He earned an Academy Award for his film portrait of Albert Schweitzer, but in his finest work, the innovative Film Portrait, Jerome Hill (1905–1972) became his own subject. The son of an enormously wealthy Minnesota family (his father, James J. Hill, built the Great Northern Railway Company), Jerome eschewed business for the arts. He was a gifted painter, a successful documentary director, and a major supporter of the film avant-garde. (Three decades after his death, a foundation bearing his name continues the philanthropic work he began on behalf of young artists.) His great summary work presents us with singular entry into a life worthy of a Henry James novel, utilizing the rich array of techniques that defined the American experimental cinema. As critic and filmmaker Jonas Mekas notes: "Since the period dealt with in this film coincides with the development of Cinema as a Young Art, and the development of the Avant-garde Film as a form of cinema, Film Portrait becomes also a film about the art of cinema."

As Godard once remarked, "The cinema is an x-ray machine in which one photographs one’s own disease." In his moving self-portrait, we discover that the disease has a name: cinephilia. Made on the cusp of the centennial of the cinema and the director reaching his mid-sixties, JLG/JLG captures the complexity and brilliance of Godard’s work in film as it touches on a multitude of concerns, from memory and painting to the Swiss Alps, money, and tennis.