The 50^th Anniversary of French New Wave Cinema
Repertory Cinema 2009 programme 2 – Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard is one of the most important auteurs of the French New Wave. With 90 films under his belt, his works are at the forefront, experimental, breaking the conventional mode and dares to express a political standing.

Born on 3 December 1930 to a wealthy Parisian family, Godard studied anthropology at university but was a frequent visitor to the Cinemathéque and film clubs, and became friends with Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut.

In 1950, Rohmer founded the magazine Gazette du Cinema and Godard became a frequent contributor, his first long essay "Towards a Political Cinema" was also published there. Unfortunately, the magazine only lasted for five issues (May to November, 1950). But it was really at Les Cahiers du Cinéma, founded by Bazin in 1952, that Godard turned into a famous critic. But his writings were also deemed too refined, philosophical, and the erratic viewpoint was too difficult for the readers to understand. Critic James Monaco once listed these four of Godard’s essays: "Towards a Political Cinema", "What is Cinema?", "Montage, My Lovely Worry", and "Defense and Illustration of Classical Construction" as his representative works. These essays have become the foundations of the Godard style and aesthetics.

In 1954, Godard used his earnings as a dam construction worker to shoot his first film Operation Concrete (Opération béton, 1954). Inspired by Touch of Evil (1958), he used a 15-page script by Truffaut, cast the still unknown Jean-Paul Belmondo and with limited cash to make Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960) within four weeks. The film was a hit amongst the Parisian youth and was Godard’s only box-office hit in his whole career. Most importantly, as Truffaut had said, “Film history can now be divided into pre-Godard and post-Godard.”

French thinker Gilles Deleuze once said, "Godard had exceeded and deeply influenced all people, not through success but by continuing his unique way, a forcibly invisible line, constantly broken, bent, and underground."

This has summed up that within the French New Wave, Godard is treading on a path different from Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette and Claude Chabrol.