Me and Orson Welles.

So Claire Danes has joined the cast of the upcoming Rick Linklater movie, Me and Orson Welles. This movie may be amazing, but it is still severely hampered by the presence of Zac Efron.

via Cinematical. 

More of the Genius of David Lynch.

Via Filmdrunk.

Face of the day: Benicio del Toro.

Chopper.

Harden the fuck up.

Face of the day: Kenny Loggins.

Holy shit: new Yacht Rock.

The greatest channel 101 creation is back for more smooth sounds.

via Vulture.

Michel Gondry lives in a world like ours, but clearly different…

via filmdrunk.

Face of the day: Frank Sinatra.

A Soft Conversation on a Hard Subject.

Thank you so much to James Costigan, who put up Godard and Mieville’s brilliant 1986 video Soft and Hard on YouTube. The piece is typical of many of Godard’s video works of the 80s, especially the sketch videos he made in preparation for features like Passion and Hail, Mary. The main section of the film consists of a taped conversation between Godard and Mieville on a range of subjects from her insecurities as a filmmaker to his feelings on television’s relation to film. The words are incredibly interesting, but just as much is the relationship between these two old friends and partners. It helps to remind you fully that Godard’s films that are credited to the duo, and really any of his post 1972 work must be seen in the light of Mieville’s intelligence and influence, assisting and prodding the old codger into stretching his and their work to reveal more and go deeper into human existence and relationships, and for him to not fall back on the crutches of traditional dialogue and simplistic interactions.

This clip, the second of the five clips that encompass the 50 minute video, also contains a fantastically funny moment (at about 2:15) where Godard practices tennis in his home. He has always had a slightly Tati absurdness to his humor. But immediately after, Godard poses one of the most plainly self-reflective questions of his career. “So if I am making pictures instead of children”, he asks, “Does that stop me being a human being?”

The creation of images has always been central to Godard, and I find it supremely interesting when you see his intellectual defenses crack, and for a moment some vulnerability is open to the viewer. It is one of the reasons I find Pierrot le Fou so supremely interesting is that it is the definable moment where Godard asks himself if he loves Karina, or he loves her image. The man, crippled by his intellectual walls, can not experience life with this woman, a subject for an artist if there ever was one. She lives out a dozen roles in the film, seemingly roaring through film history, until at the end it is all over for both of them.

Godard’s cinema changes forever from that point. An extreme nihilism takes over (see Weekend or the Dziga Vertov films), and it isn’t until he finds a partner that, as he himself once put it, mattered in life and not the image, that he comes to the poetry of his latter career. Soft and Hard is a beautiful examination of a relationship between two profound artists who see each other as equals.

Joanna Newsom article in the NYT.

The culmination of the Ys tour, with shows with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, are this Thursday and Friday. Wish I was there…