In Praise Of Love

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Forty-three years since the release of À Bout de Souffle (Out of Breath), Jean-Luc Godard has still got it. And like his first film, the English title (in that case, Breathless) incorrectly represents the essence of this intricate work. "In Praise of Love" suggests a joyous celebration, but in actuality, Éloge de l'Amour (Eulogy for Love) is a meditation on life, love, and particularly loss. The 2001 film is highly reminiscent of Godard's films from the '60s in structure and attitude. On the surface we may be watching the making of a film (similar to Le Mépris), but in actuality, we are deep in the exploration of love's melancholic elements. In the typical Godard style, In Praise of Love's essence is told through its characters' conversational criticisms towards art, literature, philosophy, politics, capitalism, and cinema, all displayed through the unstructured use of digital video that has the director's distinct, rebellious look and feel. It is amazing that at 73 Godard still has the capability to successfully redefine how we look at film. In Praise of Love definitely requires repeat viewings and may not be for everyone, but for those interested it is well worth it. --Rob Bracco

Description

From Jean-Luc Godard, possibly the most influential European film director of all time comes IN PRAISE OF LOVE, a mesmerizing and lyrical meditation on love, and the role history and memory play in shaping human consciousness, past and present.

Structured in two parts, the film opens in Paris, where the young artist Edgar is developing a project on the four stages of a love affair- meeting, sexual passion, separation. and rediscovery. During the casting process, Edgar discovers a beautiful young woman who he is convinced he has met before. In the second part, set two years earlier, Edgar interviews an elderly couple- former Resistance fighters during the war- only to find that their memories are being bought up for a Steven Spielberg blockbuster. Linking the two parts is Edgar's relationship with the enigmatic woman he met and re-encounters.

IN PRAISE OF LOVE is a combative but tender work that stubbornly asserts the importance of love, art and memory. A film of great intellectual freedom, elusive meanings and overwhelming visual beauty, Godard has never seemed more young, fresh and original.

Customer Reviews:

Challenging.......2005-12-08

Jean-Luc Godard's episodic opus about a man who interviews various individuals about an unknown project called "Eloge de l'amour," which will involve three couples experiencing four stages of love. The first half of the film, shot in Paris, appears in 35-mm BW and displays some of Godard's most impressive footage. The second half, set in Brittany two years earlier, is shot in super-saturated, bright digital color, deliberately crafted to overwhelm the viewer. The film is oblique, contemplative, challenging, esoteric, and profoundly beautiful. Includes a haunting piano score from Ketil Bjornstad and Arvo Part. Not too be missed.

Emotionally and intellectually stunning.......2005-08-20

By far the most amazing film I've ever seen.

Godard at his very finest. Images and ideas from the film will stick with you for months, even years.

Some gripping moments, nothing resolved.......2005-03-22

Sounds pretty much like the experience of life, I suppose. In my life, fortunately, I don't have to spend the day watching and listening to men gracelessly weathering the pangs of inner turmoil. Most of the people I know have the good manners to hide their 'quiet desperation' until they're at home and the dog is within kicking range. I love Godard and foreign film, but this 'in-your-face' pretensiousness is inexcusable. Still, offensive anti-American content is worth at least 2 stars!

Jean-Luc Cinema God-Art.......2004-11-07

Bertolucci said ambiguity, Proust said memory, Marx said gold, Pasolini said human suffering, Fellini said images, Ferreri said alienation, Godard said....cinema. To understand Godard one must understand cinema, the true apocalyptic nature of the art deemed as Lumiere as 'without a future'. Godard is the messiah of the cinema and 'Eloge De L'amour' is a hymn fir an art-form dying since its birth, torn between film and video, color and black and white, collective and personal memory, a century passed and a century about to begin, Godard resents logic and lets the images speak for themselves: images of death, of emptiness, he uses video as a symbol for his own anti-classical way of making films and black and white film as a symbol for the classical cinema of Hitchcock, Ray, Bresson or Mieville that he idolized as a young writer of the Cahiers Du Cinema (symbolized by a torn poster of 'Pickpocket' on a wall). A prophet for the dying age of cinema, Godard has made a film that self-consciously unconscious, his stylized anti-classicalism, his style is more ripe than ever before, melancholic and rebellious, the anarchist's screams have grown to melancholic observations, interrupted by a bit of Beethoven or a question or perhaps even a quotation from the prophet of the Nouvelle Vague, Andre Bazin (who was movingly quoted in the beginning of 'Contempt'). He is the film, he is film, he is the bande a part running with life, cinema, poetry and art and his eye is eternal like that of an immortal saint that cannot be destroyed by the fires of the outside world.

Eloge De L'Amour.......2004-09-18

Of all films, those of Jean-Luc Godard seem to be the remotest from the practise of actual film-making. When I say "film-making", I mean the conventional practise of "telling a story", of having that story as a beginning, middle and end; and having that sequence of events conspire to make the viewer feel fulfilled -whether the story is about singing in the rain or the end of the world.

Godard, on the other hand, makes films about both singing in the rain (the Gene Kelly film, that is) -such as "Une Femme Est Une Femme"- AND the end of the world -such as "Eloge De L'Amour". In an age when films genuinely seem bereft of any sort of deep thought -"deep thought" being the asking of "tough questions" which don't necessarily have "easy answers"- "Eloge..." is truly an arresting film. Even for someone such as Godard, whose films ARE thought (a ragtag collection of thrilling scenes and dialogues going nowhere in particular and everywhere in general) this film astounds -if only with its timeliness.

Released in 2001, "Eloge..." deals with the tricky issue of the Americanization of not only commodities but also of culture (if ever the two were not linked!) -in an age when both seemed under threat because of the 9/11 attacks. Yet Godard does not hold back from criticising America. Loosely based around the efforts of a film-maker, who aims to make a film with an actress who now cleans trains, the film is really a sort of collection of scenes dealing with such problematic and slippery concepts as "memory" and "remembrance". Yet behind all this evanascence of (and for) times past is a real and burning desire by Godard -through the lead characters, seemingly disillusioned leftists- to explore the disillusionament of a world apparently run by (and for?) America. The tide indeed seems to have gone out on his admiration for some American phenomena, to be left with the negative impressions of that country's arrogance. What is the way ahead for Europe? Can America come to integrate people within its sphere of influence in the way that Britain did in the past? Will America ever stop -in Godard's opinion- seeing itself as the centre of the world?

Godard asks tough questions, even though he offers no glib solutions. But, then again, he was never very good at endings.

Shanghai Praise: Muen Church, Formerly Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai (Love Never Ends, A Series of Documentaries on the Church in China)

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Shanghai Praise: Muen Church, Formerly Moore Memorial Church in Shanghai (Love Never Ends, A Series of Documentaries on the Church in China)

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Shanghai Praise' is the second documentary of 'Love Never End' series. It is a unique historical documentary of a famous church in Shanghai which has made meaningful impact in China for over 130 years. The church was first started as the Trinity Church in 1874. The name was later changed to Moore Memorial Church in 1900 and again to Muen Church in 1958. Yet, no political, cultural, even religious changes have altered the deep faith and high praise of the people of this church.

In Praise of Love (Éloge de l'amour) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Great Britain ]

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In Praise of Love (Éloge de l'amour) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Great Britain ]
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Manufacturer: Optimum
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Great Britain released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: French (Dolby Digital 2.0), English (Subtitles), SYNOPSIS: Cinematic iconoclast Jean-Luc Godard returns to the front ranks of contemporary filmmaking while embracing the digital video revolution (no great surprise, given his eager and early embrace of video technology in the 1970s) with this drama. In the first part of the film, shot on 35 mm black-and-white film, a filmmaker named Edgar (Bruno Putzulu) is in the midst of a casting session with his producers, looking for the leading lady for his next film. More interested in discussing philosophy than in the nuts and bolts of the character, Edgar speaks with a number of actresses before he encounters Elle (Cecile Camp); he's fascinated by her, and is certain he's met her somewhere before, but can't tell where or when. Eventually, Edgar decides Elle is the right person for the role, but he then discovers she has died. In the second part of the film, produced using color digital video equipment, Edgar flashes back to the moment when he first met Elle -- he's meeting with an elderly couple who survived the Holocaust and have sold their life story to a Hollywood movie producer. While meeting the couple as a guest of an old friend and historian (Jean Lacouture) interested in their story, he's introduced to the couple's granddaughter, a law student who has offered to take a look at their contract -- Elle. SPECIAL FEATURES: Biographies, Cast/Crew Interview(s), Interactive Menu, Trailer(s),

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