‘There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards.’ – Albert Camus
Jean-Luc Godard, the father of new wave French cinema (or the Nouvelle Vague as the French have it) has slipped from the world via assisted suicide in Switzerland.
Camus, one of his existential inspirations, would have approved. He would have thought as carefully as I’m sure Godard did about this decision. For all the drama and mystique of the French, both Godard and Camus were well thought out (despite the latter dying too soon, but fittingly, in a car accident).
In Breathless (À bout de souffle), perhaps Godard’s most famous film, he interrogates the ideal of nihilism. Following Nietzsche, the two protagonists – Michel and Patricia – embody, respectively; active and passive nihilism. I think Godard, despite going gently into that good night, was an active nihilist. Let us consider his prolific output and political engagement. He was the Humphrey Bogart of post-war France.
Godard was iconoclastic for his time, but now his films seem almost quaint. Wes Anderson gave him a homage of sorts by using a song by Chantal Goya in his film The French Dispatch (2021). She sings, ‘J’attendais que revienne, l’écho d’un plus beau jour…’ (I was waiting for the echo of a brighter day to come back.) Godard vit toujours!
He still lives but in a very different world. There are no more cars to smash up like in Week-end. It is all Teslas now. Imagine a film where they are all unplugged… Not as fun or romantic as the series of vignettes that work through class struggle and figures from literature and history, such as Louis Anotine de Saint-Just and Emily Bronte.
Maybe there is a new Week-end. A new Breathless. A new Contempt (Le Mépris), which is perhaps his most powerful film with Brigitte Bardot. It centres around a writer adapting Homer’s Odyssey and of course ends in a car crash.
We have lost one of the greatest auteurs of the 20th century who was up there with the likes of François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, and Éric Rohmer.
Camus would say that idleness is fatal only to the mediocre. Godard was not that and I hope his death gives today’s filmmakers a pause for thought and a breath of fresh air.
Vale, Mon Amour
