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My Life as a Godard Movie
A book-length essay on beauty and revolution as seen through the work of Jean-Luc Godard.
As Joanna Walsh watches the films of Jean-Luc Godard, she considers beauty and desire in life and art. “There’s a resistance, in Godard’s women,” writes Walsh, “that is at the heart of his work (and theirs).” She is captivated by the Paris of his films and the often porous border between the city presented on screen and the one she inhabited herself. With cool precision, and in language that shines with aphoristic wit, Walsh has crafted an exquisitely intimate portrait of the way attention to works of art becomes attention to changes in ourselves. Taut and gem-like, My Life as a Godard Movie is a probing meditation by one of our most observant writers.
My Life as a Godard Movie is part of the Undelivered Lectures series from Transit Books.
As Joanna Walsh watches the films of Jean-Luc Godard, she considers beauty and desire in life and art. “There’s a resistance, in Godard’s women,” writes Walsh, “that is at the heart of his work (and theirs).” She is captivated by the Paris of his films and the often porous border between the city presented on screen and the one she inhabited herself. With cool precision, and in language that shines with aphoristic wit, Walsh has crafted an exquisitely intimate portrait of the way attention to works of art becomes attention to changes in ourselves. Taut and gem-like, My Life as a Godard Movie is a probing meditation by one of our most observant writers.
My Life as a Godard Movie is part of the Undelivered Lectures series from Transit Books.
112 pages, Paperback
First published December 8, 2021
11 people are currently reading
914 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Walsh
19 books171 followersJOANNA WALSH is a British writer. Her work has appeared in Granta Magazine, gorse journal, The Stinging Fly, and many others and has been anthologized in Dalkey's Best European Fiction 2015, Best British Short Stories 2014 and 2015, and elsewhere. Vertigo and Hotel were published internationally in 2015. Fractals, was published in the UK in 2013, and Hotel was published internationally in 2015. She writes literary and cultural criticism for The Guardian, The New Statesman, and others, is edits at 3:am Magazine, and Catapult, and created and runs the Twitter hashtag #readwomen, heralded by the New York Times as “a rallying cry for equal treatment for women writers.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
May 5, 2022
I’m a huge fan of radical, French director Jean-Luc Godard’s films although, like Joanna Walsh, the ones that have made the strongest, most lasting impression – enough that I can close my eyes and recreate specific scenes - are those he made during his earlier New Wave phase, especially if they featured the mesmerising Anna Karina. Alone during lockdown, Walsh watches a succession of Godard movies. Her fascination with Godard’s work sets off a chain of associations: thoughts and musings on his approach to cinema, his use of colour, the men and women he filmed. All of which drives Walsh to contemplate broader questions about the interconnections between being a woman and how women’s lives are depicted, from the clothes they wear to the choices they make –choices that have sometimes shaped her own life. Sometimes razor-sharp, sometimes meditative, and sometimes provocative, the result’s an insightful, thought-provoking blend of memoir and cultural criticism, an unusual exploration of the male gaze, perspectives on forms of femininity and one woman’s sense of self: of youth and of aging, of looking and being seen, of onscreen beauty, and shifting, intricate relationships between seeing, desire and envy.
Another in Transit Books's excellent, ongoing Undelivered Lectures series.
Thanks to Edelweiss Plus and Transit Books for an ARC
Another in Transit Books's excellent, ongoing Undelivered Lectures series.
Thanks to Edelweiss Plus and Transit Books for an ARC
April 23, 2022
I have no words, only feelings.
March 11, 2023
A provocative little book that centers mostly around Jean-Luc Godard's earlier New Wave movies, dealing with issues like colors in art, beauty and its influence on the lives of women, as for clothes, makeup, and everything else, but also its burden when beauty is not present or these elements cannot be achieved, or when one gets older.
I finally got to Paris and it was hot.
Too hot. I got
contact dermatitis from a bad soap.
My shoes rubbed
And I was no longer young.
To fear age as a woman is not to fear death
But obsolescence while you're still alive.
From what I can recall from the few Godard movies I have watched, I can remember that the women in his movies were not a "bait", an attraction because of their beauty, but the main reason for these movies. I can recall wonderful Anna Karina's Nana in Vivre sa vie and the high price women (still) usually has to pay to want to be more than a wife and a mother, unfortunately.
I finally got to Paris and it was hot.
Too hot. I got
contact dermatitis from a bad soap.
My shoes rubbed
And I was no longer young.
To fear age as a woman is not to fear death
But obsolescence while you're still alive.
From what I can recall from the few Godard movies I have watched, I can remember that the women in his movies were not a "bait", an attraction because of their beauty, but the main reason for these movies. I can recall wonderful Anna Karina's Nana in Vivre sa vie and the high price women (still) usually has to pay to want to be more than a wife and a mother, unfortunately.
March 26, 2023
“i wanted to live in primary color; something i compromised that couldn’t be mixed in from anything else. a man once looked at me and said i looked like i was filmed in eastman color. that was the color filmstock jean luc godard used, and godard didn’t like green either”
April 22, 2023
Positively mindthebook:esque. Så bra kafébok för januari. Godard movies är en grej.
Varje gång jag kommer till Paris konfronteras jag också med min egen ungdomstid, precis som det är för författaren. Här i London befinner man sig 2h15 min bort från Paris. Bara tanken på det ger upphov till en mighty joie de vivre.
Lite oväntat är de här experimentella essäerna också hennes lockdown-dagbok. Det slog mig precis att för exakt två år sedan var min påtvingade rutin att före Caffè Nero och jobbet först gå bort till Sheen Library, som delvis var ombyggt till covidcenter och ta ett lateral flow-test under NHS uppsikt.
Känner mig nu fri, som de urbana Godardkvinnorna.
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Här använde jag boken som produktfotograferingsrekvisita. (Ja, min redovisningsbyrå Artisan Accounts har t.o.m. lagt till det som en kategori i bokföringsprogrammet.)
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/13875...
Varje gång jag kommer till Paris konfronteras jag också med min egen ungdomstid, precis som det är för författaren. Här i London befinner man sig 2h15 min bort från Paris. Bara tanken på det ger upphov till en mighty joie de vivre.
Lite oväntat är de här experimentella essäerna också hennes lockdown-dagbok. Det slog mig precis att för exakt två år sedan var min påtvingade rutin att före Caffè Nero och jobbet först gå bort till Sheen Library, som delvis var ombyggt till covidcenter och ta ett lateral flow-test under NHS uppsikt.
Känner mig nu fri, som de urbana Godardkvinnorna.
---
Här använde jag boken som produktfotograferingsrekvisita. (Ja, min redovisningsbyrå Artisan Accounts har t.o.m. lagt till det som en kategori i bokföringsprogrammet.)
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/13875...
July 19, 2022
A short book of notes and provocations toward an understanding of beauty/identity in Godard’s work. Walsh writes from the perspective of her youthful self, a self that in her mind could still aspire to beauty (as she defines it within the confines of Godard’s work), as well as from the person she is now, someone who has left beauty (and perhaps ugliness, too) to the women on film, those who fit perfectly into the story the clothing is meant to tell (like no Earthly woman ever actually could). Don't come to this looking for super in-depth analysis of Godard. Come to this for new and interesting ways to think around art, film, fashion, and beauty. You'll grab most of it with a passing familiarity with the French director's work. Closest comp I can think of is Andrea Long Chu’s Females.
March 20, 2023
“I am trying not to make my life into a movie, but to see the movie in my life.”
This book of essays is very well written, insightful, well thought out, and well researched. The only reason I’m giving it a lower score is because I couldn’t get into it fully, which I don’t think is the fault of the author. As a filmmaker, this was an insightful read and something I’ll keep with me while watching Godard’s films, especially when it comes to use of color and feminism. Apart from that, I wasn’t captivated and didn’t necessarily find this to be my kind of read (respectfully).
This book of essays is very well written, insightful, well thought out, and well researched. The only reason I’m giving it a lower score is because I couldn’t get into it fully, which I don’t think is the fault of the author. As a filmmaker, this was an insightful read and something I’ll keep with me while watching Godard’s films, especially when it comes to use of color and feminism. Apart from that, I wasn’t captivated and didn’t necessarily find this to be my kind of read (respectfully).
June 1, 2023
READING VLOG
I believe in second chances. But with Walsh’s work, there will not be a third.
Because Godard is important to me in my becoming and the way I colored the world, I came into this with great interest. And the book begins with great interest with green as a color to follow in a Nelson’s 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘵𝘴 kind-of-way. Heavily researched and rewatched, Walsh’s interest and study in Godard’s work is thorough.
Also, Walsh’s brain is incredible, letting ideas jump and jump from one brilliant thing to the next. Green. Woman. Desire. Beauty. And it’s this unpredictable path which makes up a Godard film — an aggressive match point where victory is an endless train of thought.
But it’s when her personal life enters the frame does Walsh fail to fully flesh out her ideas. In an anecdote where she spends an entire day walking Paris and how it saved her life, we get nothing else. En fait, it just ends. C’est fini, sans conclusion. Which waters down the book in a blasé burden — shifty ideas without clear landing.
These are all tangents. Too open-ended. Half thought about.
Walsh thinks she can write in response. Have aesthetics speak, but the book’s structure comes off less pastiche and more camp in poor translation. Think bad and delayed subtitles to a good film. She cannot do what Godard’s 𝘜𝘯𝘦 𝘍𝘦𝘮𝘮𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪é𝘦 did with Truffaut’s 𝘓𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘦. As both auteurs’ films speak to each others, here, there is no communication. Walsh does not speak. She only thinks.
But it’s through her feminism and her analysis of the female body, on screen and off, does she shine through with a fierce poignancy that makes her arguments effective in unseeing Godard’s women without Godard.
In the end, the book becomes a hazy space for her to flex her French and ask her questions in a writerly way without doing any of the work. Shallow, as flat as her laptop screen, where she watches films from, a form of “violence” on cinema in itself at its most rusted, dull pierce of a petty shank.
I believe in second chances. But with Walsh’s work, there will not be a third.
Because Godard is important to me in my becoming and the way I colored the world, I came into this with great interest. And the book begins with great interest with green as a color to follow in a Nelson’s 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘵𝘴 kind-of-way. Heavily researched and rewatched, Walsh’s interest and study in Godard’s work is thorough.
Also, Walsh’s brain is incredible, letting ideas jump and jump from one brilliant thing to the next. Green. Woman. Desire. Beauty. And it’s this unpredictable path which makes up a Godard film — an aggressive match point where victory is an endless train of thought.
But it’s when her personal life enters the frame does Walsh fail to fully flesh out her ideas. In an anecdote where she spends an entire day walking Paris and how it saved her life, we get nothing else. En fait, it just ends. C’est fini, sans conclusion. Which waters down the book in a blasé burden — shifty ideas without clear landing.
These are all tangents. Too open-ended. Half thought about.
Walsh thinks she can write in response. Have aesthetics speak, but the book’s structure comes off less pastiche and more camp in poor translation. Think bad and delayed subtitles to a good film. She cannot do what Godard’s 𝘜𝘯𝘦 𝘍𝘦𝘮𝘮𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪é𝘦 did with Truffaut’s 𝘓𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘦. As both auteurs’ films speak to each others, here, there is no communication. Walsh does not speak. She only thinks.
But it’s through her feminism and her analysis of the female body, on screen and off, does she shine through with a fierce poignancy that makes her arguments effective in unseeing Godard’s women without Godard.
In the end, the book becomes a hazy space for her to flex her French and ask her questions in a writerly way without doing any of the work. Shallow, as flat as her laptop screen, where she watches films from, a form of “violence” on cinema in itself at its most rusted, dull pierce of a petty shank.
December 28, 2021
Although the page numbers are sequential in my copy, a sentence doesn’t end and is picked up pages later. That is like a Godard movie.
You need some background in his early films, especially the films with Anna Karina, to fully appreciate this jaunt into beauty, being, ageing & revolution.
Enjoyable.
You need some background in his early films, especially the films with Anna Karina, to fully appreciate this jaunt into beauty, being, ageing & revolution.
Enjoyable.
Read
February 8, 2023a must read for every girl whose style icon has been jean seberg (and has desperately tried to get their hands on a new york herald tribune shirt) at one point!
June 8, 2022
Walsh writes fabulously about femininity and the imperative for beauty, or how (to borrow Laura Mulvey’s term), the “to-be-looked-at-ness” of cinematic women has such an outsized effect on both films and us as people. Her confessions about clothes and her obsession with looking right felt honest and true. She really nails a lot of this. But I’m not sure that I agree with her take on film and some of the experimental sections felt ungrounded and flimsy - like she was evading substance, maybe, or whisking through too fast.
October 27, 2024
i love when i book makes me want to annotate it. i picked this up in a french bookstore without knowing who Godard was and learned that he was a french film director. i ended up watching the movies and then read this book. it felt like something i would have done if i studied art or women in school. overall a really great experience, happy i got to read this book!
December 14, 2022
I think every girl or woman or person should read this book. it articulated my thoughts on so many feminine subjects that i had never really been able to put into words. made me feel seen and comforted.
April 5, 2025
I had waited so long for my moment to become beautiful
I watched out for it carefully but, if it came, I did not see it.
Now I know it has passed me by
But when I look back at old selfies
Maybe I was.
Beauty is never inhabited by the beautiful.
I watched out for it carefully but, if it came, I did not see it.
Now I know it has passed me by
But when I look back at old selfies
Maybe I was.
Beauty is never inhabited by the beautiful.
July 25, 2023
A pretty great follow up to watching Barbie (2023)
January 23, 2024
Aunque es una obra muy en la órbita de cierto espíritu de la época, entre la memoria y la autoetnografía —lo que llamaría la vertiente más "francesa" de la no ficción o la autobiografía—, entre la exploración personal y la poética de lo cotidiano —digamos, lo que genéricamente engloba al "ensayo lírico" anglosajón contemporáneo: Maggie Nelson y otras escritoras—, Walsh ejerce un punto de vista cuya originalidad es una grata sorpresa. Obviamente, el estilo y la estructura tienen algo de Godard: los cortes abruptos de los inicios de la nouvelle vague, las interrupciones del flujo narrativo con textos superpuestos, la cita literaria y fílmica. Lo más interesante, en cualquier caso, es la premisa central.
Durante el encierro pandémico, Walsh repasa la filmografía temprana de Godard; brevemente, podría decirse que sus ensayos giran alrededor del tema del deseo, la belleza y la "male gaze" en el cine —me parece que la teórica británica Laura Mulvey es una presencia no reconocida en el texto—. Pero este no es un libro de crítica cultural. Aun en los momentos de mayor reflexión, la experiencia de Walsh filtra todo: nos habla de Anna Karina como de una conocida, se obsesiona con París, se recuerda de joven tratando de imitar el vestuario de las películas. "I have studied Godard's movies by trying to live them, and I have tried to live them by dressing for them": me gusta cuando, por momentos, este parece ser por completo un ensayo sobre alguien que quiere vestirse y vivir como un personaje de Godard.
La cuestión, como ocurre en ocasiones con este tipo de escritos híbridos, es que la multiplicidad de registros puede llegar a ser contraproducente. No es que la dispersión sea negativa, y a mí en particular me interesa mucho la escritura fragmentaria, que en este libro tiene varios destellos: por ejemplo, en meditaciones sobre el color en el cine o sobre las implicaciones culturales de la moda y el vestido —hay un diálogo potencial aquí con otro ensayo similar: The Baudelaire Fractal, de la poeta Lisa Robertson—. El problema es que en este caso la amplitud temática y estilística limita las posibilidades más de lo que las abre.
En las últimas páginas Walsh, de vuelta a la vestimenta como catalizador, le da una especie de cierre a la memoria personal: a la pandemia y a su reflexión sobre la belleza, a un anhelo de juventud, a su relación con el cine de Godard y sus protagonistas femeninas. Y sin embargo se quedan pendientes de explorar muchos territorios, particularmente este vínculo entre arte y vida, entre un fenómeno cultural aparentemente ajeno y la propia constitución de nuestra identidad personal —sin mencionar aspectos más superficiales como la poca atención a la genial Anne Wiazemsky—. Valdría la pena retomar algo de eso.
Durante el encierro pandémico, Walsh repasa la filmografía temprana de Godard; brevemente, podría decirse que sus ensayos giran alrededor del tema del deseo, la belleza y la "male gaze" en el cine —me parece que la teórica británica Laura Mulvey es una presencia no reconocida en el texto—. Pero este no es un libro de crítica cultural. Aun en los momentos de mayor reflexión, la experiencia de Walsh filtra todo: nos habla de Anna Karina como de una conocida, se obsesiona con París, se recuerda de joven tratando de imitar el vestuario de las películas. "I have studied Godard's movies by trying to live them, and I have tried to live them by dressing for them": me gusta cuando, por momentos, este parece ser por completo un ensayo sobre alguien que quiere vestirse y vivir como un personaje de Godard.
La cuestión, como ocurre en ocasiones con este tipo de escritos híbridos, es que la multiplicidad de registros puede llegar a ser contraproducente. No es que la dispersión sea negativa, y a mí en particular me interesa mucho la escritura fragmentaria, que en este libro tiene varios destellos: por ejemplo, en meditaciones sobre el color en el cine o sobre las implicaciones culturales de la moda y el vestido —hay un diálogo potencial aquí con otro ensayo similar: The Baudelaire Fractal, de la poeta Lisa Robertson—. El problema es que en este caso la amplitud temática y estilística limita las posibilidades más de lo que las abre.
En las últimas páginas Walsh, de vuelta a la vestimenta como catalizador, le da una especie de cierre a la memoria personal: a la pandemia y a su reflexión sobre la belleza, a un anhelo de juventud, a su relación con el cine de Godard y sus protagonistas femeninas. Y sin embargo se quedan pendientes de explorar muchos territorios, particularmente este vínculo entre arte y vida, entre un fenómeno cultural aparentemente ajeno y la propia constitución de nuestra identidad personal —sin mencionar aspectos más superficiales como la poca atención a la genial Anne Wiazemsky—. Valdría la pena retomar algo de eso.
Read
March 10, 2024I started reading this essay for Godard's female characters and history, and found Ms Walsh and lockdown (and, to be honest, Godard's treatment of his female characters, and his use of colour), which was what the title promise, so I have no reason to be disappointed.
October 20, 2022
What a spectacular little book!
April 25, 2025
this was a beautiful essay about existing as a woman in a society that idolizes female beauty, told through the lens of jean luc godard’s films. I found it very insightful, but I think I might relate to it more as I age so I’ll definitely return to it at some point in the future.
Read
April 7, 2025“what do I really look like? I have no idea.”
April 27, 2025
o livro que eu achava que alguém tinha que escrever (e que eu ia acabar tendo que escrever se ninguém fizesse isso antes). agora estou livre dessa obrigação mas com ainda mais ideias de jeitos que é possível escrever. faz uma boa dobradinha com a exposição da nathalie léger.
November 24, 2022
maybe more a 3.5. this starts strong reminding me of maggie nelson's bluets in its exploration of color in art (specifically you know whose) and suite for barbara loden in its dual exploration of an artist and the writer herself. lots of strong critiques of godard's 60s period, really the feminist critique i've always wanted to hear done well mixed with a critique of women as image in movies and beauty as a limiting concept in general. by the end though i was finding it awfully repetitive, self regarding, she says i want to be in paris or i couldnt go to paris or i want to be in a godard film or i dont like 50 times by the end, she more and more says IRL in a book, talks and follows and seems to care about instagram influencers, people i would call vermin, a strong word for an app ive practically never looked into but hey im pretty sure im right, the gram has devalued self image as ads had devalued images themselves, as tinder has warped sex lives, shit im losing track of my argument just like her. she concludes well tho. its a solid book. i'm cranky.
February 28, 2023
The title of Joanna Walsh’s book is both a blessing and a curse. First, the curse: the specificity of its title might strike some readers as too niche. It might even turn off readers who consider its subject a chauvinist. The truth is, the book is about much more: about ways of seeing, being and appearing; color, lockdown, the past, and Paris. Now the blessing: a different title - one that reflects its lockdown context or love of Paris - might consign it to the remaindered bin where heavily marketed but inferior books on these same subjects reside; if you expect all Godard all the time you'll be surprised and delighted.
And yet the book never strays too far from its subject. It is deeply, minutely engaged with Godard’s cinema. She treats his films the way they should be treated but rarely are, privileging the kinds of fleeting gestures that both define and disrupt his movies, the weird way that a window is shot or that a man holds a woman or that an audio track falls out of sync with what’s filmed.
None of this is as drily intellectual as I am making it sound. The book has the attention span of a Godard movie, the epicureanism of his filmography. It is endlessly quotable, aphoristic, elegant, and reckless. It’s as fun as any movie I’ve watched this year, it loves beauty and is skeptical of it, it loves Godard’s muses more than he did, just read it!
And yet the book never strays too far from its subject. It is deeply, minutely engaged with Godard’s cinema. She treats his films the way they should be treated but rarely are, privileging the kinds of fleeting gestures that both define and disrupt his movies, the weird way that a window is shot or that a man holds a woman or that an audio track falls out of sync with what’s filmed.
None of this is as drily intellectual as I am making it sound. The book has the attention span of a Godard movie, the epicureanism of his filmography. It is endlessly quotable, aphoristic, elegant, and reckless. It’s as fun as any movie I’ve watched this year, it loves beauty and is skeptical of it, it loves Godard’s muses more than he did, just read it!
June 26, 2023
"Though he would never pick me, off-screen or on, I am in a Godard movie."
This book was such a pleasant little surprise. I had no clue what to expect going in, and it had a slow opening, to be honest. I was a little worried that a book that had captivated me in concept would end up falling flat in execution. Luckily, by the section about some of Godard's shorts, I was completely hooked. The author's reflections on her womanhood were so intriguing, and will certainly have an influence on my own constantly evolving relationship to gender.
This book was such a pleasant little surprise. I had no clue what to expect going in, and it had a slow opening, to be honest. I was a little worried that a book that had captivated me in concept would end up falling flat in execution. Luckily, by the section about some of Godard's shorts, I was completely hooked. The author's reflections on her womanhood were so intriguing, and will certainly have an influence on my own constantly evolving relationship to gender.
November 23, 2024
read while at work—really interesting & thought provoking examination of beauty, gender, gaze/looking in art & in life, colors, fashion, aging, and real/imagined spaces. discussed many topics i find interesting in fiction and art so while my godard knowledge is limited, i was able to glean a lot from this. interested in reading the other essays in the series!
January 18, 2023
Some bits and pieces in here, but very bogged down overall by pandemic lockdown anxiety that already doesn't hold up well. If you're also the kind of person who hates internet lingo (instagram, influencers, twitter, etc) in books, skip this one!
June 5, 2023
I enjoy Godard films and I love memoirs that combine criticism with the author's own personal story, but I felt like this short book was not developed enough. I also did not enjoy the author's whining about not being beautiful and being too old.
April 30, 2024
someone said "I have no thoughts, only feelings" and I am also echoing that sentiment rn. I was expecting a very technical anthology of media analysis, but instead, it felt like looking into someone's thoughts about Godard and existential implications with the occasional poetry.
February 15, 2023
Note to self: watch Godard films before reading
Still appreciate Joanna’s commentary and her curiosity for French culture
Still appreciate Joanna’s commentary and her curiosity for French culture
February 24, 2023
CAN I [WE] CRITIQUE FEMINISM AND STILL BE CUTE?
THE MOST EXPENSIVE GARMENT YOU'LL EVER OWN IS YOUR OWN FLESH
THE MOST EXPENSIVE GARMENT YOU'LL EVER OWN IS YOUR OWN FLESH
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews