Original subtitles

Life's sad but always beautiful.

I feel free! I do what I want when I want!

Look! Right.. left.. right..

That little idiot, he drives along a straight line,

he has to follow it all the way!

You see? Look!

I was born on Rue Cognac-Jay,

an old place where French television was born.

Since I was little, my parents, for their own reasons,

dragged us from Romandie to Paris.

Cinema.. I didn't know what it was.

When I told my mother I might want to do that,

to her it was a dangerous world,

not even the circus,

with his clowns..

It's not serious!

She was afraid for her little one

that he'd enter that world.

It's true! What is cinema?

A big head making faces in a little room..

You must be an idiot to love it.

Yes, I know what I'm saying.

Cinema is an illusory art.

And one day, I saw a film made with scraps,

"Voyage en Italie", two people, a car, the world.

The world around them, echoing, reflecting.

I thought.. one can make a film on the cheap.

So if I save for a year,

I know no one, yet I might

get a girl and a boy into a car,

then the world, I'll see how to frame it.

- Forward. - Action.

GODARD

BY

GODARD BY GODARD

Jean-Luc Godard, you've now become a filmmaker.

Can you tell us how, what route?

When I was in first year prep at the Sorbonne

little by little I got interested in cinema.

I discovered the film clubs and.. the Cinemathèque.

Bit by bit I got to know the Quartier Latin film clubs,

guys like Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer, Chabrol.

In '50 we joined Cahiers du Cinéma.

Via criticism, we made short films then feature films.

If you don't like the sea,

BREATHLESS - 1960

if you don't like the mountains,

if you don't like the city,

go fuck yourselves!

FIRST ATTEMPT

MASTERSTROKE

It's a film reacting..

to what cinema didn't do then,

almost pathologically or.. systematically.

No one does close-ups with a wide angle lens..

Let's do it.

Tracking by hand is a no-no?

All right, we'll do it.

I wanted to show..

that everything was allowed,

while French cinema was a regime

of inquisition,

locked rooms and compartmentalisation

where.. you couldn't get in

before you were 40 or 50,

where there were taboos and laws.

My point was to show that none of this had any value.

New York Herald Tribune!

Will you come with me to Rome?

Yes, it's stupid, I love you.

I wanted to see you again to see if that'd make me happy.

- Where are you from? Monte Carlo? - No, Marseille.

I stayed in Monte Carlo Saturday and Sunday.

I had to see a guy.

Monday I tried calling you from Marseille.

I wasn't in Paris Monday and Sunday.

New York Herald Tribune!

There was no script for Breathless.

Just a kind of summary,

three typed pages,

and day by day,

half improvised, half Godard turning up each morning,

his pockets full of scraps of paper

with lines he'd scribbled during the night.

We'd show up around 9 or 10 am,

go have our café crème with Gin at the corner café.

He'd read the scene to us once,

and if something felt wrong,

we'd tell him,

If we didn't feel it, we'd say it our way.

Then he'd roll the camera.

No lights, no framing, we could move how we wanted.

do what we wanted, slap our belly,

go under the sheets,

the cameraman was ready for anything.

Why do you close your eyes?

I try to close them very tight so everything turns black,

but it doesn't work.

It's never completely black.

Your smile, seen from the side, that's your best part.

That's you.

That's me.

Two weeks ago, I was interviewing Jean-Pierre Melville,

who drew a sharp line between the Godard of Breathless

and the Godard that came after.

Do you see the same distinction?

I think Breathless is the most beautiful

first film in the history of cinema,

with Citizen Kane,

two debut films almost impossible to top.

He couldn't replicate Breathless.

He pursued other projects, sometimes harder to reach,

but you can't tie Godard's personality just to Breathless,

that would be a massive injustice,

as he is building an oeuvre of major importance.

Hi, I couldn't make last night,

I had a screening at the same time,

and I might've had to interrupt,

..or the night before, so I couldn't.

Right, okay.

We're not there yet.

Tell him cinema is only numbers.

That'll get his attention..

Hehe!

Get here!

A WOMAN IS A WOMAN

Get here!!

Why?

I don't know, Jean-Pierre!

Get here, get here!!

So?

What did you tell him?

That I wanted a child.

Uh.. when?

Get here! I told her.

A Woman is a Woman is Jean-Luc Godard's first comedy

the director of Breathless.

It stars Jean-Paul Belmondo,

who shares the lead

with his friend Jean-Claude Brialy

and Anna Karina, Godard's own wife.

So she hasn't left?

We inevitably become autobiographical..

yet not more not less..

even if I narrate my own life..

with my wife, or anything, on a screen..

since Bardot and Belmondo will act it out,

it won't be my life anymore.

It become theirs,

even if the lines they speak are mine.

THE KARINA YEARS

So what?

It's Émile.

What do you decide?

On TV there's "Breathless". I don't want to miss it.

- So, Angela? - So, Émile.

So, Angela, Émile.

So do you agree to have a child with her?

Is that a tragedy or a comedy?

With women you never know.

Come on, we've got to get ready.

Can I go?

Say it if it bothers you.

No, I'm delighted.

Is the dialogue written by Godard or do you improvise it?

Oh, no.

- If we do it ourselves? - Yes

Oh no, it's written in advance.

Believe me, there's no changing a word.

He cares deeply about his text.

I've seen him restart scenes because

the lines weren't spoken exactly as written.

He cares intensely about his lines and his words.

So why this legend saying..

he lets people improvise in a sort of commedia dell'arte?

Jean-Luc directs his staging with his actors.

He sets things up with them.

That's wonderful.

You feel like you're participating..

in something.. that is making the film together.

What are you having?

A Coca-Cola.

What-are-you-ha-ving?

A Co-ca-Co-la.

For me a mint diabolo.

A schnapps and a Coca-Cola.

And a mint diabolo.

Godard one, first take.

Godard, second take.

The sound was bad the first time.

It's the TV.

Bande à Part, it's a novel by Jacques Perret?

I didn't know that.

No, Bande a Part, it's just an expression,

"breaking away"..

I like going on my own, and so do my characters.

Why do your characters do their own things?

Why do they stand apart from others?

I'd say, they're just normal people,

it's others.. who stand apart from them.

If the story is simple, where do you find the interest?

In the people.. I always draw on elements of life.

I try to make something that holds..

and call it a film.

We shot that scene really in a bistro,

and no one knew.

People were there.

They saw Sami go put on a record..

and we started dancing in front of them..

they were watching us with wide eyes.

The assistants had a hell of a time,

lots of people wanted to dance with us.

It was total chaos.

It adds another dimension.

I was naturally looking at my feet.

Jean-Luc used it.

If we'd shot the same scene using a set

in a studio with all the control it requires,

it wouldn't have been the same.

Motor!

Cut!

He stopped..

Let's do one last take.

Samy, you never speak loudly enough, huh?

I've often been bored in theater or cinema

by plays or films where I felt

that what is shown on stage or screen

was the entire reality.

And if they show me a house or part of it,

like a street corner,

I know there's no point going behind it,

as there's no street.

But there are works that make me feel

that there's not just a corner..

but a perspective, a city,

the countryside around,

the forest, farther off, the sea..

and that's how it is with Godard.

When I see something happening in a dusty backstreet of Paris,

I know the sea is there.

MY LIFE TO LIVE

I try to.. mix documentary and fiction,

to make fiction feel real

via its documentary realism,

and to interest people in this documentary

through its fictional power.

I think that behind life, there's always.. theatre,

and if you go deep into theatre you'll find.. life.

There's a beautiful phrase by the German poet Novalis:

"The world turns into dream and the dream turns into world."

To me that's the dialectic of cinema.

CONTEMPT

Godard was set to make a film with Frank Sinatra,

it didn't happen,

and little Piccoli inherited the role.

An entrance by the big door.

At the same time, it was quite dangerous,

the role was of a craven, cowardly man,

I was constantly insulted by the world's greatest star

to whom I pleaded, "please be kind to me, love me"

..and she kept saying "You disgust me."

Enough to ruin an actor's film career.

I saw you earlier when he kissed you.

I know.

Why don't you love me anymore?

That's life.

Why do you despise me?

That I'll never tell you.

Even if I were dying.

Jean-Luc Godard, it's your first film with Bardot.

She's taking a big risk.

Yes, but I think.. a film, well.. a work of art,

is always a kind of battle.

If there's no danger, no risk,

a risk on the aesthetic level..

that's what gives it value.

In your opinion, has she's made many good films?

No, I think she's made one.

Her And God Created Woman,

a very good film, one I really like..

This one will be her second.

- You don't lack confidence.. - You have to.

Do you find my ass pretty?

Yes.

Very much.

Was that scene forced on you, or not?

Well.. I hadn't shot it at first.

The American producers said: "it's beautiful, but not commercial,

we want a scene at the start of the film..

with Bardot and Piccoli naked in bed, making love..

we want the same scene in the middle and at the end."

So I said "at the end it's.. it's not possible,

nor in the middle, they're not in love anymore,

that said, I can.. shoot it a certain way..

..do you agree? -Yes."

So I did it that way.

And my face?

That too.

All of it?

My mouth, my eyes, my nose, my ears?

Yes, all of it.

So you love me completely?

Yes.

I love you completely, tenderly, tragically.

Me too, Paul.

With Bardot as its object, Contempt can only be about cinema.

Attention, moteur!

Silence!

Motor!

Marker! Clap!

Odyssey 701, take 3!

Action!

Contempt is a film about cinema

because it shows the director Fritz Lang

playing Fritz Lang, director of The Odyssey.

In Contempt, cinema has the face of Fritz Lang.

"Out of respect", Godard says, "I played his assistant myself".

Just his presence makes anyone think

that cinema matters deeply..

even..

Silence!

...when he's hiding under an old blanket.

Let's do it again, that one's no good!

Zoom is forbidden,

the number one enemy of cinema,

the proof is that TV uses it constantly.

Allright, no zoom then.

No zoom.

First lesson: no moving in or pulling back.

Be at the right distance from the start.

- Is that ironic? - No, no, I hate zoom.

I think cinema - Lumière - didn't invent the zoom.

He invented everything but the zoom.

He thought you only need..

a painter.. doesn't have a zoom.

- I thought it was a joke.. - It was!

- You don't have zoom-eyes - No, no

But behind the joke.. painters don't have a zoom.

I believe cinema is about painting things.

I have a very short fate-line

I have a very short fate-line

so little luck in my palm

and tomorrow scares me

my fate-line

my fate-line

tell me darling, what do you think..

What I think..

does it matter?

I'm crazy about your hip line..

Your hip line!

Jean-Paul, cinema is a long patience.

Yes.

What do you do between takes?

Nothing, I admire the sea.

Rolling!

Pierrot 18, take 22, first!

A grand death for a little man.

Jean-Luc Godard, are you a provocateur?

That's not an insult.

Oh yes.. it is.

One can aim to provoke admiration,

astonishment or anger.

No, not in that sense.

More to provoke an event, yes.

Let's say, not a provocateur in the criminal sense.

Yes, that's it.

I mean for example, you enjoy surprising people.

Not really but ..

if people are asleep, uh..

and something makes noise..

it wakes them up..

if they're already awake, it doesn't wake them at all.

Breathless, the chaos.

The Little Soldier, the confusion.

A Woman is a Woman, the musical.

My Life to Live, the emotion.

The Carabineers, the war.

To make a film is trying to make a work.

Godard doesn't make a work with each film.

He makes a work with one year of cinema.

In a year he shoots three films.

Seen together,

they constitute the work.

Just as a painter

doesn't hold an exhibition for a single canvas,

he shows ten, twelve of them, his recent work.

That's how we should see Godard's work, always in groups.

THE POLITICAL TURN

That day, Godard was finishing his 14th film, La Chinoise.

I'd long wanted to make a film about students..

or on the..

politicization or depoliticization of students..

the only people I feel close to..

I'm a bit of an old student myself.

And the phenomenon.. the Little Red Book.. lit the fuse.

If I had the courage, I would blow up the Sorbonne,

the Louvre, the Comedie-Française.

- Really? - Yes.

La Chinoise is not only what was said after,

a premonitory film,

but it is also spirited,

like a Marivaux comedy,

deep and spirited.

The grace of youth..

runs through the film.

They're... so young

..just past childhood.

Almost like Les Enfants Terribles.

Any action of a revolutionary party

is the application of its policy.

Not applying a correct policy produces a false one.

If you don't apply it consciously you apply it blindly.

And these plates, why are you washing them?

To make them clean.

Yes Yvonne, you've understood perfectly.

- So France in '67 is a bit like dirty plates? -Yes

I would like to introduce...

to Mr Godard, this group.

These are graduate students of New York University

and of the Institute for Film and Television.

Would you evaluate La Chinoise as

philosophy by means of cinema?

No.. the contrary.

You indulge in such extremely long take

along with very short flash frames,

very loud sounds along with whispers..

How do you think it helps your art?

I think it's the speech of the film.

So this is the way it has to.. to be.

You could have a better sound if you chose to, so..

I assume that..

I wouldn't put it that way.

When you call "bad" a sound, the sound is very good.

The sound of a movie is done by a lot of things.

There is a meaning point of view, then it's dialect,

and you want to understand what is said

and there's a sound point of view.

There you don't care about the meaning

and you can put music on it.

I'm wondering if you do this out of

a sense of humour,

are you playing a..

You are completely distorted

by the way Hollywood is doing..

has been working on sound.

If I think it's crucial to hear something

be sure I won't put any car horn in it.

It's the women's magazine of the CGT.

Let's see.

At the club, their eyes met, Pierre didn't feel like talking.

You don't have to be a communist to use the..

..same language as the gossip press.

Don't say that! I told you..

Chinoise, take141, third.

Student unrest flared in Paris.

In the Quartier Latin, it was the longest day.

Radio updates by the hour,

some factories are occupied,

some others are closing..

trains have stopped, metros and buses next..

Students, workers, united action!

Students, workers, united action!

If there're updates every hour

and Cannes keeps going, it's absurd.

Students, workers! Together!

Students, workers, together!

Not a single film

shows the students' struggles

as they happen today.

Not one, be by Forman,

by me, by Polanski, by François..

We're behind.

I want the Festival stopped.

We talk solidarity with students and workers..

and you talk tracking shots and close-ups!

That's a scandal!

The scandal is you! You're the scandal!

- Why? - Because.

Unable to hold screenings under normal conditions,

the board unanimously declares closed

the 21st International Film Festival,

this Sunday, May 19 at noon.

Bravo!

Cinema 6, take 1, first.

Let me first ask you what is a director?

Is it simply someone.. with a job in cinema?

Or is it.. something more than a job?

I think we're.. on the wrong track with these questions.

Here we're doing exactly.. what we shouldn't do.

Like not doing this.. and just carrying on filming.

so.. wasting ORTF film stock (Office de Radio Diffusion Francaise)

as it's my film stock and I'm paying the broadcasting fee.

It's not used to make this effect

but this is to show you..

do it not just once, but often, regularly,

it's just a practical example..

The CGT cameraman for instance.

In May, you could see him framing De Gaulle,

he didn't sabotage De Gaulle, he framed him well,

although he was on strike against him.

But he was doing what he calls his job.

Let's make films that ORTF will not air,

or only after a struggle.

One still have to make films.

Yes but no more the way they're made now.

They say you need three people per camera,

try being alone or eighty.

It's not enough to go with a camera..

No matter, stop the cameras for a while,

take photos and put them on TV, put a picture of me on TV.

Isabelle, are you ready?

Communists attacked Loch Ninh base

a 135-mm rocket flood

was shot down on the troops... - What's the footage?

- 85? - Yes, sir.

- Algo, what's the gaff? - 3.5, sir.

THE BREACH

I told you, I was making films.

I started as a screenwriter in the New Wave days.

That's far off now.

No, I didn't tackle anymore.

In the end, well before May 1968.

I was getting tired of making aesthetic films.

I was going in circles.

I was ready to get hit in the face, which happened.

While shooting this scene, Ingmar Bergman

got the idea..

..portraits, posters and banners..

Cinema too is a factory..

A factory where we make images,

like on TV.

I tried to think.

I still do, about the system,

about what I could do,

and what they would let me do,

and about the type of film I should try to make.

NUMBER TWO

In biology, you see.. it's a factory here.

It's a factory in our body and a factory here, you see?

I'm listening to the machine.

You see, the machine goes faster.

I do research. I've never hidden it.

I wanted to be admitted at the CNRS,

which has always refused my application.

In cinema, research is forbidden.

Yet the viewer has the right to seek pleasure,

so I'd rather call myself a scientist and we laugh about it.

Now I can start showing evidence

I found things, and made discoveries.

And I'm listening to the sound of the factory.

You said your career

is a long succession of failures.

At the same time, you're quite famous,

in France, abroad, in America, in England.

So how do you live this fame?

It's because..

I've made the films others didn't dare to make,

or didn't dare to try.

I wanted to take the plunge.

It took me time to learn to swim.

the others didn't dare.

They respected me because I dared to dive in,

but they also hated me for that.

I wonder myself

when someone thinks they know me, how can they,

when they've never seen anything I've done.

You say "Most who know me are my banker..

and people who haven't seen my films."

Absolutely.

A few questions for Jacques Dutronc.

Godard.. playing in a Godard movie.

Playing a character called Paul Godard.

That's a question of taste.

Playing Godard..

If he were opposite me,

I'd ask him "What'd you answer?" He would say "Nothing".

So I can't say nothing.

When I watch a Godard film,

it's good, yes.

I mean, a Jean-Luc Godard film.

Even better to end up in it as Paul Godard.

Is that OK?

EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

It is.

- Did you sleep well? - No, I had a lot of dreams.

Dreams are always bad.

Even in dream, you can't stop searching for an answer.

- See you next time. - Goodbye.

THE RETURN

It's hard to know before the release of Every Man for Himself

whether Godard the filmmaker still draws audiences.

But Godard the lecturer, that's obvious.

Everything you showed could just have been implied,

since it was the story..

If you can give me one example of something I showed,

then give it,

then show me how

it could've been implied.

In other words.. do some work.

If I answer "yes, it's a metaphor"

or "no, it's not",

what's going to happen next? That's just not..

If I say "no, it's an understatement".

But you'll be happy.

You'll feel you've earned your day's pay.

When Godard asked you to do Every Man for Himself,

he'd become a bit of a scarecrow,

people said "Godard will never make another film for the public.

He's only doing lab experiments in Grenoble and Switzerland".

Weren't you surprised when he suddenly

offered you a story with Dutronc?

What surprised me was that he offered it to me!

It didn't surprise me he wanted to make a film.

I find it strange that people say,

"Godard hasn't done anything for ten years,

a part from experiments."

If he did it, he had his reasons. I mean.. I don't know.

It surprised me that he came to me, I was.. flattered.

Flattered? You, who work in big productions,

and with great foreign directors?

Yes, but when you arrive in the States,

and they say "Godard",

Godard, it is... It really impresses them.

There are no scripts for your movies.

Yes there are, but not the way you are doing it here.

I mean, the actors don't receive a script in the mail

a full script before...

Here are my next two scripts, and you see...

Really.

Do you mind if I...

But they're only three words per page. No, look.

It's the beginning, I'm beginning to work, you see.

- Look - Oh, yes.

It's fascinating.

Well, I bet I could get a pretty penny for these.

Give them back to me.

Mr. Godard,

the.. the word "comeback"

has been used about this film.

Does that word "comeback" offend you in any way?

In a sense, because I... I never went away.

I'd rather say... the reverse of "comeback".

What is it? "Come forth"?

Or "go forth"? - Or "continue".

I guess "continue", "going on," yes.

It's my first movie which..

which is coming out of me.

In that sense, I say it's my second first movie.

That gives it an added interest.

And it gives me...

Well, I'm not anguished anymore.

I'm not anguished to produce a masterpiece or.. a piece of shit.

It's just... I have no anguish.

We have that word in English.

I don't know what your problem is when you are making a TV show.

Why do you want to... talk to people... regularly?

I think it must be very...

Well, this is a question I'm asking myself.

And I think there is..

it's difficult to talk to people.

Yes.

Do you mind if I turn it off? (Isabelle Huppert's voice)

I wanted to tell you that..

It's true.

Still it's not sad.

I've always been told "Jean-Luc, in your film,

why don't we understand when the girl says,

'I'll meet you at the Lyon station, platform B'

Well, you understood perfectly.."

I've always carried..

When I listen.. I don't know..

I still answer the same things..

or in the Requiem,

I understand nothing from Mozart's Requiem.

If I don't know the text,

I barely understand Agnus Dei.

Stop! It's over.

What's matters is that two films

will join the cupboard of great works

missed by Cannes,

Identification of a Woman,

and Passion by Jean Luc Godard

which are part of the batch

Cannes has always missed in its history,

the masterpieces in cinema history,

that Cannes can't reward because Cannes

is subject to a kind of market law.

Maybe Antonioni isn't the best Antonioni,

or Godard not the best Godard,

but there are films that..

are like..

..the cinema's secret factory.

We know things are made in these films,

that will come back later,

will serve others,

be taken, transformed.

It's remarkable that even Jean-Luc

can't get a consolation prize.

Even that is impossible.

They can't admit Godard in the prize-worthy family.

The hatred against me

comes from the fact I'm part of the family.

If I weren't family, fine, but on top of that, I'm family.

I've never been offered to sit on a jury,

because..

..not because I would expose the truth,

but there's a conduct through which one must..

morality must.. but you have to stay in the family.

You need to go down.

See, you pulled it there.

Still you need to feel it comes from there,

but judge it, don't aim.

That said, do it as you feel, if you prefer.

Your response comes right back.

FIRST NAME: CARMEN

Jean-Luc Godard, what do we talk about?

Prénom Carmen?

or last night's McEnroe-Lendl final?

We didn't see it, TF1 cancelled so we can't comment.

What's interesting is that Anne-Marie Miéville is here,

and we rarely see her in front of TV spotlights,

yet it's been a long collaboration between you two.

How long have you both been collaborating?

It's been 12 years.

What is incredible..

You're sure about the duration?

How is your work organized between the two of you?

Let's look at Prénom Carmen.

At first, we worked separately.

I revisited different versions of Carmen,

Mérimée's, Preminger's,

and tried rewriting some continuity

as a screenplay.

Often with mythic stories,

there's a plot,

but what happens between people is unclear,

from the meeting to the ending.

So with Prénom Carmen,

we tried to show what might have said

Joseph and Carmen.

It was a struggle because we realized

that what is left unsaid

in the great... myths,

is what makes them powerful,

myths aren't spelled out.

- If I love you, you're doomed. - Yes, Carmen.

What is it called?

..what?

Something with..

the innocents.. out there..

and then..

I don't remember..

me neither..

The Golden Lion for Best Film is awarded unanimously

to "Prénom Carmen," by Jean-Luc Godard.

The film of Godard is met with applause.

Here's Godard stepping on stage.

He's seen as a revolutionary filmmaker.

Until now, he'd never received

a major festival award.

Jean-Luc Godard.. finally rewarded

in an international competition,

thanks to a jury of filmmakers

led by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Flashes and thunder of applause.

All's well that ends well.

They came and shook up Cannes,

Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye,

Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Brasseur.

Cannes had its first cream pie..

Godard got it in the face,

right before his press conference.

Here it is, the historic pie!

- An old gag.. - An echo to silent film, one said.

The one who sent them? Or the one who got hit?

Both, at last the one who sent them.

Détective did not win unanimous support.

Godard explained why in his press conference.

What cause are you defending in Détective?

That's my question.

That's a good question, because I honestly don't know.

We've only talked about references here.

That's you, not me.

No, I take in your film, instinctively

I lack a whole background of references people have.

But you lack nothing, what's missing?

Tell me what's missing.

No, I mean.. in the film.

Tell me what you felt was missing.

I miss nothing to watch your film, but everything to discuss it.

Nothing's missing to watch the film, so you've seen it all.

To be specific, I miss a pass for tonight.

In case you still have one.

Well, I'll gladly give you my seat.

You'll walk ahead of me,

if there's a pie, you will get it,

You'll see there are risks.

A certain risk.

Alright, deal.

Well, you're missing nothing..

If I were you, I wouldn't do that.

I'd go around, then three cushions.

Don't bust your balls. I want to be alone,

and you don't turn me on.

I told you so.

I love working with Godard.

I don't like all his films,

For me..

there are films.. even ones I was in..

there are things I don't understand.

I think no one really understands..

It doesn't matter, in those films there is..

always that moment of incredible emotions.

He wanted me as a solo character in this film,

so solo that..

when I had lines with other actors,

with Claude.. or Nathalie,

he'd ask, "Why are you playing with them?"

I'd say, "Because in my lines I'm speaking to them,

so I speak to them!"

He'd say "No! Play solo.. play solo.

They are them,

you're alone, a solo character."

So.. I had to.. to..

..to really concentrate,

take in what he was telling me

to act solo, while acting with others.

It's complicated to explain,

and yet very simple.

So guys..

What are you telling?

Men's stories.

Stories of melancholy.

I don't think so.

Anyway, it's not the right time.

We were talking books.

It should interest you, no?

Say which dish to pick..

You see.. my hair is in place.

I'm shaved, neat, black coat, white scarf.

Because.. I love being clean.

In the bath, I love when.. one scratches my back.

That's one.. of the main reasons

for working again with Godard,

20 years later.

Because Godard is a.. a real solvent.

One day, Jean-Luc went to a screening,

and he came out shattered,

Well.. he always looks shattered.

And, uh ..

I didn't dare ask anything,

but he dared answer the question I hadn't asked,

by saying, "Poor Claude, 20 years ago you had some qualities,

now you've got nothing, you've lost it all.

You had something once.. a naturalness, an ease.

And now.. what's left of that?"

Truth is, we're not used to that.

We come out of screening where everyone says bravo,

you're great, you're the best.

We fall asleep in this.. purring,

a subjective lull, indeed.

And.. it's not unpleasant

to be thrown in a shaker,

and be.. shaken hard.

THE HONORS OF THE PROFESSION

It feels strange to find you here in this auditorium,

acclaimed by the profession, perhaps a little late...

No, no.

Jean-Luc Godard, are we celebrating Godard, or a body of work?

You know..

I think I make...

I don't quite manage to make films, but I like making cinema

and I think..

well, I thank the professionals of the profession

for casting their gaze through me,

upon the amateurs of shadow and light, of whom I am one.

What for you are the 10 best French films,

like in the days of Cahiers du Cinéma,

do you rank them?

Ten is a bit much, I see four films.

There's, let's say.. The Sprinkler Sprinkled by Lumière,

there's Angèle by Pagnol,

and to my opinion, Pickpocket by Bresson.

- The fourth, I don't remember. - Is it a Godard?

No, I told you, I do cinema, I don't make films.

I hadn't seen Godard for several years.

We picked him up at his hotel in Saint-Lazare, he was alone.

On the way, we resumed a talk from 25 years before.

What does it mean

to speak about a film we've just made?

Nothing, because nobody talks about it.

But if you're alone, sometimes you do,

or by curiosity,

or sadness, yes.

What do you mean, sadness?

For what hasn't been done.

Each time it feels like..

you're starting all over again.

Like a guy gambling at a casino.

He's headed for ruin,

but as long as casinos exist,

it's his only.. security.

What's your relation with filmmakers?

Filmmakers in general?

None.

- None? - None.

A few producers, like one or two.

Filmmakers, no, that's over. It's vanished.

You go across, turn right and around.

THE CINEMATIC MAN

I have a project I care about,

to study,

to figure out where I come from,

why my mother did that to me, why I did this,

I have a project called..

Introduction to a True History of Cinema

It would tell some moments

from cinema history, but in images and sounds,

no.. no text,

not saying Griffith had.. etc..

or Godard made a film at that time..

which is of no interest,

that's just culture, not cinema.

Cinema is the opposite of culture.

We remember a row of bottles,

a pair of glasses,

a musical score,

a key chain.

Because with them, and through them,

Alfred Hitchcock succeeded

where Caesar, Hitler, Napoleon failed..

..in taking control of the universe.

I feel close to someone I haven't read in a long time,

who greatly influenced me at the time, Francis Ponge,

who says the creator is a repairer of the universe.

I totally know I am a repairer.

So we must repair wrongs,

and I'm probably the first

to be wrong.. in thinking I must repair wrongs.

We won't get out of that.

Where do you live?

In language.

And I can't stay silent.

By speaking, I throw myself into an unknown, alien order.

and I suddenly become responsible for it.

I must become universal.

We always ask ourselves, at the end of..

at dawn,

the dawn of dusk..

of our life, but which is the dawn of sunrise.

It's the moment for pondering.

Tell me something nice.

Sure, what do you want to hear?

Lie to me.

Tell me all these years you've waited.

All these years I've waited.

Tell me you'd have died if I hadn't come back.

I would have died if you hadn't come back.

Tell me you still love me like I love you.

I still love you like you love me.

Thanks.

Do you feel isolated or solitary in cinema?

Marginal.

Marginal. I've always chosen it, accepted it, wanted it.

Sometimes when..

when cars pass and splash you

and you're wearing new pants,

you're not happy, but otherwise..

otherwise, yes, it's better.

Do people distrust you?

I think so, because with me, they don't know..

they don't know what.. they're going to get,

in life, we don't know,

every man, every woman is an artist in a way,

not knowing what tomorrow will bring,

even if she tries to lock it down.

So I don't know, but it's never been easy,

not easy for anyone, even for the greatest.

We should be glad already to be able to, uh..

to earn a living by..

by doing..

what one must,

what one loves, and what one must love.

I told you, I was making films.

What are you telling?

Men's stories.

Stories of melancholy.

Why do you despise me?

I'll never tell you that, even if I should die.

Yes, that's always like that.

What do you decide?

To land in Marseille and screen Breathless.

Dreams are always bad.

Even in dream, you can't stop searching for an answer.

If a man,

if a man passed through paradise in his dream,

and received a flower as proof of passage,

and on waking, found this flower in his hands,

what is there to say?

I was that man.

Subs by RustyBJames from Assilem23 @ KG 2025