{"id":498429,"date":"2022-09-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/numero.com\/culture\/jean-luc-godards-passing-the-scandals-that-forged-the-myth-2\/"},"modified":"2024-06-20T17:02:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T15:02:30","slug":"jean-luc-godards-passing-the-scandals-that-forged-the-myth-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/numero.com\/en\/culture-en\/movies\/jean-luc-godards-passing-the-scandals-that-forged-the-myth-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s passing: the scandals that forged the myth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Anna Karina sur le tournage du film Le Petit Soldat de Jean-Luc Godard \u00a9 Getty Images<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n \n

Jean-Luc Godard has not always been an acclaimed director.<\/strong> Before entering the pantheon of the greatest French filmmakers, even beyond France, Jean-Luc Godard used to shock people with ideas that characterized him throughout his life. Throwback to three key periods that have shaped the myth, from the 1960s to the present day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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The sixties: his films facing censorship<\/u><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

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In the early 1960s, France was in turmoil.<\/strong> Between the military and social tensions caused by the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) and the beginning of a new Republic since 1958, the quite political films made by Jean-Luc Godard and the New Wave directors in general were welcomed in a climate that didn\u2019t allow uncensored screenings. Within just a year, two of Godard films made the headlines and sent the public opinion into a tailspin. In 1960, he shot The Little Soldier, at a time when his first feature film, Breathless, had just been forbidden for people under 16. Set in 1958 during the Algerian war, the story has a deserter as the protagonist, and denounces what was really happening in the country, such as the use of torture. These three issues prompted the Minister of Information, Louis Terrenoire, to ban the film until 1963, a year after the end of the war. Jean-Marie Le Pen, another member of parliament, even demanded \u201cthe expulsion of the Swiss filmmaker\u201d from France. The following year, an additional film made by the director was censored. Initially entitled The Married Woman, the film draws the portrait a wife in an adulterous relationship, torn between her husband and her lover, and whose surprise pregnancy jeopardizes her love situation. Presented in the official selection at the Venice Film Festival in 1964, the film was banned in France by the censorship board of the Commission for the Classification of Cinematographic Works. Objections first focused on the title, which was considered outrageous, and then moved on to the erotic scenes, that were considered too explicit. Despite the media scandal caused by this ban, the film couldn\u2019t be shown unless Godard reedited it and changed the title from \u201cThe\u201d to \u201cA Married Woman\u201d. A move that only accentuated the director\u2019s radical political stance, emphasized four years later by the May 1968 events, and his public political stances in the 1970s. Among other projects, he participated in the creation of the film collective Dziga Vertov, designed to produce Maoist-orientated militant films.<\/p>\r\n\n

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