Why don’t you start your own company, see if JLG or whoever owns the rights to his various films will sell them to you, and then see if you can turn a profit on the 90% of his films that none but the hardest of hardcore JLG fans would ever care to see?
Here in Mexico there’s a version of Histoire(s) du cinéma with spanish subtitles, and I just noticed there’s a new version of Passion available thanks to Studio Canal’s Godard Collection they keep releasing nice films, I guess we just have to wait until most of his films are available since some of his film’s soundtracks are being produced as well as the Histoires du cinéma book.
-It’s an absolute shame ninety percent of Jean-Luc Godard’s films are simply unavailable here in the United States, more specifically, here, in Los Angeles, even more specifically, here, in One’s DVD player.-
Not to be a a stickler, but, according to imdb, Godard has 93 directorial credits. So, ninety percent would be, what, all but nine or ten films, right?
Quick search on Amazon yields this R1-coded titles as available either new or used for < $40:
the Jean-Luc Godard Collection (includes Passion, First Name: Carmen, Détective, and Oh Woe is Me)
Breathless
Band of Outsiders
Vivre Sa Vie
Pierott le fou
Masculin Feminin
Two of Three Things I Know About Her
Alphaville
A Woman is a Woman
Made in the USA
La Chinoise
Une Femme Mariee
Notre Musique
Contempt
Sympathy for the Devil
Le Gai Savoir
Les Carabiniers
Tout Va Bien
Godard’s catalog is, relatively speaking, actually pretty deeply represented on R1 DVD (how many other American filmmakers with very large filmographies, much less foreign directors with same, can you name who have twenty some films available on DVD? . . . I’m guessing it’s not more than a handful).
The best way to encourage more of his films to be released on DVD is probably actually to encourage people to buy the titles that are already available, and the first step to doing that is to make sure people are aware of everything that’s out there.
Netflix lists twenty-seven feature films available in either the ‘add’ or ‘saved’ list (only two are in the ‘saved’ section… one of them being Film Socialisme so take it however you want to)… so if you actually look at his feature film credits that’s almost all of them, and many of his shorts (and shorter features) are available for free on youtube so I’d say Godard is damn-well represented in R1.
I saw Passion, Le Gai Savoir and Hail Mary on DVD, and I read in The New York Times recently that Every Man for Himself will be getting a DVD release soon. I also have a difficult time believing these films, and others you’ve mentioned, are hard to find in Los Angeles….
But if you’re looking for lesser known stuff, here’s some films by The Dziga Vertov Group.
Jon Dambacher
Complete lack of availability…
http://four-frames.com/topics/backpage/