Godard, Jean-Luc << gaw DAHR, zhahn look >> (1930-2022), was a controversial French motion-picture director. His radical experiments with camera work, subject matter, and scripts have won both praise and criticism. Some critics have commended him for opening the way for other directors to experiment. But others have complained that his films are needlessly difficult to understand.
Many of Godard’s films give the impression that they are semidocumentaries. The actors exist as real people playing roles and also as the characters of a story. In the middle of a scene, for example, the actors may begin talking about the characters they are playing.
Godard was born in Paris on Dec. 3, 1930. His first film, Breathless (1960), launched his career. In Breathless, the performers sometimes improvised their lines. This film became famous for its short, jerky changes of scenes. A Woman Is a Woman (1961) was Godard’s first comedy.
Beginning in 1965, political and social discussions, often stressing left-wing philosophy, dominated many of Godard’s films. La Chinoise (1967) tells about a group of young French Marxists. Alphaville (1965) and Weekend (1967) present different views of individuals trapped in a meaningless existence. Godard’s other major works include Le Petit Soldat (filmed in 1960 and released in 1963), Contempt (1963), Sympathy for the Devil (1970), In Praise of Love (2001), and Goodbye to Language (2014). He received an honorary Oscar in 2010 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Godard died on Sept. 13, 2022.
See also Breathless; Motion picture (The New Wave in France).
