Like an antiphon this phrase recurs, through the decades: “The problem with Godard is…” It is pronounced, of course, by his detractors, but also by his thurifers – in this case, the “problem” arises from the public’s unwillingness to understand Jean-Luc Godard (1930-2022) – throughout the seven episodes of this fascinating montage of programs that “Le Masque et la plume” devoted to the author of Pierrot le fou (1965).

Fruit of the work of Jean-Marc Lalanne, critic for Les Inrockuptibles and himself a regular speaker on France Inter’s oldest show – created at the time when we still called “TSF” for radio, in 1955 – this imposing building welcomes both a history of Godard’s work and a chronicle of French film criticism. It is also the novel of a violent and destructive love between these two protagonists.

The preliminaries are fascinating: in 1959, Godard participated as a critic in the program “Le Masque et la plume”. He violently attacks Marie-Octobre (1959), by Julien Duvivier, an example of this French quality that the Cahiers du cinéma vomit out. But at his side, his well-established elders, the conservative Georges Charensol, the Marxist Georges Sadoul, are just as harsh for what they depict as a dead art.

“The Mask and the Feather” then missed the appointment of Breathless, in 1960, and let slip The Little Soldier (1960) and Une femme est une femme (1961). It was not until the release of Vivre sa vie, in 1962, that Godard finally took the place of the accused before the tribunal of “Masque”. Under the presidency of Michel Polac, the uproar of the duel between lawyer Jean-Louis Bory and prosecutor Charensol covers the remarkable analysis of Jean Douchet.

Reluctant canonization

During a subsequent broadcast, the filmmaker himself was called to the stand. These moments where the artist directly confronts the words born from his work return four times, up to Pierrot le fou. These are among the most exciting of this series, Godard is not yet quite the showman that he will become in front of the cameras of the 1980s. He hesitates between the position of the host on the threshold of his work and that of guardian of the temple, while allowing some fascinating indications to slip through.

After May 1968, “The Mask and the Feather” settled into a sort of routine, from Tout va bien, in 1972, to Livre d’image, in 2018. From Sauve qui peut (la vie), in 1980 , detractors and lauders meet on the plastic beauty of the films, while at least one critic assumes the role of the imbecile who understands nothing by implying that, in any case, there is nothing to to understand. It often happens that it is from the room that the most relevant impressions and comments arise.

However, despite the repetitions, an image is formed, made of successive farewells to language – at the end, the masterful emphasis of Charensol or Armand Lanoux (who does a frightening Monsieur Prudhomme number about Week-end, in 1967) gave way to speckled exchanges between heirs of critical quarrels as old as the New Wave – and a kind of reluctant canonization of the artist.

Along the way, we will glean valuable information, such as the price of a cinema ticket in 1963: 800 (old) francs, or Godard’s budgets before 1968. And we will contract a furious desire to lose ourselves in this filmography that so vigorously resists discourse. This is undoubtedly “the problem with Godard”.