‘A feast of challenges that had been pure anarchic bliss’
Mike Leigh
The passing of Jean-Luc Godard leaves me pining with deep nostalgic disappointment, regardless of my reservations – shared by many – in regards to the director’s later eccentricities. It was 1960 and Breathless exploded on to the display screen on the exact second I arrived in London, a film-obsessed 17-year-old from Salford, who had by no means seen a film that wasn’t in English, British and Hollywood fare being my sole food plan. Godard’s debut masterpiece did certainly go away one breathless. Free-spirited location filming, spontaneous plausible appearing, wayward unconnected quirky moments … right here was a feast of revelatory challenges to at least one’s concepts about cinema: pure anarchic bliss!
In fact, there have been a number of world cinema discoveries, Truffaut not least – I in all probability really feel nearer to The 400 Blows and Jules et Jim than to something by Godard. However in fact it was Godard who dominated the continual movie narrative of the last decade. He delivered a brand new piece yearly, and I and my cinephile comrades embraced all of them hungrily, by no means failing to argue late into the evening about every new providing.
My favourites: Vivre Sa Vie, Les Carabiniers, Bande à Half and Two or Three Issues I Know About Her. And later, a curious mushy spot for Weekend.
‘His films really feel extra vital and alive than ever’
Martin Scorsese
From Breathlesson, Godard redefined the very thought of what a film was and the place it may go. Nobody was as daring as Godard. You’d watch Vivre Sa Vie or Contempt or Made in USA and also you had the impression that he was truly taking aside his personal film and rebuilding it earlier than your eyes. You by no means knew what to anticipate from second to second, even from body to border – that’s how deep his engagement with cinema went.
He by no means made an image that settled into anyone rhythm or temper or standpoint, and his movies by no means lulled you right into a dream state. They woke you up. They nonetheless do – they usually all the time will. It’s tough to suppose that he’s gone. But when any artist may be stated to have left traces of his personal presence in his artwork, it’s Godard. And I need to say proper now, when so many individuals have gotten used to seeing themselves outlined as passive customers, his films really feel extra vital and alive than ever.
‘His presence made me courageous’
Claire Denis
I've stated to mates that I couldn’t think about a world wherein I used to be alive however Jean-Luc was gone. His presence made me courageous. His movies gave a perception not in cinema – for I used to be already a believer – however in how I needed to discover my very own path, even with my extraordinarily small presents. He quoted – stole, even – from movies, work, music and literature from the entire world, however I imagine his spirit resided in the midst of Europe: a continent heavy with historical past. With Le Petit Soldat, Godard revealed a aspect of France throughout the Algerian liberation battle. As we speak there may be battle in Europe once more, so let’s watch Je Vous Salue, Sarajevo as soon as extra.
‘Cinema was his private Rubik’s Dice’
Paul Schrader
In cinema, there was earlier than Godard and after Godard. For 15 years he disassembled cinema, reassembled it, disassembled it till it grew to become his private Rubik’s Dice. Godard and Dylan are the quizzical lodestars of their technology. Godard was a trickmaster of quotes, so he’ll recognize what Tanya, performed by Marlene Dietrich in Contact of Evil, says about Hank Quinlan: “He was some form of man. What does it matter what you say about individuals?”
‘His movie a few strike at a sausage manufacturing unit blew my thoughts’
Carol Morley
The primary time I noticed a Godard movie was throughout a night A-level movie research class. I used to be 23 and my cinema data was scant. Bev Zalcock our trainer confirmed us Tout Va Bien which revolved round a strike at a sausage manufacturing unit, and my thoughts was blown. What was this movie? How may it exist? When requested the way it differed from different movies we’d seen, it was tough to seek out the phrases – we had been all affected by it in methods we couldn’t but articulate – although I've a really clear reminiscence of 1 scholar saying that a massive distinction for her was the subtitles had been increased up on the display screen than on different overseas movies she’d seen.
However as Bev guided the dialogue it grew to become clear that Godard, in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Gorin, was difficult the spectator in each body: this was political, radical, revolutionary cinema. And it starred Jane Fonda – somebody we’d all heard of! Later, after I grew to become a film-maker, I made a brief known as I’m Not Right here, wherein I've a sequence impressed by Tout Va Bien: a protracted and repeated monitoring shot in a grocery store.
On listening to of Godard’s loss of life, I reached for a ebook on my shelf, Godard on Godard, and opened it to one thing I had learn years in the past: “I make my movies not solely after I’m taking pictures however as I dream, eat, learn, speak to you.” He helped me perceive that making movies would occupy each breath of my life, and he additionally taught me simply how necessary it's to disentangle oneself from the so-called guidelines of cinema and to all the time bear in mind to play and invent and by no means cease studying.
‘The gang had been raging and screaming’
Luca Guadagnino
The elegant energy of the identify Jean-Luc Godard, or I ought to say of the perpetually legendary acronym JLG, got here into my consciousness after I was 14. It was 1985 and at nighttime and oppressed Palermo of my teenage years I bumped in a wildly raging group of individuals screaming in entrance of a theatre the place Hail Mary was enjoying.
How, I questioned, may a film create such a violent response? Then I noticed the film, and thru its luminous terse magnificence I utterly realized the facility of concepts. Godard was a shining gentle that confirmed us the way in which, film after film, thought after thought, language. We're extra lonely at the moment and but his astonishing cinema will perpetually be our information.
‘The texture-bad cardinal who shattered complacency like a hammer on glass’
Mark Cousins
He was the feel-bad cardinal. The hearth and brimstone preacher. I noticed Weekend first and felt assaulted, exalted. He compelled us on to ethical excessive floor, disdained leisure and lyricism. However then I noticed Vivre Sa Vie, which was flooded with feeling, and Two or Three Issues I Know About Her. His movies centred on ladies had been higher, extra forgiving for me. The eroticism of Hail Mary was conflicted. For him, cinema was by no means only a pleasuredome.
His layering of voiceover, textual content and visible montage was usually an excessive amount of for my mind. He and Anne-Marie Miéville outran most different film-makers. They lapped them within the film marathon. His legacy? He shattered complacent cinema like a hammer on glass. I went to Rolle in Switzerland not too long ago, in case I'd stumble upon him or see him strolling his canine. I introduced my digital camera, however how would you movie that?
‘There’s a deep effectively for us to maintain consuming from’
Kelly Reichardt
I do know what Dave Hickey means when he says there’s the way in which the world seemed earlier than Andy Warhol and the way in which it taken care of. Isn’t it the identical with Godard? There’s the way in which movies look earlier than him and the way in which they give the impression of being after. He was so prolific and lived such a protracted life. There’s a deep effectively for us all to maintain consuming from.
‘He spawned Tarantino and Soderbergh – however his later movies are a chore’
Kevin Macdonald
Godard modified cinema. He made it self-conscious as nobody had earlier than – you all the time knew you had been watching a movie whenever you watched his movies, like a Brecht for the films. You're all the time conscious of the method and underpinnings of his movies – and their influences (often American gangster films early on; Vertov and Russian constructivists later). Breathless, Bande à Half, Une Femme Est Une Femme: all good, cool, iconoclastic movies that had been actually about movie-making. He’s not likely considering story, or individuals. He’s considering influences and concepts. He began a critic and remained a critic all his life.
Nevertheless it’s not an excessive amount of to say that Godard spawned Richard Lester, Tarantino, Soderbergh, Céline Sciamma – in different phrases practically all of recent cinema. These early movies nonetheless have a daring that takes my breath away. However the later movies I've seen are principally a chore: extremely political, extremely confrontational – even when typically formally ingenious. He adored to “épater la bourgeoisie”. Which means I have to be bourgeoisie, as a result of these movies actually “épatéd” me. However I did love his Rolling Stones documentary One Plus One, which pitted the vacuity of the band rehearsing in opposition to scenes of radical road politics. It says extra about rock music and its position in society than every other movie of the period – maybe except Gimme Shelter.
I as soon as labored with Caroline Champetier, a director of pictures who was a Godard common within the 80s and 90s. I held on each phrase I may glean from her about “the grasp”. I used to be struck by her tales about filming in Russia on a conceptual model of Anna Karenina, shot among the many crumbling post-Soviet railway stations of Moscow. The factor is, Godard didn’t go along with her. He directed from Paris by telephone. One way or the other that summed him up for me: outrageously daring, very cool – however perhaps missing the human contact.
‘I devoured administrators however I by no means moved on from him’
Abel Ferrara
I'm sitting in a taxi cab and the radio is enjoying Satisfaction by the Stones and the girl announcer is saying: “Soixante-cinque, 1965.” Jean-Luc was actually rolling then. I began making movies in 1967 after I was 16 and shortly found they made films outdoors of Hollywood. I used to devour one nice director at a time, watch the whole lot then transfer on, however I by no means moved on from him.
Like Pasolini, the writing was as particular because the movies and introduced us again once more, to see them in a special gentle. I grew up pondering, after the loss of life of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, that the subsequent batch would come alongside quickly however they by no means did. Nobody ever adopted him. Apart from Pier Paolo Pasolini, nobody got here shut. I'd sit as a child film-maker and even the poetry of the titles would blow my thoughts: My Life to Reside, One Plus One, A Girl Is a Girl, Alphaville and my favorite, All of the Boys Are Known as Patrick. A tragic day.
‘His fierce ardour towers above us’
Terence Davies
As Proust and Joyce are to the novel, so Godard is to cinema. All of them nonetheless solid their energy over new writers and administrators. Godard’s affect and his fierce ardour tower above us, and we who're left behind can solely bear in mind and bask on this mirrored glory. It's arduous to say goodbye when au revoir could be extra comforting. We are actually impoverished by his going. I didn’t know him personally however he gave me a praise as soon as which I shall all the time treasure. So, girls and gents, hats off and stand for the passing of a genius.
‘I used to be conscious for the primary time of what a movie director was’
Peter Webber
I used to be in London’s Portobello Highway within the very late 70s – a teen who had come to purchase some reggae information in Daddy Kool, solely to seek out the store closed. It was raining and I used to be at a free finish. I made a decision to see what was on on the Electrical Cinema, then a run down flea pit. Pierrot Le Fou was nearly to start out and I went in understanding nothing in regards to the movie. What I noticed electrified me. It was ostensibly a thriller however like no different movie I had ever seen. Actors circled and spoke on to the digital camera. The music began and stopped in ways in which compelled you to note how the soundtrack was manipulating your emotions. Characters broke out randomly into track, or comedy skits, the style shifting and mutating at a second’s discover. It was passionate and romantic, cynical and sly and heartfelt all on the similar time. I fell desperately in love with Godard’s muse, Anna Karina, probably the most luminous of actresses.
By the point the film completed, I used to be conscious for the primary time of what a movie director was, and the way most films had guidelines that this movie simply exploded to wonderful impact. And I got here out of the cinema into the rain muttering to myself: “That’s what I wish to do. I wish to make movies.” It appeared an inconceivable dream nevertheless it was a dream that got here true – and it’s all Godard’s fault. A couple of many years later, I used to be again within the Electrical, by now a swanky members’ membership, casting my first movie for the cinema: Woman With A Pearl Earring. It felt just like the circle was full.
‘He was at his greatest when speaking movie moderately than making movie’
John Boorman
His early movies had been vivid and romantic, swept alongside by the French New Wave. Later, his movies grew to become mental and obscure. When he had a movie in Cannes his press convention was all the time an ideal occasion and packed out. He was at his greatest when speaking movie moderately than making them however he was an ideal innovator and stretched the artwork of movie to its limits and past.
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