5 Movies | January 31
“I know nothing of life, except through the cinema.”
- Jean-Luc Godard
The legendary French New Wave film movement of the 1960s was one of the most avant-garde and creative of all time. It marked a time when European filmmakers parted ways with the conventions of golden age Hollywood to tell more human stories with greater social commentary, often by using more experimental filming techniques and flawed characters.
Several revered filmmakers were leaders of this movement. Along with Jacques Demy and François Truffaut, perhaps the most prolific and long lasting of all these filmmakers was the late, great Jean-Luc Godard.
With a filmography of over 130 credits and spanning seven decades, Godard’s career is not only one of the most impressive of the French New Wave, but in all of filmmaking.
Raised in Switzerland as a refugee of World War II, Godard’s love of film developed somewhat later in life. He originally studied anthropology and Marxism at the University of Paris, where he joined the famous Cinémathèque Française. It was here that Godard first fell in love with movies. As he later recalled: “At the Cinematheque I discovered a world which nobody had spoken to me about. Cinema became as important as bread. We dreamed about film. We were like Christians in the catacombs.” Godard first explored this new passion by becoming one of the first critics of the newly formed Cahiers du Cinéma magazine in 1951. This was short lived when Godard was called back to Switzerland to help support his newly single mother, eventually finding work as a construction worker on the Grande Dixence Dam. Upon his mother’s untimely death in an auto accident, Godard felt inspired to document his time working on the dam.
The result was his first documentary short, Opération Béton, and for the next 60 years Godard never stopped making movies.
Godard passed in September of 2022 at the age of 91, still with several film projects in early development.
This month, TCM pays tribute to Godard with an evening of his most popular and beloved films.
Godard’s debut feature film, and still perhaps his most famous, was 1960’s Breathless (À bout de souffle). The original screenplay by fellow French auteurs François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, was inspired by an actual event. Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as Michel, a charming but dangerous young criminal who steals a car in Marseille and kills a police officer while making his escape. Jean Seberg is the beautiful young girl Michel picks up on his run to Paris whom he hopes will help him hide from the authorities and then runaway with him to Italy. Chabrol and Truffaut had originally wanted to make the film themselves but could not agree on how to resolve the story. Godard was intrigued by what his colleagues had started and asked if he could finish writing it and direct it himself. It was only with their endorsement that Godard secured the financing needed to complete it. Though her part is noticeably smaller than Jean-Paul Belmondo’s, Jean Seberg was certainly the bigger star at the time. She was an American actress who had made several appearances in Hollywood films. Godard thought that having one established name would help the film’s box office potential. Ultimately over 15 percent of the film’s total budget went toward Seberg’s salary.
Seberg was uncertain about working with a young filmmaker on his first feature. This uncertainty lasted all throughout filming as Godard was constantly rewriting the script and chose to mostly use the same documentary filming techniques he’d used to make his previous short films. He insisted on using as much natural light as possible throughout the Paris locations, along with handheld camera work and jump-cut editing. Using realistic and minimalist filming techniques to tell a narrative story was groundbreaking for its time and would soon become a central trend in French film. Whatever concerns the cast or producers had were quickly put to rest when Breathless became an immediate critical and commercial success.
The film is now seen as a staple of the French New Wave and is listed by many as one of the greatest movies ever made.
Possibly Jean-Luc Godard’s greatest muse was the star of several of his films and his wife of four years, the luminous Anna Karina. Karina and Godard first met when Godard offered the then 19-year-old model a small role in Breathless, having been mesmerized by her appearance in a bathtub full of bubbles in a commercial for Palmolive. Anna declined, not wanting to appear nude in the film. When Godard asked why she was uncomfortable after her appearance in the commercial, Karina explained that it was only Godard who thought she was without clothes... Godard continued his pursuit of Karina on both a professional and personal level. The two fell in love and married shortly after making their first film together (but released later), Godard’s second feature The Little Soldier (Le petit soldat) (1963). Michel Subor plays Bruno, a young man living in Switzerland during the Algerian War. Bruno is ordered by the French terrorist La Main Rouge to kill members of the National Liberation Front. Anna Karina is Veronica, the beautiful young girl supporting the Algerian liberators who makes Bruno question his positions. This film was a daring subject matter for all involved and was met with heavy censorship for its depictions of both French and Algerian torcher. The film was banned for a full three years before finally being released to a still mixed reception in 1963.
One of Godard and Karina’s most acclaimed collaborations was My Life to Live (Vivre Sa Vie) from 1962. In one of her most daring performances Karina plays Nana, an aspiring actress and single mother who must turn to streetwalking to pay her rent. The story is told over 12 episodes which show Nana continuously rationalizing how she still sees herself as a free woman. Godard frequently used prostitution as a subject matter in his films to symbolize the difficult life of filmmakers and artists in modern capitalism. For this film, Godard wanted the story to be as realistic as possible, only doing one or two takes and encouraging Karina to improvise much of her dialogue. In fact, he would not allow her to see the day’s scripts until just before filming. The film was unanimously praised by critics and ultimately became one of France’s highest grossing films of the year. This led to Godard’s first partnership with a major Hollywood studio. While this was a new level of success for both the director and the actress, their artistic partnership and ultimately their marriage were not to last. While Karina herself never personally objected to being identified as Godard’s muse and would forever express gratitude for the parts he gave her, some observed that Godard’s vision of Karina on film was always that of a prostitute, a rebellious youth or a mother, all quite stereotypical views of the female experience. It was only after her professional and personal separation from Godard, that Karina tackled an entirely new range of material as an actress.
Godard’s first film following his parting with Anna Karina was the appropriately titled Masculin féminin in 1966. In a series of vignettes, Godard shows us the lives of several free-spirited youths in Paris. We have Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud), an idealistic young man just returning from the Vietnam War. Madeleine (Chantal Goya), an aspiring Pop singer. And Robert (Michel Debord), a journalist. Godard describes them in the film as “the children of Marx and Coca Cola” generation. This was one of the first of Godard’s films to not be an original story of the writer/director’s own, but an adaptation of literary works. The screenplay, with most of the dialogue improvised by the actors, was based on two short stories by 19th century French author Guy de Maupassant. Godard intended the film to represent his vision of the youth of the turbulent 1960s. Ironically, that very audience which Godard intended the film for was prohibited from seeing it due to its depictions of sex and troubled youth.
The work of Jean-Luc Godard remains an inspiration for some of modern cinema’s most acclaimed and successful filmmakers and will continue to enrich the world of cinema and art.
Quoting one of modern cinema’s most respected figures, Martin Scorsese, “He redefined the very idea of what a movie was and where it could go. He never made a picture that settled into any one rhythm or mood or point of view, and his films never lulled you into a dream state. They woke you up. They still do – and they always will.”
