A collection of quotes and sayings by Jean-Luc Godard on French, breathless, movies, films, where, books, beautiful, cinema, truth, thought, art and simplicity.
Film director, Actor, Screenwriter, Cinematographer, Film producer, Film editor, Writer, Film critic, Television director, Television producer
Born On
03 December 1930 AD
Born In
Paris
Age
87
Jean-Luc Godard is a celebrated French-Swiss screenwriter, film critic and director who is often recognized with the ‘French New Wave’ or French film movement ‘La Nouvelle Vague’ in 1960s. He has been a critic of French cinema’s ‘Tradition Of Quality’, just like his New Wave peers, which lays emphasizes on craft over innovation. A number of his films and his thoughts have challenged the conventions of French cinema as well as Hollywood. Godard’s works, films, thoughts and writings have been an inspiration to many directors including ‘Quentin Tarantino’, ‘Jim Jarmusch’, ‘Brian De Palma’, ‘Pier Paolo Pasolini’, ‘Martin Scorsese’ and various others. Following is a corpus of quotations and sayings shared by the distinguished director which have been curated from his writings, interviews, films, dialogues, work, thoughts and life. Read through the quotes and thoughts by Jean-Luc Godard that will motivate and enlighten you.
It's not where you take things from — it's where you take them to.
- Jean Luc Godard
Why must one talk? Often one shouldn't talk, but live in silence. The more one talks, the less the words mean. (Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie)
- La Nouvelle Vague, Jean Luc Godard
A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.
- Jean Luc Godard
To be immortal and then die
- Breathless, Jean Luc Godard
The world isn't a sad place, it's just big.
- Jean Luc Godard
Objects exist and if one pays more attention to them than to people, it is precisely because they exist more than the people. Dead objects are still alive. Living people are often already dead.
- Jean Luc Godard
He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.
- Jean Luc Godard
First there was Greek civilization. Then there was the Renaissance. Now we’re entering the Age of the Ass.
- Jean Luc Godard
Mirrors should reflect before sending an image.
- Jean Luc Godard
What is your greatest ambition in life?'
'To become immortal... and then die.
- Jean Luc Godard
Photography is truth.
- Jean Luc Godard
Sometime reality is too complex. Stories give it form.
- Jean Luc Godard
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
- Jean Luc Godard
When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other.
Le cinéma, c'est vingt-quatre fois la vérité par seconde.
- Jean Luc Godard
Every edit is a lie.
- Jean Luc Godard
If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality.
- Jean Luc Godard
I am a painter with letters. I want to restore everything, mix everything up and say everything.
- Jean Luc Godard
I've always wanted, basically, to do research in the form of a spectacle.
- Jean Luc Godard
My aesthetic is that of the sniper on the roof.
- Jean Luc Godard
The cinema is truth 24 frames-per-second
- Jean Luc Godard
It's not where you take things from - it's where you take things to.
- Jean Luc Godard
Poetry is a game of loser-take-all.
- Jean Luc Godard
Patricia: Do you know William Faulkner?
Michel: No. Who's he? Have you slept with him?
- Jean Luc Godard
Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.
- Jean Luc Godard
Good films get smaller audiences, but more of the viewer.
- Jean Luc Godard
Cinema is capitalism in its purest form.... There is only one solution — turn one’s back on American cinema.
- Jean Luc Godard
The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea.
- Godard on Godard: Critical Writings, Jean Luc Godard
It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to
- Jean Luc Godard
All you need for a movie is a gun and a cat.
- Jean Luc Godard
Every film is the result of the society that produced it. That’s why the American cinema is so bad now. It reflects an unhealthy society.
- Jean Luc Godard
It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.
- Jean Luc Godard
Communism existed once, during two 45 minute half-times, when Honved, from Budapest, won over England by 6-3. The English played individually, and the Hungarians, collectively.
- Jean Luc Godard
Humane people don't start revolutions, they start libraries. And cemeteries.
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