The truth is that I never got into the French New Wave. That probably sounds like an outrageous confession from a self-professed cinephile, but the combination of the complex, fragmented narratives with subtitles meant I could never follow New Wave films. I think I’ve described the problem I have with subtitles on here before: the first few minutes might be okay, but then my head starts to move around so much that I can’t keep up with reading, and eventually I loose track of the film. This, combined with the very cerebral style of New Wave films, meant that I never got into them. That’s why I have hesitated about saying anything here about the death of Jean-Luc Godard a couple of days ago. Yet I know full well how influential Godard was. Without his mould-breaking films, Hollywood would probably still be stuck in the studio system, churning out more or less the same films again and again. Godard and his New Wave colleagues showed the world how much potential cinema has, influencing anyone from  Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Quentin Tarantino.to Peter Jackson. Thus while I’m rather embarrassed about not understanding his films, I still recognise what a phenomenal director Godard was, and know how much he will be missed.