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• New Yorker's Richard Brody will present Jean-Luc Godard film series at IU Cinema

New Yorker's Richard Brody will present Jean-Luc Godard film series at IU Cinema

• Oct. 23, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The New Yorker writer, editor and critic Richard Brody will visit IU Cinema this fall to host a film series focused on Jean-Luc Godard, the French-Swiss director, screenwriter and critic most closely identified with France's New Wave film movement in the 1960s.

Brody authored a biography about the filmmaker, "Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard." He wrote of the filmmaker in The New Yorker: "Godard hasn't just rethought movies; he has reconceived the cinema as a practice and as an experience. In his explorations, he hasn't just discovered new territory but has kept going, outrunning in advance those whom, knowingly or not, he has inspired."

Brody, who curated nine Godard films for the series, will introduce four films. He will also deliver a Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Lecture at 3 p.m. Nov. 8 at IU Cinema. The lecture is free and open to the public, and no tickets are required. The lecture series is made possible through the support of the Ove W Jorgensen Foundation.

"There is no other person who I would consider better suited to curate a partial retrospective of Godard's work than Richard Brody, whose book is essential reading for any Godard fan," IU Cinema director Jon Vickers said. "We began planning this series in February, long before news of a major retrospective was announced by Lincoln Center. Plus, our technology allows viewers to see these films at their best.

"As Brody wrote recently in The New Yorker, 'There's no substitute for the experience of seeing film prints projected big in theatres -- film is tactile, and the very size of the image entails the effect of being engulfed by it.'"

The films are:

• 6:30 p.m. Nov. 1, "Histoire(s) du Cinéma" -- A look at the medium through Godard's eyes, covering the birth of cinema, Italian neo-realism, Hollywood and beyond.
• 6:30 p.m. Nov. 7, "Masculine Feminine" -- A young idealist meets an aspiring pop singer and, despite their philosophical and political differences, they become involved romantically.
• 9:30 p.m. Nov. 7, "La Chinoise" -- Set in 1967 Paris, a group of middle-class students disillusioned by their suburban lifestyles form a small Maoist cell and plan to change the world.
• 6:30 p.m. Nov. 8, "For Ever Mozart" -- A French theater troupe set to travel to Sarajevo for a performance is captured and held in a POW camp.
• 9:30 p.m. Nov. 8, "In Praise of Love" -- A young artist developing a project on the nature of love interviews two veterans, only to find their memories are being bought for a blockbuster film.
• 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9, "King Lear" -- A beautifully photographed meditation on the nature of art and compromise, disguised as a modern-day retelling of the classic Shakespeare drama, that Brody called the "greatest film ever made."
• 9:30 p.m. Nov. 9, "Hail Mary" -- Boycotted worldwide, this lyrical work translates the Virgin Birth into contemporary terms.
• 7 p.m. Nov. 14, "Vivre sa vie" -- Faced with a failed relationship, dead-end job and potential homelessness, Nan turns to prostitution.
• 6:30 p.m. Nov. 17, "Pierrot le Fou" -- Dissatisfied Ferdinand takes to the road with his ex-lover and leaves the bourgeoisie behind.

All films are in French with English subtitles, with the exception of "Histoire(s) du Cinéma" and "King Lear."

Tickets for "Histoire(s) du Cinéma" are free; tickets for each of the other films are $3 and can be obtained at the IU Auditorium Box Office from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; one hour before any screening at the cinema; or by phone at 812-855-1103 for a $10 service fee per order.