Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard (132 page)

1
.
Minneapolis Star
, February 23, 1981.

2
. Godard,
Introduction à une véritable histoire du cinéma
, p. 109.

3
. Carrière, interview by author, November 22, 2001.

4
.
Travelling
(Lausanne), Documents Cinémathèque Suisse, no. 56–57, Spring 1980.

5
. Press book,
Sauve qui peut (la vie)
, CS; New York Public Library.

6
. Nathalie Baye, interview by author, June 21, 2002.

7
. Véronique Godard, interview by author, December 12, 2001.

8
. At the time, he had written to Godard to seek his help making a film (Godard indeed sponsored it).

9
. Goupil, interview by author, June 15, 2001.

10
.
Quotidien de Paris
, December 6, 1979.

11
.
Ça cinéma
(Paris: Albatros, 1979).

12
. Ibid., p. 108.

13
.
Politique hebdo
, April 27, 1972;
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 374.

14
.
Le Point
, March 24, 1980.

15
.
Le Matin
, May 21, 1980.

16
. Lubtchansky, interview by author, September 12, 2001.

17
. Cécile Tanner, interview by author, November 13, 2001.

18
. As Paul waits on line, a furious patron storms out of the theater complaining that the film has no sound. Godard had wanted Jacques Tati to play the role of the patron; when Tati refused, Godard hired an unfamiliar actor who played the part with a child perched on his shoulders—exactly like a character from a memorable scene in Tati’s 1967 film
Playtime
.

19
. Isabelle Huppert, interview by author, April 2, 2002.

20
.
Le Point
, March 24, 1980.

21
.
Etabli
refers to the left-wing activist who “established” himself in the factory and also to the workbench itself.

22
. Goupil, interview by author, June 15, 2001.

23
.
Travelling
, no. 56–57, Spring 1980, Symposium de Lausanne (June 1–4, 1979).

24
. Godard, interview by author, June 9, 2000.

25
.
Filmkritik
, September, 1981.

26
.
Los Angeles Reader
, January 23, 1981.

27
.
Le Progrès dimanche
(Lyon), August 3, 1980.

28
.
Le Point
, March 24, 1980.

29
.
Le Matin
, May 23, 1980.

30
.
Le Figaro
, May 23, 1980.

31
. Karmitz, interview by author, April 27, 2001.

32
.
Le Monde
, October 16, 1980.

33
.
New York Times
, June 1, 1980.

34
.
Village Voice
, June 2, 1980.

35
.
New York Times
, May 4, 1981.

36
.
The New Yorker
, November 24, 1980; she also criticized Godard for what she considered to be an
excessive
deference to feminist sensibilities, specifically referring to a scene of amicable complicity between Isabelle and Denise.

37
. Karmitz bought the rights to Thompson’s novel from a French agent and planned to produce Godard’s film adaptation of it but soon discovered that the agent was not in fact entitled to sell those rights. The director Bertrand Tavernier (who had been Godard’s publicist, working for Beauregard, for the release of
Les Carabiniers
) wanted to make a film based on the same book and had gone to the United States and purchased the rights directly from the representatives of Thompson, who had died in 1977. Godard suggested to Tavernier that both of them could make a film from the same book, splitting the purchase price. “He would make a big film, I would make a little one,” Godard said. Tavernier refused (claiming that his purchase of rights allowed the making of one film, not two); his film,
Coup de torchon
(
Clean Slate
) was released in France in 1981 and in the United States in 1982. Godard, interview by author, June 9, 2000; Bertrand Tavernier, interview by author, July 21, 2000.

38
. http://binomat27.1.free.fr/ptt/resume_camp_2.htm.

39
. André Halimi,
Coluche victime de la politique
(Paris: Edition 1, 1994), p. 23.

40
. Ibid., p. 61.

41
. Ibid., p. 68. Coluche did not actually endorse Mitterrand until April 6.

Chapter Twenty:
Passion
and
First Name: Carmen

1
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, May 22, 1982.

2
. Huppert, interview by author, April 2, 2002.

3
. Karmitz, interview by author, April 27, 2001.

4
.
New York Times
, March 21, 1980.

5
. Sterritt,
Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews
, p. 111.

6
. CS clipping.

7
.
Le Matin
(undated CS clipping).

8
. Ed Lachman, interview by author, April 20, 2002.

9
.
New York Times
, February 2, 1981, March 23, 1981.

10
.
Los Angeles Herald Examiner
, May 27, 1984.

11
.
Cahiers du Cinéma
, October 2001.

12
.
Sight and Sound
52, no. 2 (Spring 1983).

13
.
Filmkritik
, July 1983.

14
. Huppert, interview by author, April 2, 2002.

15
. Lachman, interview by author, April 20, 2002.

16
.
Variety
, October 8, 1980.

17
.
Point de rencontre
, television interview, TF1, 1982.

18
.
Sight and Sound
52, no. 2 (Spring 1983).

19
. Jean-Luc Bideau, interview by author, February 15, 2003.

20
. Carrière, interview by author, November 22, 2001.

21
. Hanna Schygulla, interview by author, June 11, 2005.

22
. Ibid.

23
. Coutard, interview by author, April 27, 2001.

24
. Karmitz, interview by author, April 27, 2001.

25
. Coutard,
Filmkritik
, July 1983.

26
. Huppert, interview by author, April 2, 2002.

27
.
Le Monde
, May 26, 1982.

28
.
Ouvert le dimanche
, broadcast on FR3, June 6, 1982.

29
. Huppert, interview by author, April 2, 2002.

30
. Ibid.

31
.
Libération
, May 25, 1982.

32
.
Sight and Sound
52, no. 2 (Spring 1983).

33
.
Ouvert le dimanche
, FR3, June 6, 1982.

34
. This includes the footage of Schygulla and Radziwilowicz working at love through Mozart.

35
.
Violette & François
and
The Brontë Sisters
.

36
.
New York Times
, August 15, 1985.

37
. He had founded and run the International Festival of Theater in Nancy, and, in 1972, was appointed the director of the National Theater of Chaillot, in Paris (formerly the Théâtre National Populaire).

38
.
TLM
(Swiss), January 9, 1982.

39
.
New York Times
, February 21, 1983.

40
.
Variety
, May 18, 1988, p. 18.

41
.
Le Matin
, December 12, 1983.

42
.
G par G
, vol. 1, pp. 574–582: interview from
Le Monde de la Musique
, April 1983.

43
. Claude Chabrol, for his part, had never stopped filming the most arrantly commercial projects, and his trajectory was essentially unaltered by the changed circumstances.

44
. de Baecque and Toubiana,
François Truffaut
(Paris: Gallimard Folio, 2001), pp. 727–28.

45
.
L’Avant-Scène Cinéma
, 323/324, March 1984.

46
. Ibid.

47
.
Le Matin
, January 9, 1984.

48
.
Libération
, 25 May, 1982.

49
. Myriem Roussel, interview by author, February 26, 2003.

50
.
Art Press, Spécial Godard
, December 1984 to January–February 1985.

51
. Collection of Jacques Bonnaffé.

52
. “For
First Name: Carmen
, I tried to check myself into a hospital that I knew in order to be able to prepare my screenplay in peace and quiet. I kept a trace of this in the film, I had to prove that I was sick, I couldn’t do it, so they wouldn’t have me.” Jean-Luc Godard,
Apostrophes
, 1985.

53
.
Framework 21
, interview on April 25, 1983, Salsomaggiore. At the 1982 Cannes Festival, Godard and Wiazemsky met by chance. She told him that she had found
Passion
“moving.” He responded that he didn’t want her to be moved by him, and he walked away. Wiazemsky, interview by author, February 20, 2003.

54
.
Cinéma 84
, January 1984.

55
. Roussel, interview by author, February 26, 2003;
Art Press
, December 1984 to January–February 1985, vol. 4, Godard special.

56
.
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 561.

57
. Jacques Bonnaffé, interview by author, June 12, 2001.

58
.
Revolution
, January 6, 1984.

59
.
Le Matin
, September 17–18, 1983.

60
.
Télérama
, January 25, 1984.

61
. Ibid.

62
. Ibid.

63
.
Revolution
, January 6, 1984.

64
.
Les Nouvelles
, January 5–11, 1984.

65
. Ibid.

66
.
Le Figaro
, January 11, 1984.

67
. CS clipping.

68
.
Cinema 84
, January 1984.

69
.
G par G
, vol. 2, pp. 574–82; interview from
Le Monde de la Musique
, April 1983.

70
.
L’Express
, January 6, 1984.

71
.
Revolution
, January 6, 1984.

72
. Bonnaffé, interview by author, June 12, 2001.

73
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, December 30, 1983.

74
.
Revolution
, January 6, 1984.

75
. Martine Bianco, interview by author, March 21, 2002.

76
. The discussion ran in two parts in
Cahiers du cinéma
in July–August and September 1983.

77
.
G par G
, vol. 1, p. 556;
Cahiers du cinéma
, August 1983.

78
. Beauviala, interview by author, March 21, 2002.

79
. Ibid.

80
. Bonnaffé, interview by author, June 12, 2001.

81
.
Le Matin
, January 9, 1984.

82
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, December 30, 1983.

83
.
Le Monde
, September 9, 1983.

84
.
Libération
, September 9, 1983.

85
.
Libération
, January 19, 1983.

86
.
Le Matin
, January 9, 1984.

87
.
Cinématographe
, no. 95, December 1983; press conference from the Venice Film Festival, September 1983.

Chapter Twenty-one:
Hail Mary

1
.
Le Nouvel Observateur
, July 17, 1982.

2
.
Révolution
, February 1, 1985.

3
.
Art Press
, no. 88, January 1985: Conversation between Jean-Luc Godard and Philippe Sollers (from the film by J. P. Fargier, November 21, 1984).

4
.
Revolution
, February 1, 1985.

5
.
La Croix
, January 24, 1985.

6
. Ibid.

7
. In an interview several years later Godard offered a striking explanation for his choice of subject. In that interview, he stated his belief that his path through life paralleled that of Bob Dylan—he highlighted their motorcycle accidents, and added, “I have a great deal of sympathy for him when I read critics who eviscerate him, who call him a ‘has-been.’ Sometimes I read
Rolling Stone
to get news of him, I want to see whether he’s on the charts. I tried to get him to act in who-knows-which film, a project in the United States, and then all of a sudden he turned toward Christ and I said to myself, ‘That will happen to me too.’ I forgot all about it, but when I made
Hail Mary
, I remembered: ‘Look, Dylan warned me.’” (
Actuel
, January 1988.)

8
.
Cinématographe
, April 1986.

9
. Lévy, interview by author, May 24, 2004.

10
. Roussel, interview by author, February 26, 2003.

11
.
New York Post
, October 15, 1983.

12
.
France-Soir
, January 23, 1985.