Jean-Luc Godard

In Jean-Luc Godard: Philosopher/Insurgent, Jonathan Scott Lee contends that renowned filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard can be most accurately considered as a philosopher who uses cinema and video as his media to develop provocative aesthetic interventions into contemporary political situations and dilemmas. Rather than attempting to write a “definitive” study of Godard or establish a new canon from his expansive oeuvre, Lee identifies a particularly salient selection of his work which highlights innovative ways of understanding his lifelong engagement with film and video. Building on Godard’s own claim that “cinema is made of forms that think,” Lee embarks on a compelling exploration of the ways in which these films are poised to guide viewers into a “subjunctive” space of interpretation in which philosophical thinking engages fundamental questions about an art of living. Moving through these films chronologically, each of the three essay-chapters considers a different stage of Godard’s thought and career through the lens of another prominent thinker—in the 1960s, Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope; in the late 1960s and early 1970s, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; and in the final decades, historian and philosopher of art André Malraux. By offering a distinct trajectory through Godard's work between 1960 and 2018, Lee demonstrates how his various modes of cinematic and video intervention might be seen to effect real change in audiences’ thinking and in the world more broadly.