Jean-Luc Godard, giant of the French New Wave, dies at 91

Were his later movies any good, or did he peak with his movies in the 1960s such as Breathless?

I remember Weekend blew my fragile little first-year mind, and Masculine/Feminine was eye-opening too. Haven’t seen his later stuff.

Saddened to hear this news.

This saddened me, too. First sad this month. We saw Le Petit Soldat and Les Carabiniersin my film class, and they blew my little mind.

In terms of using the properties of the medium to express a point, Godard was indisputably a great – and influential – film director. In all likelihood, he is also the “great director” who made more bad and even unwatchable movies than any other. His sense of narrative – in the best of times loose – gradually abandoned him, making his films progressively less interesting.

Of his later efforts, I’ve seen Germany Year Nine Zero (1991), an excruciating slog of a TV movie that makes its one point – the loss of German identity following reunification – repeatedly, repeatedly while wasting Eddie Constantine (as “Lemmy Caution”) in one of his last roles. Godard’s short piece for Aria (1987) was one-joke…which was one joke more than could be found in most of the rest of the film.

Well, he’s taken his last breath.

Seriously, though, I love that movie. He and Belmondo were like Scorcese and DeNiro.

I worked on my friend’s film, Zombie! Vs. Mardi Gras. I think only The Christian Science Monitor picked up that it was influenced by Jean-Luc Godard. (George Romero zombies, Roger Corman budget, and directed by Jean-Luc Godard.)

I’d recommend “Les Mepris”, especially for those who might not be the biggest “art-house” fans.