Jean-Luc Godard is one of the most influential filmmakers of the last fifty years. Scorsese, Tarantino, Wong Kar-Wai and Lars Von Trier are but a few of the directors who have fallen under the spell of Godard's free-wheeling style. In his 1960s Godard, always in dark shades with a cigarette in hand, epitomised European cool and subsequently grew into one of the most formidable artists the cinema had produced.

Writer and filmmaker Richard Brody, one of the few to have interviewed Godard in his Swiss retreat, offers an accessible account of this extraordinary and fascinating artist.