For me its Lars Von Trier and his body of work thus far?
He combines wonderful artistry and colours, with social comment. His films are extremely original and refreshing to watch and he is so experimental with camera, sound and theme. His style is also considerably brechtian ("Dogville" and "Manderlay") just like Godard.
He definitely reminds me of an early Godard.
Anyone else agree?
von Trier is an excellent director and his films are all great, but no I don't think he reminds me of Godard, actually no one does.
"If you don't like my movies, don't watch them" - Dario Argento
^I agree: there's simply no one like Godard. He's one-of-a-kind. And Breathless is his masterpiece.
shareThats incorrect in my opinion as there are plenty of very creative artistic genius directors but yes in terms of originality and doing thigs refreshingly different he is up there. He also has something to say like Von Trier.
shareSome of Gus Vant Sant's early works (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho) are early 60's Godard-ish. I agree that Godard is incredibly influential, but with few actual imitators out there.
Von Trier is far more Godard's post-Alphaville, May '68 years- Week End, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, La Chinoise, etc. Breathless is far too "cute" (used very liberally) to be compared to the antagonisticaly obtuse Von Trier.
Wes Anderson has his new wave moments, but I'd say Truffaut is far more an influence than Godard.
I think the reason Godard has few imitators is that Godard is painfully French. If you took Godard out of a French context, he really wouldn't work.
With that said, I think there were other directors working contemporary with Godard who were hugely influenced by Breathless and 60's Godard. Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill) comes to mind; as does Oshima. The influence of Godard and the New Wave on American 70's cinema is noticable too- Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, etc.
And despite what Bergman claims, Persona is Godard in Swedish.
I like the connection between Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" and Godard. The mood, tone, style and texture of the piece is very similar to some of Godard. I need to see a lot more of Gus Van Sant to really comment.
Not sure I agree with the "Taxi Driver", "Midnight Cowboy" connection. Those films seem too linear in plot, uncomplicated and too mainstream to be Godard, but maybe the stylistic devices are similar.
I think Wong Kar-Wai. But that's an obvious choice, since he's known to be strongly influenced by Godard.
shareAny connection between Breathless and Taxi Driver bear is pretty vague. Also, the plot of Breathless isn´t so much nonlinear as it is meandering - which is not necessarily a bad thing. Techique aside, what´s so complicated about Breathless though? Taxi Driver emotionally invests a lot more in its story and protagonist whereas Breathless seems to have more interest in striking hip poses.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Terribly overrated, well that your opinion and totally justified because its your opinion but I still think he's both a really interesting and original film maker and similar in that respect to Godard. They are both "ideas" directors and playful with cinema technique coming up with very original ways to shoot their scenes.
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Takeshi Kitano. Obviously.
shareTakeshi Kitano. Thank you thats another one for my list, what sort of genre/style does he inhabit?
shareHis early films are Japanese yakuza (gangster) films. But they're not action films. They're art house films. With tons of violence. They're all pretty slow, minimal, and beautiful... and definitely play with audience's expectations. Take a bank robbery scene in "Hana-Bi", where there's no violence, no dialogue, just a gun pointed, and some money emptied into a bag. That's the entire bank robbery scene (and there's a good 10-15 minutes leading up this "anticlimactic" scene, but it ends up being one of the best scenes in the movie).
He has made some films since then, especially his latest trilogy, that move away from the violence and move towards some kind of new... beauty. I can't even explain.
Godard is his biggest influence, and you can see a lot of stylistic similarities (constantly staring into the camera to convey emotion, constantly toying with audience's expectations, bright beautiful colors, a leisurely pace, use of silence, use of sweeping orchestral music, an embodyment of all the arts, visible paintings in a lot of shots), especially with films like Pierrot Le Fou (beach shots, unexpected violence.
It's not EXACTLY like Godard, obviously, as Kitano's films are often a lot darker and less romantic... however, he is the only director who I think really took what Godard was doing (I'm not familiar with what Godard is currently doing unfortunately) and did something interesting with it. Made it his own, I guess.
I'd highly reccomend the film ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE and DOLLS from his "new" period. From his "old" period, I'd reccomend HANA BI and SONATINE. There's some violence in his earlier films, but it's nothing too awful. His films are all extremely emotional and complex. Also, to me, they're the most interesting films ever... never a boring moment. The only ones I'd probably avoid are ZATOICHI and BROTHER, both which kinda betray his sensibilities and seem like "doing-it-for-the-money" kinda movies. They're both good but don't really let you know what his films are like.
Trust me, you won't be disappointed.
Interesting post and thank you for the specific reccommendations, sounds like a style and aesthetic in cinema that I would definitely find interesting. It also sounds like a style that movie mad encyclopaedia Tarantino would like/be influenced by for its experimental uses and breaking of codes and conventions. Do you think that maybe he was influenced by his yakuza films when he went about making "Kill Bill" 1 & 2 ? I'll have to see some of Kitano's films to find out.
shareI think the Lars von Trier comparison is apt, perhaps not so much in terms of content but in terms of visual style. I'm thinking especially of the use of jump cut in _Breaking the Waves_ to pull out the most "real," vibrant moments.
Quentin Tarantino has cited Godard as an influence in interviews, but I'm not sure if I actually see it in his films. What do you guys think?
He became a pretty great cinema director. But early Godard? Alex and Liane. They direct music videos. And that's more of a compliment of Alex and Liane than a put down of Godard.
shareWait wait wait ////poet
I would like to know how you can justify a close likeness to come out of a music video, I'm intrigued though.
Maybe Tarantino could redirect Godard(I imagine they are from the same appreciation society)
They make, much to their credit, redundant ideas and vapid people stylish while also making them appear to have some humanity.
Jonathan Glazer's (his movies are very good and well beyond early Godard) commercials, especially his Guiness ads, that he's directed are far better than early Godard.
Wong Kar Wai definitely. I'm really surprised that no one on here has mentioned PT Anderson. Love him or hate him, Punch-Drunk Love is (to me) undeniably the closest thing to an early Godard work that's been made in recent years. Watch PDL and Une Femme Est Une Femme back-to-back and the parallels are unbelievable.
there's no place you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
I'm glad that previous posters mentioned Wong. I remember seeing Chung Hing sam lam (Chungking Express} at a theater when it came out and thinking how much it reminded me of Godard. It was exiting in a way I can only imagine Godard was in the early '60s.
"Sometimes you have to take the bull by the tail, and face the truth" - G. Marx
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I think most talented Directors today don't fly by the seat of their pants like Goddard did. When making Breathless he wrote the script as he went along so the actors never had rehearsal time and he fed them their lines as they were shooting! He also had no expertise in editing so when he asked a friend what he should do, he got rid of all the scenes that did not contribute directly to the story and so he did and we have the "choppy" scenes which are common even to this day and started with Goddard. Real genius does not know what it is doing is "genius" and is rarely thought of as such until the "next" generation discovers the movies and hail the work genius.
share"He got rid of all the scenes that did not contribute directly to the story".
Godard´s game plan here seems to have been quite the opposite - to leave out as much actual "plot" and crucial dramatic events as possible. A lot of the film consists of meandering, barely relevant babble for crying out loud.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
I thought the movie was fine and not meandering. I am not a Goddard expert but whatever he was trying to accomplish, worked well for me and countless others. I had no problem seeing the main characters for what they were and they did evolve as the story progressed. It plays like a video almost but I wouldn't say this was a poorly conceived movie. I think history proves that! g'day!
shareI was trying to ´define´ the concept, not pass judgement whether its execution was successful or not. Also, I said the Belmondo/Seberg conversation was meandering, not the film as a whole.
And whatever, if anything, history might "prove", should never get in the way in a discussion.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
You do realise that Breathless is self-referential? It couldn't have been made any other way and would've lost its purpose had there been more focus on the plot.
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Real genius does not know what it is doing is "genius" and is rarely thought of as such until the "next" generation discovers the movies and hail the work genius.
Xavier Dolan anyone? J'ai Tue ma Mere pissed me off, but Les Amours Imaginaires was great and had a very Pierrot le Fou feeling to the colour spectrum. He listed Pierrot le fou as his number one on the criterion site
I have measured my life out with coffee spoons.