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Godard Cinema
Unravelling the vast cinematic contribution and elusive personal mystique of one of cinema's great masters, Jean-Luc Godard.
Director: Cyril Leuthy
Overview
Jean Luc-Godard, the titan of cinema who passed away in 2022, leaves behind a prodigious legacy that eschews easy analysis. Cyril Leuthy's comprehensive feature-length documentary attempts to make sense of the filmmaker's vast output and influence across 140 films, from his formative contribution to the French New Wave to his later innovations in the fields of political cinema, video art and film-collage. Canvassing opinions from a huge range of contributors and drawing from a fascinating wealth of clips and archive footage, Godard Cinema examines the man behind that incomparable run of '60s masterpieces from Breathless to Week-End, who would leave it all behind to plough a more discursive, revolutionary furrow. And it's this section of the film that proves most fascinating, offering a tantalising glimpse behind the elusive persona who seemingly disappeared from view in the late 1970s but was merely attempting to reinvent cinematic language afresh. Leuthy, who has previously directed documentaries on Jean-Pierre Melville and Maurice Chevalier and edited films on Cary Grant and Jean Renoir, has crafted an insightful and invaluable guide through the labyrinthine oeuvre of one of cinema's great masters.
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