Letter to Jean-Luc Godard

Dear JLG,
At our internet forum, we chose you as our Master of the Month for May 2009. It was a great month, and we wanted to write to you some of our thoughts.

wigwam writes:

dear jlg,

can you please upload the following to kg so i can be done with you?

Socialisme
VAi passport
Plus Haut
Adieu au TNS
Pour Thomas Wainggai
L'Enfance de l'art
Le Rapport Darty
Changer d'image
Reportage sur Orly
Une Femme coquette
Opération béton

warm wishes,
-wig

Carmelo writes:

Dear JLG,

Like most people I started off with your 60s films. They were good and I was instantly a fan. Recently I finally got around to exploring your 80s - present work. I realize that I made a mistake putting them off for this long. You have really perfected your film making with these later films. To be honest your later films are actually much better than the 60s films which I loved. Notre musique and JLG/JLG are two of the most beautiful moving films I've seen. Please keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing more of your marvelous recent films.

Carmelo.

Ally writes:

dear jean-luc godard,
[...] Thank you for Breathless and other fond memories from the sixties.

Love,
Allison

Elephant_Gun's letter.

Mango writes:

Dear Jean-Luc,

Thank you for making movies. They have taught me a lot and will teach me a lot more.

When I first watched your films, I did not understand them. I was petty enough to insult them, and occasionally insult you. I would like to apologize for that. Since then I have grown, and no longer try to reduce films to my narrow ideas of artistic worth. Instead I take films as a potential experience for personal growth; and by experiencing your films, I have grown in valuable ways, even when I find myself frustrated by your methods. I am sorry for ever insulting your films. I hope you can forgive me.

Your early career is very popular; those films are fun and at the time presented a lot of new and energetic ideas. I am particularly fond of your portrayals of Paris and modernity in those pictures.

I also like their characters and their physical spontaneity and earnest digressions into social issues.

But it is your more recent films that have been most rewarding, and I find in them the seeds of dense ideas which root and sprout in many ways in my mind. You have a way of leaving ideas open and allowing others to interpret those ideas in their own way. I like that. I also like the way you compose your shots; the way you frame them, stage them, light them -- very distinctive. I think they are beautiful.

Although I have to admit, there are times when I still do not quite understand what you are doing.

Altogether, your career has been remarkable. You have challenged me in ways no other modern filmmaker has. I appreciate this, and want to thank you. Thank you for making pictures that have challenged me and countless others around the world. Thank you for choosing cinema, believing in the image, and standing by it after all. Thank you for being the marvelous exception to the ever-powerful and stifling rule. Thank you for working your soul into an increasingly spiritless art. Thank you.

I hear that this upcoming film will be your last. If true, this is depressing news. To retire from work is to retire from life; eternity is all that remains -- the possible of the impossible. I will be sad to see you go. You have spent your career fighting for the exception of art against the oppressive rule; now that you have reached the end, I beg you to fight against that most final of rules for the most impossible of exceptions. Must you go quietly? Rage, rage...

Sincerely,
Ian

This has been an exciting MoM. Carmelo perhaps best represents this month's success when he writes:

To be honest, I only planned to watch a few of Godard films this month and after starting Alphaville, I was only going to watch 4 or 5 more and then quit, but then came Hail Mary and it was so beautiful and amazing, I had to further explore his work. I discovered that while I've not been in the mood for his 60s work, his 80s - present stuff is some of the type of cinema I now love.

This has been a great month of watches, before this began Godard didn't even my most recent top 25 favorite directors, I think today I would rank him as number 1 (this might change to #2 once the new Brakhage set is released). JLG/JLG would be my #7 favorite film. This is probably my favorite MoM yet.

Here are my final rankings of his films for this month (although I'm not ready to be finished and will likely spend part of next month further exploring).

Thanks for the great month, JLG!



Signed,
The Life Cinematic

TLC JLG MoM.
Ally on Pierrot le fou
David on "ten things I love about Godard"
Simon M on Week End
Carmelo on La Chinoise...
Mango on jlg, questions of history
wigwam on A Film Like Any Other
Carmelo on DVG films
Carmelo on Tou va bien/Ici et ailleurs
Carmelo on Numero Deux
Eddie on Numero Deux
Lauren on La Chinoise
Carmelo on Histoire(s)....
Lauren on Sauve qui puet (la vie)
Lauren on Passion
Carmelo on Detective/Nouvelle vague
Mango on Breathless
Carmelo on Oh, Woe is Me