Five films that influenced Jean-Luc Godard
French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard passed away last week, leaving behind a legacy almost unparalleled. The director was a key figure in the transition from France’s traditional cinema – which this new wave of young filmmakers saw as outdated and stale – into a progressive, innovative mode of creation.
Alongside the likes of Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette, these filmmakers helped to revitalise the cinema, and their influence spread internationally.
Godard is arguably the best known of the group, who continued to make experimental and divisive films up until his death. His first feature was Breathless, noted for its revolutionary use of jump cuts and a documentary-style of shooting that was a lightyear away from the studio-made cinema that dominated during this period.
During the 1960s, Godard became well-known for his political films paired with a distinctive aesthetic of bright colours, breaking of the fourth wall, and radical editing techniques. As the years progressed, Godard distanced himself from commercial cinema, instead creating even more radical films with less focus on his distinctive aesthetic.
Godard’s oeuvre has inspired countless filmmakers, and you’d struggle to find a film course that doesn’t teach at least one of his films. Yet Godard, of course, had his own inspirations, which influenced him to create some of the most important films of the 20th century.
Here are five films that influenced the filmmaker the most…
Five films that influenced Jean-Luc Godard:
Man With A Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
Dziga Vertov’s revolutionary avant-garde documentary Man With A Movie Camera was a landmark in experimental filming and editing techniques. Vertov’s film uses such techniques as Dutch angles, double exposure, match cuts, tracking shots, and freeze frames, many of which the director pioneered.
Vertov’s prioritisation of form over content was hugely influential over Godard and his friend Jean-Pierre Gorin, who formed the Dziga Vertov Group together, aiming to create politically-motivated films with Marxist themes. The young filmmakers believed that Vertov’s films were more revolutionary than the likes of Sergei Eisenstein.
Gorin explained that they “adopted the name of Vertov after careful thought. We didn’t want the vulgarity of narrative. If there are characters, it’s bourgeois.” Vertov’s work was vital in inspiring Godard’s political work, which also prioritised radical uses of form.
Orphée (Jean Cocteau, 1950)
Acting as the second instalment of French artist Jean Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy – which also contains The Blood of a Poet and Testament of Orpheus – Orphée explores the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in contemporary Paris. Orphée is an experimentation with visual poetry and remains Cocteau’s most mesmerising work.
When Godard moved to Paris, he reportedly said: “I shall be the Cocteau of the new generation”. Whether this is true or not remains as mythical as Orphée‘s subject matter, however, one thing we know for certain is that Godard harboured a deep respect for Cocteau. Photos of the artist at different stages of his career can even be seen in Godard’s adaptation of King Lear.
Godard’s 1965 science-fiction film Alphaville, which features Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina, owes a large debt to Orphée. Lemmy Caution’s search for Harry Dickson parallels Orphée’s search for his wife Cégeste. Furthermore, both films heavily use poetry as a source of power for the main characters. Both Cocteau and Godard use art as a means of progression and inciting change, adapting the classic myth and applying it as a form of social critique.
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
Upon the release of Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket, Godard heralded it as the best film of 1959. Filmed at the same time as Godard’s Breathless, which also took place on the streets of Paris, both directors incorporated deeply reflective and enduring questions about society into their films. Bresson’s film continued to inspire Godard over his career – he even stated that Pickpocket was the main inspiration for Le Petit Soldat.
Godard once said that he “would surely like to be moved now as much as I had been moved by Pickpocket. One thought: ah, such a thing can be done!
” The influence of the film can also be seen in Vivre sa vie, starring Godard’s frequent collaborator and lover, Anna Karina. Told in 12 fragments so that audiences can witness the tragedy of a young prostitute’s life, Vivre sa vie was greatly influenced by Pickpocket‘s storytelling method, which only shows what needs to be seen to give an objective view of events.
Voyage to Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1954)
A monumental work of modernist cinema, Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy had a massive impact on Godard, who said: “Once I had seen [Voyage to Italy], I knew that, even if I were never to make movies, I could make them.” The film’s ability to blend classicism with a documentary-style authenticity impressed the director, as were the rest of his contemporaries.
The young French New Wave directors famously saw the film as “the moment when poetic cinema grew up and became indisputably modern.” Rossellini’s masterpiece has many proto-New Wave sensibilities, such as being barely scripted and only half-planned out and improvised. Although this annoyed many cast members, such as George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman, the results paid off and demonstrated to a young Godard that anything was possible.
Street of Shame (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1956)
The French critic Jean Douchet once argued that Godard’s “Vivre sa vie would have been impossible without Street of Shame, Mizoguchi’s last and most sublime film”. Godard was inspired by the use of aesthetics in Street of Shame, which followed similar intentions despite differing radically from his.
Street of Shame utilises crane shots to depict haunting displays of violence and create a bubbling atmosphere of tension via long takes to convey the unfair and cruel circumstances thrust upon women forced to work in a brothel. Godard was inspired by Mizoguchi’s use of formal techniques to display the harshness of the subjects’ lives, which undoubtedly inspired his films, which also confronted socio-economic inequalities.
