You certainly didn’t, Mickey. Like I said, it’s all a matter of definition (what movie ‘started’ the spaghetti western genre?). I checked a few french handbooks, most of them also cite A Bout de Souffle as the breakthrough movie and at the same time, the pièce de resistance of the genre. That’s okay with me. I’m not really a fan of what followed, but love this movie.
Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers
I had not seen this Russ Meyer film before. Not as good or crazy as his later works (I especially like Super-Vixen and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixen) but worth watching if you like Meyer films.
Pierrot le Fou (1969) aka Crazy Pete by Jean-Luc Godard.
I rarely dislike movies that much (I always find something to enjoy), but this one was really unique. Pierre Le Fou is a true mixed bag for me. It starts very well, with a very potential script but it turns out to be an absurd movie and I’d call it an equivalent of artistic mumbling. There are some really ludicrous thoughts throughout the flick. Basically it’s something like this:
“Life is sweet and bitter at the same time. All we have to do is try to forget that we already exist. Bang. Sea. Flabbergasted. I left my wallet in my microwave of my imagination. I ate a banana with some roasted ants. Why should we go to the bed when we can sleep on the floor”
My explanation may be a bit pathetic, but I hope that it explains my thoughts about this film. It simply tries to be something more clever than it really is. Belmondo gives an interesting performance and Marianne Ronoir is stunning. That’s what I like in this film. The rest is just total failure.
[SPOILER ALERT]
I almost cheered when Belmondo blew his head off with some dynamite. Unfortunately I’ve got no dynamite, I wish I had. I have to carry on living.
[END OF THE SPOILER]
How is this possible it came out from the same guy who made Alphaville and Breathless? Dunno. 3,5/10
I think Pierrot le fou is Godard’s best film.
You enjoy weird flicks, Bill. 
It was trying to be too strange to me, which I often can’t stand. I simply don’t digest this film.
Equilibrium (2002) - Christian Bale stars as a “Cleric” - a leading member of a futuristic police that enforces laws against partaking in any kind of emotional activities. Set in a post-apocalyptic world where a fascist regime has setup a totally emotionless society, claiming it as a means to world peace.
This is a scifi thriller with highly stylized action and violence. Although on initial glance it may appear to be not a lot more, the film steadily progresses into some dark moments and the writing allows for several levels of interpretation. The police force is called the “Tetragrammaton” with the specialized and highly trained members being called “Clerics”. There is an “underground” resistance that is literally underground. They are those who have started to feel again and see the value of life in its emotional aspects. Like the fascists who are ruled by reason, they are seeking to defeat the opposite side and gain control. The entire film can be viewed on a metaphorical level as the battle between emotions and reason within one’s self. Some of the dialogue, as well as the film’s title, seems to be trying to say that letting emotions run unchecked is just as bad as trying to shut them out and become ruled totally by reason. The usage of the term “Tetragrammaton” for the police force suggests that the film is also making a comment on those mystical systems that seek to create a balanced man by certain kinds of training, which can also be seen in Bale’s character as the leading Cleric who ultimately realizes “equilibrium” in the finale.
I’m impressed with how much depth there is to this movie, while not really being terribly apparent. If none of this philosophical mumbo-jumbo interests you, the film is certainly enjoyable as a surface level sci-fi action flick- not dissimilar to some of those 90s straight to video flics. The action is very stylized though, so if this bothers you then it may not be up your alley.
Its also very similar to Logan’s Run, to a point where it could be accused of copying the film’s basic plot elements.
I liked Equilibrium when I saw it for the first time, but it borrows too many elements from Lucas’ “THX 1138” to be called anything original or subversive. THX is far deeper movie and in my view Lucas’ best movie (I was genuinely surprised with this hidden treasure - it almost felt as though it had been directed by someone else). I’m not a big fan of Star Wars, but THX really astonished me a lot. It makes me wonder why it’s so forgotten film. Another thing that I don’t like in Equilibrium is the ending which is too naive and somehow discordant with the rest of the film. I don’t hate Equilibrium, it was a good fun, but not that ambitious I’d say.
Logan’s Gun (haven’t seen it) was made after THX, so it might ripoff many plot elements from Lucas’ movie as well.
Equilibrium’s okay, but when it is on tv i watch it mostly for good action scenes, not because i want to contemplate about …well, whatever
talking about dystopian movies i prefer V for Vendetta
i love Logans Gun, almost that good as Jurassic Fart
[quote=“El Topo, post:8120, topic:1923”]We could spend days talking about the nouvelle vague movement and when it started. I think its correct to say that even before any film was made the all non organized movement startet when then critics and future directors like Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Jacques Rivette wrote there before before starting to make films themselves.
Those directors own more to classical French cinema (Renoir, Vigo etc) and Hollywood that we might usual think, and a director like Clouzot made better films generally speaking that the ones bellonging to the NV movement.[/quote]
I prefer dozens of NV films to any Clouzot film. Despite that Clouzot’s 40s films are quite good.
It surely started with the writing of the later NV directors about the films they loved, which already brought some fresh wind in the thinking about film.
You think that Rohmer is not really a NV director?
Not really.
Chabrol’s early films and especially Truffaut’s The 400 Blows are landmark films.
While the westerns before Leone are not really SWs. And even considered as such did not leave any impression.
I see this very different. The NV did not lose its freshness before the 80s. And some of the NV directors made inspired films up to their career’s end.
Is there any other director who renewed himself permanently like Godard did in the 60s? Breathless was only an influential starting point. The best films of Godard and the NV came later, partly much later.
The NV was not a certain style, but a different approach of filmmaking. The directors of the NV are a pretty different bunch, what connected them was their idea of making films different then before. And before film was a pretty conservative form of art. But it was of course not only the NV which changed the face of film. It happened all over the earth in the 60s.
Haven’t seen THX1138 yet. Tried to watch it once but my copy was bad, will have to give it a look soon.
Exactly, the ideological subtext doesn’t matter that much to me. It’s just trying to hide the fact that sorta Matrix stuff. Many good action scenes, although I must confess I almost died laughing when I saw Taye Diggs’ death scene. 
I like Matrix and Equilibrium both, but they aren’t that great IMHO.
Certainly give it a try. Frankly speaking, it’s one of my favorite science fiction movies and I had pretty low expectations before viewing this. True little gem, worth a look IMHO. If you’re looking for an action and CGI effects packed flick, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you want to view something really profound and thought-provoking that tackles such phenomena like selfishness, consumerism, indifference and Orwell-like vision of future, you may like it. And remember it’s better with every viewing. I’ve already seen it 3 or 4 times and want to re-watch it soon.
quote="Stanton, post:8132, topic:1923"
Is there any other director who renewed himself permanently like Godard did in the 60s? Breathless was only an influential starting point. The best films of Godard and the NV came later, partly much later.
(B)
The NV was not a certain style, but a different approach of filmmaking. The directors of the NV are a pretty different bunch, what connected them was their idea of making films different then before. And before film was a pretty conservative form of art. But it was of course not only the NV which changed the face of film. It happened all over the earth in the 60s.[/quote]
ad A:
We see Godard indeed very difficult. To me he’s the biggest swankpot in French cinema. I like A Bout de Souffle, but hate the rest of his work. Awful guy too. (I’m joking a bit, but only a bit)
ad B:
I agree on all these points. There’s nothing wrong with this idea of making films differently than before, as long as you realize that you’re standing on the shoulders of giants. The best NV films were different, but still inhereted a lot from the films from the past. The same thing can be said about the spaghetti westerns: the best spaghs (Leone, Corbucci, Sollima, Petroni, Tessari) were different, but not as radically different as some might think. The same thing can be said about the best works of a Chabrol, Rohmer or Truffaut
[quote=“Stanton, post:8130, topic:1923”]I prefer dozens of NV films to any Clouzot film. Despite that Clouzot’s 40s films are quite good.
It surely started with the writing of the later NV directors about the films they loved, which already brought some fresh wind in the thinking about film.
You think that Rohmer is not really a NV director?[/quote]
Ok here we go
I’m big Cluzout fan, my two favourite NV directors are both Rohmer and Chabrol, and if the first does have some Cluzout influences in some films, Rohmer is a quite a unique director in style, maybe with Oliveira the director that made films closer to books, or the experience of reading a book.
Why I don’t consider him a NV director, well he was very close in age to the other directors of the period (Truffaut, Godard, Rivette Chabrol etc) just a bit older I think, he was also the most literate of them (was a French teatcher), his view went above the camera, and not just in the camera.
One of the better qualities in Rohmer is that his movies in the superface seem all very alike, but all are unique and very different, even his series of films the moral tales or the proverbs are all different, yes he was one of the directors that participate in Six in Paris, in what can be considered the NV manifesto, but for some reason I believe he could lived outside the movement, and he wasn’t a revolutionary like Godard and others, he was a very conservative person of catholic inspiration (that’s why is moral films), that’s why I think that even if part of the NV movement in its genesis, his cinema really went outside NV.
In any case I don’t think that NV was the most important cinema in post war Europe, the Italian neo realism with directors like De Sica Rosellini etc was the first and most important cinema movement after teh war, and let’s not forget that Visconti and Antonioni had worked with Renoir befere WWII
An early example of Italian Neo realism was actually made in Portugal in 1942 with Manoel Oliveira Aniki Bobo, a landmark film, unknown at the time but that many fo the above mentioned directors had watch.
and i almost died laughing when i saw Ultraviolet (which is another director’s effort starring Milla J.)
Sounds like it should be one I’d like.
I don’t think Equilibrium was really profound- actually that’s why I was so impressed with what it did have. I wasn’t expecting anything from this film except some nice action, so it was a pleasant surprise to have some thoughtful aspects.
One thing I forgot to mention- the very last head honcho fight was utterly ridiculous. (The one after Taye Diggs) There’s a lot of unintentional sillyness in this film, which makes it harder to take it serious.
Perhaps someone can explain to me what is so good about À bout de souffle? It has a cool Belmondo and visually it’s interesting, but most of the film is pointless filler to me. Not much happens and the overload of trivial chatter between Belmondo and Seberg is plain boring. The amount of jump cuts… (perhaps Godard invented that technique); too much really. Overall a pretty mediocre French noir. 5/10
I planned to rewatch the movie, along with some other Nouvelle Vague movies, so who knows it’ll be me …