Holy shit: new Yacht Rock.

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

via Vulture.

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.

Anna.

Wow. This is a clip from Anna Karina’s little seen (in this country at least) Anna a 1967 tv special with songs by Serge Gainsbourg. A truly insane clip, proving that no one knew how to shoot Anna like Godard, as she comes off somewhat terrifying here.

Tati.

Nothing makes me happier than Jacques Tati. His is amongst the most poetic filmmakers and his films are all about celebrating humanity against any force that would lessen or cheapen it.

He makes me happy.

Sylvain Chomet’s The Old Lady and the Pigeons

Chomet is a masterful visual stylist, an animator of the current generation really only matched by the likes of Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton(depending on Wall-E). His chief influence is Jacques Tati, the purity of image and sound and the downplaying of dialog. His next film, The Illusionist, based on an unfilmed script by Tati, is one the films I am most waiting for on the horizon (it’ll have to wait till ‘09 though).

This short, made in 1996, has everything that makes Chomet great. Gorgeous character designs, comedy and drama (and a surprising amount of scares, actually) all tied to a perfect and simple story with a bizarre twist.

Godard and Mieville make a commercial.

From 1992, Godard and Mieville’s cigarette commercial ad bears a striking resemblance to his features of the late 80s and early 90s, especially in the striking use of modern, urban settings, combined with his ever present use of text. The final shot works as amalgamation of Alphaville and Hail Mary, the text juxtaposed with a focus on the desires of the physical body.