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- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II Godard became a naturalized citizen of Switzerland and attended school in Nyons, Switzerland. His parents divorced in 1948, at which time he returned to Paris to attend the Lycée Rohmer. In 1949 he studied at the Sorbonne to prepare for a degree in ethnology. However, it was during this time that he began attending with François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, and Éric Rohmer.
In 1950 Godard, with Rivette and Rohmer, founded "Gazette du cinéma", which published five issues between May and November. He wrote a number of articles for the journal, often using the pseudonym "Hans Lucas". After Godard worked on and financed two films by Rivette and Rohmer, Godard's family cut off their financial support in 1951, and he resorted to a Bohemian lifestyle that included stealing food and money when necessary. In January 1952 he began writing film criticism for "Les cahiers du cinéma". Later that year he traveled to North and South America with his father and attempted to make his first film (of which only a tracking shot from a car was ever accomplished).
In 1953 he returned to Paris briefly before securing a job as a construction worker on a dam project in Switzerland. With the money from the job, he made a short film in 1954 about the building of the dam called Operation Concrete (1958). Later that year his mother was killed in a motor scooter accident in Switzerland. In 1956 Godard began writing again for "Les cahiers du cinéma" as well as for the journal "Arts". In 1957 Godard worked as the press attache for "Artistes Associés", and made his first French film, All Boys Are Called Patrick (1959).
In 1958 he shot Charlotte and Her Boyfriend (1958), his homage to Jean Cocteau. Later that year he took unused footage of a flood in Paris shot by Truffaut and edited it into a film called A Story of Water (1961), which was an homage to Mack Sennett. In 1959 he worked with Truffaut on the weekly publication "Temps de Paris". Godard wrote a gossip column for the journal, but also spent much time writing scenarios for films and a body of critical writings which placed him firmly in the forefront of the "nouvelle vague" aesthetic, precursing the French New Wave.
It was also in that year Godard began work on Breathless (1960). In 1960 he married Anna Karina in Switzerland. In April and May he shot The Little Soldier (1963) in Geneva and was preparing the film for a fall release in Paris. However, French censors banned it due to its references to the Algerian war, and it was not shown until 1963. In March 1960 Breathless (1960) premiered in Paris. It was hugely successful both with the film critics and at the box office, and became a landmark film in the French New Wave with its references to American cinema, its jagged editing and overall romantic/cinephilia approach to filmmaking. The film propelled the popularity of male lead Jean-Paul Belmondo with European audiences.
In 1961 Godard shot A Woman Is a Woman (1961), his first film using color widescreen stock. Later that year he participated in the collective effort to remake the film The Seven Deadly Sins (1962), which was heralded as an important project in artistic collaboration. In 1962 Godard shot Vivre sa vie (1962) in Paris, his first commercial success since "Breathless". Later that year he shot a segment entitled "Le Nouveau Monde" for the collective film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963), another important work in the history of collaborative multiple-authored art.
In 1963 Godard completed a film in homage to Jean Vigo entitled The Carabineers (1963), which was a resounding failure with the public and stirred furious controversy with film critics. Also that year he worked on a couple of collective films: The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers (1964) (from which Godard's sequence was later cut) and Six in Paris (1965). In 1964 Godard and his wife Anna Karina formed their own production company, Anouchka Films. They shot a film called A Married Woman (1964), which censors forced them to re-edit due to a topless sunbathing scene shot by Jacques Rozier. The censors also made Godard change the title to "Une femme marié" so as to not give the impression that this "scandalous" woman was the typical French wife. Later in the year, two French television programs were produced in devotion to Godard's work.
In the spring of 1965 Godard shot Alphaville (1965) in Paris; in the summer he shot Pierrot the Fool (1965) in Paris and the south of France. Shortly thereafter he and Anna Karina separated. Following their divorce, Godard shot Made in U.S.A (1966), "Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (1966)", "L'amour en l'an 2000" (1966) (a sequel to "Alphaville" shot as a sketch for the collective film "L'amour travers les ages" (1966)).
In 1967 Godard shot The Chinese (1967) in Paris with Anne Wiazemsky, who was the granddaughter of French novelist François Mauriac. During the making of the film Godard and Wiazemsky were married in Paris. Later in the year he was prevented from traveling to North Vietnam for the shooting of a sequence for the collective film Far from Vietnam (1967). He instead shot the sequence in Paris, entitled "Camera-Oeil". Also during 1967 Godard participated (as the only Frenchman) on an Italian collective film called Love and Anger (1969).
In 1968 Godard was commissioned by French television to make Joy of Learning (1969). However, television producers were so outraged by the product Godard produced that they refused to show it. In May of that year Henri Langlois was fired by the head of the French Jean-Pierre Gorin to form the Dziga-Vertov group, infuriating Godard. He became increasingly concerned with socialist solutions to an idealist cinema, especially in providing the proletariat with the means of production and distribution. Along with other militantly political filmmakers in the Dziga-Vertov group, Godard published a series of 'Ciné-Tracts' outlining these viewpoints. In the summer of 1968 Godard traveled to New York City and Berkeley, California, to shoot the film "One American Movie", which was never completed. In September he made a trip to Canada to start another film called "Communication(s)", which also went unfinished, and then made a visit to Cuba before returning to France.
In 1969 Godard traveled to England, where he made the film See You at Mao (1970) for BBC Weekend Television, but the network later refused to show it. In the late spring he traveled with the Dziga-Vertov group to Prague to secretly shoot the film "Pravda". Later that year he shot Lotte in Italia (1971) ("Struggle for Italy") for Italian television. It was never shown, either.
In 1970 Godard traveled to Lebanon to shoot a film for the Palestinian Liberation Organization entitled "Jusque à la victoire" (1970) ("Until Victory"). Later that year he traveled to dozens of American universities trying to raise money for the film. In spite of his efforts, it was never released.- Lucille Lund was born on 3 June 1912 in Buckley, Washington, USA. She was an actress, known for What Price Vengeance (1937), Timber War (1935) and The Black Cat (1934). She was married to Kenneth Higgins. She died on 15 February 2002 in Rolling Hills, California, USA.
- Director
- Editor
- Producer
Jean-Marie Straub was born on 8 January 1933 in Metz, Moselle, Lorraine, France. He was a director and editor, known for Class Relations (1984), The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) and Sicily! (1999). He was married to Danièle Huillet. He died on 20 November 2022 in Rolle, Switzerland.- Robert Swan was born on 20 October 1944 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Natural Born Killers (1994), The Untouchables (1987) and Hoosiers (1986). He was married to Barbara. He died on 9 August 2023 in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, USA.
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Composer, accordionist, educator, and singer educated at Augustana College. Myron entertained at World War II USO camp shows and earned a War Department citation for front-line entertaining. From 1949-1950, Myron headed the accordion department at the College of Music. He was a soloist with several dance orchestras. He began a radio career in Saint Louis, Missouri, until 1950, before settling in with his decades-long career with the Lawrence Welk orchestra. Joining ASCAP in 1950, his instrumental compositions include "Skating Waltz in Swing," "Swingin' in Vienna," "Windy River," "Kavallo's Kapers," "Long Long Ago in Swing," "Dakota Polka," and "Minute Waltz in Swing."- Short, round and sweet-faced, she was a little butterball of sunshine (no more than 5 feet tall) topped by a tight, adorable, tangerine Orphan Annie-like frizz. Character actress Nora Boland was one of a host of endearing character ladies who fell into their careers quite late in life. Born Nora Madeleine Webb on December 14, 1929 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, she had pursued theater here and there for much of her life but was comfortably settled in as a married lady and a mother several times over by the time she decided to plant her feet more firmly into the entertainment business. She couldn't miss. Despite a minor presence in films and on TV, she would effortlessly steal focus with a simple glazed look or act of befuddlement. Add to that was a wonderfully hearty, squawk-like laugh that seemed so mischievous in nature and could be quite infectious.
Making her film debut at age 48 in a small role in Gene Wilder's The World's Greatest Lover (1977), Nora lent her gleeful disposition to other comedic film situations as well, such as in California Suite (1978) and Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School (1986). She seemed truly in her element with TV comedy, making token appearances in a number of sitcoms including "WKRP in Cincinnati," "Gimme a Break" and "227" while perhaps playing a neighbor, landlady, store customer, relative, cleaning lady, or flighty matron. She managed to provide comedy relief too in more dramatic situations ("General Hospital," "Hill Street Blues" and "Highway to Heaven.")
It was on the musical stage, however, that Nora truly had her chance to shine. A one-time member of Lonny Chapman's Group Repertory Theatre, Nora grabbed a number of the laughs as prison matron "Mama Morton" in their production of "Chicago" during the 1980s and had her own scene-stealing numbers in other musicals as well that played around the Los Angeles area. Nora and I worked together for several seasons at the Norris Theatre in Palos Verdes in their annual offering of "A Christmas Carol," which featured such notable Scrooges as Ford Rainey, Raye Birk and Robert Mandan. As expected, she was a giddy delight as Mrs. Fezziwig, among other roles.
Experiencing problems with hypertension and diabetes in later years, Nora retired in the 1990s and focused on her true passion -- writing -- especially poetry. She passed away peacefully in her Rolling Hills Estates home on January 15, 2008, at age 78...and, with it, just a little less joy and merriment will be had in our small L.A. theater community. - Flavio Bisignano was born on 13 February 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. He was an actor, known for No Names (2007). He was married to Carrie. He died on 15 August 2014 in Rolling Hills, California, USA.
- Virginia Freitag was born on 24 June 1922 in the USA. She was married to Harold Freitag. She died on 21 March 1997 in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, USA.
- Irene Grzywacz was born on 24 October 1924. Irene was married to Wladyslaw Grzywacz. Irene died on 12 March 2012 in Rolling Hills, California, USA.
- Kevin McDonald died on 8 July 2003 in Rolling Hills Estates, California, USA.