It utterly defeats me why Godard is taken so seriously - and One Plus One is a great example of his ineptitude as both a filmmaker and an 'intellectual' polemicist. It's hard to credit that Godard actually believed all that Marxist and Maoist kant. Anyone with half a brain could work out the bankruptcy of those 'isms' and how many people they had destroyed and were continuing to destroy even as Godard was making his films supporting them. As a filmmaker, ask yourself: would you have boring voice-overs reading tedious political diatribes at your audience, and then, when you couldn't think of anything else to do, layer another voice-over to the first voice-over, which had lost its listeners after the first 100 words in any case? Brilliant, Jean-Luc! As for Godard insisting on making a film with the Rolling Stones: of course he did; wouldn't you? It was the only guarantee of getting such mindless rubbish seen in the first place: the genius of the Stones eclipsing a talentless and babbling political idiot set loose with a camera. The bookshop scene wasn't worthy of even the worst fringe theatre, and was an insult to the intelligence of even the young children who were used to play in it - as could be readily seen. Copping-out by allowing friendly critics to claim that all this artless crap was a satire on mainstream film-making is no more than a safe get-out to offer those who clearly see Godard's poverty of intellect and arrogant contempt for his audience. Ironic that Godard's one-time great friend, Truffaut, with Nuit Americain, made the best film about film-making ever, and Godard made the worst with Le Mepris! Incidentally, Godard didn't choose the Stones' track of Sympathy With the Devil. It just happened to be the track they were working on when the 'film' started shooting at Barnes Olympic Studios.
Reviews
7 Reviews
No Orchids for Miss Blandish
(1948)
Atrocious acting!
18 March 2006
Considering the appalling state of Britain in 1947 when the film was made, it was a valiant attempt to copy such magnificently noir American films like "This Gun For Hire" and "The Blue Dahlia". That's about the best one could say about the film. However, it failed very badly, even considering how long ago it was made. It wasn't the cinematography, the camera-work or the sets that let it down - they ranged from acceptable to quite good - it was the casting. Obviously made on a shoestring budget, the actors almost without exception couldn't act; sometimes laughably obviously - and certainly not using American accents. Playing the heavies that they were aping from the Hollywood product they had studied - Alan Ladd, Bogey, Gloria Graham, Shelley Winters, et al - they resorted to the sneering rather than the menacing. The violence that the critics objected to was certainly there - innocent by today's standards - but the performances, the dialogue and even the body language, to say the least, were strictly out of amateur rep. I'm not at all surprised that the director never directed again.
Two Men Went to War
(2002)
"Put that bloody light out! Doncha know there's a war on!?"
5 September 2005
Two Men Went To War is a based-on-fact WW2 story about a couple of disgruntled British Army dentists who decide to 'invade' France and cause havoc among the enemy. Purloining a load of hand-grenades, the pair go AWOL and travel down to Cornwall, where they steal a boat. Setting off for France in the dead of night, the sequence of shots features the hotel where they had stayed and the harbour they were departing - all picked out with 'practical' lights blazing through the hotel's windows and other bright lights strung all around the harbour walls! This, in wartime blackout Britain, on a coastline facing enemy-occupied France, in waters regularly patrolled by German e-boats! Another commenter in this section states that the lighting was authentic in that the Cornish locals at the time figured that as they had never been attacked before, there was no reason to assume that they ever would be attacked then or in the future. However, even is this is true, the script should have made reference to this hard to believe 'fact' in dialogue, simply because the situation was so unusual and would have breached the strictly enforced wartime regulations concerning the blackout. Usually in movies, such 'blackout lighting', considering a story's authenticity, would be restricted to moonlight effect only. Another oversight in the film is the lack of anti-shatter window tapes which criss-crossed every pane of glass in Britain during the war. It's hard to believe that this glaring error went unnoticed by cast and crew. I suspect someone in authority said, 'Oh, they'll never realise," and simply let it go.
The Grid
(2004)
Writers' overworked imaginations almost ruined a well-made subject.
9 September 2004
What a pity to write in all that long distance control of on-the-spot special forces operations via voice and monitor. Can you imagine hard-arsed Delta and SAS troopers taking direct orders from pushy females watching monitors from several thousand miles away? Especially females that keep on falling in love with their operatives all over the place? And Julie Margulies was straight out of a Hollywood daytime soap - the bitch-maneater, on top of the job, ruthless, uncompromising... Hair never out of place, cute hats, purposeful big-shoulders walk. Puhlease! And why superimpose dozens of subtitles without giving viewers time enough to actually read them. There's a rule about this and it's based on basic intelligence: subtitles are there to be read - if you don't want to give enough time to read them, then simply refrain from using them at all. Who was the brain behind this? Despite all, The Grid was very well made and deserved something a whole lot better in the acting and directorial department. Shame.
Primary Colors
(1998)
Contains one of the cleverest prat-falls ever seen in the movies.
25 August 2004
The movie contained some great performances, particularly Kathy Bates and Emma Thompson's - and if it wasn't about Bill Clinton, then John Travolta's characterisation was the most amazing coincidence. But best of all, though, was the brilliantly directed and no less brilliantly executed prat-fall ever seen. This was when tall, willowy and dignified Allison Janney - playing White House aide Miss Walsh - contrived to fall up the stairs in a windmill of legs and flashing knickers while somehow managing to retain her dignity as she regained her feet. Wonderful acting. The brilliance of the direction was in having the host of male actors surrounding her pretending to have noticed nothing. Memorable and hysterically funny!
American Reel
(2003)
American Reel has heart and deserves to be widely seen.
11 August 2004
This is a great example of an American indy-movie, ie, one where the hard-earned bucks were spent putting the producers' faith in the story right up there on the screen. It's not quite Tender Mercies or Coalminer's Daughter, but it certainly gives those two a run for their money. David Carradine's music and his performance are straight from the heart and Michael Moloney, playing Carradine's agent, takes his performance and turns it inside out and back again in a rare characterisation that is at times irritating and at times touching - just like an agent! Mariel Hemingway, in somewhat cynical mood here, observes the goings on with acidulous wit and in one memorable and moving scene throws that completely off in a long and revealing soliloquy. What American Reel has is heart and it deserves to be widely seen because of that. I thoroughly recommend it.
Contempt
(1963)
Quasi-intellectual tosh.
5 April 2002
I was amazed at seeing the waste of a good book by a fine author in the hands of Godard. By the time he made Le Mepris, he had become so self-indulgent that the film in places is quite laughable. Stilted dialogue, boring, circular, mundane. The trick Godard can never pull off - as only genuinely clever directors can - is to depict boring and mundane without being boring and mundane. And trying to dignify his work by casting a tired and out-of-it Fritz Lang only added to the embarrassment. All Lang did was look bored (as well he might) walking around, dropping heavy aphorisms all over the place, some of them quite meaningless, each delivered with an implied shrug and a sigh as if he knew what crap he was being made to utter! (The poor man even had to refer to his now ancient success, Rancho Notorious, which rather demeaned him.) The camera-work was often self-conscious or very poor when it wasn't merely adequate. Likewise the photography was indifferent when it wasn't overlit. Palance looked quite ill at ease most of the time, and who could blame him for that? It's peculiar: Godard always seems to laud the old time American mainstream directors but can't ape their technique for toffee. Le Mepris' only saving grace was BeBe herself, whose impossibly beautiful aura shone throughout the film.
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