"And I really feel terrible being here."

November 15, 2014 2:44 PM

The illustrated guide to IRL trolling with Jean-Luc Godard [YouTube]
posted by Fizz (23 comments total)

I came into this wanting to like it, but the cheesy ironic framing and use of the trollface on top of what is a very serious topic was too much to bear.
posted by felix at 2:59 PM on November 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

You mean "Jeanne Luck Pickard", captain of the Battlestar Firefly.
posted by Slap*Happy at 3:02 PM on November 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yanked.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:11 PM on November 15, 2014

This has clearly been edited out of order because he calls for viola after the music plays.
posted by srboisvert at 3:31 PM on November 15, 2014

Yeah, the framing of that re-edit was obnoxious, but I'm thankful for the subtitles and now I have an impetus to try and find the whole thing. JLG is a genius, but also a world-class troll. As that segment with Anna Karina amply demonstrates. I mean jesus.
posted by Mothlight at 3:58 PM on November 15, 2014

[Oh there was static on the Youtube video earlier for me - guess it's fixed now, carry on..]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 3:59 PM on November 15, 2014

The complete version seems to be available here (part 1) and here (part 2), in French with Italian subtitles, in case anyone wants to get their translate on. My French is pretty bad, but with Google Translate and the Italian version for cross-reference I might have a go at it one of these days.
posted by Mothlight at 4:06 PM on November 15, 2014

I couldn't watch it past the Anna Karina segment, but the subtitles are as accurate as most subs are, which is to say pretty decent.
posted by Wolof at 8:02 PM on November 15, 2014

Addendum — as a Miles Davis fan I should be inured to the art vs. life debate, but I found Godard's treatment of Karina during this very public — à la télé! — clip utterly disgraceful.

Asshole.

Jean-Louis Leutrat, who was the president of Paris III when I did an MA in film there back in the day, shoved Godard down our throats, while telling us that as junior academics we were all fucked.

I guess he was right about one thing.

He was a fucking asshole himself, and I hope he reads this.
posted by Wolof at 6:09 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Godard has often been on French TV and radio in the last decades, which is the paradox explored in the original Godard à la télé documentary (linked by Mothlight above), since JLG used to claim that he hated TV. His idiosyncratic speech pattern and real knack for crafting deep-sounding aphorisms and wicked witticisms make him a good "customer", as the French say. He's more or less unpredictable - and harmless enough -, which makes memorable TV (though he says in the doc that "TV creates oblivion, cinema has always created memories"). He's still doing that from time to time: last May, he called long-time admirer Quentin Tarantino a "scoundrel, a poor boy, the kind of people one used to hate" for rather obscure reasons (JLG makes it sound that QT should have send him money for naming his production company A Band Apart, but this may be a joke), but then he's mostly in Grumpy Old Man mode and pissing on Truffaut's movies ("it took me some time before I dare to tell him that his movies sucked"), Rivette and other people in the same interview. A least we learn that he's done 'thousands of movies' of his dog Roxy that he sends to his friends from his iPhone.
posted by elgilito at 7:11 AM on November 16, 2014

> As that segment with Anna Karina amply demonstrates. I mean jesus.

> I couldn't watch it past the Anna Karina segment

Were you guys watching a different clip? I watched the whole thing, and I didn't see him slap her or yell at her or in any way behave like a ravening beast. Yeah, he trolls TV, and why not? In general, he's as good at sly evasion of media attempts to pin him down and get him to Talk Serious as Dylan (which is a high bar). They're both great artists who don't like playing the publicity game, and more power to them. This is a silly clip created by morons, but yeah, the subtitles aren't bad.
posted by languagehat at 8:12 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

I watched the whole thing, and I didn't see him slap her or yell at her or in any way behave like a ravening beast.
He says that he married her because he wanted to emulate his heroes (Welles, Sternberg, Renoir), implying that she had been some kind of trophy muse/career-enhancing device useful inasmuch as she would help him to make great movies. On the other hand, AK and JLG had been divorced for about 20 years when that talk show was filmed, so this bit of awful truth was probably not news to her (and to be compared to Dietrich and Hayworth is not that bad), and why she becomes emotional is unclear and possibly unrelated.
posted by elgilito at 9:46 AM on November 16, 2014

Without going back to check the actual language, the takeaway I got from his demeanor (not just what he said but the way he answered the question) was "I didn't care about her, but I thought it was important to marry a beautiful actress in order to present myself as a great director. But it turns out she didn't matter to me or to my work at all." It seemed like cruel grandstanding to me, and I knew immediately that she would have to get up and walk away from that interview -- I was kind of surprised it took as long as it did for her to leave.
posted by Mothlight at 10:02 AM on November 16, 2014

> He says that he married her because he wanted to emulate his heroes (Welles, Sternberg, Renoir), implying that she had been some kind of trophy muse/career-enhancing device useful inasmuch as she would help him to make great movies.

> It seemed like cruel grandstanding to me

No, he wasn't especially nice to her, that's true. She was his ex-wife. Have either of you heard anyone talk about their exes before? Godard may not be a saint, but he sounds like one compared to what I've heard even from friends of mine talking about their exes. For that matter, I've said some things about my ex-wife that she wouldn't like; I must be a horrible person. True, I didn't say them on TV, but these are adults who are very familiar with public exposure and with each other. Karina can't possibly have expected him to be all lovey-dovey with her; he probably wasn't lovey-dovey even while they were married. God knows why she agreed to sit on a couch with him for this TV interview, but she knew what she was getting into, and I have only limited sympathy for her distress.
posted by languagehat at 11:45 AM on November 16, 2014

I didn't say them on TV

Well, that's one difference.

she knew what she was getting into

Except apparently not, based on her reaction?

Anyway, I don't think it makes him a "horrible person" (I admire him a lot for all kinds of reasons) but it did take my breath away.
posted by Mothlight at 1:05 PM on November 16, 2014

God knows why she agreed to sit on a couch with him for this TV interview, but she knew what she was getting into, and I have only limited sympathy for her distress.
This took place in 1987 in a talk show hosted by Thierry Ardisson, who introduced this sort of trash/tabloid TV in France. It was very, very new at the time and not something that people, even mildy famous actors like Karina, were trained to handle.
posted by elgilito at 1:25 PM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

> This took place in 1987 in a talk show hosted by Thierry Ardisson, who introduced this sort of trash/tabloid TV in France. It was very, very new at the time and not something that people, even mildy famous actors like Karina, were trained to handle.

Very interesting, and obviously important context; I withdraw at least a portion of my "she knew what she was getting into." But she still knew her ex-husband pretty well, and can't have been expecting him to play nice. She may have been having a bad day in general and this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
posted by languagehat at 2:14 PM on November 16, 2014

He knew exactly how to wound her, and he did so on the TV. Perhaps she was having a bad day. Perhaps her hat blew off in the Métro, and then she stepped in some dog poo. Perhaps her mascara ran. Perhaps they had no red socks at La Samaritaine that day. She may have broken a nail! Of course it's permissible to publicly humiliate your ex-wife by any and all means possible, even years after your marriage is finished. It's even reasonable! She's a prop, not a person, and it's all part of the show!
posted by Wolof at 5:40 AM on November 17, 2014

I'm not sure what you're so worked up about. Nobody's defending Godard's behavior or saying he's a nice guy. From the reaction in the thread, I expected his behavior to be a lot worse, that's all. If you're implying that I think "She's a prop, not a person," that's disgusting and you owe me an apology.
posted by languagehat at 9:26 AM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

If I did, I would. But I didn't. He did, you didn't. She was an accessory to his show. It was deeply unpleasant.
posted by Wolof at 5:16 AM on November 25, 2014

Rereading the above, the apology is closer to the mark, so consider this it. I didn't mean to imply that I thought that you thought Karina was a prop, just that he used her as same. So once again, I apologise. Unreservedly. The whole damn thing was a setup; however, they hadn't seen each other for 20 years, the interviewer probably fed her a line, and JLG waited until the camera was on to teach her a lesson. Bravo. Textbook behaviour for a certain sort of director, and I've met a few, thus my overreaction.
posted by Wolof at 5:28 AM on November 25, 2014

You're a mensch, Wolof. Thanks for explaining and for the apology, which I shouldn't have demanded in the first place, but I was overreacting too. Pax!
posted by languagehat at 9:15 AM on November 25, 2014

Thanks to you also. All the best.
posted by Wolof at 4:22 AM on November 27, 2014