It was announced last week that French-Swiss film maker, screenwriter and critic Jean-Luc Godard will be receiving an honorary Oscar on Nov. 13. For those not familiar with Godard’s work, he is often identified with the French New Wave — otherwise known as “La Nouvelle Vague” — where classical cinema was rejected and replaced with radical experimentation in editing, style and the traditional narrative.
After the announcement of his award became public, the news got a lot of media attention — not for the award, but for Godard’s personal life. As it turns out, he might be anti-Semitic, and that made a lot of people in the film industry uncomfortable for a while.
There should be no tolerance for anti-Semitism. Prejudice against or hostility toward Jews for cultural or religious reasons is absolutely wrong. However, Jean-Luc Godard may have anti-Semitic inclinations or he may not, but it’s not exactly clear.
Godard is well known for being an advocate for pro-Palestinian rights, but being pro-Palestinian does not at all mean you’re anti-Jewish.
Some of his films suggest a possible disdain for Jews, like in his documentary “Here and There,” where Adolf Hitler’s face pops up, as well as Golda Meir — Israel’s fourth prime minister. Supposedly, Godard was making a point that the two were equal.
Art is a really complicated subject to judge because there is rarely a right or wrong answer. If Godard is an anti-Semite, my love for him as an individual just fell apart, but my love for his movies is still as strong as always.
In Godard’s choppy black-and-white scenes, young, fashionable characters speak like the most nonchalant philosophers imaginable, and his extraordinary mixture of harsh life with pop culture is so visually refreshing — then and now.
Ultimately, all of our idols can be flawed. In a 1987 interview, he was quoted as criticizing the film industry for being united in Jewish usury.
“What I find interesting in the cinema is that, from the beginning, there is the idea of debt. The real producer is, all the same, the image of the Central European Jew,” Godard said.
His comments should most definitely receive negative attention from the press but not his work. His art should be left alone. There should almost always be a separation between ideology and art, between who the producer is and what he produces.
Camila Cossio is a creative writing sophomore and may be reached at [email protected].
