What do you think of when you think of Jean Luc-Godard (1930-2022)?
Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 11:10PM
NATHANIEL R in Breathless, French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard, movie posters

by Nathaniel R

In the Manhattan apartment that I spent 10 years of my life in, my then-boyfriend and I chose three movie posters framed for the living room. When we were making the choices the requirements were as follows..

1. The poster had to be a color or colors that would go well with both the room and the other 2 posters
2. One of us had to be a mega fan of the movie
3. The other one had to also like the movie enough to have it on the wall.

Despite loving literally hundreds of movies we settled on the posters quickly...

We both deeply loved the Polish poster of Sunset Blvd and the movie (of course) but couldn't find it in the right size at the time. So the Three Chosen were the red and black graphics of West Side Story (my favourite), the yellow of Breathless (his favourite) and the primary colors of the Spanish poster of All About My Mother (one of the first movies we fell for together as a couple).

Here's a photo of me with my best friends that captures a fraction of that wall display (you can see the ex reflected in Almodóvar since he took the photo)...

I've thought about those posters and about Godard's very limited place in my life a lot the past couple of days. 

The Godard was his must-have choice. He spoke French, spent one of his university years in France, and loved all things French New Wave. I bought him a huge book on the topic with Godard's Contempt adorning its cover for Christmas one year. Though I'd always loved French cinema myself (it was the first "foreign" cinema I fell for - it surely helped that the country has so many legendary actresses), Godard never became a thing for me. Nevertheless I loved Breathless when he showed it to me early on in our relationship (how had I never seen it?) so I was happy to have it on the wall for the next decade of my life. 

Though my ex was a big Godard fan, my own tastes in the French New Wave leaned elsewhere. I was always partial to Demy & Varda with a little Truffaut on the side. So when it came time to eulogize Godard here I drew a big blank but for the persistent memory of that poster, my ex's fandom, and of the thrill of seeing the still restless and lively Breathless for the first time in the late 1990s, long after I should have seen it as a cinephile who fancied himself a Francophile. 

My own inability to eulogize Godard is not important. His influence was such that there are a ton of beautiful pieces to read online and a good portion of his movies that are currently streaming. The New Yorker calls him "Cinema's North Star", IndieWire noted 5 cinematic techniques he deployed that proved influential, The Guardian surveyed what many of the most lauded living filmmakers have said about him, while Vulture points out that he had so many contradictory impulses as a filmmaker that "everyone has their own Godard".

It's that last thought that stuck with me. When a filmmaker is that prolific, evolving, famous, and old (91) when they die, chances are everyone will have a different thing they always think of when the name pops up.

So what is it for you? Who is Godard to you? 

P.S. If you're not well-versed in Godard you're in luck. One of the benefits of being very famous as a filmmaker is that it tends to be easier for later generations to discover your films. Here are the titles that are currently streaming (though several of the others are rentable on various services like Amazon and Apple TV)

 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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