The cinematic legend died the way he lived – in a blaze of inscrutable, impossible film-making. We meet the team who helped shoot the final scene of his swansong just before his death by assisted suicide
On Friday 9 September 2022, Jean-Luc Godard had one last wish. He needed a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre to complete his film, Scénarios, but the book was missing from the shelf in his Swiss home. Time was pressing: he was up against a hard deadline. The film’s final scene was to be shot on Monday. On Tuesday, the director would die by assisted suicide.
Fabrice Aragno takes up the story. As Godard’s longtime collaborator, Aragno was his eyes and his ears, his trusted technical advisor. Surely he would be able to find the book from somewhere. “So on Friday 5.30pm, I drive very fast to Lausanne, 20 miles away,” he recalls. “I park the car and I’m sweating.
On Friday 9 September 2022, Jean-Luc Godard had one last wish. He needed a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre to complete his film, Scénarios, but the book was missing from the shelf in his Swiss home. Time was pressing: he was up against a hard deadline. The film’s final scene was to be shot on Monday. On Tuesday, the director would die by assisted suicide.
Fabrice Aragno takes up the story. As Godard’s longtime collaborator, Aragno was his eyes and his ears, his trusted technical advisor. Surely he would be able to find the book from somewhere. “So on Friday 5.30pm, I drive very fast to Lausanne, 20 miles away,” he recalls. “I park the car and I’m sweating.
- 5/20/2024
- by Xan Brooks
- The Guardian - Film News
A year ago, the Cannes Film Festival presented the world premiere of what was widely taken to be Jean-Luc Godard’s final film. He had died by assisted suicide eight months before, and the 20-minute-long “Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars'” felt, by nature, like the aestheticized version of a last will and testament. It was a collage film, and it was (surprise!) oblique, yet it offered tea leaves to read about Godard’s state of mind as he prepared to leave the world.
As it turns out, “Trailer of the Film…” was not Godard’s final work. The 18-minute-long “Scénarios,” also made in a collage style, but simpler and more direct, was unveiled today at Cannes, along with a 34-minute documentary about the making of the short. “Scénarios” has the feel of a minor but purefied late-period work, like a Matisse paper cutout. What’s...
As it turns out, “Trailer of the Film…” was not Godard’s final work. The 18-minute-long “Scénarios,” also made in a collage style, but simpler and more direct, was unveiled today at Cannes, along with a 34-minute documentary about the making of the short. “Scénarios” has the feel of a minor but purefied late-period work, like a Matisse paper cutout. What’s...
- 5/17/2024
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
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