If there is one filmmaker whose work has inspired masters of cinema like Martin Scorsese, Won Kar-Wai, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, amidst many others, it has to be Godard. The pioneer of French New Wave film movement, his films subverted the traditional ideals of filmmaking and explored the experimental terrain of the craft, which was left uncharted before. Some of the greatest films ever made in the history of cinema are a part of his 60 years long filmography. In celebration of his birthday today, we look back at his filmography and his influence on cinema as we know it today.
Breathless
A 1960 French crime drama film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, it stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a wandering criminal named Michel, and Jean Seberg as his American girlfriend Patricia. The film was Godard's first feature-length work and represented Belmondo's breakthrough as an actor. Breathless is one of the earliest and more influential examples of French New Wave (nouvelle vague) cinema. At the tine of its release the film attracted much attention for its bold visual style, which included unconventional use of jump cuts. The film also showcased Godard’s characteristic style of referencing many other films within his film. Many suggest that Breathless is truly one of the greatest films ever made.
Vivre Sa Vie
Nana (Anna Karina), a beautiful Parisian in her early twenties, leaves her husband and infant son hoping to become an actress. Without money, beyond what she earns as a shopgirl, and unable to enter acting, she elects to earn better money as a prostitute. Soon she has a pimp, Raoul, who after an unspecified period agrees to sell Nana to another pimp. During the exchange, the pimps argue and Nana is killed in a gun battle. Nana's short life on film is told in 12 brief episodes, each preceded by a written intertitle. Godard borrowed the aesthetics of the cinéma vérité approach to documentary film-making, which combines improvisation with the use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subjects hidden behind crude reality. However, this film differed from other films of the French New Wave by being photographed with a heavy Mitchell camera, as opposed to the light weight cameras used for earlier films.
Two or Three Things I Know About Her
Two or Three Things I Know About Her is a 1967 French New Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, one of three features he completed that year. As with the other two (Week-end and La chinoise), it is considered both socially and stylistically radical. The film does not tell a story so much as present an essay-like study of Godard's view of contemporary life. Godard narrates the film in a whispered voiceover in which he discusses his fears about the contemporary world, including those related to the Vietnam War. The film frequently cuts to various still shots of bright consumer products and ongoing construction. Although the film had a script, the cast often breaks the fourth wall, looking into the camera and delivering seemingly random monologues about life and themselves.
Week-end
Week-end follows a Parisian couple as they leave on a weekend trip across the French countryside to collect an inheritance. What ensues is a confrontation with the tragic flaws of the over-consuming bourgeoisie. The film contains some of the most written-about scenes in cinema's history. One of them, an eight-minute tracking shot of the couple stuck in an unremitting traffic jam as they leave the city, is cited as a new technique Godard used to deconstruct bourgeois trends. Startlingly, a few shots contain extra footage from, as it were, before the beginning of the take (while the actors are preparing) and after the end of the take (while the actors are coming out of character). Week-end's enigmatic and audacious end title sequence, which reads ‘End of Cinema’, appropriately marked an end to the narrative and cinematic period in Godard's filmmaking career.
Histoire(s) du cinéma
Histoire(s) du cinéma is an 8-part video project begun by Jean-Luc Godard in the late 1980s and completed in 1998. The longest, at 266 minutes, and one of the most complex of Godard's films, Histoire(s) du cinéma is an examination of the history of the concept of cinema and how it relates to the 20th century; in this sense, it can also be considered a critique of the 20th century and how it perceives itself. The project is widely considered the most important work of the late period of Godard's career. Histoire(s) du cinéma is always referred to by its French title, because of the untranslatable word play it implies: histoire means both ‘history’ and ‘story,’ and the s in parentheses gives the possibility of a plural. Therefore, the phrase Histoire(s) du cinéma simultaneously means The History of Cinema, Histories of Cinema, The Story of Cinema and Stories of Cinema. Similar double or triple meanings, as well as puns, are a recurring motif throughout Histoire(s) and much of Godard's work.
In Praise of Love
In Praise of Love is a 2001 French film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The black-and-white and color drama was shot by Julien Hirsch and Christophe Pollock. Godard has famously stated that ‘a film should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.’ This aphorism is illustrated by In Praise of Love (Éloge de l'amour), which reverses the order of past and present. The film is notable for its use of both film and video—the first half captured in 35 mm black and white, the latter half shot in color on DV—and subsequently transferred to film for editing. The blending of film and video recalls the statement from Sauve Qui Peut, in which the tension between film and video evokes the struggle between Cain and Abel. The film is also noted for containing themes of ageing, love, separation, and rediscovery as it follows the young artist Edgar in his contemplation of a new work on the four stages of love.
Goodbye to Language
Goodbye to Language is a 2014 French-Swiss 3D experimental narrative essay film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It stars Héloïse Godet, Kamel Abdeli, Richard Chevallier, Zoé Bruneau, Jessica Erickson and Christian Grégori and was shot by cinematographer Fabrice Aragno. The film revolves around a couple who cannot communicate with each other until their pet dog acts as an interpreter for them. Aragno broke many of the standard rules for 3D cinematography. Godard and Aragno worked on the film for four years, each shooting footage independently before officially beginning production with the actors. Some of the film's more elaborate shots have been called innovative techniques of the film vocabulary. These include a 'separation' shot in which a single, unbroken shot splits into two separate shots that can be viewed simultaneously through either the left or the right eye, and then returns to one single 3D shot. Aragno and Godard also experimented with double exposure 3D images and shots with parallax that are difficult for the human eye to see.