Canton de Vaud
—  Canton of Switzerland  —
Coat of arms
Coordinates: 46°37′N 6°33′E / 46.617°N 6.55°E / 46.617; 6.55Coordinates: 46°37′N 6°33′E / 46.617°N 6.55°E / 46.617; 6.55
Capital	Lausanne
Subdivisions	339 municipalities, 10 districts
Government
• Executive	Conseil d’État (7)
• Legislative	Grand Council (150)
Area[1]
• Total	3,212.03 km2 (1,240.17 sq mi)
Population (12/2010)[2]
• Total	713,281
• Density	220/km2 (580/sq mi)
Highest point	3,210 m (10,531 ft) - Diablerets
Lowest point	372 m (1,220 ft) - Lake Geneva
Joined	1803
Abbreviation	VD
Languages	French
Website	VD.ch
Map of Vaud

Vaud (French pronunciation: [vo]) is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and is located in Romandy, the French-speaking southwestern part of the country. The capital is Lausanne. The name of the Canton in Switzerland's other languages are Vaud in Italian (Italian pronunciation: [vo]), Waadt in German (pronounced [ˈvaːt]), and Vad in Romansh.

History[link]

Roman column in Nyon

Along the lakes, Vaud was inhabited in prehistoric times. Later, the Celtic tribe of the Helvetii inhabited the area. The tribe was defeated by Caesar's troops in 58 BC and as a consequence the Romans settled the area. The towns of Vevey (Latin: Viviscus) and Lausanne (Lausonium or Lausonna) are two of the many towns established by the Romans.

In 27 BC the state of Civitas Helvetiorum was established around the capital of Avenches (Aventicum). There are still many Roman remains around the town today. Between the 2nd and the 4th century the area was repeatedly invaded by Alemannic tribes, and in the 5th century the Burgundians occupied the area. The Merovingian Franks later replaced the Burgundians. Their occupancy did not last long either, and in 888 the area of the canton of Vaud was made part of the Carolingian Empire. In 1032 the Zähringens of Germany defeated the Burgundians. The Zähringens themselves were succeeded in 1218 by the counts of Savoy. It was only under the counts of Savoy that the area was given political unity, establishing the Barony of Vaud. A part stretching from Attalens to the River Sarine, in the north, was absorbed by the canton of Fribourg.

Built by the Bishop of Lausanne during the 15th century, Château Saint-Maire has been the seat of the cantonal government since 1803

As the power of the Savoys declined at the beginning of the 15th century the land was occupied by troops from Bern. By 1536 the area was completely annexed. Reformation was started by co-workers of John Calvin like Pierre Viret, including a famous debate at the cathedral of Lausanne; but it was only decisively implemented when Bern put its full force behind it.

The Bernese occupants were not popular amongst the population. In 1723, Major Abraham Davel led a revolt against Bern, in protest at what he saw as the denial of political rights of the French-speaking Vaudois by the German-speaking Bernese, and was subsequently beheaded.^[3] Later, inspired by the French Revolution, the Vaudois drove out the Bernese governor in 1798 and declared the Lemanic Republic. Vaud nationalists like Frédéric-César de La Harpe had called for French intervention in liberating the area and French Revolutionary troops moved in, taking over the whole of Switzerland itself in the process and setting up the Helvetic Republic. Under Napoleon I, it became the canton of Léman. Unrest about the abolition of feudal rights and taxes led to increased discontent, which culminated in the revolt of the Bourla-papey in Spring 1802, closely followed by the Stecklikrieg that brought the end of the entire Helvetic Republic. In 1803, Vaud joined the re-installed Swiss confederation. In spite of Bernese attempts to reclaim Vaud, it has remained a sovereign canton ever since.

In the 19th century, the canton of Vaud was an outspoken opponent of the Sonderbund Catholic separatist movement, which led to intervention in 1847 by 99,000 Swiss Federal troops under General Henri Dufour against 79,000 separatists, in what is called the Sonderbund War. Separation was prevented at the cost of very few lives. The current constitution dates from April 14, 2003, replacing the one from 1885.^{[citation needed]}

Geography[link]

Lake Geneva and the Alps from Vevey

Vallée de Joux, Jura

The canton stretches from Lake Neuchâtel in the north, where it borders the canton of Neuchâtel to Lake Geneva in the south, bordering the canton of Geneva, Haute-Savoie (lake border with France) and canton of Valais. On the Jura ranges in the west, the canton borders the French départements of Ain, Jura, and Doubs. In the east, it borders canton of Fribourg and canton of Bern. The total area is 3,212 square kilometers (1,240.2 sq mi).

Along with the canton of Berne, Vaud is one of the two cantons whose territory extends from the Jura to the Alps, through the three distinct geographic regions of Switzerland.

The areas in the southeast are mountainous, situated on the north side of the Bernese Alps. The region is commonly named the Vaud Alps (French: Alpes Vaudoises). The Diablerets massif, peaking at 3,210 meters (10,531 ft), is the highest mountain of the canton and the only glaciated area. Other summits such as the Grand Muveran or the Tour d'Aï are well visible from most of the canton. The area also host several popular skiing destinations such as Villars, Les Diablerets and Leysin.

The central area of the canton, in contrast, consists of moraines and is thus hilly. There are plains along the lakes. In the north, there is an exclave containing Avenches surrounded by canton of Fribourg and Lake Neuchâtel. On the other hand, there are two enclaves of the canton of Fribourg(Estavayer-le-lac, Vuissens, Surpierre), as well as two enclaves of the canton of Geneva(Céligny), that are surrounded by the canton of Vaud.

The north-western part of the canton is also mountainous but in a more modest way with mountains (or hills) generally not above 1,500 metres. The Vallée de Joux is one of the most popular destinations in the region. and the heart of luxury mechanical Swiss Watch manufacturing (see "Watch Valley").

Politics[link]

Members of the national council[link]

Source: The Swiss Parliament. "Members of the National Council: Canton of Vaud". http://www.parlament.ch/e/organe-mitglieder/nationalrat/mitglieder-kanton/mitglieder-nr-kanton-vd/Pages/default.aspx. Retrieved 2011-07-15. 

Members of the council of states[link]

Source: The Swiss Parliament. "Members of the Council of States: Canton of Vaud". http://www.parl.ch/e/organe-mitglieder/staenderat/mitglieder-kanton/mitglieder-sr-kanton-vd/pages/default.aspx. Retrieved 2011-07-15. 

Political subdivisions[link]

Districts[link]

Districts of Canton Vaud

The Canton of Vaud is divided into 10 districts:

• Aigle with capital Aigle
• Broye-Vully with capital Payerne
• Gros-de-Vaud with capital Echallens
• Jura-Nord Vaudois with capital Yverdon-les-Bains
• Lausanne with capital Lausanne
• Lavaux-Oron with capital Cully
• Morges with capital Morges
• Nyon with capital Nyon
• Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut with capital Vevey
• Ouest lausannois with capital Renens

Municipalities[link]

There are 376 municipalities in the canton (As of 2008^[update]).

Demographics[link]

Lausanne, capital and largest city in Vaud

The population is French-speaking and historically was overwhelmingly Protestant (Calvinist), dating from the early years of the Reformation. Recently, however, this has been changing due to immigration from Southern Europe. In 2000, the population was nearly evenly split between Protestants (40%) and Roman Catholics (34%).^[4]

The population of the canton (as of 31 December 2010) is 713,281.^[2] As of 2010^[update], the population included about 28% foreigners, including many Italians.^[5] The major population centres of the canton are: Lausanne (127,821 inhabitants in 31 December 2010), Montreux-Vevey (Montreux: 24579 Vevey:18394 inhabitants) and Yverdon-les-Bains (27,511 inhabitants). The region around Nyon is often considered part of the agglomeration of Geneva. All of these are on Lake Geneva (called Lac Léman in French), except for Yverdon, which is on Lake Neuchâtel.

Economy[link]

Lavaux vineyards above Lake Geneva

The capital, Lausanne, is the major city of the canton. There are light industries concentrated around it. In 1998, 71.7% of the workers worked in the tertiary sector and 20.8% in the secondary.

The canton is the second-largest producer of wine in Switzerland. Most of the wine produced in the canton is white, and most vineyards are located on the steep shores of Lake Geneva such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces. There is agriculture in the areas away from Lake Geneva. Sugar beet is important around Orbe, tobacco in La Broye Valley and fruit is grown on the foot of the Jura mountains. Cattle breeding and pasture are common in the Alps and the Jura mountains. There is a salt mine at Bex. Tourism is important in many towns along the Lake Geneva. Major lakeside resorts include Lausanne, Montreux and Vevey.

Education[link]

The Canton is home to several renowned universities and schools:

• Swiss Federal institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL)
• University of Lausanne (UNIL)
• International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
• School of Business and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD)
• École Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne, Lausanne Art School (ECAL)
• Collège Alpin International Beau Soleil
• Institut Le Rosey
• Aiglon College
• Glion Institute of Higher Education, Glion Institute of higher Education
• The American Graduate School of Business
• Business School Lausanne (BSL)
• Château de Bossey
• Swiss Hotel Management School (SHMS)

See also[link]

• Franco-Provençal language

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Vaud

• Cantonal government (French)
• Vaud Tourist Office
• Official Statistics Vaud (SCRIS)
• Official Statistics
• Vaud Directory (French)
• The canton of Vaud in 2010

References[link]

v t e Cantons of Switzerland Three Cantons  · Eight Cantons  ·  Thirteen Cantons  · coats of arms     ZH Zurich BE Bern LU Lucerne UR Uri SZ Schwyz OW Obwalden NW Nidwalden GL Glarus ZG Zug FR Fribourg SO Solothurn BS Basel-Stadt BL Basel-Landschaft SH Schaffhausen AR Appenzell Ausserrhoden AI Appenzell Innerrhoden SG St. Gallen GR Grisons AG Aargau TG Thurgau TI Ticino VD Vaud VS Valais NE Neuchâtel GE Geneva JU Jura historical cantons:  Unterwalden  · Basel  · Appenzell  · Baden  · Bellinzona  · Fricktal  · Léman  · Linth  · Lugano  · Oberland  ·  Raetia  · Säntis  ·  Waldstätten

v t e Client states of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792–1815) French client republics Balkans Illyria Germany Cisrhenia Danzig Mainz Ireland Connaught Italy Bologna Cisalpinia Cispadania Italian Republic Liguria Lucca Parthenopea Rome Transpadania Netherlands Batavia Bouillon Switzerland Helvetia Lemania Rauracia Rhodania Swiss Confederation Europe at the height of Napoleon's Empire Other Napoleonic creations Germany Confederation of the Rhine Berg Frankfurt Leyen Westphalia Würzburg Italy Etruria Lucca and Piombino Kingdom of Italy Naples Netherlands Kingdom of Holland Poland Duchy of Warsaw Spain Kingdom of Spain

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Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard, 1968
Born	(1930-12-03) 3 December 1930 (age 81) Paris, France
Citizenship	French, Swiss
Alma mater	University of Paris
Occupation	Film critic, director, actor, cinematographer, screenwriter, editor, producer
Years active	1950–present
Notable work(s)	Breathless, Pierrot le Fou, Band of Outsiders, Contempt, My Life to Live
Style	French New Wave
Influenced by	Jean Rouch, Satyajit Ray[1], André Bazin, John Ford, Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson, Karl Marx, Kenji Mizoguchi, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Nicholas Ray, Orson Welles, Max Ophüls, F. W. Murnau, Howard Hawks, Fritz Lang, Henri Langlois, Jean Cocteau, Bertolt Brecht, existentialism
Influenced	Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci, Michael Mann, Hal Hartley, Steven Soderbergh, Jim Jarmusch, Brian De Palma, Edward Yang, Serge Daney, Gregg Araki, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wong Kar-wai, Abbas Kiarostami
Spouse	Anna Karina (1961–67) Anne Wiazemsky (1967–79) Anne-Marie Miéville (not official)
Awards	Honorary Academy Award (2010) Honorary César (1987, 1998) Prix Jean Vigo (1960)
Signature

Jean-Luc Godard (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃lyk ɡɔdaʁ]; born 3 December 1930) is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement La Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave".^[2]

Like his New Wave contemporaries, Godard criticized mainstream French cinema's "Tradition of Quality",^[2] which "emphasized craft over innovation, privileged established directors over new directors, and preferred the great works of the past to experimentation."^[3] To challenge this tradition, he and like-minded critics started to make their own films.^[2] Many of Godard's films challenge the conventions of traditional Hollywood in addition to French cinema.^{[citation needed]} He is often considered the most radical French filmmaker of the 1960s and 1970s.^[4] Several of his films express his political views.^[4] His films express his knowledge of film history through their references to earlier films. In addition, Godard's films often cite existentialism, as he was an avid reader of existential and Marxist philosophy.^{[citation needed]} His radical approach in film conventions, politics and philosophies made him an influential filmmaker of the French New Wave.

After the New Wave, his politics have been much less radical and his recent films are about representation and human conflict from a humanist, not Marxist perspective.^[4]

In a 2002 Sight & Sound poll, Godard ranked third in the critics' top ten directors of all time (which was put together by assembling the directors of the individual films for which the critics voted).^[5] He has created "one of the largest bodies of critical analysis of any filmmaker since the mid-twentieth century."^[6] He and his work have been central to narrative theory and have "challenged both commercial narrative cinema norms and film criticism's vocabulary."^[7] In 2010, Godard was awarded an Academy Honorary Award, but did not attend the award ceremony.^[8] Godard's films have inspired diverse directors like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, D. A. Pennebaker,^[9] Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch, Wong Kar-wai, Wim Wenders,^[10] Bernardo Bertolucci^[11], Pier Paolo Pasolini^[11], Paul Thomas Anderson, Arthur Penn, Hal Hartley, Richard Linklater, Gregg Araki, Jørgen Leth, John Woo, Richard Lester, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Brian De Palma, Oliver Stone, Richard Ayoade and Ken Loach.

Early life[link]

Godard was born in Paris on 3 December 1930,^[12] the son of Odile (née Monod) and Paul Godard, a Swiss physician.^[13] His wealthy parents came from Protestant families of Franco-Swiss descent, and his mother was the great-granddaughter of theologian Adolphe Monod. Relatives on his mother's side include composer Jacques-Louis Monod, naturalist Théodore Monod and pastor Frédéric Monod.^[14][15] Godard attended school in Nyon, Switzerland and the Lycée Rohmer. In 1949, he registered for a certificate in anthropology at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), but did not attend class.^[16] He got involved with the young group of film critics at the ciné-clubs that started the New Wave. Godard originally only held French citizenship, when he then in 1953 became a citizen of Gland, canton of Vaud, Switzerland possibly through simplified naturalisation through his Swiss father.

Film criticism and early filmmaking[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2010)

After attending school in Nyon, Godard returned to Paris in 1948. It was there, in the Latin Quarter just prior to 1950, that ciné-clubs (film societies) were gaining prominence. Godard began attending these clubs, where he soon met the man who was perhaps most responsible for the birth of the New Wave, André Bazin, as well as those who would become his contemporaries, including Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, Jacques Rozier, and Jacques Demy. Godard was part of a generation for whom cinema took on a special importance. He has said: "In the 1950s cinema was as important as bread – but it isn't the case any more. We thought cinema would assert itself as an instrument of knowledge, a microscope ... a telescope.... At the Cinémathèque I discovered a world which nobody had spoken to me about. They'd told us about Goethe, but not Dreyer. ... We watched silent films in the era of talkies. We dreamed about film. We were like Christians in the catacombs."

His approach to film began in the field of criticism. Along with Éric Rohmer and Rivette, he founded the short-lived film journal, Gazette du cinéma, which saw publication of five issues in 1950. When Bazin co-founded the influential critical magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1951, Godard, with Rivette and Rohmer, was among the first writers. They, along with several other writers for Cahiers du cinéma in the 1950s, started making brief forays into film direction.

Godard, while taking a job as a construction worker on a dam in 1953, shot a documentary about the building, Opération béton (1955). As he continued to work for Cahiers, he made Une femme coquette (1955), a ten-minute short; All the Boys Are Named Patrick (1957) another short fiction film; and Une histoire d'eau (1958), which was created largely out of unused footage shot by Truffaut.

In 1958 Godard, with a cast that included Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anne Colette, made his last short before gaining international prominence as a filmmaker, Charlotte et son Jules, a homage to Jean Cocteau.

Cinematic period[link]

His most celebrated period as a filmmaker is roughly from his first feature, Breathless (1960), through to Week End (1967) focused on relatively conventional works that often refer to different aspects of film history. This cinematic period stands in contrast to the revolutionary period that immediately followed it, during which Godard ideologically denounced much of cinema’s history as "bourgeois" and therefore without merit.

Films[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2011)

Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg distinctly expressed the French New Wave's style, and incorporated quotations from several elements of popular culture – specifically American cinema. The film employed various innovative techniques such as jump cuts, character asides and breaking the eyeline match rule in continuity editing. Truffaut co-wrote Breathless with Godard and introduced Godard to the producer who ultimately funded the film, Georges de Beauregard.

Godard viewed film making as an extension of criticism and was more interested in redefining film structure and style than actually being understood by the public. Often his movies were more about the presentation of a story than anything else. The stories in his films were very simple yet unfocused and constantly digressing from the main story line (Jean-Luc Godard and Vivre Sa Vie by Tom Milne, 1962).

From the beginning of his career, Godard included more film references into his movies than any of his New Wave colleagues. In Breathless, his citations include a movie poster showing Humphrey Bogart (whose expression the lead actor Jean-Paul Belmondo tries reverently to imitate); visual quotations from films of Ingmar Bergman, Samuel Fuller, Fritz Lang, and others; and an onscreen dedication to Monogram Pictures, an American B-movie studio. Most of all, the choice of Jean Seberg as the lead actress was an overarching reference to Otto Preminger, who had discovered her for his Saint Joan, and then cast her in his acidulous 1958 adaptation of Bonjour Tristesse. If, in Rohmer’s words, "life was the cinema", then a film filled with movie references was supremely autobiographical.

The following year, Godard made Le Petit Soldat (The Little Soldier), which dealt with the Algerian War of Independence. Most notably, it was the first collaboration between Godard and Danish-born actress Anna Karina, whom he later married in 1961 (and divorced in 1967). The film, due to its political nature, was banned by the French government until January 1963. Karina appeared again, along with Belmondo, in A Woman Is a Woman (1961), intended as a homage to the American musical. Angela (Karina) desires a child, prompting her to pretend to leave her boyfriend (Jean-Claude Brialy) and make him jealous by pursuing his best friend (Belmondo) as a substitute.

Godard's next film, Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live) (1962), was one of his most popular among critics. Karina starred as Nana, an errant mother and aspiring actress whose financially straitened circumstances lead her to the life of a streetwalker. It is an episodic account of her rationalizations to prove she is free, even though she is tethered at the end of her pimp's short leash. In one touching scene in a cafe, she spreads her arms out and announces she is free to raise or lower them as she wishes. The film's style, much like that of Breathless, boasted the type of camera-liberated experimentation that made the French New Wave so influential.

Les Carabiniers (1963) was about the horror of war and its inherent injustice. It was the influence and suggestion of Roberto Rossellini that led Godard to make the film. It follows two peasants who join the army of a king, only to find futility in the whole thing as the king reveals the deception of war-administrating leaders. His most commercially successful film was Le Mépris (Contempt) (1963), starring Michel Piccoli and one of France's biggest female stars, Brigitte Bardot. A coproduction between Italy and France, Contempt became known as a pinnacle in cinematic modernism with its profound reflexivity. The film follows Paul (Piccoli), a screenwriter who is commissioned by the arrogant American movie producer Prokosch (Jack Palance) to rewrite the script for an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, which the Austrian director Fritz Lang has been filming. Lang's 'high culture' interpretation of the story is lost on Prokosch, whose character is a firm indictment of the commercial motion picture hierarchy. Another prominent theme is the inability to reconcile love and labor, which is illustrated by Paul's crumbling marriage to Camille (Bardot) during the course of shooting.

In 1964, Godard and Karina formed a production company, Anouchka Films. He directed Bande à part (Band of Outsiders), another collaboration between the two and described by Godard as "Alice in Wonderland meets Franz Kafka." It follows two young men, looking to score on a heist, who both fall in love with Karina, and quotes from several gangster film conventions.

Une femme mariée (A Married Woman) (1964) followed Band of Outsiders. It was a slow, deliberate, toned-down black and white picture without a real story. The film was entirely produced over the period of one month and exhibited a loose quality unique to Godard. Godard made the film while he acquired funding for Pierrot le fou (1965).

In 1965, Godard directed Alphaville, a futuristic blend of science fiction, film noir, and satire. Eddie Constantine starred as Lemmy Caution, a detective who is sent into a city controlled by a giant computer named Alpha 60. His mission is to make contact with Professor von Braun (Howard Vernon), a famous scientist who has fallen mysteriously silent, and is believed to be suppressed by the computer. Pierrot le fou (1965) featured a complex storyline, distinctive personalities, and a violent ending. Gilles Jacob, an author, critic, and president of the Cannes Film Festival, called it both a "retrospective" and recapitulation in the way it played on so many of Godard’s earlier characters and themes. With an extensive cast and variety of locations, the film was expensive enough to warrant significant problems with funding. Shot in color, it departed from Godard’s minimalist works (typified by Breathless, Vivre sa vie, and Une femme mariée). He solicited the participation of Jean-Paul Belmondo, by then a famous actor, in order to guarantee the necessary amount of capital.

Masculin, féminin (1966), based on two Guy de Maupassant stories, La Femme de Paul and Le Signe, was a study of contemporary French youth and their involvement with cultural politics. An intertitle refers to the characters as "The children of Marx and Coca-Cola."

Godard followed with Made in U.S.A (1966), whose source material was Richard Stark's The Jugger; and Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967), in which Marina Vlady portrays a woman leading a double life as housewife and prostitute. A Classic New Wave crime thiller, "Made in the U.S.A" is inspired by American Noir films. Anna Karina stars as the anti-hero searching for her murdered lover; includes a cameo by Marianne Faithful.

La Chinoise (1967) saw Godard at his most politically forthright so far. The film focused on a group of students and engaged with the ideas coming out of the student activist groups in contemporary France. Released just before the May 1968 events, the film is thought by some to foreshadow the student rebellions that took place.

That same year, Godard made a more colorful and political film, Week End. It follows a Parisian couple as they leave on a weekend trip across the French countryside to collect an inheritance. What ensues is a confrontation with the tragic flaws of the over-consuming bourgeoisie. The film contains some of the most written-about scenes in cinema's history. One of them, an eight-minute tracking shot of the couple stuck in an unremitting traffic jam as they leave the city, is cited as a new technique Godard used to deconstruct bourgeois trends.^[17] Startlingly, a few shots contain extra footage from, as it were, before the beginning of the take (while the actors are preparing) and after the end of the take (while the actors are coming out of character). Week End's enigmatic and audacious end title sequence, which reads "End of Cinema", appropriately marked an end to the narrative and cinematic period in Godard's filmmaking career.

Politics[link]

Politics are never far from the surface in Godard's films. One of his earliest features, Le Petit Soldat, dealt with the Algerian War of Independence, and was notable for its attempt to present the complexity of the dispute rather than pursue any specific ideological agenda. Along these lines, Les Carabiniers presents a fictional war that is initially romanticized in the way its characters approach their service, but becomes a stiff anti-war metonym. In addition to the international conflicts Godard sought an artistic response to, he was also very concerned with the social problems in France. The earliest and best example of this is Karina's potent portrayal of a prostitute in Vivre sa vie.

In 1960s Paris, the political milieu was not overwhelmed by one specific movement. There was, however, a distinct post-war climate shaped by various international conflicts such as the colonialism in North Africa and Southeast Asia. The side that opposed such colonization included the majority of French workers, who belonged to the French communist party, and the Parisian artists and writers who positioned themselves on the side of social reform and class equality. A large portion of this group had a particular affinity for the teachings of Karl Marx. Godard's Marxist disposition did not become abundantly explicit until La Chinoise and Week End, but is evident in several films — namely Pierrot and Une femme mariée.

Godard has been accused by some of harboring anti-Semitic views: in 2010, in the lead-up to the presentation of Godard's honorary Oscar, a prominent article in the New York Times by Michael Cieply drew attention to the idea, which had been circulating through press in previous weeks, that Godard might be an anti-Semite, and thus undeserving of the accolade. Cieply makes reference to Richard Brody's book, "Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard," and alluded to a previous, longer article published by the Jewish Journal as lying near the origin of the debate.^[18] The article also draws upon Brody's book, for example in the following quotation, which Godard made on television in 1981: "Moses is my principal enemy...Moses, when he received the commandments, he saw images and translated them. Then he brought the texts, he didn't show what he had seen. That's why the Jewish people are accursed."^[19] Immediately after Cieply's article was published, Brody made a clear point of criticizing the "extremely selective and narrow use" of passages in his book, and noted that Godard's work has approached the Holocaust with "the greatest moral seriousness".^[20] Godard himself has previously identified explicitly as an anti-Zionist but has denied the accusations of anti-Semitism.^[21]

Vietnam War[link]

Godard produced several pieces that directly address the Vietnam War. Furthermore, there are two scenes in Pierrot le fou that tackle the issue. The first is a scene that takes place in the initial car ride between Ferdinand (Belmondo) and Marianne (Karina). Over the car radio, the two hear the message "garrison massacred by the Viet Cong who lost 115 men". Marianne responds with an extended musing on the way the radio dehumanizes the Northern Vietnamese combatants.

In the same film, the lovers accost a group of American sailors along the course of their liberating crime spree. Their immediate reaction, expressed by Marianne, is "Damn Americans!" an obvious outlet of the frustration so many French communists felt towards American hegemony. Ferdinand then reconsiders, "That’s OK, we’ll change our politics. We can put on a play. Maybe they’ll give us some dollars." Marianne is puzzled but Ferdinand suggests that something the Americans would like would be the Vietnam War. The ensuing sequence is a makeshift play where Marianne dresses up as a stereotype Vietnamese woman and Ferdinand as an American sailor. The scene ends on a brief shot revealing a chalk message left on the floor by the pair, "Long live Mao!" (Vive Mao!).

Notably, he also participated in Loin du Vietnam (1967). An anti-war project, it consists of seven sketches directed by Godard (who used stock footage from La Chinoise), Claude Lelouch, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and Agnès Varda.

Bertolt Brecht[link]

Godard's engagement with German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht stems primarily from his attempt to transpose Brecht's theory of epic theatre and its prospect of alienating the viewer (Verfremdungseffekt) through a radical separation of the elements of the medium (in Brecht's case theater, but in Godard's, film). Brecht's influence is keenly felt through much of Godard's work, particularly before 1980, when Godard used filmic expression for specific political ends.

For example, Breathless' elliptical editing, which denies the viewer a fluid narrative typical of mainstream cinema, forces the viewers to take on more critical roles, connecting the pieces themselves and coming away with more investment in the work's content.^{[citation needed]} Godard also employs other devices, including asynchronous sound and alarming title frames, with perhaps his favorite being the character aside. In many of his most political pieces, specifically Week End, Pierrot le fou, and La Chinoise, characters address the audience with thoughts, feelings, and instructions.

Marxism[link]

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A Marxist reading is possible with most if not all of Godard’s early work. Godard’s direct interaction with Marxism does not become explicitly apparent, however, until Week End, where the name Karl Marx is cited in conjunction with figures such as Jesus Christ. A constant refrain throughout Godard's cinematic period is that of the bourgeoisie’s consumerism, the commodification of daily life and activity, and man’s alienation — all central features of Marx’s critique of capitalism.

In an essay on Godard, philosopher and aesthetics scholar Jacques Rancière states, "When in Pierrot le fou, 1965, a film without a clear political message, Belmondo played on the word 'scandal' and the 'freedom' that the Scandal girdle supposedly offered women, the context of a Marxist critique of commodification, of pop art derision at consumerism, and of a feminist denunciation of women’s false 'liberation', was enough to foster a dialectical reading of the joke and the whole story." The way Godard treated politics in his cinematic period was in the context of a joke, a piece of art, or a relationship, presented to be used as tools of reference, romanticizing the Marxist rhetoric, rather than solely being tools of education.

Une femme mariée is also structured around Marx's concept of commodity fetishism. Godard once said that it is "a film in which individuals are considered as things, in which chases in a taxi alternate with ethological interviews, in which the spectacle of life is intermingled with its analysis". He was very conscious of the way he wished to portray the human being. His efforts are overtly characteristic of Marx, who in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 gives one of his most nuanced elaborations, analyzing how the worker is alienated from his product, the object of his productive activity. Georges Sadoul, in his short rumination on the film, describes it as a "sociological study of the alienation of the modern woman".

Revolutionary period[link]

The period that spans from May 1968 indistinctly into the 1970s has been subject to an even larger volume of varying labeling. They include everything from his "militant" period, to his "radical" period, along with terms as specific as "Maoist" and vague as "political". The period saw Godard align himself with a specific revolution and employ a consistent revolutionary rhetoric.

Films[link]

Amid the upheavals of the late 1960s Godard became interested in Maoist ideology. He formed the socialist-idealist Dziga-Vertov cinema group with Jean-Pierre Gorin and produced a number of shorts outlining his politics. In that period he travelled extensively and shot a number of films, most of which remained unfinished or were refused showings. His films became intensely politicized and experimental, a phase that lasted until 1980.

According to Elliott Gould, he and Godard met to discuss the possibility of Godard directing Jules Feiffer's 1971 surrealist play Little Murders. During this meeting Godard said his two favorite American writers were Feiffer and Charles M. Schulz. Godard soon declined the opportunity to direct; the job later went to Alan Arkin.^{[citation needed]}

Jean-Pierre Gorin[link]

After the events of May 1968, when the city of Paris saw total upheaval in response to the "authoritarian de Gaulle republic", and Godard's professional objective was reconsidered, he began to collaborate with like-minded individuals in the filmmaking arena. The most notable of these collaborations was with a young Maoist student, Jean-Pierre Gorin, who displayed a passion for cinema that grabbed Godard’s attention.

Between 1968 and 1973, Godard and Gorin collaborated to make a total of five films with strong Maoist messages. The most prominent film from the collaboration was Tout va bien, which starred Jane Fonda and Yves Montand, at the time very big stars. Jean-Pierre Gorin now teaches the study of film at the University of California, San Diego.

The Dziga Vertov group[link]

The small group of Maoists that Godard had brought together, which included Gorin, adopted the name Dziga Vertov Group. Godard had a specific interest in Vertov, a Soviet filmmaker—whose adopted name is derived from the verb to spin or rotate^[22] and is best remembered for Man with the Movie Camera (1929) and a contemporary of both the great Soviet montage theorists, most notably Sergei Eisenstein, and Russian constructivist and avant-garde artists such as Alexander Rodchenko and Vladimir Tatlin. Part of Godard’s political shift after May 1968 was toward a proactive participation in the class struggle.

Sonimage[link]

In 1972, Godard and Swiss filmmaker Anne-Marie Miéville started the alternative video production and distribution company Sonimage, based in Grenoble.^[23] Under Sonimage, Godard produced both Numero Deux (1975) and "Sauve qui peut (la vie)" (1980). In 1976, Godard began collaborating with Swiss filmmaker Anne-Marie Miéville, his wife,^[24] on a series of innovative video works for European broadcast television called "Six fois deux/Sur et sous la communication" (1976)^[25] and "France/tour/détour/deux/enfants" (1978).

1980 – 1999[link]

His return to somewhat more traditional fiction was marked with Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980), the first of a series of more mainstream films marked by autobiographical currents: for example Passion (1982), Lettre à Freddy Buache (1982), Prénom Carmen (1984), and Grandeur et décadence (1986). There was, though, another flurry of controversy with Je vous salue, Marie (1985), which was condemned by the Catholic Church for alleged heresy, and also with King Lear (1987), an extraordinary but much-excoriated essay on William Shakespeare and language. Also completed in 1987 was a segment in the film ARIA which was based loosely from the plot of Armide; it is set in a gym and uses several arias by Jean-Baptiste Lully from his famous Armide.

His later films have been marked by great formal beauty and frequently a sense of requiem — Nouvelle Vague (New Wave, 1990), the autobiographical JLG/JLG, autoportrait de décembre (JLG/JLG: Self-Portrait in December, 1995), and For Ever Mozart (1996). Allemagne année 90 neuf zéro (Germany Year 90 Nine Zero, 1991) was a quasi-sequel to Alphaville but done with an elegiac tone and focus on the inevitable decay of age. Between 1988 and 1998 he produced perhaps the most important work of his career in the multi-part series Histoire(s) du cinéma, a monumental project which combined all the innovations of his video work with a passionate engagement in the issues of twentieth-century history and the history of film itself.

2000 – present[link]

Godard has continued to work actively into his seventies. In 2001, Eloge de l'Amour (In Praise of Love) was released. This film is notable for its use of both film and video – the first half captured in 35 mm black and white, the latter half shot in color on DV – and subsequently transferred to film for editing. The blending of film and video recalls the statement from Sauve Qui Peut, in which the tension between film and video evokes the struggle between Cain and Abel. Eloge de l'Amour is rich with themes of aging, love, separation, and rediscovery as we follow the young artist Edgar contemplating a new work on the four stages of love (should it be an opera? a film?). He meets up with a lost love who is terminally ill, and at her death we are thrust into the second half of the film where Edgar meets with her at her grandparent's house two years before. Producers for Steven Spielberg are negotiating the purchase of her grandparent's World War II story; the young woman attempts to stall the deal. This is one of Godard's most tender films, yet it is characteristically enigmatic and demands the viewer's full attention.

In Notre musique (2004), Godard turns his focus to war, specifically, the war in Sarajevo, but with attention to all war, including the American Civil War, the war between the US and Native Americans, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The film is structured into three Dantean kingdoms: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Godard's fascination with paradox is a constant in the film. It opens with a long, ponderous montage of war images that occasionally lapses into the comic; Paradise is shown as a lush wooded beach patrolled by US Marines.

Godard's latest film, Film Socialisme, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.^[26][27] It was released theatrically in France in May 2010.

He is rumored to be considering directing a film adaptation of Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, an award-winning book about the Holocaust.^[28] He has stated that his next feature film will be called Adieu au Language (Farewell to Language), which will be shot in 3-D.^[29][30] The film will revolve around a couple who cannot communicate with each other until their pet dog acts as an interpreter for them.

Tributes[link]

• " From Hollywood to the Third World, from the mainstream to the Avant-Garde, Godard's name is perhaps the only one that occurs wherever cinema is discussed or produced." – Colin Myles MacCabe
• " Like Picasso, Godard reveals to us throughout his work his world as source and subject; the artist's studio, the objects of his daily life, the references to and repetitions of his own works, the layering of words and images, the women he has loved, the horrors of war." – Mary Lea Bandy.
• " Godard's is an art of plastic age, of fluent, pliable, putty characters." – Raymond Durgnat
• " Godard's importance lies in his development of an authentic modernist cinema in opposition to (though, during the early period, at the same time within) mainstream cinema: it is with his work that film becomes central to our century's major aesthetic debate, the controversy developed through such figures as Lukacs, Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno as to whether realism or modernism is the more progressive form." –Robin Wood.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

• Grant, Barry Keith, ed. (2007). Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film. Detroit, MI: Schirmer Reference. ISBN 0-02-865791-8. 
• MacCabe, Colin (2005). Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy. New York: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-21105-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=FwLqbp0cEp8C. 
• Morrey, Douglas (2005). Jean-Luc Godard. New York: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6759-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=Kby7RaRmTt4C&pg=PA1. 
• Steritt, David. (1998) Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jean-Luc Godard

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jean-Luc Godard

• Jean-Luc Godard at the Internet Movie Database
• Jean-Luc Godard at the Criterion Collection
• Jean Luc Godard Biography at newwavefilm.com
• Jean-luc Godard Timeline
• Detailed filmography of Jean-Luc Godard on unifrance.org
• Jean-Luc Godard at The Guardian Film
• Jean-Luc Godard at The New York Times Movies
• Jean-Luc Godard collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Jean-Luc Godard in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Guardian Interview (04/2005)
• Video dialog -in french- between Godard and the french writer Stéphane Zagdanski about Literature and Cinema, November 2004