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PARIS—With more than a billion viewers tuning in from around the world only to find themselves watching a panel of French film scholars and critical theorists, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics began Friday with a tedious 45-minute discussion of Jean-Luc Godard’s early works. “We’re half an hour in, and they’ve still only made it to Masculin Féminin,” said three-time Olympic medalist Lebron James, speaking for the majority of the 10,500 athletes in attendance, who visibly struggled to stay awake and reportedly found the lecture on how Godard influenced the French New Wave as both critic and filmmaker to be excruciatingly remedial. “I was hoping for something a little more exciting and nuanced, but the people on this stage have done little more than establish Godard’s own glib existentialism as the impetus for the lack of narrative in Breathless. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but I don’t feel they have much to add to the conversation around the nostalgic and modern feel of his short works. I did like the synchronized lighting of the cigarettes, though.” At press time, the International Olympic Committee reportedly issued a number of fines after an arcane squabble about mise en scène in Le Petit Soldat broke out between Italy and Belarus.
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