Cinema
The Archaeology of Film and the Memory of a Century
Published on 1. February 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
160 pages
978-1-84520-197-5 (ISBN)
Description
Cinema is quite simply a unique book from one of the most influential film-makers in the history of cinema. Here, Jean-Luc Godard looks back on a century of film as well as his own work and career in the industry. Born with the twentieth century, cinema became not just the century's dominant art form but its best historian. Godard argues that - after the century of Chaplin and Pol Pot, Monroe and Hitler, Stalin and Mae West, Mao and the Marx Brothers - film and history are inextricably intertwined. Against this backdrop, Godard presents his thoughts on film theory, cinematic technique, film histories, as well as the recent video revolution. As the conversation develops, Godard expounds on his central concerns - how film can 'resurrect the past', the role of rhythm in film, and how cinema can be an 'art that thinks'. Cinema: the archaeology of film and the memory of a century is a dialogue between Godard and the celebrated cinphile Youssef Ishaghpour. Here Godard comes closest to defining a lifetime's obsession with cinema and cinema's lifelong obsession with history.
Reviews / Votes
...the greatest living cinematic artist, the wisest, most transformative, most original agent provocateur at work in the fields of cinema? The short answer: sans doute. Godard is to his medium what Joyce, Stravinsky, Eliot, and Picasso were to theirs: rule-rewriting colossi after whom human expression would never be quite the same. The Village Voice It's possible to hate half or two-thirds of what Godard does - or find it incomprehensible - and still be shattered by his brilliance. Pauline Kael Cinema is quite simply a unique book from one of the most influential film-makers in the history of cinema. Jean-Luc Godard looks back on a century of film as well as his own work and career in the industry. British Film MagazineMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 189 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 9 mm
Weight
180 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84520-197-5 (9781845201975)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Jean Luc Godard started making films in the late 1950s and is still making them. From his first feature, A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), Godard changed the way movies were made. Godard has always taken film-making seriously, treating it - from his days on the famous review, Cahiers du Cinema, to the extraordinary collage of his Histoires du Cinema - as an art form worthy of analysis. Today, his influence extends across such key contemporary film-makers as Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino. Jean Luc Godard started making films in the late 1950s and is still making them. From his first feature, A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), Godard changed the way movies were made. Godard has always taken film-making seriously, treating it - from his days on the famous review, Cahiers du Cinema, to the extraordinary collage of his Histoires du Cinema - as an art form worthy of analysis. Today, his influence extends across such key contemporary film-makers as Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino. Youssef Ishaghpour is Professor at the University Rene Descartes, Paris V. His writings on cinema, painting, philosophy and literature have been widely translated. Translated by John Howe John Howe, is a translator, journalist and writer. His many translations include Godard's voiceover for the complete soundtrack edition of Histoire(s) du cinema.
Content
Constellation and Classification * The Angle and the Editing * The Urgency of the Present and the Redemption of the Past * History and Recall * Video as a Way of Telling the Story of Cinema * Only Cinema can Tell its Own History * Quoting and Editing * History/ies of Cinema * History and Archaeology * History of Love, of the Eye, of the Look * The Loss of the Magic of Cinema and the New Wave * After and Before Auschwitz * What Cinema Can Do * Only Cinema, Telling its Own Story, Can Recount History * Cinema as Christianity... the Image and the Resurrection * Images and Editing * Towards the Stars Appendix: Jean Luc Godard: Modern Life, Poetry and History by Youssef Ishaghpour