From the Cinematheque Francaise, here’s Jean-Luc Godard’s video tribute to his late friend and colleague of the French New Wave, Eric Rohmer. It’s a series of titles on black (taken, from what I understand, from some of Rohmer’s writing as a Cahiers du Cinema critic), with Godard supplying a voiceover. The Auteurs Notebook has posted translations of both the voiceover and the titles, which are posted here beneath the video.
Titles:
It was when
No
There was what
Yes
The Captain’s Daughter
The hélix and the idea
The land of miracle
Rediscovering America
The birth of music
The best of worlds
Architecture of Apocalypse
The celluloid and the marble
Metaphore
Cardinal virtue of Cinemascope
The bandit philosopher
Who’s fault
Things as they are
Harriet’s blue dress
Vanity that painting
Spirit of christianity
Cinema, art of space
The rosegarden
Maurice Schérer
Voiceover:
“Do you remember the name of the café?
When was it?
What?
(…)
It’ll come back to me.
There was the Royal Saint Germain.
[long inaudible part]
And this lunch at (…) with with two in the dining room, and the mother eating in the kitchen.
And then, Place Monge, the woman eating in the kitchen, and the two friends in the dining room.
Yes.
And Adamov, a profound man.
No.
So the model girls, Josette Saint Clair, Guy Deret, Joseph Kéké (?).
No.
(…)
But when? What name? This hotel. When yesterday he passed in front of it. When he left the Sorbonne university and walked toward the great men.
It’s when he walked down to the right of the Sorbonne and found the police prefecture, going back up on the left of (…)
There were the first record players (…)
[long inaudible part]
The man with a flower in his mouth. Jean Gruault. Jacques Auclair. Free Henri Martin.
No. No.
Yes. That’s it. I know. I found it. The café was called The Old Ship.
No. This café was (…).
Yes, with Monsieur (…)’s two sisters. Yes.
Yes, with Monsieur (…)’s two sisters. Yes.
Ah, it’s the best we had, says Frederic.
Yes, it’s the best we had, says (…).”
