Pages

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Death of the Master of The Nouvelle Vague, of French Cinema

JEAN-LUC GODARD

3 December 1930 - 13 September 2022


“He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.”

— Jean-Luc Godard





American actress Jean Seberg in Godard's 'Breathless' (À Bout de Souffle)1958 





Jean-Luc and Anna Karina


"It was a strange love story from the beginning. I could see Jean-Luc (Godard) was looking at me all the time, and I was looking at him too, all day long. We were like animals. One night we were at this dinner in Lausanne. My boyfriend, who was a painter, was there too. And suddenly I felt something under the table – it was Jean-Luc’s hand. He gave me a piece of paper and then left to drive back to Geneva. I went into another room to see what he’d written.
It said, “I love you. Rendezvous at midnight at the Café de la Prez.” And then my boyfriend came into the room and demanded to see the piece of paper, and he took my arm and grabbed it and read it.
He said, “You’re not going.”
And I said, “I am.”
And he said, “But you can’t do this to me.”
I said, “But I’m in love too, so I’m going.”
But he still didn’t believe me. We drove back to Geneva and I started to pack my tiny suitcase.
He said, “Tell me you’re not going.”
And I said, “I’ve been in love with him since I saw him the second time. And I can’t do anything about it.”
It was like something electric. I walked there, and I remember my painter was running after me crying. I was, like, hypnotized – it never happened again to me in my life."
— Anna Karina





Brigitte Bardot 'Contempt' 1963



Picture: Jean-Luc Godard (died 13/9/22) by William Klein (died 10/09/22) two greats gone this month.

Alphaville 1965






In 1969, film critic Roger Ebert wrote about Godard's importance in cinema:

Godard is a director of the very first rank; no other director in the 1960s has had more influence on the development of the feature-length film. Like Joyce in fiction or Beckett in theater, he is a pioneer whose present work is not acceptable to present audiences. But his influence on other directors is gradually creating and educating an audience that will, perhaps in the next generation, be able to look back at his films and see that this is where their cinema began

1 comment: