Steve Erickson
Jean-Luc Godard
3 December 1930 - 13 September 2022
The New Wave’s head to Truffaut’s heart — each had something the other lacked — and sometimes more important than good, he was a bit like Philip K. Dick, who never wrote a flat-out great novel but whose half-dozen best novels added up to something great. Taken together BREATHLESS, VIVRE SA VIE, CONTEMPT, PIERROT LE FOU and WEEKEND profoundly changed movies like few filmmakers. Concluding movies were exhausted even before he declared “the end of cinema,” he was punk before punk rock. Before his sensibility could no longer outrace the anarchy of history, the chaos of his psyche took on the force of an unwitting confession.
Steve Erickson is the author of 10 novels and nonfiction books, most recently AMERICAN STUTTER, which originally appeared in the Journal. Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside, Erickson has written for Esquire, The New York Times, McSweeney's, and the BBC. He currently covers media and the arts for Los Angeles magazine.
Erickson's curated selection of foreign and independent films is now available at Filmatique.
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