The French New Wave filmmaking movement which began in the late 1950s was one of the radical challenges to the conventions of filmmaking of the 20th century - Jean-Luc Godard was the enfant terrible of that movement. Godard's 1959 film Breathless kickstarted a new generation of cool, stylish movies featuring radical new techniques (here the jump cut took on a new dimension), but nearly a decade later he would reshape the potential of cinema with Weekend, a scathing black satire on the collapse of modern civilization. Godard's real achievement here, beyond the wonderfully realised anarchic landscapes of modern France, violence and car crashes littering the streets, is his infusion into the story of real historic figures. To cite Ebert once more, " is his best film, and his most inventive. It is almost pure movie."
