JLG's Criterion

by Kent Jones
CREATED 09/08/13 21 comments 31

"The observer and the universe are part of the same universe. It's what science discovered at the beginning of this century, when they say you can't tell where an atomic particle is. You know where they are, but not their speed; or you know their speed but not their place, because it depends on you. The one who describes is part of the description." - Jean Luc Godard in conversation with Gavin Smith, Film Comment, March-April 1996

Underworld
Josef von Sternberg
"For me, the film called UNDERWORLD by Ben Hecht and Josef von Sternberg is the greatest gangster movie. But no one ever heard of it. They all talk about SCARFACE, but UNDERWORLD is betterIn my opinion, Ben Hecht was a genius. He invented 80 percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today." (Panel discussion moderated by Gene Youngblood at the University of Southern California, 1968; published in Los Angeles Free Press, March 8, 15, 22 and 29, 1968)

Orpheus
Jean Cocteau
"Contraband poetry, therefore, yes, and consequently the most precious, for it is true, the German Novalis tells us, that if the world becomes a dream, the dream in its turn becomes a world. It is Cocteaus humility and also his glory that he neither could nor wanted to distinguish the legend of Orphe from his own to distinguish, in other words, between cinma-vrit and cinema-lie. If this makes fools laugh todayit is not everyone who can follow in the path of a poet such as this." (ORPHEE, Cahiers du Cinma, February 1964)

Le plaisir
Max Ophuls
"your father started to find his grand style [with LE PLAISIR]. I know his films much less well than you do and there are some I havent seen, but I think he found something there that he took to its peak in MADAME DE and then in LOLA MONTES, which is to say: something profound made from stories that are nothing, something very oriental, arabesques and camera movements, people running and skipping up and down stairs over and over again. Theres a side to it that makes me think of German expressionism befo re it got too heavy, of Kandinsky at the start. And I, who am such a pessimist, will always remember that exclamation at the end of 'The Model' - 'Happiness is not cheerful' (DIALOGUES SUR LE CINEMA, Jean-Luc Godard and Marcel Ophuls, Editions Le Bord de leau, 2011; original conversation, 2002)

The Earrings of Madame de . . .

Max Ophuls
"Take a drawing by Matisse, a simple curve of a leg or a shoulder. Is there a basis, at the beginning when he starts drawing his curve? There isnt. This is what Im trying to say. And thats what comprises the originality of Max Ophuls, which he acquired a little bit at a time, because in LIEBELEI, in LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, in his American films, its not there. Its a freedom that is earned and that is found, that isnt applied. On a basic level, its neither better nor worse as a way of making a film. But theres something extremely original that we found so satisfying back in the day and that continues to satisfy me now, something purely romantic. The story of MADAME DE is pretty weak its a little novel by Louise de Vilmorin, its not exactly Dostoyevsky. But what Max Ophuls did transforms it, like Fragonards 'The Lock,' in which two lovers close a door so they can kiss its not a weighty subject, as with Goya, and it becomes pure painting, if you will. Theres a kind of pure cinema of that era you might even call it experimental which has disappeared. Theres no literaturenot that theres no text or dialogue, but theres no pre-literature." (DIALOGUES SUR LE CINEMA, Jean-Luc Godard and Marcel Ophuls, Editions Le Bord de leau, 2011; original conversation, 2002)

Summer with Monika

Ingmar Bergman
"What were we dreaming of when SUMMER WITH MONIKA was first shown in Paris? Ingmar Bergman was already doing what we are still accusing French directors of not doing. SUMMER WITH MONIKA was already AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, but done to perfection. And that last shot of NIGHTS OF CABIRIA when Giulietta Masina stares fixedly into the camera: have we forgotten that this, too, appeared in the last reel but one of SUMMER WITH MONIKA? Have we forgotten that we had already experienced but with a thousand times more force and poetry that sudden conspiracy between actor and spectator which so aroused Andr Bazins enthusiasm, when Harriet Andersson, laughing eyes clouded by confusion and riveted on the camera, calls on us to witness her disgust in choosing hell instead of heaven?" (Bergmanorama, Cahiers du Cinma, July 1958)

Ugetsu
Kenji Mizoguchi
"Genjuro is bathing with the fatal enchantress who has caught him in her net; the camera leaves the rock pool where they are disporting themselves, pans along the overflow which becomes a stream disappearing into the fields; at this point there is a swift dissolve to the furrows, other furrows seem to take their place, the camera continues tranquilly on its way, rises, and discovers a vast plain, then a garden in which we discover the two lovers again, a few months later, enjoying a picnic. Only masters of the cinema can make use of a dissolve to create a feeling which is here the very Proustian one of pleasure and regrets." (Arts, February 5, 1958)

The Complete Mr. Arkadin

Orson Welles
"[The investigator] was added [to HELAS POUR MOI] after half of the editing because the film didnt hold together. It is a good film but it could have been It is not the intention of the movie. In MR. ARKADIN it was the intention. Thats why I say it was a better picture, because Orson We lles, even if it was only 80 percent his way of doing things that time, in the end it was part of the picture." (Interview with Gavin Smith, Film Comment, March-April 1996) "theres a sequence of shots [in MR. ARKADIN] where theres a sort of rhythm that isnt just shot/reverse shot, or from cutting either, but theres a certain rhythm in the dialogue thats just there, thats both a very brilliant effect and something like a trail leading towards what all filmmakers are after, which is really montage to tell stories in a different way." (CINEMA: THE ARCHEOLOGY OF FILM AND THE MEMORY OF A CENTURY, Jean-Luc Godard and Youssef Ishaghpour, Talking Images Series, published by Berg, 2005)

Elena and Her Men

Jean Renoir
"ELENA is Renoirs most Mozartean film. Not so much in its exterior appearance, like THE RULES OF THE GAME, but in its philosophy. The man who finishes FRENCH CANCAN and prepares for ELENA is, morally, a little like the man who completes the Concerto for Clarinet and launches into THE MAGIC FLUTE. In substance, the same irony and the same distaste. In form, the same brilliant audacity of simplicity. To the question, What is cinema? ELENA replies: More than cinema." (Cahiers du Cinma, special Renoir issue, December 1957)

The 400 Blows

Franois Truffaut
"I shall always remember one spring evening in Cannes when, watching with the other idlers, I saw Cocteau shepherding into the Palais du Cinma a young boy who was only at the beginning of his 400 blows. He guided him through the lights, whispering instructions: 'Dont walk too quickly, dont look down, look at the photographers, stand up straight, smile at France Roche.' Before my admiring eyes, here was the old angel Heurtebise, always in the thick of the fight, protecting the young ghost of Vigo under his great, black

Academicians wing." (ORPHEE, Cahiers du Cinma, February 1964) "THE 400 BLOWS will be a film signed Frankness. Rapidity. Art. Novelty. Cinematograph. Originality. Impertinence. Seriousness. Tragedy. Renovation. Ubu-Roi. Fantasy. Ferocity. Affection. Universality. Tenderness." (LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS, Cahiers du Cinma, February 1959)

Red Desert
Michelangelo Antonioni
"When I first made CONTEMPT I had a certain movie in mind and I tried to make it. But CONTEMPT came out completely different than Id intended, and I forgot the kind of film I had wanted to make in the first place. Then when I saw RED DESERT at the Venice Film Festival, I said to myself: this is the kind of movie I wanted to make of CONTEMPT." (Panel discussion moderated by Gene Youngblood at the University of Southern California, 1968; published in Los Angeles Free Press, March 8, 15, 22 and 29, 1968)