Godard Mon Amour (2017) User Reviews

A clever portrait of a very tricky subject: Jean-Luc Godard

[alexdeleonfilm · 8/10 · 22 May 2017]

LE REDOUTABLE , Michel Hazanavicius, In Competition at Cannes 2017. The French title refers to a formidable opponent which seems very appropriate considering who this story is about. image2.jpeg This films comes here with high expectations because the subject of the film is Jean-Luc Godard, arguably the most famous and surely the most controversial French film director of the XX. century and until now nobody has ventured or dared to make a biopic about the cantankerous 86 year old cinéaste.

Michel Havanacius, director of the 2011 Oscar winning film The Artist has now taken that step and cast popular fast rising actor Louis Garrel as his Godard. The picture focuses on the making of La Chinoise in 1967 which was a major turning point in Godard's career and featured young actress Anne Wiazemsky whom Godard married after the making of that film. He was then 36 and she was nineteen. It was a stormy marriage following his first marriage to another of his stars, Anna Karina, and only lasted two years when Godard was at the peak of his fame and also the acme of his unbridled arrogance ...which is emphatically presented throughout. The film is basically a study of the collapse of that marriage and Godard's embracing of Maoist revolutionary politics which completely altered his career trajectory and sharply divided his fan base while destroying his marriage as well. Hazanavicius most successfully captures the atmosphere of the time and the year that this Cannes film festival was closed down by Godard and other New Wavers as a protest against the oppression of the government of Degaulle. He also captures the purposeful naughtiness of Godard films by throwing in female and female frontal nudity arbitrarily, clearly meant as a sly comment rather than a titillation. Other Godardian devices such as obscene graffiti and inter-titles and jump cuts add to the nouvelle vague flavor. Wiazemsky is effectively played played by actress Stacy Martin who was featured alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg in Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac a few years back. Louis Garrel was a good choice to impersonate Godard and turns in a commendable job even if it is more of an impersonation than entering the skin of his subject -- which, considering the type of slippery personality Godard actually is, would be an almost impossible job.

This is overall a rather light and breezy treatment of what could have been a very knotty and heavy handed film in less skillful hands. Hazanavicius has the right touch for this touchy subject Jean-Luc himself has called the film "a stupid, stupid, idea" -- one would hardly expect him to call any film about himself anything else. For Nouvelle Vague and Godard buffs this film is essential "reading".

A lot more enjoyable than I expected

[euroGary · 7/10 · 16 May 2018]

At the beginning of 1968 Jean-Luc Godard is one of the most highly-respected directors working in French-language cinema. He is influential and admired. He has also just married Anne Wiazemsky, a teenage actress seventeen years his junior. He has the more arty end of the film world at his feet, yet he is feeling restless. Then erupt the Paris student protests which sweep Godard up in their revolutionary fervour. He becomes a supporter of the movement, and his opinions are in turn sought out by the young leaders (although, in the best tradition of ideologues everywhere, they also spend a large amount of their time arguing). As his marriage to Wiazemsky suffers, Godard heads further down what some might describe as a Maoist path, culminating - for this film's purposes - in the establishment of a sort of film-making collective without heirarchy - Godard may be the director, but his artistic vision is subordinate to the will of the workers. Hah! From the plot description this might seem like a terribly gloomy film; far from it. It is actually very playful: as Godard, Louis Garrel has to deliver directly to camera the line "I bet if you told an actor to say actors are dumb, he would do it"; and a scene where Godard and Wiazemsky (played by the frequently-undraped Stacy Martin) discuss film directors' enthusiasm for nude scenes is played with both actors naked. How accurate Garrel's portrayal is I am unable to say, but for an actor who has rarely before displayed any comedy chops he provides a fine, subtly comic turn here; I particularly like the hangdog look his Godard at times displays.

I am not massively familiar with either Godard or his work; I have little patience with pretention. But this film makes the famed auteur a more accessible - sometimes rather likeable - individual, without glossing over his faults (rudeness; arrogance; a controlling element in his relationship with Wiazemsky). Whether it is a fair representation of him I do not know, but it makes for a very interesting film.

Unusual bio

[adrian-43767 · 6/10 · 30 May 2018]

Godard may have been one of the French New Wave's main stars but, as a person, he could be repulsive without trying. Not that the film portrays him as overly selfish or self-centered, but he seems to live in his own mind, and have standards that he switches at his own convenience.

As the film opens, he is 37 and he has just started a romantic involvement with 19 year old exquisitely beautiful wife to be Anne (solidly played by Stacy Martin, who looks very much like Catherine Deneuve at the height of her splendor, only better) . Given that the film is mostly told from Anne's point of view, we get to see Godard's steady mental disintegration and growing loss of touch with reality, as told from her standpoint, while all along she keeps retiring into an observer's position. In light of the fact that the film is based on Anne Wiazemsky's autobiographical account of her relationship with Godard, she emerges from this film with her image apparently far more intact - but also as a bit of a tell-tale who thinks nothing of reducing her former husband's reputation to the lowest possible level.

Physically, Louis Garrel looks like Godard, imitates his famous lisp very well, and his performance is superb, even if the character does nothing to encourage anyone's sympathy, let alone liking. The way he joins the student demonstrations of May 1968, but flees police as soon as he feels that he is in danger; and the way he bends Maoist doctrine to his own take on life, says much about the pitfalls of this once and briefly great director.

Michel Hazanavicius' direction is first class, his screenplay not really. The submarine, Le Redoutable, and the repeatedly broken spectacles are jokes that have worn rather thin by film's end.

Soundtrack is generally vivid and brings back the day, including some lovely music, but there is also some jarring noise, typical of what made Godard so unique in films like MASCULINE FEMININE, A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, LE MÉPRIS.

Ultimately, it is a movie for lovers of the French cinema. I am one, and I am grateful for what I learned from it. That said, LE REDOUTABLE/GODARD MON AMOUR makes for some rather uncomfortable viewing because of Godard's disintegration. On the other hand, thank God Stacy Martin is so beautiful, with her around I can forgive any flaws in the movie.

It is such a pity

[karolinaszin · 6/10 · 1 April 2018]

It is such a pity that it was not enough for the director to talk about Godard, he also tried to make a film in Godard's style. In my opinion, he was not able to capture the "Godard mood" at all. Instead, the film is executed in a textbook manner, meticulously using Godard's cinematic language like a receipt and that's always a risky move (for example, Gus Van Sant's case with Psycho). Godard is Godard not for using these elements, but because he used them at the right time and in the right way. If this would have been done by breaking new grounds in cinematic language, or even without breaking the mould in such a way BUT finding the right tone, I would have liked the film much more. Godard's world has a sexy, humorous yet tragic atmosphere, where the viewer feels for the characters. To be honest, when watching a Godard movie, I'm always terribly envious that I was not born at the time of Belmondo. Here, I did not feel this longing, sadly. Having said that, the actors are cute and the director seems to be cool and all, judging from interviews, so it may be that I'm just too sentimental. :)

A fascinating insight into the mind of one of the most important French directors of all time

[kaptenvideo-89875 · 7/10 · 28 December 2017]

Movies about real historical events and persons from everyday perspective are cool.

This one's about the legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard (played by Louis Garrel) reaching middle-age and marrying a young girl (Stacy Martin). It turns out Goddard, idolized by movie lovers and critcs, turns out to be the immature one in the relationship.

Like any good movie about relationships should, "Le redoutable" has both moments of laughter and soul wrenching drama. But above all, this is a character portrait of a increasingly domineering and unpleasant man.

Writer-director Michel Hazanavicius approaches the study of the character from the deep psychological standpoint. He does not offer some easy and populist way of explaining the reasons behind tormented genius's growing disagreeableness over time.

Just like in real life, there's no one single cause for how one behaves, especially not something external that would be easy to blame and would adequately summarize everything that's going on in human soul (bad influence, broken heart etc).

If the viewer is not willing or able to go that deep, there's still enough going on to justify the time spent. The movie is humorous - especially in the first half - and offers a vivid overview about how destructive immature people can become in loving relationship if they wrestle with power and intimacy issues.

In Godard's character, I found much of myself and what I've had to wrestle with in relationships - and still have to. So watching it was a bit depressing for me, for probably nobody enjoys seeing one's ow faults so clearly from aside (in others).

The second half turns increasingly darker in mood and get exhausting because there's basically only one situation filling the story which gets repeated over and over again. The lack of variety is the reason of me hesitating to give it higher score than 7 out of 10.

The story centers mostly on Godard and young wife, Anne Wiazemsky, and their performances are really good. These are demanding roles because the marital discord doesn't grow from one explosive conflict to another but accumulating stress and tension between two people, expressed mostly in subtle bodily or facial impressions that the camera eagerly catches.

This kind of inner burning based suspense is surely difficult to build on screen, and both stars are really good at it (with the help of the director, of course).

I enjoyed Stacy Martin's performance especially, for in a way, she has fewer resources to build the character than Garrel whose Godard does most of the talking.

Martin gives a beautifully restrained but emotive performance as the ever-suffering wife. She's the emotional backbone of the story and probably the one thing you'll remember the best from the movie.

Based on the memoir of Anne Wiazemsky, who became a novelist and published the book on her life with French cinema genius in 2015. Godard lives on, but she passed away just weeks ago, October 5th this year, succumbing to battle with breast cancer at the age of 70.

Michel Hazanavicius is best known for "The Artist" that got nominated for ten Oscars, and won five, in 2012, including for the best movie and director.

Two or three things this movie might tell us about Godard

[johnpmoseley · 6/10 · 2 December 2021]

I don't exactly envy the task the director here, Haznavicius, set himself, since it basically involved constant aping of Godard's essentially inimitable style. Actually, as Godard imitations go, it's OK, though, somewhat inevitably, way dumber than its model. Still, you just can't. Almost the whole point of Godard, as this film acknowledges, is his relentless defiance of convention. To imitate the style of that defeats the purpose even if you do it well. Or worse, it just adds to our own era's deathly, Wes Andersonish embrace of the hollowed-out fake past and hopelessness about doing anything really new and vital now or ever again.

Still it does seem, from reviews here, to have appealed to a few Godard virgins who might, with luck, go on to discover the real thing. And it does make a nice point about a conflict in Godard's character that seems key to the effect of his films: the coexistence of an almost superhuman playfulness and inventiveness with, paradoxically, the most dourly humourless of political outlooks - plus a misanthropy that might have justified itself via the politics, but probably goes tragically deeper. I'm not, by the way, saying any of this to damn leftism in general, which is my own position, so much as the near murderous, proto-Baader-Meinhof strain that late-60s radicalism somehow gave rise to.

In its examination of the then 35-year-old Godard's paranoid romantic jealousy vis a vis teenage wife Anna Wiazemsky (upon whose memoir the script is based) the film likely also sheds light on the sour misogyny that definitely made its way into his work at the worst of times. That said, at least his latent Calvinism or whatever (this is the explanation given here) prevented him from demanding of his actresses that they strip, which is not at all the case in this film. It tries a meta joke about this, which, like a lot of is humour, falls flat.

By the by, and not with nudity in mind, I'm really disappointed the lead here wasn't the star of Blue is the Warmest Colour since she's practically Wiazemsky's twin.

Captivating in most places

[bob998 · 7/10 · 2 June 2021]

First, I can't think of any other film that treats the life of a director, except for Greenaway's Eisenstein In Guanajuato, and the far better known Chaplin. To have his life immortalized this way, a director would have to be a really fascinating person, and I doubt Godard is.

Second, we see how terribly self-absorbed he is throughout. He seems not to care for any of the people around him. The scene in the restaurant when he insults the old man and his wife should have ended in a fist fight, but cooler heads prevailed. Anne wants to make a film with Marco Ferreri--it will be her eleventh--but Godard objects violently: there's too much nudity. This is his wife who will be seen naked, and he forces Ferreri to shoot her with clothes on. Louis Garrel is especially fine in this scene, while Stacy Martin turns in a performance of some skill which makes me forget about the awful film she did with von Trier.

The best for last: about one hour into the story, we get Godard, Anne, the Bambans, Michel Cournot and the driver packed into a car headed to Paris (they'd have gone by train, but for the general strike). Cournot is down because his first and only film hasn't been shown at Cannes, Godard throws some gratuitous insults at him, and the Bambans join in. It's the ultimate bad car trip.

Formidable

[ferdinand1932 · 9/10 · 13 September 2018]

Godard is not the sort of typical subject for a film. To say he lacks empathy, that he assaults the cosy preconceptions of much cinema and its audiences, is well-known.

At the time of this film he was undergoing a transition: he renounced his break-through films, he was intensely political in that celebrity French style which is often more pose and belles-lettres, than real accomplishment, a fact made clear in this film.

To present him in that anodyne fashion which Hollywood does, which is essential deceitful, as say "A Beautiful Mind" and many other movies, would be truly dishonest but fortunately this film does not do that. It is quite a good presentation of that period, both socially-politically and personally.

The film's style naturally, almost logically, had to be á la Godard, in some way, and it works without being pastiche. At times it pushes a little far but mostly enough to give that sense of how Godard's films looked at that time and before.

This is especially true of the interiors, a favorite setting and device of Godard's in the 1960s, where he had couples discuss and debate as they moved about apartments. Here the famous sequence in "Contempt" when Piccoli and Bardot's marriage ended is almost reprised as Godard and Wiazemsky's relationship shatters. The inspirational touch in this film was to add Richard Strauss's luscious but fatalistic song, Im Abendrot (At Sunset), over this sequence.

The performances are all done well. A little more lisp from Garrel's Godard perhaps, but really, technically and the overall production, the whole movie looks just right.

Well worth the time and a reminder that once films, and cinema generally, actually mattered socially and politically.

A beguiling chapter in life of Jean-Luc Godard

[RogerB-P3RV3 · 7/10 · 13 May 2020]

A beguiling chapter in life of Jean-Luc Godard, approaching middle age, when he was married to teen starlet Anne Wiazemsky (movie was based on her novel "Un an après") is also (biased) account of Godard's struggle to separate his politics and cinema from personal relationship with friends and his lover.

Godard is portrayed as an uptight and unredeemable cynic, often sulky, sarcasm-driven, biting critic of contemporary cinema and a pretentious revolutionist wannabe. His insensitivitiness and unapologetic views pisses folks off while close friends are disappointed by his actions and zero empathy. However, it's presented in such a tongue-in-cheek way and with a strong sense of irony, aided by a strong Louis Garrel performance that the famed filmmaker comes across as a likeable contrarian with a streak of insecurity particularly when it comes to his wife.

The scene in the packed car on 800km ride back to Paris (the inflated ego of Godard clashing with rest of the occupants including director Michel Cournot) is extremely amusing.

From a fawning young wife infatuated with Godard's intellectualism and passion for the causes he's fighting for to a frustrated lover alienated by his confrontational behavior and misanthropy, Stacy Martin's Anne is enigmatically broody, a stoic silent type with (au) natural aura of sexiness.

Pierrot le Mépris

[richardchatten · 5/10 · 20 May 2018]

Non-admirers of Jean-Luc Godard probably won't be bothering to watch this film in the first place, but I'm sure they'd be reasonably satisfied with the hatchet job that author Anne Wiazemsky and director Michel Hazanavicius have done on Godard, since even most of his admirers as a filmmaker and political guru probably already had a pretty bleak estimation of him as a human being.

Being based on a 2015 memoir by Godard's long estranged ex-wife, the late Anne Wiazemsky (1947-2017), the film is inevitably going to be as much about her as him, and its depiction of him even more inevitably from her jaundiced viewpoint. This also unfortunately means that the film concentrates on their time together between their marriage in 1967 and their separation in 1970, when both his gifts as a filmmaker and passion for cinema had recently curdled; although there was still enough of the film nerd in him to claim with a straight face (in probably the film's best scene) the legacy of Jerry Lewis more worthwhile than that of Jean Renoir. (I wonder how Godard took the news - if it ever reached him - of Lewis's later enthusiasm for Reagan and Trump.)

During his previous marriage to Anna Karina he was probably just as difficult a husband but hadn't become the politically doctrinaire bore and boor that Wiazemsky had to deal with (she portrays him as self-centred and neglectful rather than abusive). Godard's admirers at the time and since have tended to excuse the calamitous decline in the quality of his films after 1965 as politically justified, since they saw the unwatchable screeds he was now churning out as the legitimate expression of his commitment to "make films politically" by no longer making them entertaining rather than because he'd simply lost it.

Louis Garrel gives an energetic performance in the lead, but is too tall and good looking (he actually looks more like Jean-Pierre Léaud), fails to capture the nasal voice familiar from Godard's own films, his perennial 5 o'clock shadow has become designer stubble and then a full beard by the time the film ends; and he just isn't as weird and inscrutable as the man himself remains to this day.

Hazanavicius throughout lovingly recreates the look of Godard's early 60's films when he was in his prime, but treats him more as a comical figure like Woody Allen, complete with the running joke lifted from 'Take the Money and Run' in which his glasses keep getting broken and the admirer who like those in 'Stardust Memories' wishes he'd make another "funny film". (Not that Godard's pre-1968 films were all light-hearted bon-bons by any stretch of the imagination. 'Le Petit Soldat' and 'Les Carabiniers', anyone?)

art and revolution

[dromasca · 8/10 · 9 February 2018]

The French invented cinema and the Americans turned it into a big industry. If Hollywood loves making films about Hollywood, why should not make the French also films about the French cinema? Especially if we are talking about a director (Michel Hazanavicius) who already made a very successful film about Hollywood ("The Artist"). Here is his daring approach to a genre which is surprisingly new for the French cinema - movies about movies. "Redoubtable" is a daring endeavor because the subject is one year in the life of one of the most controversial film directors in the history - Jean-Luc Godard., a complex artist and personality who is also still with us, making films and even commenting on films made about him.

The year is also not any other year, but 1968, one of the milestones in the history of the 20th century, a crossroad also in the history of France. The revolts of the students that peaked in May of that year had several sources of inspiration - anarchist and Maoist ideloogies among them, but also works of philosophers like Jean Paul Sartre and, yes, movies, among which Jean-Luc Godard's "La Chinoise". The French director had gained fame in the decade before with some of the best known films of the French 'Nouvelle Vague'. Some had ideological content, some other 'just' revolutionized (together with films by François Truffaut and a few other) the language of cinema. "La Chinoise" had marked the final of that period and the start of another, a much more politically oriented stage in his creation. It also marked the beginning of the relationship soon to turn into marriage with Anne Wiazemsky. (the second for Godard, after he had married and divorced Anna Karina). The implication of Godard in politics and the rocky marriage with Anne are the principal topics of "Redoubtable". The Godard in the film does not come very clean from this historical re-evaluation on screen which is based on the novel-memoirs of his ex-wife. He appears as a 'gauchist' intellectual who sides with the revolt and hates police, but his behavior and way of life belong to the class he despises. His ideology seems more anarchist and quite remote from realities. He fails to understand the totalitarian ways of his idols Mao and Che and is stupefied when "La Chinoise" is rejected by the Chinese embassy as 'reactionary art' and he is refused a promotion trip to China. His joining of the May 1968 revolts leads to confusing speeches in the meeting halls at Sorbonne, including an outrageous rant paralleling Jews and Nazis. He is, as many other before him, a victim of a revolution in march that devours its idols. Eventually he makes the right choice understanding that an artist can better serve the revolution by means of art, and for a while he looks better holding a camera on the streets of Paris in 1968, or founding the Djiga Vertov collective of politically active filmmakers. This may lead to another impasse, an artistic one, but that will not be part of the story in this film.

I liked the film. Michel Hazanavicius uses a technique that he already successfully applied in "The Artist" - talking about a past period in the history of the cinema with the cinematographic tools specific to that era. He even added more nuances, as different episodes are filmed in different styles adapted to the content. We see the scenes with Paris on barricades filmed with 'Nouvelle Vague' hand-held camera. A trip by car in which a crowded mix of film-makers and actors get a speech from their driver about the simple taste in cinema of the masses, so remote from their experiences, is filmed in a static car, like in an American movie of the 30s or 40s. At the peak of the domestic crisis the unbearable soundtrack covers the voices of the disputing lovers. Louis Garrel created a Godard who oscillates between his (well deserved) ego and surprising moments of lack of confidence, who thinks in an ideological and doctrinaire manner but knows little about the people the ideology is supposed to serve, who models his life and art to politics and has little understanding or patience for his own adulating audiences. The relationship with Anne (Stacy Martin) is almost permanently one-directional, a crisis in building from the very first moments. Both actors do fine jobs, and they are placed in an environment that brings brilliantly to life the period for those spectators who lived it as well as for those who did not.

Focusing on politics and the stormy marriage between Jean-Luc and Anne, "Redoubtable" tells less about the cinema that he made - and 1968 was actually a very prolific year, as were the coming 3 or 4 years, although much of what he did was documentary of collective work within the Djiga Vertov group. The one scene that show him at work is filmed one year later, and hints to the fact that, at least for the coming period that was to last about another decade, Godard made a choice. Between art and revolution, he explicitly chose revolution. The final judgment about this period may have not been pronounced, and this film could be part of a re-opening of the discussions and more important - seeing again his films. Godard is Godard, and he never seems to accept to rest.

Very one-sided and petty biopic

[skepticskeptical · 5/10 · 12 July 2019]

This bizarre mélange of genres--documentary, comedy, tell-all from a former lover--views above all like a hit job. This is the second film I encountered this week which focuses on a disgruntled former girlfriend´s unhappiness that her extraordinary lover turned out not to be entirely normal. (The other one was Mad to be Normal, about Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing). I find this sort of depiction of Godard, on the one hand, and R. D. Laing, on the other, to be disagreeable in the extreme. I have no difficulty believing that men with big personalities and egos are difficult to have relationships with. But to make an entire film about what a cad ¨the cad¨ is alleged to be (by a former lover) strikes me as an unvarnished act of revenge. Nietzsche (and probably Godard, since he has always liked Nietzsche) would surely identify in this production a consummate expression of ¨ressentiment¨.

It seems to me that there is something rather puerile about falling in love with someone who is an artist (touted by many as a creative genius) and then expecting him to suddenly be the average-joe husband and dad (in the case of R.D. Laing). How could that possibly turn out to be the case? It´s a package deal. You get the extraordinarily wonderful with the extraordinarily difficult to live with. Needless to say, I do not think well of the female protagonist here, who seems to have wanted to profit from what she viewed as her victimhood. Ugh.

I also found confusing that the director tried to imitate Godard´s style--part of the time, but not all of the time--while also trashing him. A confusing and unsatisfying creation, in my opinion. The comedic elements pretty much disappeared by the end, when all that remains is the whiny girlfriend and what is depicted as Godard´s descent into Maoist Marxism.

Godard haters will love this thrashing.

SUBLIME

[markj-02556 · 10/10 · 28 December 2018]

This film simply blew me away. I love this film because of the way it pays homage to Godard's experimental style whilst also portraying the man himself as a confused and paranoid human being. Garrel and Martin are both excellent in there roles portraying the dramatic and suprisingly comedic elements of the film with ease. The film is very funny which caught me off guard at first but it does endear us to the characters. The glasses gag is a fantastic running gag and the delightfully meta scene about actors being naked in films for no reason is genius. Redoubtable is not for everyone but it was for me.

Unfocused, weak; filled with many words and too little substance

[I_Ailurophile · 4/10 · 20 May 2023]

It's a tough lesson to learn that just because an actor one admires is involved in a film doesn't guarantee that it's of the same level of quality as other titles involving that actor. I thought Stacy Martin was outstanding in Lars von Trier's 'Nymphomaniac,' a character drama that I deeply loved. I think she's given fine performances elsewhere, too, even if the film at large didn't impress as much. In this instance it seems to me as though she demonstrates admirable acting where a scene allows her to, but too often filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius is evidently more interested in Martin for her body than for her skill. One might argue that this dovetails into the way that 'Le redoutable' portrays Anne Wiazemsky as rather being sidelined by Jean-Luc Godard during their relationship, secondary to his other interests (including himself), but still there's a question of using Wiazemsky as a set piece more than a character, and Martin more as a pretty face than as an actor, which leads me to think that hypothetical dovetail is an incidental projection rather than smart intent. Sadly, while this is the most readily apparent issue - mistreating a character and their actor in a feature where they are central - it's hardly the only one. I sat to watch this with mixed to high expectations, and frankly, I'm just not impressed.

This title is profoundly unfocused, selecting samples of many flavors but choosing none. Hazanavicius heavily spotlights the protests and revolutionary fervor of May 1968, but it doesn't feel like he does much with it except fuel the tumult of Godard and Wiazemsky's relationship, and of Godard's other personal connections. One would think such tumult is treated with meaningful narrative significance in turn; one would be mistaken, for even "Anne and Jean-Luc" are broadly given meager consideration in a film ostensibly about "Anne and Jean-Luc." It feels like this paints in many colors to mention the hypocrisies of those who champion revolution, the awareness of those hypocrisies, and the difficulties of living within the very system that one wishes to fundamentally change, but these are colors are glossed over rather than trod upon. Similarly, there are kernels of discussion here about the nature of cinema, and what it was, is, and should be, yet while this would be the perfect place to earnestly reflect on what Godard meant to the medium, the topic is treated as lightly and indifferently as everything else in 'Le redoutable.' To that point, while Godard did some very interesting things as a filmmaker, none of them altogether introduced a new paradigm in the way Hazanavicius' Godard is suggesting; I'm reminded of how even Isidore Isou's 'Traité de Bave et d'Éternité,' a Lettrist manifesto of light and sound, stayed well within the bounds of what moviegoers commonly expect, even if he used it in a different way. All this is to say that I'm of two competing minds where this 2017 movie is concerned: either (a) it spends over 100 minutes talking, but it doesn't say anything, or (b) it successfully paints Godard as a bloviating, inarticulate fool, and nothing more.

What thoughtful deliberation this could have represented on any subject is thin and unconvincing. The drama it might have portended, whether of the arc of Wiazemsky and Godard's relationship or of the larger events in the background, mostly isn't rendered with sufficient substance to matter. What blips of comedy this might have offered just don't land except on rare occasion. There are only a handful of moments that actually earn a laugh, clearly having been penned with a comedian's wit; only within the last approximate third are the dramatic beats written and executed with a mindfulness that allow them to resonate. There are fleeting shades of cleverness peppered throughout, but they are deployed almost at random, without any underlying import. There are no examples of such pale apparitions worse than those times when the feature draws on Godard's own tricks from his oeuvre (e.g. Jump cuts, dividing the whole into segments denoted by title cards, using the negative as active footage); such inclusions are plainly empty as they present here.

I think 'Le redoutable' is well made from a technical standpoint, and all those behind the scenes turned in great work. The rest of the cast face much the same struggle as Martin does here, if in other ways, but they make the most that they can of the material. Just as the dramatic aspect of the picture is strengthened in the last stretch, so too are the actors given better material generally, and they show more of their capability as we should have been seeing all along. Unfortunately, scattered as the writing is, the best value the movie can claim mostly comes too little and too late to compensate for the preponderance of the runtime that's both unwieldy and flimsy. In fairness, I'll grant the possibility that I just wasn't in the right mindset when I sat to watch, or maybe I'm just not attuned to the proper wavelength to "get" what Hazanavicius was doing here. All I know is that 'Le redoutable' doesn't sit well with me, overall being too weak, ill-defined, and watered down to amount to much in my estimation. I'm glad for those who get more from this than I did, but as far as I'm concerned this is something that's hard to mention as a recommendation by any measure.

Essential - not fully enjoyable

[pedrokolari · 8/10 · 11 May 2018]

The movie covers a period in Jean Luc Godard's life, the one he spent with his second wife, the late Anne Wiazemsky. Nobody who is at all interested in cinema should miss it. It feels and sounds quite authentic. However, based as it appears to be on Ms. Wiazemsky's memoirs (they had not spoken to each other for over 40 years), not unsurprisingly it paints JLG in a less than flattering shade. Given that the famous director is the leit motif of the film to begin with, that may give you a funny feeling. It certainly gave JLG that kind of feeling since he called the film "stupid". It isn't: gives lots of insights into the period, the Paris May movement, the film industry at the time, as well as the relationship itself, whichever side you would be inclined to take. It's a good movie.

Miserable

[spinuadrian · 1/10 · 26 April 2018]

Don't watch when you don't want to waste your time.

Consistently (non!) persistently (oui) amusing story of Godard '68

[HuntinPeck80 · 8/10 · 22 March 2024]

Redoubtable is a sporadically amusing, but never touching, story of the legendary Godard as seen, more or less, through the eyes of his young wife, Anne Wiazemsky. His Chinese movie, starring Anne, has been repudiated, by the Chinese. At a loss, Godard marches with the angry students of 1968, declaring that the revolution is all and his previous movies are all merde! The young Anne follows along, dutifully, affectionately, but with growing alienation. She, obviously, wants to live, and her husband wants to sulk, and get his glasses broken time after time.

It's surprising how engaging this movie is, even if you still haven't gotten around to watching À bout de souffle (1960), Godard, who was still alive at the time, is presented as a comic character, a pretentious pseudo-intellectual (or just an intellectual, they're all pseudo, aren't they?). Anne is presumably meant to represent us, today. Louis Garrel and Stacy Martin play the roles successfully, but I couldn't help wondering, given Godard's fame, if the portrait wasn't a bit harsh.

The movie is occasionally very funny, but in a very knowing sort of way, which I suppose indicates that the entertainment will wear out fast, much like life with Godard. But the movie is elegantly made and energetic for all the pouting, and it doesn't wear out its welcome.

Enjoyable existential crisis.