Jean-Luc Godard, who passed away on the 13^th September, will be remembered as an enigmatic figure and pioneer of French New Wave cinema. Yet his legacy invites a grander question of the cinema’s potential (or perhaps lack thereof) to explore philosophical ideas. Here, Hunter Vaughan explores how Godard used film as a way to ‘perform’ philosophy, before outlining how the contemporary film industry must change in order to realise its full philosophical potential. 

Jean-Luc Godard, visionary filmmaker and perennial provocateur, was as conflictual in life as his legacy will no doubt be following his recent death at the age of 91. His oeuvre claims over 130 films as director, though as it spanned over short films, features, television series, digital content, and a variety of meta-textual activities, its quantitative summary is perhaps incalculable. And in a career that moved from flippant pastiche artist to self-branded Maoist to sincere curator of the legacies both positive and negative of moving-image culture, to understand and evaluate his work qualitatively is like trying to pin down an eel in an oil slick. His most superficial triteness held an abyssal profundity, while his audio-visual maxims smacked of dime-store advertising slogans.