Consult any reputable list of the greatest cinematographers of all time and you'll find Agnes Godard's name. To some, she's the greatest female cinematographer of all time by a comfortable margin. To me, alas I don't have much time for comparisons, but I might be able to make an exception for Godard in order to declare that she might just be my favourite cinematographer of all time. The master of darkness on film, capturing pools of colour amid deep greys and blacks, Godard is a captivating stylist with an aesthetic entirely her own, and impossible to put into words.
Thankfully, she puts it into images for me, and I've put some of the best of those images into the above montage. It covers the full breadth of her career... well, almost the full breadth. Although Godard's career as a DP only really began to take off in the 1990s when she began working alongside the great Claire Denis (their director-cinematographer relationship another candidate for another all-time list), her first credit as such was actually back in 1982, when she shot Wim Wenders' TV documentary Room 666. That career has since seen her work alongside many more of the leading auteurs of their times, and strikingly almost consistently with female directors. Godard's IMDb page currently has nothing listed among upcoming projects and her slate has been slight over the past few years, so I hope she's not easing up on her work. A new project with Godard behind the camera is always a delight to behold, and I hope you'll think the same of this video.
Films featured
Jacquot de Nantes, 1991
I Can't Sleep, 1994
Nenette and Boni, 1996
The Dreamlife of Angels, 1998
Beau Travail, 1999
Trouble Every Day, 2001
Friday Night, 2002
Strayed, 2003
Wild Side, 2004
The Intruder, 2004
Golden Door, 2006
Home, 2008
35 Shots of Rum, 2008
Sister, 2012
Bastards, 2013
The Amazing Catfish, 2013
The Falling, 2014
Land, 2018