In Praise of Love

I'm amazed by the visual side of the film but a re-watch is still needed.

Boring as hell, but at least there's a wonderful cinematography here.

My first exposure to Godard, and I haven't seen any of his films since. I will, though, it's just that this one was so boring.

This film is a perfect peek into Godard's mind: The pretentiousness, the intelligence, the millions of underdeveloped ideas, the social consciousness, the filmmaking acumen, all in a film that is frustrating for a dozen reasons. More coherent than some of Godard's other work of this sort, he hits early and often, but does so rather blindly, throwing out variations of ideas about cultural imperialism hoping they come together in some way. They only kind of do and I was only kind of interested.

In typical Godard fashion, this film is 'about' love but it casts a far wider net. Among its concerns are the failure of cinema to properly represent the Holocaust, the gutless and money-grubbing filmmaking of present-day Hollywood, and the unfairly pervasive impact of the United States' identity on the rest of the Americas. All of these frustrations build into a profound sense of disappointment. This is a cinema of mourning, an elegy to love.

Star Rating: ★★★1/2

60.500

Pretty boring things.

words words words

Elogio ao Amor estreava há 20 anos no festival de Montreal. Acho que a expectativa de ser um dos mais bem avaliados filmes do Godard dos últimos 20 anos me matou um pouco, não que não seja excelente, mas eu esperava uma obra-prima incontestável. Godard aqui continua na sua saga de construir e e fazer maravilhas com a linguagem cinematográfica. DVDRip no MakingOff.

"A grand fart coming from a director beginning to resemble someone's crazy French grandfather." - Ed Gonzalez

59.000

(Rewatch) Not a major work, but probably Godard's most relaxed, elegiac and effortlessly poetic film, kind of an outlier in his filmography (although the closest comparison might be Slow Motion?). Nice to see again, it probably helps that i know who Simone Weil is now. 'Every thought should recall the debris of a smile.'

974

I continue to be actively annoyed by Godard's later work. It's pretty at times, and the understated classical tune that plays throughout is effective at creating a mood at times, but Godard's later movies might just not be for me, because I found this to be aimless and nonsensical. Like the worst Godard's, it's a bunch of people sitting around talking like very well read first year philosophy students. Just so pretentious.

This is a film about questions, questions about the meaning of love, about the presence of mature love in the world, and about the possibility of connection with another human being. The B&W photography in the film's first 2/3 is exquisite. The elliptical editing and the impressive conglomeration of filmic and philosophic quotations both serve to create a dense work. That said, the frayed formulation of issues and the silly Anti-American and Hollywoodisms throughout undermine the film as a whole

#971