Tag Archives: Anne Wiazemsky

GODARD’S ONE PLUS ONE

As part of the Los Angeles Filmforum series 1968: Visions of Possibilities, MOCA will screen the Los Angeles 4K restoration premiere of Jean-Luc Godard’s ONE PLUS ONE—part documentary of how the Rolling Stones developed their song “Sympathy for the Devil” at Olympic Studios in London, part 1968 political agitprop by Godard in the wake of the May uprisings.

“Godard had the crew lay down tracking rails that ran in a figure-eight throughout the studio… In ten-minute takes, Godard followed the song’s metamorphosis from a straight-ahead rocker to a pantheistic samba. Drummer Charlie Watts put down his drumsticks in favor of Algerian hand drums, and the four backup singers (including Marianne Faithfull) congregated around a microphone for gospel exhortations.

“The last night of the shoot ended prematurely as the studio caught fire when a gel filter on an overhead light ignited.” — Richard Brody*

Alternating with the studio footage are scenes Godard shot with Anne Wiazemsky playing “Eve Democracy,” who, followed by a documentary crew, responds to elaborate political questions—many of them lifted from a 1968 interview Norman Mailer did with Playboy—with “yes” or “no” answers. “In bringing Wiazemsky to London and casting her as the absurd and naïve Eve Democracy, Godard mocked not only democracy but Wiazemsky’s non-revolutionary commitment to it.”*

ONE PLUS ONE

Thursday, November 8, at 7 pm.

MOCA Grand Avenue

250 South Grand Avenue, downtown Los Angeles.

 

*Richard Brody, Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008), 338, 340.

From top:

Film poster with Jean-Luc Godard’s title. (An alternative cut—titled Sympathy for the Devil by the producers—re-edited the soundtrack of the film’s final scenes.)

The Rolling Stones and Marianne Faithful lay down the backing vocal track.

Anne Wiazemsky in her One Plus One final scene.

Godard and Mick Jagger during filming.

The Stones at Olympia Studios.

Image credit: ABKCO Films.

GODARD AT THE AERO

“A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.” — Jean-Luc Godard

The American Cinematheque kicks off its upcoming Aero series For the Love of Godard with a members’ screening of LE REDOUTABLE / GODARD MON AMOUR. Written and directed Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist, 2011), the new film is based on the autobiographical novel Un an après (“a year later”) by Anne Wiazemsky. The book covers the period Wiazemsky starred in LA CHINOISE (1967), Godard’s investigation of a group of Parisian Maoists.

Wiazemsky and Godard were wed while shooting LA CHINOISE—a paradigm of the director’s creative approach to editing—but the marriage was strained from the start by a director distracted by public indifference to his recent work.  At the same time, Godard became entrenched in the burgeoning revolution that had begun in the mid-Sixties at the university at Nanterre, and which culminated in the general strikes and Latin Quarter street battles of 1968—events for which LA CHINOISE had provided an agitprop blueprint.

GODARD MON AMOUR—starring Louis Garrel and Stacy Martin—gained Waizemsky’s blessing after Hazanavicius promised her the movie would be a comedy.  She joined him at the film’s Cannes premiere last year, one of her last public appearances before her death in October 2017.

Subsequent screenings in the series include LA CHINOISEÀ BOUT DE SOUFFLE (Breathless), BANDE À PART (Band of Outsiders), WEEKEND, and VIVRE SA VIE, as well as a 3-D presentation of ADIEU AU LANGAGE (Goodbye to Language).

GODARD MON AMOUR

With a post-screening conversation with Michel Hazanavicius.

Monday, April 16, at 7:30 pm.

Aero Theatre

1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica.

LA CHINOISE

Wednesday, April 18, at 7:30 pm.

BREATHLESS and BAND OF OUTSIDERS

Saturday, April 21, at 7:30 pm.

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

Thursday, April 26, at 7:30 pm.

WEEKEND and VIVRE SA VIE

Friday, April 27, at 7:30 pm.

Aero Theatre

1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica.

From top: Louis Garrel (foreground left) as Godard, Stacy Martin as Wiazemsky, and Micha Lescot as Jean-Pierre Bamberger (“Bambam”) in Le redoutable/Godard Mon Amour, image courtesy Cohen Media GroupAnne Wiazemsky and Jean-Luc Godard filming La Chinoise, image courtesy Pennebaker Films/PhotofestJean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Breathless; Anna Karina with Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey at the Louvre in Band of Outsiders.

BRESSON’S BALTHAZAR

A 35mm print of Robert Bresson’s empathetic masterpiece AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (1966) will screen this week in Westwood, and philosopher and ethologist Vinciane Despret—author of What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? —will be on hand to discuss the film.

Balthazar is a donkey that we follow throughout his working life with many masters, especially his first owner—Marie (Anne Wiazemsky), the farmer’s daughter—who gives him his name.

“Although the donkey has no way of revealing its thoughts, that doesn’t prevent us from supplying them—quite the contrary; we regard that white-spotted furry face and those big eyes, and we feel sympathy with every experience the donkey undergoes. That is Bresson’s civilizing and even spiritual purpose in most of his films; we must go to the characters, instead of passively letting them come to us.” — Roger Ebert

This screening is part of the UCLA Film and Television Archive program Europe in Four Themes—Animals.

 

AU HASARD BALTHAZAR

Friday, February 23, at 7:30 pm.

Hammer Museum, Billy Wilder Theater

10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Westwood, Los Angeles.

Above: Balthazar and Anne Wiazemsky in Au hasard Balthazar.

Below: Wiazemsky.