On  September 13, we lost arguably the most radical and influential of  modern filmmakers: Jean-Luc Godard. To close out Acropolis' seventh  year, we pay tribute to the late master with the Los Angeles premiere of  two films that offer a crucial look into his final decade of  filmmaking.

PROGRAM

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Les trois désastres (Jean-Luc Godard, 2013, 17 min, 3D)

Commissioned  by the Portuguese city of Guimarães, Godard's first foray into 3D  surveys the history and (mis)uses of the technology while applying a  number of fresh optical techniques that the director would push even  further with the following year's Adieu au Langage. Combining excerpts from films such as Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Final Destination 5, and Piranha 3D with  verbal interrogations of these and other filmmakers' experiments with  stereoscopic imagery (including, most pointedly, James Cameron), Les trois désastres offers an at once radical re-reading of film history and a bracing vision of 3D's limitless potential.

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Film Catastrophe (Paul Grivas, 2018, 55 min)

In 2012, the Costa Concordia cruise liner sank off the coast of Tuscany, killing 32 people. In Film Socialisme (2010), the ship served as an allegorical vessel for Jean-Luc Godard’s pointed political critique. In Film Catastrophe, director, actor, and Film Socialisme co-cinematographer Paul Grivas revisits the events by combining on-set  footage of the Godard film and civilian-shot footage captured aboard the  Concordia as it ran aground. Made in the spirit of Godard’s frequent  companion pieces to his own features, this “anatomy of a disaster”  reanimates the ship’s ghostly aura and offers precious insight into  Godard’s process.

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Thanks to Fabrice Aragno for making this screening possible.