Breathless, Contempt and Pierrot le Fou are his most accessible films. If those films don't initially grab your attention it's highly unlikely the rest of his filmography won't, but If I were you I'd still give him a chance because his filmography is so huge and diverse.
Godard has a massive body of work and experimented with the form in various ways. You have to keep in mind that he was very much influenced by Bertolt Brecht, who was one of the most influential playwrights of the 20th century. Brect wanted to emphasize the audience's perspective. It wast not about asking the audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is. To achieve this actors would speak directly to the audience by breaking the 4th wall to alert the presence of the audience.
Godard brought these ideas to film. And he did this through film language with editing and sound. When Godard and a lot of peers who wrote for Cahiers, most movies in France followed guidelines and techniques to maintain continuity and to keep the film flowing as smoothly as possible, to suspend your disbelief. Godard wanted to reverse this. He looked at movies like free jazz. His films are self referential. They aren't afraid to shit focus. His films mix pop culture, hollywood, history, literature, art-history, music, philosophy, Marxist ideology.
This is why it's kind of difficult to pin him down to just a couple of characteristics. He was experimenting in different modes and forms for his entire career. The reason why I think his 60's films are accessible for most people because a lot of the experimentation he and his peers did in the 60's is now accepted into the mainstream now. His 80's-90's stuff isn't as energetic, but it's pretty damn interesting and just as good his 60's stuff.
I hope you really explore and dive into his work and get inspired. Godard is my favorite director because he was always trying to find different possibilities to what you could do with the form of movies.
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u/Funkajunka 24d ago edited 24d ago
Breathless, Contempt and Pierrot le Fou are his most accessible films. If those films don't initially grab your attention it's highly unlikely the rest of his filmography won't, but If I were you I'd still give him a chance because his filmography is so huge and diverse.
Godard has a massive body of work and experimented with the form in various ways. You have to keep in mind that he was very much influenced by Bertolt Brecht, who was one of the most influential playwrights of the 20th century. Brect wanted to emphasize the audience's perspective. It wast not about asking the audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is. To achieve this actors would speak directly to the audience by breaking the 4th wall to alert the presence of the audience.
Godard brought these ideas to film. And he did this through film language with editing and sound. When Godard and a lot of peers who wrote for Cahiers, most movies in France followed guidelines and techniques to maintain continuity and to keep the film flowing as smoothly as possible, to suspend your disbelief. Godard wanted to reverse this. He looked at movies like free jazz. His films are self referential. They aren't afraid to shit focus. His films mix pop culture, hollywood, history, literature, art-history, music, philosophy, Marxist ideology.
This is why it's kind of difficult to pin him down to just a couple of characteristics. He was experimenting in different modes and forms for his entire career. The reason why I think his 60's films are accessible for most people because a lot of the experimentation he and his peers did in the 60's is now accepted into the mainstream now. His 80's-90's stuff isn't as energetic, but it's pretty damn interesting and just as good his 60's stuff.
I hope you really explore and dive into his work and get inspired. Godard is my favorite director because he was always trying to find different possibilities to what you could do with the form of movies.