Godard's American Director Thumbnails

The December 1963/ January 1964 issue of "Cahiers du Cinema" was dedicated to the state of American cinema. One article written by various Cahiers contributors included thumbnail critiques of active American directors. The following eight critiques are Jean-Luc Godard's contribution to that article. These are my translations.

Richard Brooks

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 116

"He is the American intellectual type, the Sergeant York of 'mise-en-scene', complete with the brushed-back short military haircut and the pipe, a judgment confirmed by his photo above. 'Lord Jim' and it new frontiers will prove meanwhile that Brooks pushes Kennedy-ism leftwards and that he is quite how Kazan has described him: a screenwriter whose lion-heart does not divert him away from his filmmaking duties. The career of this progessive is thus exemplary in its progression and if he panoramics, trackings or close-ups as if he were practicing the conjugal act, it is henceforward all to his honor. the heritage of the grand american primitives from 'The Blackboard Jungle' to 'Elmer Gantry' is cleanly outlined: The direct and physical command of the real which closes ranks trimly with the distance of reflexion and wisdom."
Cahiers du Cinema Dec63-Jan64 page 116.

Charles Spencer Chaplin

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 118

"He is beyond all tribute since he is the most outstanding. For what else can be said? He is the only cineaste, in any case, who can bear, without misunderstanding, that so misleading qualifier 'human'. From the invention of the sequence shot in 'The Champion' to that of cinema-verité in the final speech of 'The Great Dictator', Charles Spencer Chaplin, while remaining on the margins of cinema has in the end filled that margin with more things (other words to use: ideas, gags, intelligence, honor, beauty, movement) than all the other cineastes collected in the remainder of the 'cahiers'. Today, we say, 'Chaplin' as we say, 'da Vinci' or rather we say 'Charlie' as we say 'Leonardo'. And what more beautiful homage in the middle of the 20th century to pay an artist of the cinema, than to quote Rossellini's words after he saw 'A King in New York', 'This is the film of a free man'."
"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 118

Stanley Donen

from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 126

"With the complicity of Vera-Ellen, Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day and Suzy Parker, he confirms the famous saying 'Cinema means turning pretty things into pretty women'. He danced all summer long, and it was one wondrous summer. Then, like the grasshopper, Stanley Donen vanished with charm and the luggage. Today, he is a prodigal old youth who is sliding slowly down the slope of 'negulesconnerie'. The dance on the table of 'Seven Brides', the elegant reframings in the rain along with the eccentricity of Donald O'Connor, the unionism in striped pajamas, the gracious photos of a Parisian model and the buffooneries of the New York Yankees, where has all this gone? Alas, from indiscretions to charades, soon nothing will remain of this Angeleno Becker, except the stamp of the lightness of pre-war film."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 126

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Stanley Kubrick

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 138

"At the start, gaudiness in coldly copying Ophuls' tracking shots and Aldrich's violence. Then, he enrols in commercial intellectualism by following the international paths of glory of another K, another Stanley, an older one who also takes himself for Livingstone. But whose heavy-handed sincerity will finally triumph at Nuremburg, while the light-footed exorbitancy of Stanley Jr. will darken under the pasty spirit of 'Spartacus' without ending by making the desired cardboard. 'Lolita' justified the worst pessimism. Surprise: It is a film simple and lucid with a justness of dialogue that shows America and its sexuality better than Melville and Reichenbach. And shows that Kubrick should not abandon cinema on the condition of filming characters who do exist rather than ideas which no longer exist except in the desk-drawers of old screenwriters who believe cinema to be the seventh art."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 138

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Richard Leacock

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 140

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"On the other side of the Atlantic, 'cinema-verité' is translated 'candid camera' and this Candide, Richard Leacock, is effectively more than a title, who pursues the truth relentlessly without even asking himself on which side of the Pyrennes his lens is located, this side or that side? Then, whose truth is it? In not separating the cause from the effect, in mixing the rule up with the exception, Leacock and his associates do not realize (for cinema is nothing other than a realization) that their eye in the act of framing in the viewfinder is, at once, like the recording device which the eye is using. Yes, more or less, according to the case (more - Welles, less - Hawks). But it is never uniquely that recording device which, according to the case, will remain recorder or become pen or brush. Deprived of this awareness, Leacock's camera, in spite of its honesty, loses the two fundamental qualities of a camera, intelligence and sensitivity. Nothing is served by having a sharp image, if the intentions are blurred. His lack of subjectivity leads Leacock to finally lack objectivity. After watching "The Chair", we know less of the lawyer than in "Anatomy of a Murder" and less of the electric chair than in some film starring Susan Hayward following the technique of melodrama. In the same way, after seeing "Primary", we know less about Kennedy than by reading Teddy White's book. [The Making of a President - 1960]. This can easily be explained by noting that Leacock's crew films at the level of a Gordon Douglas, not even of a Henry Hathaway or a Stuart Heisler. With, what is more, this fault - not knowing what they are shooting, nor knowing that pure reportage does not exist. Whence this childish mania for shooting in close-ups events which demand a long shot, of accompanying people to a place simply to follow them, of killing the topic by clinging to it? In sum, all the mistakes which no operator on Walt Disney documentaries would ever commit. As such, Leacock does know how to use a magic marker to annotate showings of Rouch. In brief, Honesty is not enough strike at the avant-garde. Above all, when one is not aware that, if reality surpasses fiction, the latter returns it with grace."

Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 140

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Adolfas Mekas

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 149

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"Placed alongside the two greats of the "New York school", John Cassavetes and Shirley Clarke, he seems something of a poor relative as we do not know when it is him and when it is his brother. 'Hallelujah' shows today by y+z that one must now reckon with brother Adolfas, for he is an ace in the domain of pure invention, that is to say working without a net. Turned according to the old principle of one idea for one shot, his 'Hills' make redolent with a fresh ingenuity and an astute gentility. There, physical exertion boldly skirts the intellectual gag. One gets excited and then smiles at nothing: a poorly-framed bush, a banana in a pocket, a drum major in the snow. This is life according to Ramuz, "As when one dances, one is pleased in the beginning, a cornet, a clarinet. One regrets at the end, head-turned, it is becoming night." "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 149

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Orson Welles

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from "Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 176

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"One night, in Hamburg, three people in the audience, the show begins. Orson Welles trods onto the stage and introduces himself. 'I am an author, a composer, an actor, a decorator, a savant, a gourmet, a financier, a ventriloquist, a poet. There are so many of and there are so few of you.' Without a doubt, 'The Trial' shows that it is not easy for a 'wunderkind' to age well. and we fear that his gigantic wings impede our Shakespearean albatross from threading on old Europe. However, let us be damned should we forget for a single second that he alone, with Griffith, - one for 'the silents', the other for 'the talkies' - have made this marvelous toy train in which Lumiere did not believe start. Everyone, everywhere, owes him everything."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 176

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Billy Wilder

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from “Cahiers du Cinema” Dec63Jan64 page 178

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“After seven of itching, he decided to no longer bring tragedy to the joke. But much to the contrary to bring the comic to the serious. He took out an insurance policy on cinematographic survival and success invited itself in. Progressively, he threw into the nettles the grand subjects ‘Humane’. Billy became one of the new greats of Hollywood and, while replacing Wyler and Zinneman in the hearts of the exhibitors, he established himself as the worthy inheritor of Lubitsch in the hearts of cinephiles. For he had found once again the soul of the kid, waggishly ’berlinois’, since ruse serves henceforth as tenderness and irony serves as technical know-how. From then “Love in the Afternoon” and Marilyn and in spite one, two, three false steps, ’Irma La Douce’, thanks to the finesse and the acuity of its Panavision, the clarity of the play of Jack and Shirley, the colors of LaShelle, which I like, And Trauner, This sweet Irma I say initials wonderfully a double ascension, at the box-office and as art. The result: a collection of qualities which suffice in a droll manner to transform worldly man into a unaffected cineaste."

"Cahiers du Cinema" Dec63-Jan64 page 178