He was the explosively talented film-maker who tore up the movie rulebook. But what did other directing giants make of this cinema legend – and did they find his latter films unwatchable?
Mike Leigh
The passing of Jean-Luc Godard leaves me pining with deep nostalgic sadness, despite my reservations – shared by many – about the director’s later eccentricities. It was 1960 and Breathless exploded on to the screen at the precise moment I arrived in London, a film-obsessed 17-year-old from Salford, who had never seen a movie that wasn’t in English, British and Hollywood fare being my sole diet. Godard’s debut masterpiece did indeed leave one breathless. Free-spirited location filming, spontaneous believable acting, wayward unconnected quirky moments … here was a feast of revelatory challenges to one’s ideas about cinema: pure anarchic bliss!
