Meetin' WA

Most people don't understand what Godard's aiming at. That's sad, but not surprising. They're so caught up in conventional storytelling techniques (of which a great non-mainstream auteur like Woody Allen is also part of) that Godard's intellectual Brechtian devices appear to be sickeningly pretentious. In truth, all his jarring visual and tonal interruptions and blanks left for the audience to ponder on serve as a means to scrutinize media manipulation.

And his interview with Woody is one of the finest examples of this method. While Godard's questions and - to a lesser degree - Allen's answers are highly interesting and profound in themselves, particularly those revolving around the issues of television influencing habits of perception, it's really Godard's handling of the material itself that provides ample food for thought. (But, of course, only for those willing to do so.) By the way, Godard's style of film-making should not be mistaken as a lack of respect towards Allen. On the contrary...

8 out of 10 apparently nervous Woody Allens

Out of an extremely interesting pairing of influential film personalities comes the most obnoxious interview I have ever seen. Godard cannot refrain from "intellectually" strong- arming another filmmaker if in contact with them. I have never seen an interview as terrible as this one. Not only does Godard torture the viewer on purpose, beginning right after he questions Allen about his then recent release of Hannah and Her Sisters with abrupt recurring title cards meant to scoff at Allen's film and segueing without direction into random and exasperatingly repetitive moments where music swells to the point where it drowns out the clearly uncomfortable Woody and displays inexplicable freeze frames of indeterminable screen time. Godard shows no respect to Allen at all, yet Allen shows a great deal of politeness and respect to Godard even when Godard belts out questions in French without allowing his off-camera translator to catch up or be heard over his voice. Woody makes the effort to mask his discomfort, while Godard seems determined only to sustain that discomfort by employing indirect tactics designed to catch him off-guard.

Godard has now to my knowledge brandished immature affronts to two of the most talented filmmakers working today, Steven Spielberg, accusing him of capitalizing on the tragedy of the Holocaust with Schindler's List, and Woody Allen, for an unclear reason, not to mention Jane Fonda because of her political activism, just subsequent to directing her in one of his films, which itself served as political activism. I believe that, based on what I have seen of Godard's work, which is entirely self-regarding and faux artsy even when it is good, that he is a jealous intellectual snob. He snipes at superior filmmakers for reasons that are only projections of his own faults. Guilty of selling out in order to market his film Contempt in the United States, he falsely blasts Spielberg for selling out. And frankly, Woody and Fonda have potentially similar personalities, people who make artistic careers out of pushing their audiences further toward a more progressive collective conscious, whether incidentally or on purpose. This is something Godard wants to do with his work, if only in his own condescending way, and I believe he finds their similar prompts to be challenges.

What made me anxious to see this film, the longest and most frustrating 26 minutes of my life, was my interest in seeing two greatly admired filmmakers make each other's acquaintance and interact. I believe that they are polar opposites of each other, not in their innate personalities but in their intentions. Out of Allen's entire filmography, including the movies he has made since this terrible episode, he has never made a pretentious film, but strangely the aim he claims with an indifferent attitude are behind his creative process are admittedly self-indulgent. Godard's every effort, no matter how dormantly, panders only to him and leaves the audience to concede to the humble illusion of being below it, yet he claims with suavity to be making social, political and cultural statements as well as the idea inherent in the French New Wave movement, which was to challenge the convention of cinema and perhaps reinvent it. Why is it that Allen almost always succeeds in doing what Godard claims to do without purposely incongruous editing, contrived defiance of sincere film techniques and unfocused stories? Inversely, why is it that Godard succeeds with Allen's claims but has never made a film without a pompous affectation? And then why does Godard have the big head where Woody knowingly demotes himself?

Jean-Luc Godard gives a brilliant direction and Woody Allen only helps with superb writing capabilities! This short is absolutely worth watching. It may be hard to find this one but its well worth it. This is one of my favorite Jean-Luc Godard films and certainly the best short I have ever seen. I highly recommend this one to all fans of Godard and Allen.

Godard interviews Woody Allen in New York Two of the greatest minds in modern cinema sit talking at cross purposes. Woody is on the back foot, looking uneasy most of the time, and often quite terrified, as the Godard rambles on in French, waiting for the interpreter to catch up. Allen is amazingly inarticulate, his speech full of false-starts and aborted phrases, seeking words he can't find, letting sentences tail off lamely. He looks like he's doing a very bad job interview. Neither does Godard impress. A film-school exercise in which the students pretended to be Godard and Woody Allen would have been more intelligent and informative. With some frivolous intertitles and dramatic music in the middle of Allen's sentences – quite meaningless sometimes - Godard seems to be deliberately trying to ruin a serious interview. Woody certainly is serious, far too serious, always answering in earnest. The conversation rarely gets going. Godard can speak English enough to make himself understood, but prefers French because he doesn't want to make it easy.

Woody laments at how watching movies on television is a small experience compared to the old cinema days. Godard suggests that television is an evil akin to radioactivity and is affecting his creative potential. Woody takes him literally and in order to politely follow up the point says (quite sincerely) that he's heard standing too close to colour CRTs can give you radiation poisoning. How he must have cringed at that blooper afterwards, worthy of the 'human chameleon' Zelig. He waffles on a little more, having totally lost presence of mind, and is mercifully faded out. You are increasingly aware that Allen is coming across exactly like George in Seinfeld, bluffing his way through a difficult question, his voice and speech mannerisms are bizarrely similar.

After a while it just becomes hilarious. Godard is babbling on in French making himself totally unintelligible, the interpreter is translating simultaneously, Allen is looking backwards and forwards at each of them with his mouth open in bewilderment and terror. By this time we suspect that Godard is taking the urine, and Allen is being made to look a fool.

It's reassuring that the conversation of brilliant people can be so dull and ineffectual, especially when the intention is to create something significant and timeless. This is one of the worst interviews you'll ever see, but a fascinating 25 minutes.

Jean-Luc Godard and Woody Allen. Just by those two names you will know if this short interview-film, which has been seen by likely less than a hundred people since it was filmed almost twenty years ago, will be worth to see (and 80's era Godard and Woody no less). Basically, you get Godard's madman sensibilities as a filmmaker, playing around with the structure of a director interview, and you get Woody Allen's insights. Ironically, I think this was made for video, or at least shot on it (maybe it was shot on film, I'd have to look it up), and more than half of the interview is based around the idea (that Godard proposes and Allen agrees with when understanding) that television is a corrupter of the audience.

But along with questions, and even more interesting answers, about television, there are also questions and answers about the film-making process, and how Allen feels about it. While at times Godard tries to back up to TV again, one does get of course what Allen is like- immensely underrating his films once finished, and at times finding the film-making process to be more of a distraction from the other horrors of the world. Godard does (and sometimes doesn't) succeed in adding to these words of Allen's with spliced in images from his films, other filmmakers (Orson Welles), and New York city buildings, among other swell oddities.

Really, it isn't the most intriguing interview with Woody to date, but to see what his take on film-making, TV, Hannah and Her Sisters, and other things was like then in 86 is worth a peek. That it IS Godard at least brings some initial fascination, then some frustration, then, well, acceptance. This is a fairly courageous way of presenting what could be standard, pat-on-the-back interview fare (Godard does pay a compliment once or twice 'Hannah', though that's it, in his old-school Cashiers du Cinema ways). How Allen feels about his films won't be news to those who saw Richard Shickel's documentary on him.

But just to have this film in your possession- if you would feel as strong a compulsion to see it based on the two names of the directors (known in their countries as the most intellectual, stimulating, &/or pretentious filmmakers around)- is a temptation that somehow lured me in. However, if you do seek it out, know well that the copy of the video will more likely than not be watchable only up to a point. It's literally one of those (perhaps minor) works by a director that end up on lists of all-time rarities, for better or worse.

AMENDMENT: This interview is now available on certain sites online.