Jean Luc Godard - introduction

Jean Luc Godard may be both one of the worlds most rewarding and disappointing filmmakers. His work ranges from masterful to utterly terrible, and during the 60s alone, he has dabbled in such varied genres as in war films, musical, sci-fi and political thriller, among others. Always colorful - even if directed in black and white, his films were an unique oddity back when they were conceived, and still stand out today.

However, there is one major problem with his body of work. As enjoyable as some of his films may seem, Godard himself has always tried to push his own intentions into the foreground, resulting in works that seem helmed by a professor of sociology rather than a director, bordering on boring and even wanky excursions on socialism and dadaism.

As curious I was in the beginning, the more cautious I have become with this mans body of work as I further followed his lead. Among the 16 films he directed during the 60s (resulting in a dead end - the two essay-films Le Gai Savoir and Un Film commes lest autres - but not before turning a documentary on the Rolling Stones into a raging and messy political manifest) are some of my favorite films and some which I hope I never have to lay an eye on again.

As I worked my way through these films, many I talked to about his work requested I should review or analyze his films one by one. So after finally finishing all 16 aforementioned works, and with Godard all over the news again (the now 80 year old was awarded with the lifetime achievement academy award as well as others, released his latest feature, Film Socialisme and will have eight highly experimental and divisive films previously not released in germany included in a DVD box-set), I decided to give this a go, and write down my thoughts on his run during the 60s.

But before I start, it is necessary to sum up Godard during that period of time. It is important to note that Godard did not start a filmmaker, but earned his money as a film critic of the popular journal Cahiers du Cinéma, mostly composing reviews not too keen on "classic filmmakers", such as Ingmar Bergman and Henri-Geroges Clouzot. It is of high importance that Godard himself felt frustrated with the filmmakers of his age, requesting a style to match his generation. With hardly any budget, he set out to direct his first short films "on the run" - with hardly a script and equipped only with a camera (mirroring the manifest of the Dogma-movement three decades later). No matter what one might think of Godard's opinion as a critic during that time, this approach has to be applauded, especially in a time in which shooting without a proper studio attached was unthinkable.

Thus, Godard was looking for the language of a generation. And he found it in two slackers.