As a director, Lewis advanced the film comedy genre with innovations in the areas of fragmented narrative, experimental use of music and sound technology, and near surrealist use of color and art direction. This prompted his peer, filmmaker Jean Luc Godard to proclaim, "Jerry Lewis ... is the only one in Hollywood doing something different, the only one who isn't falling in with the established categories, the norms, the principles. ... Lewis is the only one today who's making courageous films. He's been able to do it because of his personal genius". Jim Hemphill for "American Cinematheque" wrote, "They are films of ambitious visual and narrative experimentation, provocative and sometimes conflicted commentaries on masculinity in post-war America, and unsettling self-critiques and analyses of the performer's neuroses."