Jean-Luc Godard began his career in the filmmaking industry as a film critic in the Cahiers du Cinema magazine, Godard, and other critics featured in the magazine, went on to begin the French New Wave; Godard’s films and writings have been studied ever since in film schools and cinema courses everywhere.

Godard said that he has always considered himself both a critic, and a filmmaker. When he was solely a critic he thought of himself as a filmmaker, and now as he creates films he sees himself more of a critic ‘than ever before’. He creates films as if he were constructing essays, constantly creating a conversation about filmmaking industry as a whole.

Godard’s theory of film bought about the idea of the self-reflexive film. While watching a film, audiences should be aware that they are in fact watching a film and the film itself should be aware of its situation within the film industry in which it was created. Godard’s films are made with this idea in mind.

Godard is well – known for his use of jump cuts, dramatic cuts in the middle of scenes that cause the audience to be drawn out of the fiction world created on the screen and back into the real world, in which they and the film industry exist. In his first film Breathless these jump cuts are extremely relevant, as are the moment in which the protagonist is talking directly to the screen, which work to the same effect as the jump cuts.

It is interesting to note that the jump cuts used in breathless were not a creative choice, he said that his first film, as many others are, was too long as he had too much to say. Rather than cutting out whole scenes he decided he would cut out the less important parts of individual scene, thus creating the jump cuts he is so well recognized for. This had to happen, as he did not have the budget or time to shoot these scenes again. This technique also aided his theory of films being self-aware and creating a conversation with the audience.

One of the major intentions of Godard’s filmmaking techniques is that is causes the audience to question certain things about the world and themselves, just as the film is critiquing itself and the world in which it exists. Godard’s films film theories were born in a time that the American Genre Film was dying and there was a sense that you could do anything, even without money in France. Both the dying genre film as well as the environment that he was in inspired Godard to create films. In creating these films he puts his critics of cinema into another form and practiced what he theorized, all the while continuing critiquing, changing and inspiriting the world of cinema.

Godard’s style and way of filmmaking was created out of a desire to create something new with a medium that he loved; in doing so he inspired the future of filmmaking and changed filmmakers’ approach to cinema drastically.

REFERENCES:

Where Film Meets Philosophy : Godard, Resnais, and Experiments in Cinematic Thinking 

Godard’s “Breathless” and Richard Linklater’s “Slacker”

Godard inspired today’s greats

The Avant-Garde Feature Film : A Critical History