GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST YEAR!

Limited time - use promo code: ANNUAL at checkout

Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Watch this video and more on OVID.tv

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard

France • 42m

Directed by Frederic Choffat and Vincent Lowy • Documentary • With Marcel Ophuls, Jean-Luc Godard • 2010 • 44 minutes

In 2009, in a small theater in Geneva, Switzerland, the film directors Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard met for an unusual, surprisngly intimate and sometimes contentious dialogue with each other in front of a live audience. Luckily for us, it was filmed.

Ophuls' film THE SORROW AND THE PITY triggers Godard to discuss his personal and fragmented childhood memories about his escape to Switzerland during World War, while Ophuls recalls the controversy surrounding the release of his film in France.

The issue of the written word being taken more seriously than the moving image is brought up by Godard. Throughout their meeting, the two directors debate about national and ethnic identities, what it means to be Jewish, the role of the director, and auteur theory, which ultimately reveals why they never collaborated on a tentative film that was once discussed.

MARCEL OPHULS AND JEAN-LUC GODARD: THE MEETING IN ST-GERVAIS gives us the unique opportunity to spend time with an encounter between two of the most influential and idiosyncratic post-war film directors. Godard and Ophuls are in the twilight of their years, but they remain provocative, sharp, and as uncompromising as ever.

"Funny, fascinating, radical" -La Tribune de Geneve

Tags
20th century, aboutfilm, communication and media studies, cultural and ethnic studies, debate, discussion, doc, documentary, dvd, europe, expository, film, film and video studies, film directors, film history, filmmaking, france, godard, history, icarus films, jean-luc godard, jewish studies, jlg, marcel, marcel ophuls, marcel ophuls and jean-luc godard, meeting, new wave, ophuls, ophuls and godard, ovid, ovid_ca, s_0107, s_0108, s_0109, s_0160, s_0339, s_0425, sorrow and the pity, title_ijklm, title_m, video, western europe, whyovid, world regions, world war ii

Up Next in France

  • The Underground Orchestra
    1:51:00
    The Underground Orchestra

    The Underground Orchestra

    Directed by Heddy Honigmann • Documentary • 1999 • 108 minutes

    THE UNDERGROUND ORCHESTRA is a glorious documentary profile of musicians who play on the sidewalks of Paris and in the Metro. Filmmaker Heddy Honigmann (METAL AND MELANCHOLY and O AMOR NATURAL), illuminates the lives and music of a r...

  • The Punishment
    1:03:30
    The Punishment

    The Punishment

    Directed by Jean Rouch • Documentary • 1962 • 64 minutes

    An aimless young woman is sent home from school with nothing to do. Drifting through the streets of Paris, she comes across a variety of people.

    "Extraordinary and extraordinarily rare movie about public misogyny."—Richard Brody, The New ...

  • The Human Pyramid
    1:32:35
    The Human Pyramid

    The Human Pyramid

    Directed by Jean Rouch • Documentary • 1961 • 93 minutes

    At the Lycée Français of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Rouch worked with students there who willingly enacted a story about the arrival of a new white girl, Nadine, and her effect on the interactions of and interracial relationships between the wh...

×