If Thomas Imbach’s parents are to be believed, he was conceived during a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s cult film Breathless (À bout de souffle) some time at the beginning of the ‘60s. This would be the beginning of a lifelong connection to the “God of Cinema” as Imbach likes to call his filmmaking hero.
Even though he admits to having “killed” his idol in order to be free to make his own kind of cinema, and forgetting about him over a substantial period of time, it was during the pandemic that the idea for his latest film Say God Bye, which world premiered at the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, came to him. In fact, during one of the COVID lockdowns, in March 2021, Imbach hopped on Zoom to listen to Godard in conversation with Indian film critic C.S. Venkiteswaran during the Kerala International Film Festival where Godard was being feted. “I was surprised [to see] how old and vulnerable Godard was,” he admits.
“It was clear from that very moment that I have to do something because, for forty years, I had been under a spell,” Imbach adds. Fearing that if he didn’t take action right away it would be too late, he decided there and then to walk 270 kilometres from his home in Zurich to Godard’s residence in Rolle, in the French-speaking corner of the Helvetic Confederation.
This is what Say God Bye is about. In a personal reflection on cinema Imbach interweaves images of Switzerland, footage and pictures from his and JLG’s work, images of their past lives and conversations with random strangers he met on his pilgrimage.
“We are both Swiss so it was also a way to show we share a similar heritage. That’s how it started. But it really goes back to when I was born as a filmmaker – namely, when I saw Sauve qui peut (la vie), JLG’s so-called ‘second first film’. That was his first real Swiss film. I discovered you could make a film like that in Switzerland. So, I had to stay here although I had actually started studying film in New York at the time. I thought, why not just start in my home country as a self-taught filmmaker?”
They say “never meet your heroes,” but at the end of this journey Imbach was glad he met his. He also discovered a man that was very surprised to see him, “but who was very matter-of-fact; he accepted our gifts, but he was not really in the mood to go further.” Imbach wanted to come back a second time and film with Godard, but fate intervened because JLG decided to “leave the party.” The venerable director died in September 2022.
“It was very sad. But it was also, for me, a confirmation of ‘Hey, you had the good instinct at that moment to say hello.’ And, in the final cut, he’s like a living character in the film although we all know is he is not alive anymore.”
Imbach was interested in Godard’s longstanding collaboration with his wife. Her ephemeral presence in Say God Bye was of course “a given,” but although he had contemplated contacting her after Godard’s passing, he admits to not wishing to push it.
For Imbach, Godard is “from a male generation. He comes from the Nouvelle Vague. Of course, there was Agnès Varda and she was one of the very few female directors at the time,” he notes, at the same time emphasizing that JLG is a director who was very much influenced by women’s liberation. Through Godard, Imbach discovered the American feminist writer Kate Millett when he was twenty something years old. “A lot of what is being discussed today that had already been a topic in the ‘80s, like the patchwork family, the gender issues… He was a very male director, but at the same time, he was also a female one. He was very much in the footsteps of Bergman, another very male director, with strong female influences at the same time,” he explains.
It was also very important for Imbach to highlight Godard’s Swissness. “He learned to navigate between France and Switzerland. When he was a small kid, he was raised in Switzerland. Later he lived with his mother’s family in Paris. He started stealing books from his grandfather, and they sent him away to Switzerland. That’s where he made his very first film, ‘Opération béton’. Then, in the ‘50s, he went back to Paris. After the ‘70s, he stayed in Switzerland and did most of his work here,” he says of Godard’s relationship with Switzerland.
“Of course, it’s not about nationality; it’s more my personal story that I wanted to tell while traveling on foot to see him – making him one of mine. Probably more vice versa; making myself one of his [personal stories] during the walk, building up the connection that I felt, talking to him along the way.” he adds.
Although Say God Bye is a personal tribute to JLG, it is also a universal tribute that speaks to filmgoers and cineastes worldwide, Imbach stresses. Many budding filmmakers over the years have had a similar relationship with Godard, and his influence has not waned. “He’s such a courageous character that he could not build his career on his success – he just had to destroy his success in order to continue,” says Imbach. “Maybe that’s something I was really attracted to because I can really relate to that… I discovered that there are lots of young filmmakers from East Asia or South America who are really interested in his work now, even though his films haven’t been in cinemas in thirty years. There is a huge community.”
“I’m really only one of them. But with the privilege of being close. He was my neighbour. Making this film was just my way of saying, ‘Hey, here’s my neighbour. I can knock on his door.’ And I’m happy that others can share this experience,” Imbach concludes.
