singing Notre Musique

I sleep better at night knowing that Jean Luc Godard is still out there making films. I have no trouble calling either him or Ingmar Bergman the world's greatest living director. But times have changed. Once a Godard film was as anxiously anticipated as the next Tarantino film might be for this generation, and dissected just as much. Now, however, his latest film has been relegated to a mere three theater's in the entire country. His films no longer have mass appeal. I don't know how one can call themselves a film student and not have an effective working knowledge of Godard and his films. No one has influenced filmmaking more over the past 50 years, and few have had more of an influence throughout the entire history of the cinema. I learn more about film technique and form by watching a Godard film than from any class or text book, and this film is no different. His films contain more ideas than a years worth of American films. Notre Musique is divided into three parts: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. The first part is a montage of images from wars throughout histroy -- some actual footage, others recreations (mostly from other movies). He strings them together in such a way that would make Godfrey Reggio proud, but then again, Reggio probably learned all he knows from Godard in the first place; so, you see, it all comes full circle. The longest segment, Purgatory, takes place in Sarajevo. Godard, himself, is there to give a lecture on the political and philosophical aspects of cinema. He is asked why humane people don't start revolutions, "human people don't start revolutions, they start libraries." A Palestinian man is being interviewed by a Jewish reporter, "We are only famous because Israel is our enemy." The film is about political exile. There are even two Native Americans in the city for the conference. During Godard's lecture, he examines the shot-reverse shot technique, specifically for Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday where one shot was of Cary Grant and the reverse is the same shot, only of Rosalind Russell. Godard suggests the sameness of the images is because Hawks saw no difference between men and woman. Therefore, in Godard's world of politics, truth is to be found in the sameness of opposites. Finally, only Godard would portray Heaven a beautiful, fenced in, pastor landscape guarded by the United States Marines. I guess there's just no place we won't occupy. Call me pretentious, it may well be true, but this easily the best film of the year, and probably one of the best of this (relatively) new decade.