3 December 1930 – 13 September 2022
The cinematographer recalls working with the radical French director, a man who transformed cinema and survived on omelettes and beer
I didn’t grow up in a movie-loving family – we rarely went to the cinema. However, I had this strange habit as a young teenager: I avidly read French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur’s film reviews. Once, I asked my parents for permission to go and see Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. They said: “Absolutely not.” I asked why. “Because it’s violent,” came the reply. I finally watched Pierrot le Fou when I studied at the national film school. The film was not violent in the way they saw it, but it was a shock, nonetheless. Little did I know then that I would spend a few years working side by side with Jean-Luc Godard.
In fact, I started gravitating towards his circle from the time I was at film school and through my 20s, thanks to the great director of photography William Lubtchansky, for whom I worked as an assistant. Lubtchansky had been the director of photography for Godard, Agnès Varda, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, among other illustrious names of the French New Wave. They all felt ancient to me; however, they were only in their 50s and very much active. At film school, we had imbibed the New Wave; they were our masters of cinema. You had to take sides, though. There were the Rohmerian (after Eric Rohmer), the Godardian and the Truffaldian. I was a true Godardian. I was attracted to his radicalness. At the time, Godard and Truffaut had fallen out with each other, and would never patch their differences. The main distinction between Godard and the others was how he made films. Godard had his own way of writing, producing, filming and editing a film. Furthermore, unlike other film directors of his generation, he didn’t believe in characters, he only believed in actors responding to his directing.
