From: Madison Brookshire (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Jan 18 2006 - 10:44:21 PST
Perhaps as important as the film _Good Morning, Night_ itself is a
supplementary making-of film included as an extra on the DVD. Also Godard's
newest film (that I know of) Our Music (Notre Musique). Which, for me, has
one of the most important lines one the subject:
If you kill a man just to defend an idea, you don't defend an idea, you just
kill a man.
"Thus, or words to that effect, said Zarathustra." --James Joyce
Also, I can't stress the importance of Ken Jacob's _Circling Zero: We See
Absence_ as a totally personal, obsessively observational portrait of new
york just after Sept. 11. It is remarkable for the fact that it is devoid of
both the jingoism and nostalgia that plagued representations of NYC after
the attacks. Instead, his vision is deeply human, felt. In some senses, it
is not a representation, which is not to say that it is True, quote unquote,
but that it doesn't represent anything. In Ken's video, people are people,
not symbols. They do not advance his thesis or move you to support one party
or another, one invasion or another, one protest or another. You just have
to deal with it, as it is. That is, as he experiences it and presents it to
you to experience.
Finally, _One Plus One_ by Godard. Although I haven't seen it for quite some
time, I remember it as having a profound effcet on me. It is perhaps his
most radical film (that I've seen). In addition to the Rolling Stones'
writing and recording "Sympathy for the Devil" over the course of many,
elegant tracking shots (worth seeing just for this), he takes on the
formidable subject of black militancy in the US and the possibility of armed
struggle (more pointed than but not dissimilar to Week-end). Would be
interesting to see in juxtaposition to the most recent film, Our Music, a
film that is much _older_, so to speak, more considered, less incendiary.
Madison
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.