Writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist is one of the best movies-about-the-movies ever made. It swept the award ceremonies of the world and won Oscars for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor.
Hazanavicius undoubtedly had the golden keys to the kingdom. I’m sure he could have had the choice of dozens of scripts or deals from his own screenplays. Projects that, by and large, would have been beneath his talent.
So what does he do? In the great tradition of contrarians, he gave the people what they didn’t want. Namely an uncomfortable biopic of a difficult artist: Jean-Luc Godard.
Nine out of ten people you meet will never see a Godard picture. That figure could be conservative. Those who know of Godard are probably aware of his difficulties and his diligent efforts to avoid popular acceptance.
Mind you, this was eight years before Richard Linklater’s own Godard biopic, Nouvelle Vague. Curious parties should seek this one out rather than Godard Mon Amour. Nouvelle Vague is rich and joyous and an uplifting experience. If interests are piqued, there is a lot more information about Jean-Luc Godard out there to explore.
Godard Mon Amour is an adaptation of Une poignée de gens, a memoir by Anne Wiazemsky. She appeared in several Godard films and was married to the man for over a decade. The poor woman. It must have been like being married to Harlan Ellison.
This movie is, among other things, a story of the pratfalls of being hailed a genius. Only the most obtuse would deny the brilliance of Godard’s early movies. Okay, you’re a genius. Now what?
It’s like David Byrne. Talking Heads were an acclaimed band but Stop Making Sense exceeded all expectations. The world was at his feet. David Byrne is a genius! It took him years to shake the stigmata.
How about in horror fiction? Clive Barker was treated like a messiah when The Books of Blood slashed onto the genre. The pressure, the expectations that came with the adulation, couldn’t have been easy.
It’s a crown I wouldn’t care to wear. I’d surely like more readers, but I have no desire to become any kind of superstar.
By 1967 Jean-Luc Godard was the living embodiment of the Nouvelle Vague, or as we know it, the French New Wave. Movies like Breathless, Band of Outsiders, Contempt, and Alphaville brought Godard international fame. Critics, celebrities, fashionistas, they all loved Jean-Luc.
He appeared to be tired of it. Godard turned to radical politics. In 1967, the year Godard made his first aggressive political statement movie, La Chanoise, he married its star. Godard Mon Amour is the story of their relationship.
As usual the trailer makes Godard Mon Amour appear to be a frothy comedy. There are some very amusing moments in the movie. Mostly, Godard Mon Amour is about the director’s fall from grace with the world and the destruction of what appeared to be an idyllic marriage.
Godard embraced the revolution, but the student activists hated him for being from an older generation and also his standing as an international celebrity. The critics who once hailed Godard now ridiculed him. Fellow directors tried to help him. His wife, Anne, was increasingly the brunt of his ire.
No one understood the great man and his vision.
I can relate. I’m about a million miles from Jean-Luc Godard, but I've stubbornly refused to follow the trodden path of the horror influencers. I could join the ranks and endlessly praise the flavor of the moment writers and ceaselessly alert people to my social superiority. Instead, I write about obscure foreign films that interest almost no one. I discuss obscure old science fiction writers and stultifying independent movies.
Like The Artist, Godard Mon Amour is the story of the declining mental state of a once-beloved icon. It’s beautifully acted and shot, lovely to behold and to hear. Yet it’s difficult to see Godard portrayed as such an unhappy and unlikeable person.
The end? Godard Mon Amour closes on an unhappy note, but Jean-Luc Godard continued making movies his own way for the next forty years. If anything, his movies become even more difficult.
I love how Quentin Tarantino cited Jean-Luc Godard as a supreme influence and even named his production company, A Band Apart, after one of Godard's movies. When a reporter asked Jean-Luc what he thought of Tarantino and his movie, he said he hated the movies and referred to Quentin as a knave. After that Tarantino said he outgrew the work of Jean-Luc Godard. In other words, it's okay for Quentin to badmouth other people and their work, but he has no tolerance when the shoe is on the other foot.
In 2022 Jean-Luc Godard, old, exhausted, and in ill health, submitted to assisted suicide in Switzerland. Respect him or not, admire or detest his movies, I don’t see how anyone couldn’t at least grudgingly respect the man and his immense body of work.
Godard Mon Amour is a stunning movie that, like its subject, was destined to remain in obscurity.
Written by Mark Sieber
Hazanavicius undoubtedly had the golden keys to the kingdom. I’m sure he could have had the choice of dozens of scripts or deals from his own screenplays. Projects that, by and large, would have been beneath his talent.
So what does he do? In the great tradition of contrarians, he gave the people what they didn’t want. Namely an uncomfortable biopic of a difficult artist: Jean-Luc Godard.
Nine out of ten people you meet will never see a Godard picture. That figure could be conservative. Those who know of Godard are probably aware of his difficulties and his diligent efforts to avoid popular acceptance.
Mind you, this was eight years before Richard Linklater’s own Godard biopic, Nouvelle Vague. Curious parties should seek this one out rather than Godard Mon Amour. Nouvelle Vague is rich and joyous and an uplifting experience. If interests are piqued, there is a lot more information about Jean-Luc Godard out there to explore.
Godard Mon Amour is an adaptation of Une poignée de gens, a memoir by Anne Wiazemsky. She appeared in several Godard films and was married to the man for over a decade. The poor woman. It must have been like being married to Harlan Ellison.
This movie is, among other things, a story of the pratfalls of being hailed a genius. Only the most obtuse would deny the brilliance of Godard’s early movies. Okay, you’re a genius. Now what?
It’s like David Byrne. Talking Heads were an acclaimed band but Stop Making Sense exceeded all expectations. The world was at his feet. David Byrne is a genius! It took him years to shake the stigmata.
How about in horror fiction? Clive Barker was treated like a messiah when The Books of Blood slashed onto the genre. The pressure, the expectations that came with the adulation, couldn’t have been easy.
It’s a crown I wouldn’t care to wear. I’d surely like more readers, but I have no desire to become any kind of superstar.
By 1967 Jean-Luc Godard was the living embodiment of the Nouvelle Vague, or as we know it, the French New Wave. Movies like Breathless, Band of Outsiders, Contempt, and Alphaville brought Godard international fame. Critics, celebrities, fashionistas, they all loved Jean-Luc.
He appeared to be tired of it. Godard turned to radical politics. In 1967, the year Godard made his first aggressive political statement movie, La Chanoise, he married its star. Godard Mon Amour is the story of their relationship.
As usual the trailer makes Godard Mon Amour appear to be a frothy comedy. There are some very amusing moments in the movie. Mostly, Godard Mon Amour is about the director’s fall from grace with the world and the destruction of what appeared to be an idyllic marriage.
Godard embraced the revolution, but the student activists hated him for being from an older generation and also his standing as an international celebrity. The critics who once hailed Godard now ridiculed him. Fellow directors tried to help him. His wife, Anne, was increasingly the brunt of his ire.
No one understood the great man and his vision.
I can relate. I’m about a million miles from Jean-Luc Godard, but I've stubbornly refused to follow the trodden path of the horror influencers. I could join the ranks and endlessly praise the flavor of the moment writers and ceaselessly alert people to my social superiority. Instead, I write about obscure foreign films that interest almost no one. I discuss obscure old science fiction writers and stultifying independent movies.
Like The Artist, Godard Mon Amour is the story of the declining mental state of a once-beloved icon. It’s beautifully acted and shot, lovely to behold and to hear. Yet it’s difficult to see Godard portrayed as such an unhappy and unlikeable person.
The end? Godard Mon Amour closes on an unhappy note, but Jean-Luc Godard continued making movies his own way for the next forty years. If anything, his movies become even more difficult.
I love how Quentin Tarantino cited Jean-Luc Godard as a supreme influence and even named his production company, A Band Apart, after one of Godard's movies. When a reporter asked Jean-Luc what he thought of Tarantino and his movie, he said he hated the movies and referred to Quentin as a knave. After that Tarantino said he outgrew the work of Jean-Luc Godard. In other words, it's okay for Quentin to badmouth other people and their work, but he has no tolerance when the shoe is on the other foot.
In 2022 Jean-Luc Godard, old, exhausted, and in ill health, submitted to assisted suicide in Switzerland. Respect him or not, admire or detest his movies, I don’t see how anyone couldn’t at least grudgingly respect the man and his immense body of work.
Godard Mon Amour is a stunning movie that, like its subject, was destined to remain in obscurity.
Written by Mark Sieber
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