“No one was as daring”: the director who redefined the very concept of cinema, according to Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese helped to light up New Hollywood with the same vivacity as the French New Wave masters who came just before him.
While he didn’t reinvent the medium as radically as the likes of François Truffaut, Agnes Varda, and Jean-Luc Godard, he carried their experimental flair and desire to augment the mainstream into his work, becoming a defining figure of the American New Wave.
The French New Wave had come at the tail end of the 1950s and prospered across the following decade, and a young Scorsese studying film in New York witnessed this all in real-time. He saw these European directors deliver a vision of cinema that was so new and drastic, where the very forms of their films were manipulated, politics directly collided with the personal, and the days of studio-bound productions shot on sets seemed long gone.
These brave new auteurs filmed on location, often with handheld cameras, and they liked to break the fourth wall, play with the narrative, colour and genre, and rip up rules, which to young filmmakers like Scorsese was like seeing cinema through a whole new lens. In particular, it was Godard whom he considered to be at the core of this transformative time for cinema, finding endless inspiration from this filmmaking master.
“From Breathless on, Godard redefined the very idea of what a movie was and where it could go. No one was as daring as Godard. You’d watch Vivre Sa Vie or Contempt or Made in USA, and you had the impression that he was actually taking apart his own movie and rebuilding it before your eyes,” Scorsese told The Guardian upon Godard’s passing in 2022.
The reconstruction of form was central to Godard’s practice, where he used handwritten intertitles and unusual editing techniques, as though he’d laid out all of his shots and rearranged them like a puzzle, finding new meaning by placing certain images together, or adding a still image in between scenes. Look at Pierrot Le Fou, which brought us close to images of paintings, writing, and faces. Godard really used his lens like a paintbrush, illuminating every frame with real intention. Not a moment was wasted, and not a shot was without real depth and beauty.
“You never knew what to expect from moment to moment, even from frame to frame – that’s how deep his engagement with cinema went,” Scorsese continued, “He never made a picture that settled into any one rhythm or mood or point of view, and his films never lulled you into a dream state. They woke you up. They still do, and they always will.”
Godard’s influence was so mammoth that you can see it in everything from Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino to Wes Anderson, where, in fact, it’s truly difficult to picture what the modern landscape of filmmaking would look like if Godard had never taken his passion for film criticism and turned it into a career as a director. He was boldly political, seeing film as a radical medium for expression and rebellion, and he continued to experiment up until he died, always remaining unashamedly authentic.
“If any artist can be said to have left traces of his own presence in his art, it’s Godard. And I must say right now, when so many people have gotten used to seeing themselves defined as passive consumers, his movies feel more necessary and alive than ever,” Scorsese concluded.
