Jean-lucGodard Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In describing today's best directors, three terms are generally used (and overused): Maverick, Genius and Auteur. A "maverick" is now used to describe virtually anyone who makes a movie without using Hollywood money. An "auteur" is used to describe anyone who writes as well as directs. And "genius" is used to describe anyone who makes a halfway decent film. I'm taking these words back. In reality, a "maverick" should be a button-pusher. It's a filmmaker who is so radical and daring that even high-minded, forward-thinking critics sneer at their work, people like Vincent Gallo or Catherine Breillat. These people are so dangerous that they have trouble making and distributing films. Harmony Korine, director of Mister Lonely (5 screens) is very much a maverick. Korine has pushed many buttons and many envelopes over the years and though I love his work, he's someone I wouldn't want to invite to my house. (He scares me.)

Werner Herzog, director of Encounters at the End of the World (1 screen), is also a maverick (and, incidentally, a buddy of Korine's). His physically dangerous films have probably had insurance companies slamming the door in his face, and his co-workers have included people who might not be fit for polite society. (At the very least, most of them would turn heads.) Some of his actors have reportedly threatened to kill him. It cracks me up that, because Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man was such a hit, Herzog was allowed to make his new film for the Discovery Channel. I'd really love to have been in on that board meeting. Did they really know who they were dealing with? At the same time, Herzog is also an auteur: all of his films have the same roaming curiosity, fearlessly exploring man's tenuous connection to nature, from Aguirre navigating the Amazon looking for El Dorado, to Timothy Treadwell seeking to befriend the bears.

This past weekend kicked off the 12th annual Tel-Aviv International Student Film Festival, an event that was to feature master filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard as one of its honorary guests. But this morning, it was announced that Godard has backed out due to "circumstances beyond his control." Those circumstances, according to someone close to the filmmaker's office, are related to political pressures brought about by a group called The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Godard received an open letter from the group last week urging him to cancel his trip to Israel, making comparisons between the Jewish state and South Africa during apartheid.

Considering the recent celebrations of Cannes 1968, which was partially shut down by protesting filmmakers, including Godard (who wanted the festival to continue, though without prizes awarded), it's interesting to see the Breathless filmmaker still boycotting festivals after all these years. Of course, politics aside, it's probably of great disappointment to the young future filmmakers who were looking forward to meeting the cinema legend.

Jean-Luc Godard, director of my favorite film of all time, Vivre sa vie, has come out of his self-imposed cocoon for an interview with German weekly Die Zeit. The highlight of the interview, which I haven't read, is apparently an admission by Godard that he stole money to finance his early classics. "I had no choice," the 76 year-old legend tells the paper. "Or at least it seemed that way to me. I even stole money from my family to give (fellow French director Jacques) Rivette for his first film. I pinched money to be able to see films and to make films." After that, Godard moves on to more typical utterances, like taking a whiz all over today's generation of filmmakers. "Three-quarters of the people who will receive prizes in Berlin only pick up the camera to feel alive," he says. "They do not use it to see things that you cannot see without a camera."

Godard has of course long since been written off by mainstream critics, with each new work he produces receiving only scorn. Roger Ebert, in particular, has turned on the great New Wave innovator by declaring him to be part of a category of filmmakers who hit their stride at a specific time and place, and then flame out. The opposite would be the Eastwoods and Scorseses, who keep it going decade after decade. I'm not really qualified to agree or disagree with Ebert since I've yet to see many of Godard's later works, but if Ebert is right, it wouldn't take anything away from his masterpieces.

In honor of the striking screenwriters, I wanted to write a list of my favorites, either contemporary or all-time. But I decided that it would be more respectful to not exclude any of them. Even the bad writers need recognition right now. I've tried writing screenplays, and I salute anyone who has had one produced, whether brilliant or not. Even if it weren't difficult to actually write a script, it's certainly tough to deal with the b.s. of Hollywood and the sad truth that your vision will likely not make it to the screen as devised. So, instead of concentrating on real writers, I figured I'd look at screenwriter characters, specifically those portraying the hardships of the job.

"Joe Gillis" from Sunset Blvd. (1950, Billy Wilder).

I imagine there's nothing scarier for a struggling screenwriter than the thought of ending up like poor Joe Gillis (William Holden). The opening shot of Wilder's classic shows the character floating face down in a swimming pool, and immediately he's labeled "an unsuccessful screenwriter." This sets up a hopelessness for the character, and for writers in general, as the film then flashes back to one of the greatest stories of Hollywood cynicism ever made. Gillis not only represents the difficulty of making it as a screenwriter, he also shares some juicy lines about how writers aren't recognized enough by the public ("Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along."); about drastic alterations to his scripts ("The last one I wrote was about Okies in the dust bowl. You'd never know because when it reached the screen, the whole thing played on a torpedo boat.") and about the desperation that turns good writers into seemingly hack writers (replying to talk of his once promising talent, he says, "That was last year. This year I'm trying to make a living."). There were screenwriter characters before him, and plenty after, but Gillis will forever be the quintessential example.

Say what you will about David Fincher's work, but I've been with him the whole way. Yeah, I even liked Alien³, at least at the time. Okay, I have to admit a lot of my attraction to Fincher's movies is actually to the cinematography of Darius Khondji and Harris Savides (now that I look back, I'm surprised to see they only shot two Fincher titles each). But hey, at least the guy can pick a DP, right? Well, I do appreciate Fincher's directorial talents, as well, and regardless of how few films I've seen this year, I continue to consider his Zodiac to be the best of the year. Fincher recently wrapped his next feature, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons, which reunites him with Brad Pitt. Now that that's done, he may choose to direct an adaptation of a French graphic novel titled Le Tueur (The Killer). According to Variety, Paramount has bought the rights to the comic, written by Matz and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, with Fincher in mind. Producer Allesandro Camon (American Psycho) is writing the screenplay, and Pitt's company, Plan B, and Alexandra Milchan (Chapter 27) are producing.

Despite the need for a title change, and the fact that we have too many hitman movies coming out these days, the graphic novel should make for an interesting adaptation. Publisher's Weekly compared it to the films of Godard and Melville and the illustrations of Darwyn Cooke and even addressed Jacamon's placement of the camera (maybe Fincher should recruit him to be the film's DP). So, it already sounds like a cinematic story. Unfortunately, PW also claims there's too much "self-consciously cool narration," which can really ruin this type of pic. Another opinion of The Killer, this one from The Comic Book Bin, relates the graphic novel to American Psycho (nice, then, for Camon's involvement) and Leone/Eastwood westerns. Dark antihero with a gun? We see them every day. But with Fincher at the helm, I have higher hopes than usual.