Iconic French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard dead at 91

Jean-Luc Godard, the ingenious “enfant terrible” of the French New Wave who revolutionised popular cinema in 1960 with his debut feature Breathless and stood for years as one of the world’s most vital and provocative directors has died, French media reported. He was 91. Multiple French media outlets confirmed that they had learned the news of his death from his relatives on Tuesday. Also Read: Koi Mil Gaya actor Mithilesh Chaturvedi dies in Mumbai days after heart attack, son-in-law confirms death

Jean defied convention over a long career that began in the 1950s as a film critic. He rewrote rules for camera, sound and narrative. His films propelled Jean-Paul Belmondo to stardom and his controversial modern nativity play Hail Mary grabbed headlines when Pope John Paul II denounced it in 1985. Jean also made a string of films, often politically charged and experimental, which pleased few outside a small circle of fans and frustrated many critics through their purported overblown intellectualism.

Born into a wealthy French-Swiss family on December 3, 1930 in Paris, Jean grew up in Nyon, Switzerland, studied ethnology at the Sorbonne in France’s capital, where he was increasingly drawn to the cultural scene that flourished in the Latin Quarter “cine-club” after World War II.

Back in Europe, he took a job in Switzerland as a construction worker on a dam project. He used the pay to finance his first complete film, the 1954 Operation Concrete, a 20-minute documentary about the building of the dam. He also began work on Breathless, based on a story by Truffaut. It was to be Jean’s first big success when it was released in March 1960.

Jean, who was later to gain a reputation for his uncompromising left-wing political views, had a brush with French authorities in 1960 when he made The Little Soldier. The movie, filled with references to France’s colonial war in Algeria, was not released until 1963, a year after the conflict ended.

Jean harboured a life-long sympathy for various forms of socialism depicted in films ranging from the early 1970s to early 1990s. In December 2007, he was honoured by the European Film Academy with a lifetime achievement award. In 2010, Jean released Film Socialisme, a film in three chapters first shown at the Cannes Film Festival. He spent his last years living in Rolle, Switzerland, near where he grew up along the shores of Lake Geneva.