91-year-old radical French New Wave director dies

• Jean-Luc Godard upended filmmaking conventions at every turn.
• He delighted, provoked, and sometimes puzzled audiences with art-house classics like “Breathless” .
• France’s President Emmanuel Macron: “We are losing a national treasure, a look of genius”.

Jean-Luc Godard, a resolutely iconoclastic and artistically daring filmmaking giant who rose to fame in the 1960s as part of the French New Wave movement, has died. He was 91.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed Godard’s death, praising the director for “creating a stubbornly modern, fiercely liberated art.”

“We are losing a national asset, a genius’s look,” Macron tweeted.

At every turn, Godard challenged filmmaking conventions. With art-house classics like “Breathless” (1960), “Band of Outsiders” (1964), and “Alphaville,” he thrilled, aroused, and occasionally perplexed viewers (1965).

He dabbled with handheld camera work, startling “jump cuts,” and other experimental techniques that freely blended fiction and documentary approaches, encouraging thousands of filmmakers all over the world to violate creative conventions.

Godard once said, “A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that sequence.”

[embedpsot slug=”french-tennis-player-fiona-ferro-ex-coach-accused-of-abuse-physical-assault/”]

Godard, along with peers like Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer, helped to launch the French New Wave (or La Nouvelle Vague), an explosion of inventive, narratively loose-limbed, and witty self-reflexive films.

Godard’s debut feature-length picture, “Breathless,” epitomised the spirit of the French New Wave: jazzy, rough-edged, and brave. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg featured, but Godard was a virtually unnoticed third character, imprinting himself on every picture.

He began as a critic in the 1950s. Godard rejected the staid traditions of European art cinema in his bold, immensely influential work for the publication Cahiers du Cinéma, instead advocating for American directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks.

Godard was recognised for his Marxist beliefs, which influenced many of his early works and occasionally drew him into conflict.

Godard has worked continuously in recent years, investigating the new possibilities of digital technology in aesthetically demanding and enigmatic works such as “Film Socialisme” (2010), “Goodbye to Language” (2014), and “The Image Book” (2018).

Also Read

French protest to EU: UK waste releases regarding sewage in the sea

According to three Euro MPs, the UK is endangering the health and...