Jean-Luc Godard Eyeing Retirement?

During a recent 85-minute conversation with the virtual International Film Festival of Kerala (via The Film Stage), director Jean-Luc Godard said he planned to retire from directing after the completion of his next two films. The filmmaker mentioned he had two scripts in development.

“I’m finishing my movie life—yes, my moviemaker’s life—by doing two scripts,” the 90-year-old Godard added about his plan to retire in the near future. “After, I will say, ‘Goodbye, cinema.’”

Godard is a God of the medium, having advanced it more than any other person safe for the Lumieres brothers or George Melies. His astounding streak of films in the ’60s is the stuff of legend; “Breathless,” “Band of Outsiders,” “Pierrot Le Fou,” “Contempt,” Vivre Sa Vie,” “Week-End.” “His role in France’s Nouvelle Vague movement helped shape not only his country’s cultural movement but also influenced the way films would be shot and told in the American studio system. Now 90, he strays far away from conventional cinema and instead opts for a requiem-sensed way of telling a story: It’s bold, original, vital filmmaking that still allows him to win awards at Cannes. Just don’t expect him to win any Oscars for these films.

It’s been a long time since traditional or even vaguely conventional “movies” have interested the legendary filmmaker. If anything, the director’s films over the last 20 or so years have been experiential audio/visual collages more interested in pictures, sounds, cuts, and de-saturation, a maddening barrage of dadaist statements. His last endeavor, “The Image Book,” may have been his most polarizing. A film that perplexed many, but despite its distancing nature, did manage to win a Special Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2018.

You can read my review of “The Image Book” here, although it’s not really a review as much as a bewildered what-the-hell-did-I-just-watch thingamajig.