Jean-Luc Godard’s Unmade and Abandoned Projects

A comprehensive survey of Jean-Luc Godard's vast body of unrealised projects in film, video and television as well as plays, exhibitions and architectural works from the late 1940s to the 2020s. Jean-Luc Godard left behind more than three hundred unrealized projects, from feature films and television pieces to plays, books, exhibitions and even a camera design. Jean-Luc Godard’s Unmade and Abandoned Projects is the first full account of this unseen body of work.Using material from archives and private collections, Michael Witt reconstructs these unfinished ventures and sets them in context across six areas: literature, cinema, theatre, television, politics and history. Detailed case studies range from an anti-colonial production planned in Mozambique to book and video projects in France, a television experiment in Quebec, and uncompleted films in America and the Middle East, showing how ideas discarded in one period often resurface in later works.By mapping the connections between Godard’s abandoned plans and his completed output, this unique volume offers a new perspective on the filmmaker’s creative process and reassesses his artistic legacy.