Jean-Luc Godard Quotes

The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life.

Movies are the greatest art form the world has come up with yet. If you don't use them to the full extent and you don't give people as much as you possibly can, you're doing a disservice to it.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.

Sometimes you like the personal adventure implicit in the making of a film, and sometimes you like your part in a film, and sometimes you like the final result.

The movie medium will eventually take its place as art because there is no other medium of interest to so many people.

I came to the conviction that film criticism, in and of itself, was an art.

I don't think the audience goes and thinks of the movie as a piece of art - there are some independent people who may go and have a higher appreciation for filmmaking. It is a great art form, but I don't think you look at a painting and a movie with the same eye.

I feel like at the end of the day, as entertaining as movies are, when you're part of them in a way, it's this beautiful art form and that's what it feels like for me. I'm not a painter, but I can express myself visually in a way that allows me to artistically create.

it's not my job to preach a sermon. Art is anyhow a homily. My job is to speak in living images, not in arguments. I must exhibit life full-face, not discuss life.

To me, movies are valuable as an art form and as a wonderful means of popular entertainment. But I think movies have gone terribly wrong.

You know what's it's changed is my appreciate for the art form of making cinema. I don't want to act as much as I want to tell stories. I want to be a part of the whole collective and pull all of the pieces together. That's what I love about directing.

As far as art and filmmaking is concerned, I don't see there's any separation; it's just one continuous thing.

I’m just a storyteller, and the cinema happens to be my medium. I like it because it recreates life in movement, enlarges it, enhances it, distills it. For me, it’s far closer to the miraculous creation of life than, say, a painting or music or even literature. It’s not just an art form; it’s actually a new form of life, with its own rhythms, cadences, perspectives and transparencies. It’s my way of telling a story.

I don't think all films should necessarily look like they do on digital video. I think it cheats the audience, at some point. If you try to make an epic and you shoot it digitally, that doesn't make much sense. I think there's a certain kind of film that could be a "digital film." But it shouldn't be interchangeable with other films. It should be something more than just a capture medium. It should be a different form altogether, something new.

From film to film, I realize my strengths and my weakness, and I realize how much better I get. I learn the lingo, I ask questions and I'm on set trying to figure out which shots they're going to use. For me, it's exploring the art. It's not just making a movie.

From the very first movie I ever made to the current time, there have been times between action and cut when I've sensed some kind of new dimension that I haven't been familiar with before.

The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle.

If you consider film an art form, as some people do, then the Western would be a truly American art form, much as jazz is.

For me, I see filmmaking as art.

Art doesn't transform. It just plain forms.

I think film is the best medium to inspire people. It's a combination of image, dialogue, and music, which can make for a powerful message or a simple escape.

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

Movies become art after editing. Instead of just reproducing reality, they juxtapose images of it. That implies expression; that's art.

And so my militant philosophy is this: to make with a brush on canvas is a simple direct delight-to make with the movie is the same.

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.