Jean Luc Godard Soundtrack Music on Tosh Talks

Being a long-time fan of Jean-Luc Godard's cinema, it's interesting how important the music or sound is to all his films.   I don't imagine Godard ever thought about the separation of sound and image, but more with the relationship between the two mediums.  Over the years I have collected both on vinyl and CD numerous soundtrack compilations or the original soundtrack to Godard's works, but this hand-made bootleg, with the images pasted on the record sleeve, is perhaps the best of the lot.  

This compilation on vinyl goes from 1959 (A Bout de Souffle) to 1980 (Sauve qui Peut La Vie), and what one would consider the iconic Godard years.  Due to avoiding the legal issue, this album is the best representation of Godard and sound/music of those years.   The one thing that struck me is the sadness in the music. Composed by various writers such as Martial Solal, Michel Legrand, Georges Delerue, Paul Misraki, Antoine Duhamel, Gabriel Yared, and singing by Chantal Goya (Masculin Feminin) which is superb French Yé-Yé and the ultra-rare (and the excellent) Claude Channes' "Mao Mao." The instrumental passages are very somber when you listen to it without the Godard images.  Not sure if Godard instructed the mood that is in the music for his film, but the above composers all wrote magnificent pieces for the Godard soundtrack. 

The album is not that easy to locate, but one can through by chance your local store, or more likely on the Internet.   If you are a fan of Godard, it's a must that you obtain this specific recording.  Beyond that the music here is gorgeous.  - Tosh Berman

"Bresson on Bresson: Interviews 1943-1983" by Robert Bresson (New York Review of Books)

ISBN: 978-1-68137-044-6 nyrb

Once you see a film by Robert Bresson, you will never forget it.   It seems nothing is happening, but the truth is everything is happening.   The emotions are usually muted, and the actions of the models (not actors, will get to that later) are choreographed to a certain degree.  My first Bresson film was “Pickpocket, ” a story about a pickpocket artist who works his way in various train stations and public places, including buses/subways.  It’s nerve wracking watching close up of hands doing their magic, by appearing in stranger’s pockets, or in a woman’s bag or purse.  The film goes on a relaxing pace, but the intensity is severe.  It’s a strange mixture, where scenes are slowed down, to heighten the emotion of that scene.   Bresson didn’t make that many films in his long life, but each one is a remarkable work.  

“Bresson on Bresson: Interviews 1943-1983, chapter-by-chapter, cover each of his 13 films.  This is not something like the Hitchcock/Truffaut book, where each film is exposed by the second.   No, this basically a series of interviews with Bresson and his methods in working.  What’s unusual about him is that Bresson mostly used amateur actors in his productions.  He didn’t like actors, at least in his films.  A big concern for him is that cinematography (his term for the cinema) is a separate art from the theater - and he felt that the theater had too much of a presence in the cinema.  He comments that a painting (he was a painter) on a canvas is totally different from seeing a photograph of that painting - and therefore the acting profession comes from the theater - and that is not the right procedure for the cinema.   In his opinion most films are a reflection of the theater arts - and he feels that film is an art by itself.  An even greater art than theater.  It’s an interesting argument or position.   It is also what makes his films so unique to this very day.  

Bresson had a very rigid point of view with respect to art making - and the specifics of making cinema.  He preferred to use the term ‘model’ instead of actor - and he didn’t want anything theatrical coming of the model’s mouth or their gestures.  Also the same with the theory of not changing the lens on the movie camera, because in his thinking, people don’t change their glasses on a consistent basis.  So there must be a consistency of some sort.  Still, Bresson's films are overwhelming with feeling.   “Bresson on Bresson” is a classic book and anyone who even has the slightest interest in being a filmmaker or even artist - must read and learn.   An excellent companion piece to his book of writings “Notes on the Cinematograph. ”

"Like Cattle Towards Glow" by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley

Great film. In a sexual landscape that is half awake with a strong hold on a dream world. Five segments where characters are all at an emotional or sexual (or both) heights. Beautifully textured with layers of sadness, yet with perfect dialogue. A great sense of pacing, with overtures to Robert Bresson and Michelangelo Antonioni in that sense, yet, Dennis and Zac made a film that is very much their world - both in a style and in its vision. Fantastic work.

- Tosh Berman

July 21, 2014

July 21, 2014

To be honest, I’m very much influenced by the misery that is in the world.  For what I do, I need despair on a political and criminal level.  The horror of the bombings in Gaza as well as the commercial flight being shot down over Ukraine is fuel for my writing.  Without it, I do not have a thing to write about.   At this level, it becomes pornography.  I have seen so many images of death, that it has become meaningless to me.   As an artist I rather see a representation of death, then an actual obliteration of a human being, animal and architecture.  I imagine being a journalist in a war or disaster area, and telling the story through one’s eyes, has to be a difficult skill.  There is a need to distance oneself from what they are seeing to get a clear picture with respect to what that they’re reporting on.   Data facts are significant as well.  One just has to note the correct number of deaths, and buildings destroyed.  If one makes a mistake, it can throw off your whole story.

Often the problem is that we are looking at that singular tree, instead of the massive volume of forest around that tree.  This same problem happens when one is writing or doing art as well.  It is almost impossible to stay neutral when the world in front of you is being destroyed or changed radically.  Also the feeling of things not changing but just repeating itself over and over again, is a frustration in motion.  It’s like being trapped in a television show, where you pretty much know what is going to happen at the end of the episode. Yet, we keep watching it because the format gives one some sort of comfort that there is an order out there that will make everything to reach its natural conclusion.  The thing is, I don’t believe there is an order in this world.  I think every culture has a bit of self-destruction tendencies because it is somewhat embedded in our DNA.   This I thinks is what causes strife, horror, or in other words, Pandora’s Box.

I have a fear of doing something that will make things worst.  I think a lot of people feel that way. Yet there are a large percentage of people who jump in to something and ask questions later.  The impulse to jump into the fire is actually sexy, especially if one is doing it to feel more vibrant or even out of curiosity.  So when you do get that beautiful box or container and you know you shouldn’t open it, but alas, you do.  Well, that's human nature.  Between you and me, I never cared for human nature that much.

Acts of violence are never a good solution to a problem.  I understand the violent act, it can be satisfying to step over that line that separates insanity and sanity, but the circumstances of such an act can or more likely cause severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences.  I refrain from feeling regret, so therefore I pretty much ignore all my impulses in committing any acts of violence.  But on the other hand I don’t mind using violence in a narrative that I am writing or have or will have used in my work.   I like realism, but only in the context that it is made in a studio or on the page.  The French had a loose film movement called “poetic realism” where one recreates realism in a stylized fashion, and usually filmed in a film studio.  This, serves my sense of aesthetic and therefore I want to take the horrors that are out there, and re-arrange them to suit my purpose, either for narration sake or an aesthetic image.  As the world crumbles, I believe “art for art’s sake” becomes more important to me.