“A movie should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order,” he famously said.
Cinema legend Jean-Luc Godard, known as the godfather of the French New Wave film movement, has passed away.
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“Jean-Luc Godard died peacefully at his home surrounded by loved ones,” Godard’s wife said in a statement.
The director’s representatives said that he died at the age of 91 through legally assisted suicide.
“No one has influenced modern filmmaking more than this French New Wave pioneer, who remains our greatest lyricist on historical trauma, religion, and the legacy of cinema,” Criterion said of Godard.
Film experts credit Godard and his contemporaries for breaking cinematic conventions. Specifically, they popularized innovative filmmaking techniques like handheld camerawork, jump cuts, and existential dialogue.
“With his groundbreaking 1960 debut feature, Breathless, Godard merged elements of high and low culture with an anything-goes abandon that set the template for generations of filmmakers. It marked the beginning of an explosively innovative decade that witnessed his output grow increasingly radical, both aesthetically…and politically…until by 1968 he had forsworn commercial cinema altogether,” Criterion wrote.
Banner Photo by Criterion Collection via YouTube screenshot.
