"If you have a big audience, you can't really say you respect them-it's like saying you respect the people in the street-you don't really know who they are. But if only 10 people come to see your film, you begin to wonder who they are" J.L.Godard

Godard makes films for an intellectual elite, films chock-full of literary, historical, and cinema references.For example, in In Praise of Love, a couple converse by the Siene while a 30s tune is heard. The scene makes a lot more sense if you know the tune is from Vigo's L'Atalante and the spot is a famous Resistance site. Like Manny Farber wrote: No other filmmaker has so consistently made me feel like a stupid ass. No other filmmaker has provided me with more pleasure and insight either. Simply I think Godard is ahead of his time. He is still experimenting with form and content for the few who care.
The reason why his 60s films are most popular is because their innovations and conceits have already been incorporated into mainstream film culture. Watching many of his more recent films is comparable to jazz lovers of the 50s listening to Ornette Coleman or Thelonious Monk for the first time. Godard often separates sound from image and plot from dialogue. The viewer has to constantly readjust but the pleasures are still palpable, the images and sounds, and plenty of food for thought.