Indian directors pay glowing tributes to French-Swiss filmmaker Jean Luc-Godard

French-Swiss filmmaker Jean Luc-Godard, who is hailed as an iconoclast and a pioneer of French New Wave Cinema, breathed his last on September 13, 2022. He bid goodbye to the world with an assisted suicide procedure at his home in Switzerland. He was 91 years old. Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, mourned Godard’s death by calling him “a national treasure” and a filmmaker who “invented a resolutely modern, intensely free art.”

Godard built his reputation as a film critic contributing to the iconic magazine Cahiers du Cinéma before his directorial debut with À bout de souffle (1960), known as Breathless to English-speaking audiences. He went on to make over 45 films during his lifetime. Some of these are: Une femme est une femme (1961), Le petit soldat (1963), Masculin Féminin (1966), Tout va bien (1972), Prenom Carmen (1983), King Lear (1987), Film Socialisme (2010), Éloge de l’amour (2001), Adieu Au Langage (2014), and Le livre d’image (2018).

Godard’s work is enjoyed by cinephiles outside Europe, and is taught at Indian film schools. Several Indian filmmakers look up to Godard, and emulate his style. In fact, the International Film Festival of Kerala gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award last year. Unfortunately, Godard could not travel to India to receive it because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this month, director Amartya Bhattacharya released his film Adieu Godard. It is about a man in Odisha who is addicted to pornography. One day, he brings home a DVD of Breathless instead of a porn film. This mistake becomes his introduction to Godard’s cinema.

Rafeeq Ellias, director of films like The Legend of Fat Mama (2005), Love You to Death (2012) and If Memory Serves Me Right (2021), says, “Godard’s debut film is my favourite, kicking off the 60s with its insouciance! We can’t replicate Godard as much as we can’t replicate the 60s – a decade of rebellion and radical idealism on the streets of the world, from Paris to Berlin to London, and to Tokyo and Calcutta.” Ellias appreciates Godard’s ability to “dip into American gangster film influences, then spin it around into a French sensibility with elan”. Breathless, now a classic, reminds him of “the timeless beauty of black and white”.

Samina Mishra, who has made documentaries such as The House on Gulmohar Avenue (2005), Jagriti Yatra (2013), and Happiness Class (2021), points out that documentary filmmakers owe a lot to Godard. She credits him for making them think about “how to find a visual language” that is most suitable for the story that they wish to tell. Mishra remarks, “I think that Godard has influenced all filmmakers who came after him, even those who may not have seen his work because it has influenced so much of popular visual forms that later generations are more familiar with but all of these really originate in Godard’s practice.”

Mishra believes that innovations which seem commonplace now, go back to Godard. Whether it is constructing narratives in non-linear ways, being free with the camera, or experimenting with using fixed frames and being mobile – she attributes it all to Godard. This is not surprising because many filmmakers speak of Godard as the teacher that they never had. They have learnt from watching his work carefully, often repeatedly, and discussing it with peers. Godard’s thoughts on cinema can also be found in books such as Godard on Godard (1972) and Cinema: The Archaeology of Film and the Memory of a Century (2005).

Onir, who has made the films My Brother…Nikhil (2005), I Am (2010), and Shab (2017), got introduced to Godard’s cinema when he was a student at Jadavpur University in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He recalls, “Godard had a deep impact on me because he broke rules and conventions. There was a structure to his madness. From watching his work, I learnt that it was okay to deviate from classical editing when that approach restricts the storytelling.”

When he made his characters in My Brother…Nikhil address the audience directly, he was drawing inspiration from Godard. He says, “I am not as flamboyant as Godard but I wanted my audience to know that they were not watching a fairy tale. Though it was a work of fiction, it was based on the reality of the stigma and discrimination that gay men in India have to undergo. Many people asked if it was a documentary; the style took them by surprise.”

Samarth Mahajan, director of documentary films such as The Unreserved (2017) and Borderlands (2021), stumbled upon Godard’s cinema at the onset of his career. He was baffled by Godard’s treatment of time and space, and his questioning of continuity.

Mahajan says, “The film Breathless has been cut in such a jarring way but that jarring is so consistent throughout the film that it becomes the film’s language. It creates a breathless atmosphere. When my editor (Anadi Athaley) and I work together, we employ jump cuts to show that time has elapsed, that words are spoken over the course of a longer conversation.”

Knowing that a master like Godard has experimented with editing gives Mahajan the confidence to evolve a film language that supports his storytelling. However, he often hears unflattering feedback from broadcasters, sales agents and distributors who “have a particular idea of what an edit must look like.” Mahajan believes that they think of jump cuts as “errors” because they do not understand the intention behind making certain creative choices.

Rahul Roye, who directed the short filmMan & Wife (2021), says, “What Godard is to cinema, and the semiotics of his revolutionary rule-breaking, can be left to experts’ discourse. To me, he has always been an unabashed philosopher, a political epiphany, a perpetual beacon of postmodern existentialism.” Roye, who is fond of movies such as Vivre sa vie (1962), Bande à part (1964),Pierrot le Fou (1965), and Ici Et Ailleiurs (1976) admires Godard for standing out in an era “that reeks of restraints and algorithms”, and for “embracing his death at his will”. Mahajan concludes, “Long live cinema, long live Godard.”

Chintan Girish Modi is a writer, journalist and educator who tweets @chintanwriting

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