MovieChat Forums > Aria (1987) Discussion > Godard's is quite good

Godard's is quite good


Yep, I liked it a lot. It's quite funny, simple and a great idea.

Cheers!

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I don't think it's supposed to be funny - more tragic. But yes, getting Valerie into his short was definitely a great idea.

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That was the one I didn't like. However I love the film overall.

I wish you could explain what you thought was good.

My order of favourite segments would be

1)Derek Jarmans "Depuis le Jour"
2)Franc Roddam "Leibestod"
3)Ken Russell "Nessun Dorma"
4)Julien Temple "Rigoletto"
5)Bruce Beresford "Die tote Stadt"
6)Charles Sturridge "La virgine degli angeli"
7)Robert Altman "Les Boréades"
8)Nicolas Roeg "Un ballo in maschera"
9)Bill Bryden "I pagliacci"
10) John Luc-Goddard "Armide"

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It was excellent (but subjectively speaking not as good as Sturridge's....., but I'd rate both segments a 10/10) because every second of the sequence was rigourously choreographed to represent each and every second of the accommodating Armide excerpts utilized, to explore the intrinsic meaning of those excerpts, and to deconstruct those meanings through his trademark Brechtian joltagism - all the while remaining rigourously faithful to the libretto and musicality - to make viewers think beyond the visuals, the libretto, and the intrinsic themes.

G-dard applied a painstaking binary formula comparing and contrasting the music and the words and the actions of Armide with the music of the gym and the inner emotions and actions of the two women (both women representing two halves of same person, Armide), while also exploring the conflict of the interstices between two spaces, between two images, between two sounds, between two women, oppositional halves of one psyche (lust and hatred for the same person), the space between text [libretto] and image, sound and vision, mechanical and emotion, the interstitial spaces that have the power to destroy binary oppositions.

And that's not all. G-dard also delivered a fresh syntheses of images and sounds that are at once absurd and sublime. That alone earns his segment high marks.

His short is faithful to Armide, intricate, and symmetrical. He masterfully disaggregated every second of the music and images for experimental, theoretical, and thematic effect. The setting and cinematography might not be dazzling, G-dard's colour schemes might not be as vivid or contrasted as they normally are, the gymn setting, his humour might be marginalized, and the bodybuilders might make you cringe (bodybuilers, men self-obsessed with their looks = today's Knights....), but it doesn't mean it's a bad segment. It means a bit of familiarity with Armide goes a long way.

And Mireille, French In Action, lol!

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That’s one hell of an explanation and I’m not going to disagree with a word of it – its terrific. I love this film (the whole film) but was always embarrassed by the Goddard segment, now, if I’m challenged on this segment - I can trot out your explanation in its defence and appear more intelligent than I am !

I can also draw a line under it as well. I’m afraid I’m not impressed by Brecht or Marx and the Existentialists in general and no matter how rigorous or technically adroit the choreography, deconstruction, disaggregation and intellectual probing is I just think that Brecht\Marx\Satre are the wrong tools to use. That is of course just my subjective opinion biased as it is by reading too much Jung, Plato, and Kierkegaard – I think these are the correct tools.

I would say that the Armide story is really about the struggle of the ego in freeing itself from the grip of the unconscious and negotiating a new relationship with it – which isn’t reflected, to my taste, in this segment. Goddard et al are certainly entitled to their opinion and I would now certainly give them credit for the all the reasons you outlined. I am all for art that makes viewers think beyond the visuals, sounds and surface impressions, so I congratulate Goddard for that in particular.

Finally I would mention that the Depuis Le Jour segment has a strong existential theme but I love it the most, I think all I need is one small Jungian hook and I’m happy but I couldn’t find it in Goddard’s Armide.

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goddard's segment is the most pretentious thing i've ever seen in my life(and i've seen abel ferrara's "the addiction"). there's only one reason to watch it. well,two actually.

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