SIN-E-FILE (Godard and Rossillini)

Here, in this new, regularly updated column, I will post the current goings-on, curiosities and obsessions in my cinematic universe. - Peter Rinaldi

“I love the cinema. Rossellini no longer loves it, he is detached from it, he loves life. Compared to Rossellini, I have the sin of the cinephile." - Jean Luc Godard, 1962

Roberto Rossellini is an interesting figure in world cinema. I hadn’t seen many of his films when I picked up a book called “My Method”, which included a number of interviews and writings from the “Father of Neo-realism”. I was so intrigued by what I read that I nearly busted a blood vessel when I found out that MOMA was going to have a Rossellini retrospective (this was in 2006). Most of his films are so hard to find, and the ones that are available are in such rough shape. It seemed like a great opportunity to dive into his work.

Well it's not easy to dive into Rossellini. He's difficult. Not difficult like Godard's work is difficult, but in a totally different, possibly opposite, way. You see, as a cinephile, I have always found it easy to love Godard. In fact, I know plenty of cinephiles that don’t enjoy Godard, but I don’t know anyone who enjoys Godard that is not a cinephile. His life is film, and even though his work functions on many complex political and Brechtian levels, it's influences are, predominately, other films . Perhaps he is the first real film junkie to turn into a filmmaker.

Rossellini's films are rough, badly acted (for the most part) and are shot seemingly (perhaps deceptively) without a driving artistic force. He, according to Godard’s biographer Richard Brody, “was hostile to any veneration of the cinema as a means of artistic expression.” It is so interesting that Godard felt both a pull toward this way of making films and a rejection to it. When asked who his “masters” are, Godard said he had none, “or perhaps just one, because of his will to independence: Rossellini.” And yet, he called his short film Le Nouveau Monde, almost proudly, “anti-Rossellini”.

When I read Godard’s quote about the “sin of the cinephile”, I had a realization. Maybe I wasn’t as intrigued as I though I’d be with the films of Rossellini because I too was riddled with the sin of the cinephile. I think I need to literally SEE a deliberateness in a filmmakers cinematic style to actually begin to appreciate that filmmaker. This isn’t in the work of Rossellini, he rejected such things. It is this “deliberateness” that is at the heart of the auteur theory , which is where my cinephilia is likely rooted.

But the young French cinephiles from Cashier Du Cinema adored, and found influence in, the work of Rossellini. Why? Maybe because the lack of deliberateness of style in Rossellini, his literally rejection of cinema as art, actually manifests as a style, as HIS art. But is it art if it’s not trying to be? These are the questions that create such an interest in Rossellini for me, and send me continually back to study his films. Like any great master, as you grow, your appreciation of his work grows with you.

“The sin of cinephilia” likely means something different for me than it did for Godard. But nevertheless I find truth in it. Rossellini is sinless because he has no cinephilia. I think Godard envied that. I relate to that envy. Because I choose “film” over “life”, my films will constantly suffer. They will never be pure like Rossellini’s. But I won’t want them to, because, just like a proper sinner, I am not in a hurry to get saved. Yet there is a constant guilt that I live with, and a feeling deep down inside that maybe the way to true art is away from it, and that I must start loving life and stop loving cinema. It is then that MY cinema will evolve.

Till then, I will confess my sins here, in this column, at The Boutros Boutros Follies.