Father of French New Wave Jean Luc Godard dies at 91

Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, has died “peacefully at home” aged 91, his family told BBC yesterday. The French-Swiss filmmaker found fame in the late 1950s as one of the leading figures in the French movement known as the New Wave, going on to direct dozens of films in a career lasting more than half a century.

5 things about the man who remade cinema

Gordard changed film with a girl and a gun

All you need to make a film, Godard once wrote, is a “girl and gun”. He proved it with his 1960 debut ‘Breathless (À Bout de Souffle)’.

The girl, Patricia, is involved with a petty criminal, Michel, who is on the run for shooting a policeman. She betrays him and the police shoot him dead in the street.

It had an instant impact, winning acclaim and a huge profit on its meagre budget. Nearly 60 years on, it is widely acknowledged as a classic and its energy still startles.

Cut up conventions

One of the most radical elements of ‘Breathless’ was the prominent use of the editing technique known as the jump cut.

Filmmaking both before and after Godard’s debut largely favours smooth editing to give the illusion of continuous time.

By contrast, in ‘Breathless,’ Godard would cut within the shot, making time appear to jump forward. It is jarring, as Godard surely intended it to be. At the very least it grabs the viewer’s attention, but it has also been interpreted as reflecting Michel’s boredom or as an attempt by Godard to force his audience to reflect on the nature of the cinema.

Throughout his career, Godard would play with the grammar of filmmaking.

Rewrote the traditional script

There were other innovations. ‘Breathless’ was filmed on location, using handheld cameras, with Godard writing the script on the day, feeding lines to his actors as they filmed. This was another break with tradition, with expensive studio-led films depending on tight scripts, large crews and storyboarding.

The technique used by Godard gives Breathless great spontaneity and a documentary-like feel.

A huge cinephile

Before becoming a director, Godard was an avid cinemagoer, sometimes watching the same film several times in one day at the clubs he and other New Wave figures attended. His films are littered with references to other works and even as he sought to push the medium forward he could not help but look back.

An inspiration to all

Film industries around the world saw their own New Waves. America’s New Wave gave us works like ‘Bonnie & Clyde,’ ‘Chinatown’ and ‘Jaws.’

The work of Godard himself - whether personal, experimental, political or all three - has had a massive impact.

US director Quentin Tarantino named his production company A Band Apart, a reference to Godard’s 1963 film ‘Bande à part (Band of Outsiders)’. Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci included a homage to it in his film ‘The Dreamers’. Godard’s influence can be seen in the blurring of documentary and fiction by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami or in the thematically and formally provocative work of Denmark’s Lars Von Trier.

Four Godard films made Sight and Sound’s list of 50 greatest films ever - ‘Breathless,’ ‘Le Mépris’, ‘Pierrot le Fou’ and ‘Histoire(s) du cinéma’.