Ay, I’m still ill with the mysterious bug but I have been making it out into the cruel world to enjoy the Godard series at the National Gallery. I opted out of last weekend’s launch thinking I’ve seen A Bout De Souffle and Bande A Part to death, and was also loathe to return to my workplace’s vicinity in the downtime hours.
Honestly, I was a bit tard in seeing Mépris – my first full-on encounter was Martin Scorsese’s 1997 cleaned-up print (which, unfortunately the National Gallery did not screen). Nonetheless, I’d forgotten how poignant the film is – Godard, and breathtaking Bardot (her best performance I’ve ever seen), capture perfectly that moment when love and trust goes wrong – a simple gesture spells betrayal. The opening scene is probably the most devastatingly sexy and loving montage on film ever. The knowing audience just wants to clock Michel Piccoli’s Paul for encouraging his beautiful wife to get into that ill-fated red Alfa Romeo with the “That American” producer, played with brilliant smarminess by Jack Palance.
Don’t let your girl get into that car dammit!
Heartbreaking.
Bardot, B-movie film references, back lots of Cinecitta, uber-hip Rome apartment, an amazing villa in Capri, a retropolation of The Odyssey, and Fritz Lang’s pregnant presence – it doesn’t get better than this! Oh, and the aching Georges Delerue orchestration too!
Godard’s radical study-in-sketches, 1966’s black & white Masculin, féminin: 15 faits précis, doesn’t carry near the emotional weight for me, but is nonetheless compelling. Brigitte Bardot even makes a brief, mischievous cameo. If there were a Bible for the Hip this film would be Jean-Luc 3.15. The film’s young lovers, the “children of Marx and Coca-Cola,” sexily interview each other over cappuccino and cigarettes on a range of subjects from birth control to the Vietnam War. Yeah, to be young, fashionable and political in Paris!
The draw for me with this film is admittedly rooted in my early childhood.
Chantal Goya.
While recently helping my folks move back in to the DC residence after some years overseas I uncovered the first single I ever owned. I have no idea where I earned the francs and perhaps some patron generously bought it for me – but there it was – in all its glory – Chantal Goya’s 45 “Allons Chanter Avec Mickey.” In retrospect, obviously it’s a really insipid tune – something about singing along with Mickey & Minnie Mouse and “tous les couleurs des les peintures” – and this is years, dating myself, before EuroDisney; well, it captured my young imagination and I developed one of my first crushes. I was a lost, little expat kid living in Paris, mind you. Sadly, I haven’t followed Chantal Goya’s career since, but a cursory search indicates that her post “Mickey” effort yielded a lot of children’s music-related material.
At any rate, Chantal Goya is damn sexy – her angular pageboy and cheekbones, the detached winsomeness - as the aspiring pop-singer in Masculin-Feminim! And April March fans should note that Ms. Goya has always decidedly been her point of reference.
Yarg, I dunno if I can make this afternoon’s NGA Godard offering, 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle. Actually, from what I remember its kinda dullish except for a few scenes – housewife deciding to turn tricks, yeah, Paris is a lady - and maybe I’ve had my fill for now.
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