In January 1995, the New York Film Critics Circle awarded Godard their first ever career-achievemt award. Godard dismissed the honor with a letter to the then-chairman Armond White:

Dear Sir,
Thanks for your electronic mail dated January 20 — 11:24 am. Too little good health. Too big snow to the airport, and too few banknotes saved for the ticket. Hollywood always used to say that your servant is not fit for telling stories. I therefore said in the last chapter of my stories of cinema [Histoires du cinema(s)] that nothing is lost, except honor.

And it is then my duty — no copyright, only copyduties — not to accept any longer the honor of your reward. Do please accept the incomplete following reasons for such genuine and shy statement.

JLG was never able through his whole movie maker/goer career to:
Prevent M. Spielberg from rebuilding Auschwitz,
Convince Mrs. Ted Turner not to colorize past and dear funny faces,
To sentence M. Bill Gates for naming his bug’s office Rosebud,
To compel New York Film Critics Circle not to forget Shirley Clarke,
To oblige Sony ex-Columbia Pictures to imitate Dan Talbot / New Yorker Films when delivering accounts,
To force Oscar people to reward Abbas Klarostami instead of Kieslowski,
To persuade M. Kubrick to screen Santiago Alvarez shorts on Vietnam.
To beg Ms. Keaton to read Bugsy Siegel’s biography.
To shoot Contempt with Sinatra and Novak, etc., etc.,

I’m still not over, dear Sir, through my long voyage to the home of cinematography, but I missed indeed quite a lot of ports of call — no girls in every port, but no honors neither I could deserve.

Do please ask the distinguished audience some indulgence for the piteous English of your colleague and send the reward to the Bleecker Street Cinema if remaining.

Faithfully yours,
Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard died by assisted suicide on september 2022 just a couple of days after the premiere of Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans