Le gai savoir

At one point in this cinematic essay (as someone close put it, not really a real storyteller Godard is here but an essayist with camera and sound), some still images pop up with Che Guevara speaking (I think it's Che), and it says that (to paraphrase) in order to be a true revolutionary one must love. I wonder how much love Godard really has to offer, or can really share through his film-making in the case of "The Joy of Learning" or Le Gai savoir. His film here, a capstone of his late 1960s work that started amazingly (La Chinoise and especially Week End with Sympathy for the Devil thrown in the mix) and ended with this, is cold and analytical and sometimes put together in such a way that I would need a professor in an advanced film and politics class to really get everything across in a class discussion. This is no longer a Godard who can communicate philosophical and poetic and political dialog through the means of cinematic entertainment and "CINEMA" (in caps and quotes), but an anarchist out to f*** with time and space and language... and only sometimes succeeding in my estimation.

This doesn't mean that for some intellectuals or just those tuned into the socialist/Maoist revolutionary aesthetic may not have some enjoyment or tickling of the intellect here. Indeed there are some moments that even stick out amid the whole jambalaya of discourse and narration and non-sensible/incredulously self-indulgent diatribes by the two characters. But I was strangely more intrigued by the visual pattern more than the actual dialog and political ideas, wherein the two characters are placed amid a black background, minimal but striking and provocative lighting set-ups, and spliced-in still images of newspaper clippings and communist propaganda with a car's view of driving around a French city. It may be the strongest criticism of all that I connected more (and was wondering what his thinking was) to Godard as a director and editor than as a "screenwriter". So much of what's in here is only interesting in small bits and pieces as far as information goes, and has been presented better, more audaciously in other pictures (and with less satirical bite and bile than La Chinoise, possibly his masterpiece of political cinema), and I'm left with wondering how he did this or that or what his thinking was doing it then the actual ideas.

But that's just me, your 'love most 60's Godard, usually bored or perplexed by everything after' movie-buff.

Godard is a new experience for me--over the summer, I watched La Chinoise for about 20 minutes at a time. It was somehow taxing, but very rewarding to think about. I found myself yearning to see Godard's colors and the snappy transitions between blunt dialogues. So it surprised me that this film is predominantly black--there is more negative space than any other film I've seen. To some people it could be unbearably monotonous, but it definitely makes a lasting impression.

There is some good humor, but overall Godard seems very deadpan. In a way, I thought this must have been a major inspiration for Wes Anderson's sense of color and dialogue pacing. Meanwhile the content speaks to some of my favorite literary interests, like William S. Burroughs, Marshal McLuhan, and of course my main man Jacques Ellul. La Technique!

Not a party film, nor a relaxing watch. Sit meditative and delve in the atypical presentation of Godard's ideas. Surreal, and France in the 60s is interesting enough beyond that. Stylish as hell.

It has been almost twenty five years since I've seen this -- I saw it a couple times in the early 80s and I've never seen it available on tape or disk -- but I found it to be one of the most enjoyable lesson films from Godard. I though it was beautiful to look at, and quite funny in parts, and easy to follow. It IS extremely didactic -- but as the title says, there is JOY in learning. It's popping up in a Godard festival running at the Hammer Museum in June, on a double bill with Weekend, and I intend to check it out again. If I don't like it this time, I'll write again -- but I remember just totally digging this movie. The other writer here says that he didn't go to a Godard film for ten years he so disliked this -- but in my memory it was so joyous i wanted to see it again and again. hey -- maybe we're both right (or wrong).

This is the filmic equivalent of a blank canvas being sold as great painting (sometimes literally, only the screen goes black for several minutes instead of white). It's definitely true that nobody before had attempted to do what Godard does here; however, there is a good reason for that: nobody ever wanted to see it. Frankly, it is quite amazing that this "experimental" "movie" (which a first-year film student would probably be embarrassed to show to his class) ever got a release. But hey, if your idea of enlightment consists of watching Jean-Pierre Léaud and Juliet Berto in a dark theatrical (?) stage exchange gibberish for 92 minutes, only to be occasionally interrupted by even more gibberish coming form external sources, who am I to stop you? I'll say this for Godard: compared to most pretentious filmmakers, at least he has a strong sense of humor. I can only imagine him laughing sardonically at anyone giving "Le Gai Savoir" more than * out of 4.

This film is one of Godard's most didactic and least cinematic. It could easily have been a play. Taking place on a bare sound stage, the characters are meant to seem detached from the distractions of the world. This is supposed to allow them to dwell completely in the world of ideas and come to terms with the essence of revolution. But oddly this device seems to work against Goddard. Istead of creating an atmosphere of purity and lack of compromise, it seems as if they have detached themselves from reality and are completely wrapped up in themselves. One gets the idea that their thoughts are overblown to the point of becoming egotistical. Goddard is trying to show two people willing to go to the limits of their ideas. It is an interesting concept, but long after the point is made, he continues to make it to the point of tedium. Where Goddard tries to be an iconoclast, he only achieves a very painful boredom. It is an experiment that didn't work. The concept of the film sounds good but in practice it doesn't come across.

I think this film is only for the hard core Goddard fan, or someone who so strongly agrees with his social-political view, that any statement of them is reassuring and pleasant. Unless you are one or the other, proceed at your own risk.

I saw this when it came out in the 60's at a film fest in NYC at Lincoln Center. I was a big fan of Goddard at the time, but this film changed that. I didn't see another Goddard film for 10 years. I have gotten back to enjoying his films, but I would never revisit this one.