François Ruffin and Gilles Perret are not the only filmmakers interested in the “yellow vests”. From his home in Rolle, on the shores of lake Geneva, the film-maker franco-swiss Jean-Luc Godard looks closely at the movement which agitated france since November. In an interview with the swiss television public RTS broadcast this Sunday, the director of breathless , 88 years ago today, claims to be able to make a film to tell “the state of this country, France”.

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The filmmaker of the New Wave, who rarely speaks to the media, has received at his home, the star presenter of public television, who asked him if he could make a film about the “yellow vests”. “A film that tells the state of this country, France, or certain aspects of this country. Now, yes,” he said, sitting at a table in her kitchen, a cigar in hand, according to excerpts released by the channel to switzerland. On the question of what the strike in France today, Jean-Luc Godard responded in its own way, elusive, evoking the image of “a tiny girl, very pretty” that he has recently spotted walking in the street while she went to school “a good step” but with a T-Shirt on which was written “Panic”.

“cooking for change”

enfant terrible of the 7th art, revered or hated it, Jean-Luc Godard, 88 years, entered since a long time in the legend as a leader of the Nouvelle Vague that revolutionized the history of cinema, with films like breathless (1959) and Contempt (1963). “At the time, the author was the screenwriter, that is to say, the manufacturer of text,” he said to Olivia Gesbert in the context of the issue Great table , which will be broadcast Monday afternoon on France Culture.

“breathless , I am not the author of the law, added the director. It is Truffaut’s because I had taken an old scenario of him and at the time I asked him to let me restore, it could not, it is inalienable in France.”

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Jean-Luc Godard has entered the legend as a leader of the New Wave. The Cinémathèque suisse

“It was very different from the New Wave because the 3-4 boys who were there, saw that there was a continent of which we do not speak,-he said. I have always held, while being more or less mate, I remember the estates general of cinema in ‘ 68, I was rather a little away, looking at it, and after trying to make my salad. Working as someone who began making the kitchen to eat and then gradually see that we can change things”.

“The New Wave, there are more than two”

Asked about the recent death of Agnès Varda, another figure world of the 7th Art and a pioneer of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard explained that he felt “sympathy, many of them” to her. “She was original,” he said. In one of his last films, Faces, Villages achieved with the artist JR, Agnès Varda travelled up to Rolle to visit Jean-Luc Godard, but it was closed door, disappointed.

“When Agnès Varda is dead a few days ago, Godard said, I thought: the real New Wave, there are more than two. Me and (…) Jacques Rozier, which has started a little before me,” he said. The last opus of Jean-Luc Godard, picture book was awarded a prize at the last Cannes film festival, a Palme d’or special.

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on Thursday, Jean-Luc Godard was awarded the prix FIAF 2019. Awarded by the international Federation of film archives, the award distinguishes “a personality from the world of cinema outdoor in the middle of the archives, including the experience and personal commitment in favour of the film correspond to the missions of the FEDERATION,” says the organization in a press release. Previous recipients include Martin Scorsese (2001), Ingmar Bergman (2003), Hou Hsiao-hsien (2006), or Agnès Varda (2013). The filmmaker has dedicated to the memory of Iris Barry, the first director of the film department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, also co-founder of the FIAF.