Jean-Luc Godard: who was Breathless film maker, life and career highs, tributes to French new wave director

Jean-Luc Godard, the French New Wave film director has died at the age of 91.

Godard was a key figure in the Nouvelle Vague movement that emerged in France in the late 1950s.

News of the filmmaker’s death was reported by French newspaper Liberation.

One of the most acclaimed directors of our time, his most known credits include Breathless (1960) and Alphaville (1965).

In later life, he enjoyed a revival with Goodbye to Language (2014) and The Image Book (2018).

Godard inspired the next generation of filmmakers, with Quentin Tarritino saying that the director was “so influential to me at the beginning of my aesthetic as a director”.

Here’s everything you need to know about who Jean-Luc Godard was and how he died.

Who was Jean-Luc Godard?

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris in 1930 to a wealthy Franco-Swiss family.

He spent most of his childhood and teenage years in Nyon, Switzerland, where he went to school and attended finishing school.

In 1949 he moved back to Paris and found a home in the “cine-clubs” that became the foundations of the French New Wave movement.

Godard started his career as a film critic, writing for André Bazin’s Cahiers du Cinema.

He released his first feature, Breathless (1960), making an overnight star of Jean-Paul Belmondo and winning him best director at the Berlin Film Festival.

Godard married twice, making some of his notable works with his first wife Anna Karina, who starred in Ivre sa vie (1962), Bande à part (1964) and Pierrot le Fou (1965).

From 1967 and 1979 he was married to actor Anne Wiazemsky, who starred in several of his films including La Chinoise (1967), Week End (1967), and One Plus One (1968).

However both marriages ended in divorce and in 1978 he began a relationship with Anne-Marie Miéville, which lasted over four decades until his death.

Godard would make at least 28 films throughout his directing career and underwent a revival in recent years.

In 2014 he won the jury prize at Cannes and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious one-off special Cannes Palme d’Or.

How did he die?

Godard’s cause of death has not yet been released.

What were some of his most famous films?

Godard inspired the next generation of filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino who said in an interview with Far Out Magazine that “Godard was so influential to me at the beginning of my aesthetic as a director”.

One of Godard’s most famous quotes is the observation that “Cinema is truth at 24 frames a second”.

Throughout his career Godard made at least 28 films and shorts.

His most famous film was Breathless, which was released in 1960, winning him best director at the Berlin Film Festival.

Other well-known works included Alphaville (1965), which won him Berlin’s Golden Bear and First Name: Carmen (1985) which won him the Golden Lion at Venice.

In 2010, Godard was awarded an honourary Oscar, but in true Godard fashion, he skipped attending the ceremony.

Other well known films include Goodbye to Language (2014) which won the grand jury prize at Cannes and The Image Book (2018).

But, some of his films were controversial, Le Petit Soldat (1963), which was based on the Algerian war, was initially banned in France.

Who has paid tribute to Jean-Luc Godard?

Tributes for the renowned film director have poured in on social media after the news of his death broke.

Dave Calhoun from Time Out, paid tribute on Twitter, calling him a “Genius. Troublemaker. Often baffling.”

Anton Newcombe from the Brian Jonestown Massacre also paid tribute on Twitter.

Film critic Guy Lodge paid tribute to Godard on Twitter saying “he sure changed a hell of a lot of things”.