Jean-Luc 'Cinema' Godard, the coolest film-maker in the world in the
1960s, started as a critic and remained one while directing; his work
stands between narrative and essay. His New Wave films simultaneously
analyse and reinvent every genre going - gangster flick (A Bout De
Souffle), romance (Le Mepris), sci-fi (Alphaville), road movie
(Pierrot Le Fou). The same's true in subsequent phases - late 1960s
political films like Weekend; spiritual 1980s masterpieces like
Passion and Hail Mary; 1990s histories (Histoire(s) Du Cinema;
JLG/JLG). Some of it's hard going - they all need at least two viewings -
but it's a stunningly ambitious body of work, and the best is among the
best there's ever been.
