Selected from the comments section:
Godard feels that English is the language of political and cultural imperialism
Just to establish that, because this is the reasonable response, I feel:
Isn't it slightly unreasonable of [Jean-Marie Straub, a director mentioned in an earlier comment] to refuse to subtitle his films because he "feels an audience should learn the language the film is presented in"? Considering there are several thousand languages in the world, and it takes years to master a language to the level required to fully appreciate all the nuanced dialogue in a film script, aren't the filmmakers practicing a far more blatant level of cultural imperialism by insisting people learn THEIR language before enjoying THEIR film?
At best, he's creating a pointless cultural apartheid, and severely limiting his audience, which might explain why I've never heard of him.
If people want to self-importantly withdraw from international markets then good luck to them. If they want to continue cutting the world into little mutually exclusive sections then they are free to do that, safe in the knowledge that they are contributing absolutely nothing to cross-cultural understanding or awareness.
Put it another way: which is more culturally imperialist -- showing an English-language film to French viewers with French subtitles, to ease understanding for non-English-speakers; or showing a French-language film to English viewers with no subtitles, obscuring understanding for non-French-speakers?
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