 mins. DVD $44.95

Les Carabiniers Jean-Luc Godard One of the important early-period films from Jean-Luc Godard; a parable about the stupidity and ugliness of war. The story revolves around two gullible peasants who set out to fight for their king in exchange for "all the treasures in the world." "...Godard's achievement was to create a powerful anti-war, anti-imperialist statement, using Brechtian distancing techniques, and literary devices" (The Faber Companion to Foreign Films). In French with English subtitles. France, 1963, 80 mins. DVD $37.95

A Married Woman Jean-Luc Godard Godard managed to infuriate Charles de Gaulle with this frank document of a Parisian romantic triangle. Macha Meril is the young wife and mother in love with her husband and her lover. She doesn't want to decide between them because, quite frankly, she enjoys the attention of both. In French with English subtitles. France 1964 94 mins. DVD $44.95

Masculine Feminine Jean-Luc Godard A film about the children of Marx and Coca Cola directed by the child of Brecht and Hollywood. Two young lovers attempt to communicate throughout 15 discontinuous, contrapuntal vignettes. Dancing between precision and improvisation, this is one of Godard's most complex films, representing both a search for tenderness and a disheartening foray into the Sex War. With Jean-Pierre Leaud, Chantal Goya, and Catherine-Isabelle Duport. The DVD is a Criterion Collection Edition and includes video interviews with actress Chantal Goya, cinematographer Willy Kurant, and Godard collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin, trailer, essay by film scholar Adrian Martin, and more. In French with English subtitles. France 1966 103 mins. DVD $44.95

Notre Musique Jean-Luc Godard Godard continues his lifelong inquiry into the nexus between aesthetics and politics with this tri-fold essay on history, conflict, identity, and culture. Set primarily at a literary conference in Sarajevo, Godard draws on the Bosnian war, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the oppression of Native Americans, and the legacy of the Nazis to shape his provocative and elegiac inquiry. "A film of flowing, redemptive beauty and poetry, at once immediate yet classic in its simplicity of form" (Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times). In French, English, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, and Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. Switzerland / France 2004 80 mins. DVD $44.95

Pierrot le Fou Jean-Luc Godard One of the high points of 20th century cinema. Ravishing and moving, the story features Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand, who one evening leaves his wife in the middle of a boring party. He meets a girl with whom he was in love five years earlier, and who is involved with a gang of criminals. After Ferdinand finds a dead man in her room, they leave Paris for a deserted island. One of Godard's most poetic films, full of the anguish of love, aptly summarized in his own words over the first images of the film, "At the age of fifty, Velasquez no longer painted precise objects; he painted what lay between precise objects." The final murder-suicide sequence on the island is one of the most brilliant Godard has ever created. The DVD is a 2 disc Criterion Collection Edition, with newly restored hi-def digital transfer, supervised and approved by Raoul Coutard. Includes new video interview with actor Anna Karina; "A Pierrot Primer," a new video program with audio commentary; Godard, l'amour, la poesie, a 50-minute French doc; archival interview excerpts with Godard; theatrical trailer; improved English subtitle translation; and a booklet featuring a new essay by critic Richard Brody. In French with optional English subtitles. France, 1965, 110 mins. DVD $59.95

Sympathy for the Devil Jean-Luc Godard The Rolling Stones rehearse "Sympathy for the Devil" as a white revolutionary tries to commit suicide when her boyfriend switches to Black Power in this singular and daring film originally called One Plus One. The film, tackling the themes of growth and revolution, is envisioned as a collage which the viewer is challenged to "edit" himself. With The Rolling Stones, Anne Wiazemsky and Iain Quarrier. Great Britain, 1969, 101 mins. DVD $37.95

Tout Va Bien (Everything's All Right) Jean-Luc Godard A watershed creation from Godard's "political" phase, Tout Va Bien and its accompanying postscript Letter to Jane are the last films the director made with Maoist radical Jean-Pierre Gorin. Together they comprise one of the most formally and ideologically radical statements ever put to film. A work "about history and its power to transform the individual" (Gorin), Tout Va Bien stars Jane Fonda as an American reporter covering a strike at a Parisian sausage factory with her film director husband (Yves Montand). Functioning as a biting polemic on society, marriage, and revolution, Godard ups the ante with his follow-up, Letter to Jane, a scathing attack on bourgeois dilletantism and Fonda herself. The DVD is a letterboxed Criterion Collection Edition, and includes Letter to Jane (1972), 1972 video interview excerpt with Jean-Luc Godard, new video interview with Jean-Luc Godard, essays by critics J. Hoberman, Kent Jones, Colin MacCabe, excerpted interview with Gorin and Godard from 1972, and new English subtitle translation. In French with English subtitles. France, 1972, 96 mins. DVD $44.95

A Woman Is a Woman Jean-Luc Godard "I conceived this film within the framework of a neo-realist musical: an absolute contradiction, but that's the way I wanted to make the film," said Godard. Godard's closely-knit texture of small bistros, striptease joints, political suspicion and conjugal wavering is constantly violated in its naturalistic surface, not just by the comic turns of the plot, but by Godard's reminders not only that the film is a performance, but that the projected images are themselves illusory: "The film has a beauty that is brash and pathetic, like splintered colored glass, fragments that somehow compose a picture while refusing to hold together: musical, sad, uproarious, definitely frail" (Edgardo Cozarinsky). The DVD is a letterboxed Criterion Collection Edition, and includes an early Godard short; excerpts from a 1966 French TV interview with Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy and Serge Gainesbourg; a poster gallery; the original theatrical trailer; a new essay by Village Voice critic J. Hoberman; optional English subtitles; and more. French with English subtitles. France, 1961, 85 mins. DVD $44.95