Announced in French daily Libération, which had close ties to him. Now on Le Monde. Le réalisateur Jean-Luc Godard est mort Jean-Luc Godard, giant of the French new wave, dies at 91 Godard was the last major living director of the French New Wave in addition to being one of the writers at Les Cahiers du cinéma in the fifties, alongside François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol or Eric Rohmer. A major contrarian in addition to being a film theorist he broke every convention he could find in his debut film, Breathless, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. Other 60s major works include Contempt, Alphaville or Pierrot le fou. After some tumultuous 70s he returned to making feature films, always trying to subvert expectations and critical reverence that started to surround him, multiplying provocations in a nearly punk spirit.
Only matched by Fellini as the most influential director of the Sixties. How many of Godard's films were actually good will be a subject for debate in the days, and years, to come.
An incredible force who changed cinema at least twice (firstly by his stylistic inventions that lead to the New Wave being coined, secondly in his development of a certain style that becomes synonymous with 'French cinema' later in the 60s) and remained hopeful he could do it again and again, through his collaborative phase with Dziga Vertov Group and his later digital works. Outside of his contribution he's just very very good. I could recommend a couple of films from every era, easily. This is like losing Shakespeare or Nijinsky.
Regarding music, he notoriously directed Number One, a documentary/essay on the Rolling Stones recording "Sympathy for the Devil" at Olympic Studios, refusing to focus on the completed song, and favoring instead the tediousness of the recording process and the overdubs, while inserting footage of street riots. He also did Masculin/Féminin, which was very much focused on the emerging pop culture, and worked with actors-musicians such as Marianne Faithfull or Johnny Hallyday He was also a major Bob Dylan fan, trying a few times to work with him, as he considered him a kindred spirit in the way Dylan would shift genres or reinvent himself, at the risk (or with the intent) of alienating his own audience.
A tragic loss to the world of film. He truly was a master of the profession. R.I.P. to one of the greats
There's no denying the influence of Godard and the French new wave cinema and his part in that. Godard's prolificity and the authority he commanded over his material was a great impetus for many, individuals and movements. I am immediately thinking of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the "German new cinema" myself. I say impetus, and whatever one might want to call artistic influence and inspiration, what kind and to what extent, I'll leave that to others, preferably to the filmmakers themselves. I found the words of Wong Kar-wai illustrative. He was asked in a 1998 interview with Elizabeth Weitzman: "You’re always being compared to Godard. Is that flattering for you, or tiresome? Do they mean Godard himself, or Godard the general impression? People always say, 'This guy’s films look like Godard’s' because they are difficult, not because they really look like Godard. But is he an influence on you? Yes, of course. I think most filmmakers my age are influenced by Godard. Who else influenced you? My mother." (Source: dpavesi.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/wong-kar-wai-the-director-who-knows-all-about-falling-for-the-wrong-people-interview-di-elizabeth-weitzman/)
Godard was also a master of snarky remarks. "If you have understood me well, it's that I didn't express myself in a proper way." "According to us, the notion of art must be separated from the notion of culture. When Beethoven writes the Seventh, it will be art. And if Bruno Walter conducts it, so will it. When Karajan will conduct it, this will turn fast into culture. And this will become once and for all culture when CBS/Sony will handle its release on compact disc. It can turn into art again if someone listens to it sincerely." "Tarantino named his production company as a tribute to one of my movies [Bande à part, A Band Apart]. As a tribute, he should have better given the money to me."
Godard films have had such a huge impact on me over the years. I jave been thinking so much since I read the news this morning.
Snarky but true. That he used cinema to break the concept of"understanding the meaning" apart and to open space for confusion, thinking, affect, questioning, desire... so on and so forth. That is why his films have life to this day.
He made two of my favorite films of all time. His "Vivre Sa Vie" is up there with the greats. An ending equal to "Chinatown." And this always hangs in my room.
Very sad to hear the news of his death - I saw a lot of his films at the Scala and the National Film Theatre back in the early 80s when I was more into watching films than I am now, and saw Détective at the London Film festival in 1985. The run of films in the 60s from À bout de souffle to Weekend compares favourably to any director. The 10 yearly Sight & Sound top films poll is coming out later in the year and it'll be interesting to see how many Godard films make the cut. last time round he had 4 in the top 100 and 6 in the top 150. 13 Breathless 21 Le Mépris 42 Pierrot le fou 48 Histoire(s) du cinéma 102 Two or Three Things I know About her 144 Vivra Sa Vie And there's this...
He was talking recently about completing work on his final 2 projects. My guess is that he finished his work.
Rewriting the language of film for generations. It is difficult to explain to general public audiences, what it was that made him see exposition differently. I fear his contribution to the filmic craft will be lost on the masses. 91 years old, and...Breathless. Godspeed.
The correct title is "One Plus One", or sometimes called 1 + 1. In my opinion, once you cut out everything but the Rolling Stones footage, it's a great little document of them working on one of their finest late 60s songs. Brian is a mess, but still.
This one hurts a bit. When I ran a high school film club years and years ago, we did a section on the French New Wave and Godard was a favorite of the students (he was already a favorite of mine). He was a true artist and innovator; his influence was and is huge on the film world. Masculin Feminin was my favorite of his.
That's an amazing quote; I had not seen that before. (And I see Godard shared my high regard for Bruno Walter and my disdain for Karajan). I like most of Godard's work, but "Hail Mary" is one of my favorite films by anyome. I think the hype about the film's alleged sacrilege distracted people from the fact that it is a really beautiful and-- in Godard's own subversive and anarchistic way-- deeply spiritual film.
This isn't as much disdain for Karajan as acknowledgment that Karajan had been turned into a marketing icon (at some point, high fidelity was synonymous with Karajan), which would overshadow the artistic quality of his recordings, while Bruno Walter operated in pre-celebrity days and can be judged on his own merits. Still, the irony is that Walter was a Columbia recording artist, and that Karajan recorded his various sets of completes symphonies for EMI (Philarmonia Orchestra) then DG (Berlin, three different takes). CBS/Sony actually only handled the Laserdisc (and VHS?) edition of the final cycle, the one he recorded in digital in the eighties, which is now back at DG for the DVD version too. And here's the full quote in French (from the JLG by JLG book published by Les Cahiers du cinéma in the late nineties, followed by an alternate take from an interview to weekly Les Inrockuptibles around the same times). . And another Godard quote on Beethoven.
