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January 1996, Week 1

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Subject:
From:
edwin jahiel <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:13:01 -0600
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At 1:52 AM 1/3/96, Wlt4 wrote:
>Does anybody know whether Godard is a citizen of Belgium or France?  And
>how can I verify the information?
>
>Thanks, Lang Thompson
>
=========================== reply========================
J.L. Godard s born in Paris in 1930. His family was of the protestant
bourgeoisie, middle-class by French standards, somewhat higher by US
Standards.
His father was a doctor, his mother a banker's daughter. He was never a
citizen of Belgium but a French citizen.
 
There is some confusion (mistaken belief) that he was born in Switzerland,
due partly I think to his having gone to school there for awhile. He also
was a laborer in Switzerland in 1954, working on the construction of a dam.
That's where he made his first film, the 20 min. documentary "Operation
Beton" (Operation Concrete) about the dam.
 
The Swiss thing may also be due to his several references to things Swiss
in his films, most of them paradoxes. In "Breathless" Belmondo says (I
quote from memory) : "No you know where you can find the prettiest girls ?
Not in Sweden, not in France [etc.etc.] but in Geneva."
 
BTW another belief about Godard is that his real name was Hans Lucas. But
that was a pseudonym,a nom-de-plume that he used often, alternating with
the name Godard, in his first critical writings at the Gazette du Cinema.
 
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