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I was not exposed to Godard until my freshman year in film school. And, as soon as I saw it, I was blown away. The way he could play with conventions to make a point with the film medium which could not be expressed in any other way; it was mind blowing.
I also remember attempting to mimic what he was doing along with some of my fellow students. When we proudly brought our work to a film critique, the professor let all the other students speak first. The critique from other students was overwhelmingly positive. Then, finally, the professor spoke up.
"You all need to get this through your head: Before you can break the rules you need to understand the rules. You don't understand the rules yet."
Godard understood the rules and knew exactly how to break them. I've taken that advice with me throughout my software engineering and product development career. It has served me well, to check my ego at the door.
Godard was bigger than cinema, he was YouTube and art. He made the movies that made you say, oh I can do that, my kid could do that, but he did it first
So true.
Before you can break the rules you need to understand the rules. Godard understood the rules and knew exactly how to break them. He used film to express ideas which could not have been expressed on any other medium.
>Godard was bigger than cinema [...]
Whew. Having watched a lot of movies, I'd say that's not even close. I wouldn't dare say that about any director that comes to my mind. He was important, maybe, but far from your megalomaniac remarks.
There's dozens of extremely interesting directors doing great stuff, even today. For instance, Bong_Joon-ho is putting out great stuff, I'll take a movie from him any day now.
Cinema is not one guy, that's laughable!
It's strange how this man his revered by a few cinema nerds and despised or ignored by the vast silent majority. I found the few movies of him I watched just plain boring.
Maybe this article explain why: because to appreciate Godard, you need to deeply understand the code of cinema. I don't know them, couldn't care less and people don't care either unless they are cinema nerds. But if you understand cinema code, you can understand how he virtuously play with them.
As someone who has watched a lot of movies, yet (from a quick glance at Wikipedia) none by Godard (so far), which of his movies should I start with that "embodies" most what Godard did?
expect to be disappointed. the guy have been so influential on cinema that your reaction will probably be "meh"
Le Mépris, Pierrot le Fou, A bout de souffle, la Chinoise, Alphaville
I am a big fan of his works. I was sad to know that he had passed away. But as the author of this essay said, up until the last moment he had done things "his way" and it is this dare, this strange ways of being, and pointing out things that I would not have seen / thought otherwise, made me fall in love with his movies in the first place. Also, I truly find he kind of manages to imbibe a certain sense of "humor" in most of his works. I like that a lot.
My favorite Goddard memory is coming into the weekly screening for my film theory class and seeing that we would be watching Weekend. I asked the professor for a synopsis and he said it is about moving towards a non-borgouis cinema. Smirking as I thought, "Ask a cinema prof a straightforward question..."
I mean, what's the plot of the film?
That is the plot.
Proceeded to have my mind blown. While I detest his politics, I remain in awe of his brilliance and total command of the medium.
Personally, I would take Fellini over Godard any day of the week. I'd much rather watch La Dolce Vita over Breathless
I'm a fan of both, but one thing I've noticed RE: Fellini vs. Godard is that Godard's films are much lighter, more "breezy", and easier to watch. This makes his work feel more modern to me.
Fellini, in comparison, has always seemed quite heavy and serious, even if the plot and subject matter is frivolous.
That makes sense for early career Godard, mostly because at that point he was working in the similar milieu as the other New Wavers, and playing with the Hollywood form. At that point, American films were flooding into France following WWII and you could go to the Cinematheque Francaise and watch an entire director's ouvre in a day or two. Godard, Truffaut, and the other cinephiles used to spend hours watching movie after movie and began to notice the Hollywood styles and trends. When they went to make movies they brought that knowledge of Hollywood style, along with a punk sensibility revolting against the "ancien regime" of French film style.
Later Godard was far more intense and a difficult watch as he played with the form of filmmaking, digital video, and even his role as a director itself. His later stuff, like Goodbye to Language is fascinating but also, at times, difficult to get through and quite different than the direction that most New Wavers went, notably Truffaut who, if anything, got more and more accessible as his career progressed (and still made brilliant movies).
His history of film, Histoire(s) du cinema is probably must-watch viewing for any big-time cinephile / film buff. It is commentary on the entire 20th century by way of cinema.
Yeah you’re probably right, I’ve mostly just seen his earlier films. I’ve been meaning to watch Histoire.