Rebel with a cause: Remembering Jean Luc-Godard

Jean-Luc Godard burst into the scene at a time when audiences were used to a particular format of filmmaking from Godard's contemporaries who seemed to borrow rather heavily from American cinema. It’s not to say Godard wasn't influenced too, but he seemed to have the knack of turning influences into something original, something hitherto unseen.

A visual storyteller, Godard seemed to create his own rules with an unforgettable journey that began with his 1960 directorial debut, Breathless, an amalgamation of every archetype associated with film noir. His films, when filtered through the auteur’s fiercely political and philosophical lens, took different shapes and forms. Form. That would be the operative word in speaking of this French New Wave pioneer. A director and in many ways, a rebel, he once said, "A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." Imagine the collective sigh let out by the numerous aspiring filmmakers who must have felt so confined by the boundaries of convention. Imagine the contempt of every film professor so smitten by the traditional three-act structure.

His debut, Breathless, is still celebrated for its use of jump-cuts, an approach considered revolutionary at the time. The director would impress again, with more experimentation in time and structure, with films such as My Life to Live (1962)—an episodic chronicle of a desperate woman—and A Married Woman (1964)—a relationship drama that cleverly employed montages. The following year, Godard came up with his version of a science fiction film, Alphaville (1965), which, like Breathless before it, borrowed heavily from American detective fiction. Its protagonist, a private eye, Lemmy Caution, arrives at an alien planet that looks very much like... earth. Well, that’s one way to create 'suspension of disbelief.'

A former film critic, Godard's interests were many, which ran the gamut from psychology to literature to the Algerian war to Vietnam to Marxism to epic theatre... His films could connect to viewers across all generations, particularly to those reeling from unshakeable angst.  The filmmaker was open to experimenting with formats. He employed the cinema verite (documentary-style) approach and the more classical variety; he used colour to stunning effect in films such as Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, and Weekend. He even experimented with 3D in Goodbye to Language (2014). That's another standout quality of Godard: Each film looked different from the other.

His cinema is an acquired taste. Even during his early years, audiences took time to warm up to his work, but gradually, he found more love. It has grown and grown, and today, as the director has passed away, no self-respecting cinephile can be oblivious to the work and influence of Godard.

American film critic, Roger Ebert, perhaps best summarised Godard this: "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." It’s often said that cinema is all the poorer for the death of some legends. But Godard… He wasn’t his body for those who revered him. He was his body of work, and that will live forever.