My Dinner With... Jean-Luc Godard

I usually resist such blog games as "memes," preferring to stick to writing reviews — it's enough just to keep up on all the films I see. But I've now been tagged twice for this particular meme (by Chet at Under the Influence and Marilyn at Ferdy on Films), so I figure this is a sign that I ought to participate. The meme was started by Lazy Eye Theatre, and it suggests that bloggers pick a film figure to have dinner with, and to discuss the following:

1. Pick a single person past or present who works in the film industry you would like to have dinner with. And tell us why you chose this person.
2. Set the table for your dinner. What would you eat? Would it be in a home or at a restaurant? And what would you wear? Feel free to elaborate on the details.
3. List five thoughtful questions you would ask this person during dinner.
4. When all is said and done, select six bloggers to pass this Meme along to.
5. Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre, so people know the mastermind behind this Meme.

As anyone who knows me might've guessed, the logical choice for me would obviously be Jean-Luc Godard, my favorite director and one whose films have been a ceaseless fount of inspiration, ideas, and images whose power I believe will remain with me for my whole life. My introduction to Godard, with Band of Outsiders and Breathless in quick succession, was fairly low-key. I liked both films quite a bit — indeed, it's hard to resist the playful intelligence and whimsy in these early Nouvelle Vague mainstays — but they didn't really hint at the great depths I'd soon find in other Godard features. Alphaville, still a favorite for me but badly underrated even by many other Godard admirers, first signaled to me that Godard was so much more than clever editing and witty dialogue. My admiration for these films blossomed into even deeper pleasures once I started exploring the old master's 80s and 90s period, in which he definitively moved beyond even the often-minimal narrative frameworks of his 60s films into an essayistic, free-associative style that has remained the benchmark of both his features and his more overtly narrative-free shorts.

I'm not much for culinary planning, so I think I'll skip that step. In any case, I can't imagine anything cooler than joining Godard for coffee at a small café somewhere, so that's my choice of venues rather than some elaborate dinner. If I've got an evening with Godard, I'm going to want to get plenty of caffeine in me and just talk, not eat. I'd also prefer simply engaging him in a conversation rather than barraging him with questions (especially since he's notoriously reticent and gnomic about such things), but there are at least a few questions I'd like to ask.

1. Is Histoire(s) du cinema finished, or do you plan on continuing the series with further installments? Have you ever considered expanding its historical purview beyond the consideration of World War II and the Baltic conflicts into more current wars and events?

2. Have your well-known thoughts on television changed much in the last few years, in what many people (not necessarily including myself) seem to consider a "golden age" for TV?

3. 1968 was a very pivotal year for you for a large portion of your career — would you say that its impact is still felt in the films you're making now?

4. In relation to a recent interview with Armond White in which he explicitly rejected the potential of new digital technologies to replace or augment film, I've been thinking a lot about this issue. As someone who has always embraced video and digital technologies, what do you think of the freeing potential of these new lower-cost media versus the aesthetic qualities that might be lost in the transition from film?

5. Keeping in mind the miserable treatment of your most recent films in distribution, what do you have to say about current systems of film distribution and promotion worldwide? What do these systems say about our international cultural networks?

The bloggers I'm passing this meme on to are:
Culture Snob
Filmbo's Chick Magnet
Fin de Cinema
Flickhead
Long Pauses
Moon in the Gutter