Legendary French director Jean-Luc Godard has passed away. He was the one who used to walk down the street like a Komban elephant dragging cinema in the era of studio shooting. Goddard distinguished his films with solid screenplays, innovative dialogues, new angles and free shots.
The Plum-Byrnes Agreement signed in 1946 between France and the United States after World War II had an impact on French cinema. This eased restrictions on the screening of American films in France. Goddard images can be defined as a continuation of this transition. His debut film ‘Breathless’ in 1960 echoed this revision. Goddard would have made this film as ‘a film similar to the American films that were very popular in France’. The heroine of the film is an American girl. The hero considers himself like an American superstar Bogart. Goddard wrote the screenplay based on a press release. A man wanted by the police is shot dead while searching for his girlfriend. This is the message.
Example of jump chain: Goddard made a huge impact in international cinema with his very first film. He had made the film like a lesson with very close angle, very wide angle and jump cut shots. A scene where the hero and heroine are crawling through the streets of Paris is an example of a jump cut shot. Goddard also used the technique of ‘fourth wall breaking’ where the protagonist speaks to the audience.
The protagonist would have parodied the influence of American culture on France. The scene in which the man steals the car of an American military officer and then shoots a policeman following him with the gun in the car is a paradigm of cinematography. The guard falls in five cut shots without a ‘suggestion shot’. In this he would have used a very recent scene. Only the gun is shown in close-up in one shot.
He began his political account in the very first film, with the main characters channeling the Franco-American cultural struggle. ‘La Chinese’, about Maoist youth, became an internationally celebrated youth film. Gothard’s grip on Maoism would have been revealed in this. The film’s song ‘Vietnam is burning, I’ll say it loud Mao Mao/Johnson laughs, I’ll say it loud Mao Mao’ became a big hit among the youth. In the film, a poignant conversation about the Vietnam War takes place between Maoist youths. In it, Gothart has directly criticized America.
Political Declaration: The film describes the US, Russian and European positions on the Vietnam War like a scene from a modern drama. In this, China’s position is portrayed to the audience as a political declaration, like reading a red book. This film looks at the situation in Vietnam from the side of the fighters. His specialty is to convey this drama between shots. It is possible that Goddard intended to transcend the order between shots through this dramaturgy, as one transcends time on a jumping couch.
Anti-Americanism: In ‘Beirut the Fool’ both the characters are critical of the US for the Vietnam War. Similarly, in the film ‘The Little Soldier’, Argentina criticized the war by taking a hero as its essence. When the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film was announced for the film, Goddard refused to go to America and buy it. He continued to express Marxian ideas about the material world in his films. ‘Cinema should not be about politics; Gothard expressed politics seriously as he himself says, ‘must be politics’. He remained steadfast in his political views till his later film ‘Film Socialism’.
He worked with great passion in the medium of cinema, which had changed so much in three generations. Gothart was a man who did not give up politics for the sake of cinema and cinema for the sake of politics. It is this unique aspect that makes Godhart’s death a disaster for international cinema
– Mudhorse, Contact: [email protected]