During the massive civil unrest of May 1968 in Paris, legendary French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard was detained by police while documenting the street protests. Deeply embedded in the political climate, Godard spent considerable time directly on the streets capturing clashes between university students, striking workers, and law enforcement.
What began as a series of student-led protests challenging government authority, social conditions, and rigid educational institutions rapidly escalated into a nationwide movement. Over 10 million French workers joined in solidarity, occupying factories and launching general strikes that brought the country’s economy and infrastructure to a near-total standstill.
Just days prior, on May 18, Godard along with fellow director François Truffaut successfully shut down the 1968 Cannes Film Festival by physically clinging to the theater curtains to stop screenings, famously declaring it offensive to debate camera techniques while the French working class was facing a national crisis.
His arrest and firsthand involvement in the riots marked an permanent turning point in his creative path, pushing him to abandon conventional narrative cinema entirely.
During the heat of the movement, Godard produced numerous “Ciné-tracts”—anonymous, short, raw film sequences designed as “cinematic leaflets” to be screened rapidly at occupied factories and university assemblies. Later that year, he released the experimental political documentary A Film Like Any Other (1968), pairing raw footage of the Paris demonstrations with unscripted, roundtable discussions between the striking factory workers and students.
The visual of a vulnerable, un-sunglassed Godard being escorted away by the gendarmerie remains a permanent cultural shorthand for the era, a brief flashpoint where European cinema and literal street revolution became entirely indistinguishable.
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