Read Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard Online

Authors: Richard Brody

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Entertainment & Performing Arts, #Performing Arts, #Individual Director

Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard (130 page)

13
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

14
.
Eye
, September 1968.

15
. Joseph Gelmis,
The Film Director as Superstar
(New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 186.

16
. Ibid., p. 29.

17
.
Newsweek
, February 12, 1968.

18
. Gene Youngblood,
Los Angeles Free Press
, March 8, 1968; Sterritt,
Jean-Luc Godard Interviews
, p. 10.

19
.
Sight and Sound
, Summer 1968.

20
.
Combat
, April 17, 1968.

21
.
Newsweek
clipping, Museum of Modern Art clippings file.

22
.
Sight and Sound
, Summer 1968.

23
. Ibid.

24
.
Daily Texan
, March 8, 1968.

25
.
Eye
, September 1968.

26
.
Kansas City Star
, March 17, 1968.

27
.
The Globe and Mail
(Toronto), March 2, 1968.

28
. Abnormally long projects appealed to Godard at this point, likely, as Norman Mailer suggested, under the influence of Andy Warhol’s films. Mailer and Godard met in New York around that time: “When I was making my three underground films we walked together for a block or two at one point, we were going from, I think, from one party to another, and he said, ‘I hear you’ve made a forty-five-hour film,’ and I said, ‘Yes, the problem’s gonna be to cut it down,’ and he said, ‘No, don’t cut it down, show all of it.’ That was in the’ 60s, when Andy Warhol was, you know, cutting quite a swath with
his
underground films.” Norman Mailer, interview by author, July 10, 2000.

29
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

30
. The title was something of a pun on the title of the French film-industry journal,
Le Film français
.

31
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

32
. D. A. Pennebaker, interview by author, February 19, 2001.

33
. Jonathan Rosenbaum, interview by author, May 27, 2000.

34
. Richard Roud,
Godard
, 1970, p. 148.

35
. Mim Scala,
Diary of a Teddy Boy
(London: Review, 2001), pp. 104–5.

36
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

37
. Anne Wiazemsky had dropped out of the university in 1967.

38
. One participant recalled that it was the denial of a room to a group of militant filmmakers to show footage shot at a recent Berlin protest that actually caused the demonstration to turn into an occupation. Elisabeth Salvaresi,
Mai en héritage
(Paris: Syros/Alternatives, 1988), p. 148.

39
. Alain Peyrefitte,
C’était de Gaulle
(Paris: Editions de Fallois-Fayard, 1994), vol. 3, March 25, 1968.

40
.
Le Monde
, May 16, 1998.

41
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, special issue, May 1968.

42
. Daniel Cohn-Bendit,
Le Grand Bazar
(Paris: Belfond, 1975), p. 33.

43
.
Le Monde
, May 16, 1998.

44
. Jouffroy, interview by author, June 27, 2002.

45
. Freddy Buache,
Le Cinéma français des années 70
(Renens: Five Continents, 1990), p. 6.

46
. www.bopsecrets.org/French/graffiti.htm.

47
. A traditional consultative body convened by the King; the last was in 1789.

48
. Interview with Godard in August 1968,
Film
(Velber, West Germany), April 1969.

49
. Truffaut archives, BiFi.

50
. Ibid.

51
. Archival footage of the event.

52
. Truffaut archives, BiFi.

53
. Freddy Buache, interview by author, March 18, 2002. Marcel Ophüls remembered the events somewhat differently: “In 1968, at the Cannes festival, while François Truffaut and Louis Malle, somewhat pathetically, were hanging onto the curtain of the festival hall to prevent further screenings in the face of de Gaulle’s riot police, Jean-Luc was seen to be negotiating a deal with the Hakim brothers in the lobby of the Hotel Martinez.”
American Film
, September 1984.

54
. Godard,
Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma
, p. 294.

55
. Hervé Hamon and Patrick Rotman,
Génération
(Paris: Seuil, 1987), vol. 1, p. 531.

56
. Claude Mauriac,
Le Figaro littéraire
, June 14–23, 1968.

57
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

58
.
Génération
, vol. 1, p. 481.

59
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

60
. This incident and its significance figure in Philippe Garrel’s film,
Les Amants Reguliers
(Regular Lovers), a drama from 2004 about the uprising and its aftermath.

61
. Yves Afonso, interview by author, November 11, 2001.

62
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, May 30, 1968.

63
. Patrice Martinet, interview by author, October 23, 2004.

64
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

65
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

66
. Bourseiller, interview by author, November 16, 2001. Bourseiller offered the pathetic epilogue to this story: “Two years later, he rang the bell: ‘Is there any soup?’ And there was soup, and he ate his soup, and we talked as if nothing had happened—and I never saw him again.”

67
. Schiffman, videotaped interview by Bernard Cohn, September 27, 1999.

68
. Moullet, interview by author, November 17, 2001.

69
.
Oz
, August 1968.

70
.
Sunday Times
(London), June 23, 1968.

71
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

72
. Alain Jouffroy,
Le Roman vécu
(Paris: Robert Laffont, 1978), p. 376.

73
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

74
. Godard,
Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma
, p. 268.

75
. Dated May 10. (Cohen-Solal,
Sartre
, p. 789).

76
. August 1968, Jean-Luc Godard, interview by members of the Frankfurt Film Coop,
Film
(Velber), April 1969.

77
.
Cinéma vu pour vous
, Centre d’initiation au cinéma, no. 5, p. 10, Locarno, 1968 [CS].

78
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

79
. CNC documents.

80
.
Le Gai Savoir
(Paris: L’Union des écrivains, 1969).

81
.
Sunday Times
(London), June 23, 1968.

82
. Roud, p. 148.

83
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

84
. Mick Jagger, 1995; http://www.timeisonourside.com/SOSympathy.html.

85
.
Sunday Times
(London), June 23, 1968.

86
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

87
. Pennebaker, interview by author, February 19, 2001.

88
. Leacock-Pennebaker, distributed
Un film comme les autres
, pairing it with a documentary of Godard’s NYU appearance in April,
New York Times
, December 30, 1968;
Variety
(undated clipping). D. A. Pennebaker claimed that the real problem was a technical one: “We had [the translation] as a mag track on a 16 print. I had [the translator] do it on one track of a stereo print, the idea was to show it with a stereo projector at Lincoln Center. Well, they didn’t even know what a fucking stereo projector is. The sound was all muddled, you couldn’t understand a thing.… They began to tear up the seats. Lincoln Center tried to sue us for $3,500.” Pennebaker, interview by author, February 19, 2001.

89
.
Manchester Guardian Weekly
, August 1, 1968.

90
. Michael Chaiken identified the correlation between the film’s dialogue and Mailer’s interview.

91
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

92
.
Times
(London), November 29, 1968.

93
.
Times
(London), November 30, 1968;
Films and Filming
, February, 1969;
Le Monde
, December 1–2, 1968.

94
.
New York Times
, March 7, 1970.

95
.
Village Voice
, April 30, 1970.

96
. Alain Jouffroy,
Le Roman vécu
(Paris: Laffont, 1978), pp. 486–87.

97
.
Le Monde
, October 15, 1968.

98
. Pennebaker, interview by author, February 19, 2001.

99
. Godard,
Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma
, p. 296.

100
. Pennebaker, interview by author, February 19, 2001.

101
. Grace Slick,
Somebody to Love?
(New York: Warner Books, 1998), p. 179.

102
.
New York Times
, November 20 and December 6, 1968. In the commotion, Rip Torn and David McMullin of Leacock-Pennebaker were arrested. When the police learned that the production was for PBL, they let the two go with a summons.

103
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

104
.
Mai en décembre (Godard en Abitibi)
, a film by Julie Perron (2000).

105
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

106
. Ibid.

107
. In 2000, Montreal filmmaker Julie Perron made a noteworthy documentary film,
Mai en décembre
(Godard en Abitibi)
, to reconstruct the traces of this abandoned project.

108
. Isabelle Pons, interview by author, March 9, 2002.

109
. Collection of Madeleine Morgenstern, p. 389.

110
. Jean-Henri Roger, interview by author, June 14, 2001.

111
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

112
. Ibid.

113
.
Village Voice
, April 30, 1970.

114
.
Film Quarterly
, Winter 1970–71.

115
. MacCabe,
Portrait of the Artist at Seventy
, p. 219.

116
.
Tribune Socialiste
, January 23, 1969.

117
.
Rolling Stone
, June 14, 1969.

118
. Ibid.

119
.
Village Voice
, April 30, 1970.

120
. Cohn-Bendit,
Le Grand Bazar
(Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1975), p. 62.

121
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

122
. Cohn-Bendit:
Le Grand Bazar
, p. 62.

123
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

124
. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

125
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

126
.
Le Monde
, April 27, 1972.

127
. Press release from Grove Press, cited by Andrew Sarris in
Village Voice
, April 30, 1970.

128
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

129
. Raphaël Sorin, interview by author, March 25, 2002.

130
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

131
. Jules Feiffer, interview by author, January 19, 2002.

132
. http://www.elliottgould.net/archive/fortune.htm (article by Martin Mayer, “Elliott Gould as ‘The Entrepreneur,’
” Fortune
, 1970).

133
. Michael Goodwin and Greil Marcus,
Double Feature
(New York: Outerbridge and Lazard, 1972), p. 37.

134
. Robert Benton, interview by author, September 17, 2004.

135
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, February 16, 1970.

136
. Gorin, interview by author, March 18, 2005.

137
.
Jump Cut
, no. 3, 1974.

138
. Roger, interview by author, June 14, 2001.

139
. Armand Marco, interview by author, September 17, 2001.

140
. Ibid.

141
. Elias Sanbar, “Vingt et un ans après,”
Trafic
, no. 1, 1991.

142
. Elias Sanbar, interview by author, June 16, 2001. Excerpts from the script have been published in Goodwin and Marcus,
Double Feature
.

143
. “Godard chez les feddayin,”
L’Express
, July 26–August 2, 1970.

144
. Sanbar, “Vingt et un ans après.”

145
. Godard, interview by author, June 9, 2000.

146
. Ibid.

147
.
Jump Cut
, no. 3, 1974.

148
.
Evergreen Review
, October 1970.

149
. Ibid.

150
.
Double Feature
, p. 18.

151
. Barney Rosset, interview by author, 2000.

152
.
Evergreen Review
, October 1970.

153
. Godard thought of making an even more burlesque version of the trial—featuring Abbie Hoffman himself doing a tap dance number—but this project, too, went unrealized. Marco, interview by author, September 17, 2001.

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