film: weekend (1967)

[onetwothreefour]

Contemporary French society resembles prostitution. People prostitute themselves all week, working at jobs they don’t like, selling things they don’t believe in, and for what? To be able to buy a car and get away at weekends. But all they find are roads blocked by traffic jams.

well, it's been a while since i've posted about a godard film, so here goes. i'll be surprised if any of you have seen it, but similarly thrilled.

this is probably the first godard film that i haven't watched again straight away, but that's definitely down to time constraints rather than anything else. i think it's nearly as brilliant as most of his other films - breathless, contempt, alphaville, one plus one - and is as informatively political of any fiction work that i think i've ever seen.

and...it has probably the greatest tracking shot ever committed to celluloid.

anyone seen it?

p.s. that top quote is godard's, of course.

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

nup, haven't seen it, but sounds interesting!

question: where abouts would one go to get their hands on such a film as this?

uni's out (tried a while back. saw band a part in one of my classes last semester and loved it. that reminded me to go see breathless again as i watched it bout four years ago, loved it too but my memory was a bit hazy, and although they "technically" do have both of those two they're for LIB USE ONLY , and they dont have much else. naturally too, i'm not even going to bother with blockbuster or video ezy ). so yeah... which vid library do you get all this rare master pieces of yours from? :D or do you order and buy or something?

 

[singularity]

^^^^
Exactly man, I've been meaning to see this film for years but no rental place carries it and I'm hesitant about buying any movie without renting it first after blowing $25 on Jan Svankmajer's Alice.

 

[onetwothreefour]

weekend is a total bitch to get, but a lot of godard's films can be bought (and reasonably inexpensively too) from websites like dvdboxoffice.com (free shipping worldwide) and dvdplanet.com.

otherwise, just ask me: i've got a lot of godard's stuff on dvd and/or tape, so i can lend them to you (er, this doesn't apply to everyone sadly. but if you happen to live near melbourne...feel free ).

i would imagine the video store on high street in northcote (i'm forever forgetting its name), near the westgarth, has some too.

everyone (anyone? bueller? bueller...?) else: the websites or university libraries are typically the way to go.

 

[onetwothreefour]

and if you're considering buying it without seeing it, and you've seen godard before: buy it if you liked alphaville, one plus one (sympathy for the devil), or tout va bien...if you like experimental, semi-narrative films, you'll probably enjoy this.

yay for people interested in godard though! (i might just go bump a couple of other threads ).