For Ever Mozart

The run time was an hour and twenty five minutes, but it felt like it ran longer than Titanic. I failed to learn the relevance of more than half of this film; either I have a short attention span, or Godard lacked logical closure and explanation. Did Godard piece together this film just for the sheer fact that he could? Did he know he could rush through and produce a bowl movement of a movie, knowing people would watch it because of his reputation? Did he know that many would claim For Ever Mozart as brilliant, simply because they didn’t understand it?

For the first time, I think Godard took advantage of his reputation as the strange, extremely artistic, edgy, and not easy to follow film maker. He used his reputation to put together a mumbling, rambling bore of a film, and get away with it. I barely followed the main plot of a young crew of actors, an aging director who struggled with funding, and their filming in Sarajevo. On top of this, the essay format and the philosophical jargon was not strong enough to keep the audience thinking—it simply went in one ear and out the other.

The cinematography was sub-par, at best. This really disappointed me. When I watched earlier political films that I could not exactly relate to, I could at least admire the unique beauty of the still shots, use of color, settings, etc. This time; there was no thought that went into the colors, the settings, etc. I was sick of continuous shots of the ocean, and faux woods. The explosions were cheaply done, and the machine gun shots sounded as if they came pre-recorded off one of those “high tech” keyboards via 1989.

I have been critical about many of Godard’s films, but this is the first time I have been thoroughly disappointed. I usually can find some good, but this time I could not. After I watched it, I shook my head and asked myself: "what happened"?