Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard
A landmark biography explores the crucial resonances among the life, work, and times of one of the most influential filmmakers of our age
When Jean-Luc Godard wed the ideals of filmmaking to the realities of autobiography and current events, he changed the nature of cinema. Unlike any earlier films, Godard's work shifts fluidly from fiction to documentary, from cr
Hardcover, 640 pages
Published
May 13th 2008
by Metropolitan Books
(first published May 13th 2007)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
585)
Richard Brody's very long critical biography on one of the great film artists of the 20th Century is both thoughtful, damning (in a sense) and also provocative. I don't fully buy his theory that all the films he made in the 60's was about Godard's relationship with wife/muse Anna Karina. I think it is partly true, but it's for sure not the whole picture of the man and his work. But a big part...?
i really enjoyed the part of the book that deals with Godard's later years. It seems he consistently...more
i really enjoyed the part of the book that deals with Godard's later years. It seems he consistently...more
1. Vivre Sa Vie
2. Pierrot Le Fou
3. Weekend
4. Band of Outsiders
5. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her
6. Alphaville
7. A Woman Is a Woman
8. Breathless
9. Contempt
10. Masculin Féminin
11. Une Femme Mariée
12. Passion
13. Notre Musique
14. Prénom Carmen
15. Hail Mary
16. Le Petit Soldat
17. Tout Va Bien
18. Ici et Ailleurs
19. Eloge de L'amour
20. Numero Deux
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Les Carabiniers
Made in U.S.A.
JLG/JLG
La Chinoise
Detective
THE HALL OF SHAME:
King Lear
Soigne Ta Droite
For Ever Mozart
Le Gai Savoir
Comment ça va?...more
2. Pierrot Le Fou
3. Weekend
4. Band of Outsiders
5. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her
6. Alphaville
7. A Woman Is a Woman
8. Breathless
9. Contempt
10. Masculin Féminin
11. Une Femme Mariée
12. Passion
13. Notre Musique
14. Prénom Carmen
15. Hail Mary
16. Le Petit Soldat
17. Tout Va Bien
18. Ici et Ailleurs
19. Eloge de L'amour
20. Numero Deux
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Les Carabiniers
Made in U.S.A.
JLG/JLG
La Chinoise
Detective
THE HALL OF SHAME:
King Lear
Soigne Ta Droite
For Ever Mozart
Le Gai Savoir
Comment ça va?...more
10 likes · like · see review
I'm so used to reading books on Godard by the post-Marxist Colin MacCabe, I'm having a hard time with this one because it's so far a fairly apolitical review of the director's life. Not that there's anything wrong about that. I'm just surprised, especially after seeing the size of Richard Brody's beard on the inside flap.
(100 pp later)
OK, so there's lots of politics in the book, only because Godard was so intensely engaged with the political issues of his day. I like Brody's way of putting each...more
(100 pp later)
OK, so there's lots of politics in the book, only because Godard was so intensely engaged with the political issues of his day. I like Brody's way of putting each...more
Aug 21, 2008
Mike
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
film fans--and not solely Godard acolytes
Recommended to Mike by:
Brian and David
Most thoughts of mine are up at another thread, where smarter readers provide great comments and reactions.
In a nutshell, this is a good book. It gets four stars for its careful close attention to all of Godard's work, zeroing in on the intersections of production, influences (and the vast array of allusions and citations in each of JLG's films), and the final text.
I end up at three stars probably 'cause I wanted a book more fully committed to the films and their social/historical world, and les...more
In a nutshell, this is a good book. It gets four stars for its careful close attention to all of Godard's work, zeroing in on the intersections of production, influences (and the vast array of allusions and citations in each of JLG's films), and the final text.
I end up at three stars probably 'cause I wanted a book more fully committed to the films and their social/historical world, and les...more
A great, dense, in depth look at all of Godard's work. Brody does an excellent job at weaving together, biography, the conditions surrounding the development and filming of a project, and insightful analysis of the work itself. Brody doesn't shy away from painting Godard in a negative light when the situation calls for it (and it often does). He perhaps spends a little more time on Godard's major output in the 60s, which is as it should be, but the great thing is that he doesn't slight the later...more
As someone not particulariy involved with Godard's films (having only seen breathless) I picked this up more out of interest in general film theory and respect for the people who wrote the reviews on the back cover (Jonathon Lethem, Wes Anderson)than anything to do with Godard himself - superficial reasons to be sure. Obviously if I was more familiar with JLG's work I would have gotten more out of this book, however, as a notable member of the mid-century film autuers Godard's many philosophies,...more
Sober and responsible, this is the book for building an understanding of the Godard universe. Recommended for devoted cinephiles, though. This is a good biography, but Brody covers a lot of ground that only iniates will recognize. Otherwise, it can seem like too much material. I enjoyed it because the situation of historical event - where Godard was often present in the seventies - helped me place him in better context. Unlike the sixties where it seemed that he just stayed in France, made those...more
I was really excited to pick this up since I've gone through a Godard obsession lately. I poured over it and read it diligently for a few weeks.
The thing is...I had a lukewarm experience.
Brody does an amazing job of scholarship. Godard has made a huge amount of work and Brody really has seen ALL of it. No mean feat- particularly when the work is as dense and elliptical and challenging as Godard's.
While reading I thought that as I got frustratingly little on some the films I was most curious abou...more
Apr 05, 2009
Jeffrey
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Film buffs, those who know Godard's work
Richard Brody believes in Jean-Luc Godard, if not necessarily in Godard's beliefs. That belief in Godard's aesthetic quality and talent is strong, but it undermines an otherwise insightful, well researched, and well constructed book.
"Everything is cinema," is Godard's expression that everything, or at least everything important, must be seen to be understood. It must be captured and held onto. Memory lasts only as long as those who remember. Words do not do justice or give us the greater underst...more
"Everything is cinema," is Godard's expression that everything, or at least everything important, must be seen to be understood. It must be captured and held onto. Memory lasts only as long as those who remember. Words do not do justice or give us the greater underst...more
In Richard Brody's tour-de-force of film scholarship, he delves deeply into one of the most labyrinthine oeuvres in all of cinema: Jean-Luc Godard.
The book is simply astounding in its scope: detailed background, production history, critical reception and analysis for no less than every film and video Godard has produced in his prolific career since 1959, often producing at a rate of 2 or 3 films per year. No less impressive is Brody's attention to detail in unpacking the insane web of references...more
The book is simply astounding in its scope: detailed background, production history, critical reception and analysis for no less than every film and video Godard has produced in his prolific career since 1959, often producing at a rate of 2 or 3 films per year. No less impressive is Brody's attention to detail in unpacking the insane web of references...more
I've been obsessed with Godard and pretty much the French New Wave for the last couple of months now. This is a very comprehensive, objective look at Godard and his work. Well done and interesting read. I had been keeping up watching the films chronologically but couldn't keep up. My plan is to finish all of Godard's work by the end of summer though.
Brody doesn't pretend to get inside Godard's head, or write a biography in the polymathic nature of his subject's approach to cinema. Instead, he writes straightforward accounts of the director's career, steeped in research and relevant political and cinematic contexts. This may sound boring; it's revelatory. Godard was such a mercurial and self-doubting intellectual that one doesn't need bells and whistles to make his story compelling.
What Brody doesn't discuss, but feels like a natural addendu...more
What Brody doesn't discuss, but feels like a natural addendu...more
"Epic" hardly seems to cover the scope of this book. Author Richard Brody's incredibly ambitious, exhaustively researched, and thoroughly readable biography of Jean-Luc Godard is pretty damned amazing. Clocking in at over 600 pages, "Everything Is Cinema" should satisfy your curiosity regarding any aspect of Godard's filmmaking career. It also beautifully illustrates how Godard's life and work, more than perhaps any other filmmaker, have been inextricably linked.
I haven't read or bought this yet, but it looks amazing. Brody's book is a 600 page biography about Godard, with blurbs on the back from Jonathan Lethem, Wes Anderson, and Bernard-Henri Lévy—so I am pretty sure it's quality. I just watched a Woman is Woman on NetFlix and I am in awe of his unique style and innovations, that were obviously direct influences on the artistic substratum of Gondry, Allen, and Kaufman—-my favorite contemporary directors. Even to this day, Godard's films still feel ahe...more
I don't like Godard's films. OK? I watched them, I see them, but they don't attract me. I read this as deep cultural history. And then I watched "A Woman Is A Women" and hated it.
The biography is well written, engaging, exhaustive, and leads off the track to Artaud, Sartre while including Agnes Varda (who I like better as a film maker).
The book documents the interaction between French literary and cinematic traditions: Godard sincerely mimics "classic" American films while acknowledging the art...more
The biography is well written, engaging, exhaustive, and leads off the track to Artaud, Sartre while including Agnes Varda (who I like better as a film maker).
The book documents the interaction between French literary and cinematic traditions: Godard sincerely mimics "classic" American films while acknowledging the art...more
Excellent guide to the sometimes enigmatic oeuvre of JLG. Actually he comes across as a fairly repellent and vain human being, but that's the man, not the work.
Brody's insight into JLG's working methods is deep as hell. It took me months to rewatch the entire oeuvre while reading this book. It was worth it.
Give this back to me Pablo!
First half only.
This exhaustive biography on JLG does a great job of making the ornery director look like a total shit, but fails miserably in expressing the sense of fun in many of his films and what caused him to achieve his legendary status. The book is most interesting and useful when it covers all those bizarre video projects and obnoxiously political films that you'll probably never see.
I'll admit: I read only the first half of Brody's thoroughly researched biography, dealing with Godard's youth and the films up through La Chinoise and Weekend; it was a good companion to the recent Film Forum retrospective, "Godard's ’60s." My interest in the later films, and the book, flagged.
Well I finally finished this monster of a book. I can't say I retain any of the knowledge I read, other than the French filmmaker Godard likes making films about prostitues. But it was interesting and helped prepare me for film school.
A must-read for any cinephile, francophile, and cultural enthusiast. I wrote a review of the book for Forbes, which you can read here
Comprehensive. Exhausting. Terrific. Godard is one of the hardest working and authentic artists of the 20th century. If I could only paint the way he makes movies...
Brody does an excellent job taking us through Godard's life, thoughts, musings and chronicling his great works, definitely no light task!
Oct 08, 2009
Brian Tibbetts
is currently reading it
I love Godard and can't wait to read this book!
A concise and in depth bio on JLG.
May 23, 2013
William Parkinson
marked it as to-read
May 21, 2013
Michael Ewins
marked it as to-read
May 19, 2013
هِندْ سَعَدْ
marked it as to-read
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Richard Brody began writing for The New Yorker in 1999, and has contributed articles about the directors François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Samuel Fuller. Since 2005, he has been the movie-listings editor at the magazine; he writes film reviews, a column about DVDs, and a blog about movies, The Front Row. He is the author of the book “Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard....more
More about Richard Brody...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
Jul 06, 2008 08:26am
He does! Like his Letter to Truffaut, insulting him and both begging for money. But you've got...more
Oct 23, 2008 08:09am