Jean-Luc Godard will always be alive

Jean-Luc Godard, who was a film critic who went on to direct movies, pushed the possibilities of making a film and also cinema as a medium. His works have left me in awe and curious in equal measure.

All discussions on ‘Godard’ begin from ‘Breathless’ (1960). It is believed that the jump cut was first used in crime dramas. Why did he use the technique? What was he trying to say with it? Why did nobody think of using jump cuts till then? 

According to me, only a philosopher can make such a radical move. It can be possible for someone who constantly thinks of cinema as a medium. So I see Godard as a thinker and philosopher.

As an aspiring filmmaker, I found Godard’s journey to be inspiring. I remember watching an Abbas Kiarostami film and looking for more filmmakers of that era. I was keen on knowing directors who inspired the works of Kiarostami and others. Godard was a name not so hard to miss.

It’s not about what I learnt from his films. It’s his approach to filmmaking that gave me confidence. I realised that if I had a camera and knew sound recording, I could do a film. Who gave me this courage? It has to be the likes of Godard, Kiarostami and Francois Truffaut.

For my short film ‘Kurli’, which was in black and white, I edited and handled the cinematography with my friend. That was the first time I had used a camera. I hadn’t even clicked a photograph with a DSLR camera till then. Godard had shown me it’s possible.

I may not have been able to relate to French culture but it’s Godard’s spirit, that of a film critic taking giant strides in cinema, that kept haunting me. It’s his approach to life and art that made me think.

Godard broke many conventions of filmmaking. His ‘Oh Woe Is Me’ (1993) debunked the idea of telling a story in a full-fledged manner. That doesn’t mean the film’s story was jumbled or it wasn’t devoid of any politics. But it questioned the notion of cinema being a medium for storytelling. It quashed the theory of cinema being a tool for social messages. It stayed away from many preconceived ideas about a film.

I can never forget the opening sequence of ‘Vivre Sa Vie’ (1962) with Anna Karina. It begins with an extreme close-up of her face. Perhaps we saw a similar scene in one of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s films.

I wondered if we could start a film like that. It shows the side profile of her face and then the front and the right profile. It impacted me a lot. This isn’t storytelling. Maybe it’s like the alap in music which connects to our emotional senses.

In ‘Weekend’ (1967), there is a famous scene where there are several cars and you hear continuous honking. I don’t know why I can never forget that. It has gotten imprinted in my mind. Such is the capacity of the director.

Many called Godard iconoclast and anarchic. He wasn’t interested in party politics but we cannot confirm what he was trying to say. That will be misquoting him. He never stuck to one thing so it’s not right to box him in one category.

The French New Wave, pioneered by Godard, has undoubtedly played a huge role in the history of world cinema. The works of Maurice Pialat, Truffaut, Godard, Claude Chabrol, Agnes Varda and Jacques Rivette will be mentioned in any list of 50 all-time great movies.

Even if they were part of one wave, they all had independent styles and told different things. For instance, Chabrol told social stories through dark themes. Godard took the soul of King Lear and made his own while Truffaut’s works have several meanings.

It’s interesting that none of them waxed eloquent about their contemporaries. Godard’s ‘Breathless’ was written by Truffaut. The two even shut down the Cannes Film Festivals with their protests in 1968. But the duo didn’t see eye to eye for a long time after Godard criticised Truffaut’s ‘Day For Night’ (1973).  Do we call them rebels? I would say they had a continuous pursuit of perfection.

I watched ‘Contempt’ (1963) again recently and it didn’t feel the same. That’s the quality of Godard’s films. Every time you watch them, you find different meanings.

We tell a variety of stories through the same form. There are few who changed the form and one of them is Godard. Hence, till the existence of cinema, Godard will always be alive.

(As told to Vivek M V. Natesh is a Kannada filmmaker. His debut ‘Pedro’ has won several prestigious international awards).