Editing Jean-Luc Godard (section)

== New Wave (1960–1967) ==
=== ''Breathless'' ===
Godard's [[Breathless (1960 film)| ''Breathless'']] (''À bout de souffle'', 1960), starring [[Jean-Paul Belmondo]] and [[Jean Seberg]], distinctly expressed the [[French New Wave]]'s style, and incorporated quotations from several elements of popular culture—specifically American [[film noir]]. It was based on a story suggested by [[François Truffaut]].<ref name=NYTObit/> The film employed various techniques such as the innovative use of [[jump cuts]] (which were traditionally considered amateurish), [[aside| character asides]] and breaking the [[eyeline match]] in [[continuity editing]].{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=59}}{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=69}} Another unique aspect of ''Breathless'' was the spontaneous writing of the script on the day of shooting—a technique that the actors found unsettling—which contributed to the spontaneous, documentary-like ambiance of the film.<ref name=BBC>{{Cite news |date=13 September 2022 |title=Jean-Luc Godard: Nine things about the man who remade cinema |language=en-GB |work=[[BBC News]] |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-46709681 |access-date=14 September 2022 |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914015146/https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-46709681 |url-status=live }}</ref>

From the beginning of his career, Godard included more film references in his movies than any of his New Wave colleagues. In ''Breathless'', his citations include a movie poster showing [[Humphrey Bogart]] (from his last film, ''[[The Harder They Fall (1956 film)|The Harder They Fall]]''),{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=70}} whose expression Belmondo tries reverently to imitate—visual quotations from the films of [[Ingmar Bergman]], [[Samuel Fuller]], [[Fritz Lang]] and others; and an onscreen dedication to [[Monogram Pictures]], an American [[B-movie]] studio.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2013/07/02/jean-luc-godards-breathless/|title=MoMA &#124; Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless|website=moma.org|access-date=13 September 2022|archive-date=7 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200407110746/https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2013/07/02/jean-luc-godards-breathless/|url-status=live}}</ref> Quotations from, and references to, literature include [[William Faulkner]], [[Dylan Thomas]], [[Louis Aragon]], [[Rainer Maria Rilke]], [[Françoise Sagan]] and [[Maurice Sachs]]. The film also contains citations to composers ([[Johann Sebastian Bach |J. S. Bach]], [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |Mozart]]) and painters ([[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]], [[Paul Klee]] and [[Auguste Renoir]]).{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=71}}

Godard wanted to hire Seberg, who was living in Paris with her husband François Moreuil, a lawyer, to play the American woman. Seberg had become famous in 1956 when [[Otto Preminger]] had chosen her to play [[Joan of Arc]] in his ''[[Saint Joan (1957 film)|Saint Joan]]'', and had then cast her in his 1958 adaptation of ''[[Bonjour Tristesse (1958 film)|Bonjour Tristesse]]''.{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=54}} Her performance in this film had not been generally regarded as a success—''[[The New York Times]]''{{'}}s critic called her a "misplaced amateur"—but Truffaut and Godard disagreed. In the role of Michel Poiccard, Godard cast Belmondo, an actor he had already called, in ''Arts'' in 1958, "the [[Michel Simon]] and the [[Jules Berry]] of tomorrow."<ref>''Godard on Godard'', p. 150.</ref> The cameraman was [[Raoul Coutard]], choice of the producer Beauregard. Godard wanted ''Breathless'' to be shot like a documentary, with a lightweight handheld camera and a minimum of added lighting; Coutard had experience as a documentary cameraman while working for the French army's information service during the [[French-Indochina War]]. Tracking shots were filmed by Coutard from a wheelchair pushed by Godard. Though Godard had prepared a traditional screenplay, he dispensed with it and wrote the dialogue day by day as the production went ahead.{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=62}} The film's importance was recognized immediately, and in January 1960 Godard won the [[Prix Jean Vigo|Jean Vigo Prize]], awarded "to encourage an [[auteur theory| auteur]] of the future". One reviewer mentioned [[Alexandre Astruc]]'s prophecy of the age of the ''caméra-stylo'', the camera that a new generation would use with the efficacy with which a writer uses his pen—"here is in fact the first work authentically written with a ''caméra-stylo''{{-"}}.{{sfn|Brody|2008|pp=72–73}} [[Richard Brody]] writes: "After ''Breathless'', anything artistic appeared possible in the cinema. The film moved at the speed of the mind and seemed, unlike anything that preceded it, a live recording of one person thinking in real time."<ref name=NYTObit/> [[Phillip Lopate]] wrote that "It seemed a new kind of storytelling, with its saucy jump cuts, digressions, quotes, in jokes and addresses to the viewer."<ref name=NYTObit/>

[[File:Aankomst Franse filmster Anna Karina op Schiphol, Bestanddeelnr 921-0594.jpg|thumb|[[Anna Karina]], having rejected a role in ''Breathless'', appeared in the next film shot by Godard, ''[[Le petit soldat]]'' (''The Little Soldier''), which concerned France's war in Algeria.]]

=== Early work with Anna Karina ===
In 1960 Godard shot ''[[Le petit soldat]]'' (''The Little Soldier''). The cast included Godard's future wife [[Anna Karina]]. At this time Karina had virtually no experience as an actress. Godard used her awkwardness as an element of her performance. Godard and Karina were a couple by the end of the shoot. She appeared again, along with Belmondo, in Godard's first color film, ''[[A Woman Is a Woman]]'' (1961), their first project to be released. The film was intended as an homage to the [[Musical Film|American musical]]. Adjustments that Godard made to the original version of the story gave it autobiographical resonances, "specifically in regard to his relationship with Anna Karina." The film revealed "the confinement within the four walls of domestic life" and "the emotional and artistic fault lines that threatened their relationship".{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=110}}

=== ''Vivre sa vie'' ===
Godard's next film, ''[[My Life to Live|Vivre sa vie]]'' (''My Life to Live'', 1962), was one of his most popular among critics. Karina starred as Nana, an errant mother and aspiring actress whose financially strained circumstances lead her to the life of a [[streetwalker]]. It is an episodic account of her rationalizations to prove she is free, even though she is tethered at the end of her [[pimp]]'s short leash. In one scene, within a café, she spreads her arms out and announces she is free to raise or lower them as she wishes.<ref name="far" />

The film was a popular success and led to [[Columbia Pictures]] giving him a deal where he would be provided with $100,000 to make a movie, with complete artistic control.<ref name="far">{{cite news |title=France's Far Out Filmmaker |first=Eugene |last=Archer |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=27 September 1964 |page=X11}}</ref>

=== ''Le petit soldat'' and ''Les Carabiniers'' ===
''Le petit soldat'' was not released until 1963, the first of three films he released that year. It dealt with the [[Algerian War of Independence]] and was banned by the French government for the next two years due to its political nature.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Brody |first1=Richard |title=Godard's Truthful Torture Scene |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/godards-truthful-torture-scene |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |access-date=14 September 2022 |archive-date=24 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220924210256/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/godards-truthful-torture-scene |url-status=live }}</ref> The 'little soldier' Bruno Forestier was played by [[Michel Subor]]. Forestier was a character close to Godard himself, an image-maker and intellectual, 'more or less my spokesman, but not totally' Godard told an interviewer.{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=92}}

The film begins on 13 May 1958, the date of the [[May 1958 crisis|attempted putsch in Algeria]], and ends later the same month. In the film, Bruno Forestier, a [[photojournalist]] who has links with a right-wing paramilitary group working for the French government, is ordered to murder a professor accused of aiding the Algerian resistance. He is in love with Veronica Dreyer, a young woman who has worked with the Algerian fighters. He is captured by Algerian militants and tortured. His organization captures and tortures her. In making ''Le petit soldat'', Godard took the unusual step of writing dialogue every day and calling the lines to the actors during filming – a technique made possible by filming without direct sound and dubbing dialogue in post-production.{{sfn|Brody|2008|p=86}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Le Petit Soldat (1957) |url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/81103/le-petit-soldat#synopsis |website=[[Turner Classic Movies]] |access-date=14 September 2022 |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914230024/https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/81103/le-petit-soldat#synopsis |url-status=live }}</ref>

His following film was ''[[The Carabineers|Les Carabiniers]]'', based on a story by [[Roberto Rossellini]], one of Godard's influences.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kolker |first1=Robert Phillip |title=Bernardo Bertolucci |year=1985 |page=34 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195204926 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tvQqAQAAIAAJ |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164807/https://books.google.com/books?id=tvQqAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> The film follows two peasants who join the army of a king, only to find futility in the whole thing as the king reveals the deception of war-administrating leaders.

=== ''Contempt'' ===
His final film of 1963, and the most commercially successful of his career, was [[Contempt (film)|''Le Mépris'']] (''Contempt''), starring [[Michel Piccoli]] and one of France's biggest female stars, [[Brigitte Bardot]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Marquand |first1=David |title=Jean-Luc Godard: what was the French New Wave and what films are must-sees? |url=https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/09/13/jean-luc-godard-what-was-the-french-new-wave-and-what-films-are-must-sees |website=[[Euronews]]|date=13 September 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Paragraph: The Journal of the Modern Critical Theory Group |date=1992 |publisher=[[University of California]] |page=87 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4yQnAQAAIAAJ |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164807/https://books.google.com/books?id=4yQnAQAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> The film follows Paul (Piccoli), a screenwriter who is commissioned by Prokosch ([[Jack Palance]]), an arrogant American movie producer, to rewrite the script for an adaptation of [[Homer]]'s ''[[Odyssey]]'', directed by Austrian director [[Fritz Lang]] (playing himself). Lang's '[[high culture]]' interpretation of the story is lost on Prokosch, whose character is a firm indictment of the commercial motion picture hierarchy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Contempt |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0057345/ |access-date=13 September 2022 |website=[[Box Office Mojo]] |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914004312/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0057345/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Anouchka Films ===
In 1964, Godard and Karina formed a production company, Anouchka Films.<ref>Sterritt 1998, p. xvii</ref> He directed [[Bande à part (film)| ''Bande à part'']] (''Band of Outsiders''), also starring Karina and described by Godard as "''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' meets [[Franz Kafka]]."<ref name=boo>{{cite book |last1=Katz |first1=Ephraim |title=The Film Encyclopedia |date=1979 |publisher=Crowell |isbn=9780690012040 |page=488 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JYnspeARJpwC |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164813/https://books.google.com/books?id=JYnspeARJpwC |url-status=live }}</ref> It follows two young men, looking to score on a heist, who both fall in love with Karina, and quotes from several [[gangster film]] conventions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Band of Outsiders |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0057869/ |access-date=13 September 2022 |website=Box Office Mojo |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914004326/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0057869/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=boo/> While promoting the film, Godard wrote that according to [[D. W. Griffith]], all one needs to make a film is "a girl and a gun."<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=17 April 2012 |title=Shooting Movies |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/shooting-movies |access-date=14 September 2022 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |language=en-US |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914044500/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/shooting-movies |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[A Married Woman| Une femme mariée]]'' (''A Married Woman'', 1964) followed ''Band of Outsiders''. It was a slow, deliberate, toned-down black-and-white picture without a real story. The film was shot in four weeks<ref>[[Luc Moullet]], ''Masters of Cinema'' No. 4, booklet p. 10.</ref> and was "an explicitly and stringently modernist film". It showed Godard's "engagement with the most advanced thinking of the day, as expressed in the work of [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] and [[Roland Barthes]]" and its fragmentation and abstraction reflected also "his loss of faith in the familiar [[Hollywood (film industry)|Hollywood]] styles."{{sfn|Brody|2008|pp=190–191}}

In 1965, Godard directed [[Alphaville (film)|''Alphaville'']], a futuristic blend of [[science fiction]], [[film noir]] and satire.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Meehan |first1=Paul |title=The Fusion of Science Fiction and Film Noir |date=2015 |publisher=McFarland |page=126 |isbn=9781476609737 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RBFeCgAAQBAJ |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164813/https://books.google.com/books?id=RBFeCgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Eddie Constantine]] starred as [[Lemmy Caution]], a detective who is sent into a city controlled by a giant computer named Alpha 60. His mission is to make contact with Professor von Braun ([[Howard Vernon]]), a famous scientist who has fallen mysteriously silent, and is believed to be suppressed by the computer.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/addeb444-8d6c-4450-9c1e-b6c8a8f60c93?shareType=nongift|title=The FT Alphaville genesis story|newspaper=[[Financial Times]] |date=15 September 2022|access-date=16 September 2022|archive-date=16 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220916141729/https://www.ft.com/content/addeb444-8d6c-4450-9c1e-b6c8a8f60c93?shareType=nongift|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Alphaville |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0058898/ |access-date=13 September 2022 |website=Box Office Mojo |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914004313/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0058898/ |url-status=live }}</ref> His next film was ''[[Pierrot le Fou]]'' (1965). [[Gilles Jacob]], an author, critic and president of the [[Cannes Film Festival]], called it both a "retrospective" and recapitulation.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Galbraith IV |first1=Stuart |title=Pierrot Le Fou – Criterion Collection |url=https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/38457/pierrot-le-fou/ |website=DVDTalk.com |access-date=14 September 2022 |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914223823/https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/38457/pierrot-le-fou/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He solicited the participation of Belmondo, by then a famous actor, to guarantee the necessary amount of funding for the expensive film.<ref>{{cite book |last1=MacCabe |first1=Colin |title=Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy |date=18 February 2014 |publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |page=174 |isbn=9781466862364 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9KqfAgAAQBAJ |access-date=13 September 2022 |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914191305/https://books.google.com/books?id=9KqfAgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Godard said the film was "connected with the violence and loneliness that lie so close to happiness today. It's very much a film about France."<ref>Godard--France's Brilliant Misfit Ardagh, John. Los Angeles Times 17 April 1966: b8.</ref> The film featured American director [[Samuel Fuller]] as himself.

''[[Masculin Féminin]]'' (1966), based on two [[Guy de Maupassant]] stories, ''La Femme de Paul'' and ''Le Signe'', was a study of contemporary French youth and their involvement with cultural politics. An intertitle refers to the characters as "The children of [[Karl Marx|Marx]] and [[Coca-Cola]]." Although Godard's cinema is sometimes thought to depict a wholly masculine point of view, Phillip John Usher has demonstrated how the film, by the way it connects images and disparate events, seems to blur gender lines.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Usher|first=Phillip John|year=2009|title=De sexe incertain: Masculin Féminin de Godard|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/371649|journal=French Forum|volume=34|issue=2|pages=97–112|doi=10.1353/frf.0.0089|s2cid=194116472 |issn=1534-1836|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Godard followed with ''[[Made in U.S.A (1966 film)|Made in U.S.A]]'' (1966), the source material for which was [[Richard Stark]]'s ''The Jugger''. A classic New Wave crime thriller, it was inspired by American Noir films. Karina stars as the anti-hero searching for her murdered lover and the film includes a cameo by [[Marianne Faithfull]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Made in U.S.A |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0060647/ |access-date=13 September 2022 |website=Box Office Mojo |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914004314/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0060647/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D0CEEDB1238E53BBC4051DFBF66838C679EDE |title=Movie Review: ''Made in U.S.A.'' |work=The New York Times |date=28 September 1967 |access-date=23 May 2011 |archive-date=19 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240319014340/https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/28/archives/film-festival-2-by-jeanluc-godardmade-in-usa-full-of-imagery-and.html |url-status=live }}</ref> A year later came ''[[Two or Three Things I Know About Her]]'' (1967), in which [[Marina Vlady]] portrays a woman leading a double life as housewife and prostitute, considered to be "among the greatest achievements in filmmaking."<ref>{{cite web |last=Taubin |first=Amy |author-link=Amy Taubin |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1198-2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her-the-whole-and-its-parts |title=''2 or 3 Things I Know About Her'': The Whole and Its Parts |publisher=[[The Criterion Collection]] |date=21 July 2009 |access-date=14 September 2022 |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914092307/https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1198-2-or-3-things-i-know-about-her-the-whole-and-its-parts |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[La Chinoise]]'' (1967) saw Godard at his most politically forthright so far. The film focused on a group of students and engaged with the ideas coming out of the student activist groups in contemporary France. Released just before the [[May 68|May 1968 events]], the film is thought by some to have foreshadowed the student rebellions that took place.<ref>{{Cite web |title=La Chinoise |url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0061473/ |access-date=13 September 2022 |website=Box Office Mojo |archive-date=14 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914020157/https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0061473/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://sbhager.com/la-chinoise/|title=Jean-Luc Godard's La Chinoise and Student Radicalism|date=17 March 2016|publisher=Sbhager|access-date=16 September 2022|archive-date=21 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220921215618/https://sbhager.com/la-chinoise/|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== ''Week End'' ===
That same year, Godard made a more colourful and political film, [[Weekend (1967 film)| ''Week End'']]. It follows a Parisian couple as they leave on a weekend trip across the French countryside to collect an inheritance. What ensues is a confrontation with the tragic flaws of the over-consuming [[bourgeoisie]]. The film contains an eight-minute [[tracking shot]] of the couple stuck in an unremitting traffic jam as they leave the city, cited as a technique Godard used to deconstruct bourgeois trends.{{sfn|Morrey|2005|p=72}} Startlingly, a few shots contain extra footage from, as it were, before the beginning of the take (while the actors are preparing) and after the end of the take (while the actors are coming out of character). ''Week End''{{'s}} enigmatic and audacious end title sequence, which reads "End of Cinema", appropriately marked an end to the narrative and cinematic period in Godard's filmmaking career.{{sfn|Morrey|2005}}{{page needed|date=November 2021}}