RECOMMENDED Jean-Luc Godard doesn’t actively participate in the DVD production of his back catalog, but the still-active 75-year-old director can’t be less than pleased about the 35mm restorations and re-subtitling of his work for English-speaking audiences. “La chinoise” (1967) is a lavish, boldly colored pop-art canvas composed a few months after his black-and-white “Masculin-Feminin.” It’s spectacular: the politics maddening, the faces hauntingly young, the era alive, the digressions astute (and not). With the incredibly beautiful Jean-Pierre Léaud, in his most Léaudesque era, the lavishly lovely Anne Wiazemsky and Juliet Berto and the taciturn visage of Mao Tse-tung. (The trailer gives you a taste of its vertiginous array: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI4WxJb-uRU) 96m. (Ray Pride)
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
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