Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, the godfather of French new wave cinema, dead at 91

Filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, known as the godfather of French New Wave cinema, is dead. The veteran filmmaker reportedly passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91- reported newspaper Liberation. The news was shared by people close to the Franco-Swiss director.

Considered a pioneer of French New -Wave cinema, he was known for his classics like 'Breathless' and 'Contempt' which heralded a new era in world cinema. Godard's cinema pushed cinematic boundaries and inspired iconoclastic directors decades after his 1960s heyday.

The world-renowned filmmaker broke conventions of French cinema in 1960 and helped kickstart a new way of filmmaking which included filming with handheld cameras, jump cuts and existential dialohue. Godard's style of filmmaking has not just inspired filmmakers the world over but has also been taught in film schools the world over to date.

For many movie buffs, no words are good enough: Godard, with his tussled black hair and heavy-rimmed glasses, was a veritable revolutionary who made artists of movie-makers, putting them on a par with master painters and icons of literature.

“It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to,” Godard once said.Remembering Jean Luc-Godard (1930-2022): Five essential films to watch of the iconic filmmaker

Quentin Tarantino, director of 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Reservoir Dogs' in the 1990s, is often cited as one of a more recent generation of boundary-bending tradition that Godard and his Paris Left Bank cohorts initiated.

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Earlier came Martin Scorsese in 1976 with 'Taxi Driver', the disturbing neon-lit psychological thriller of a Vietnam veteran turned cabbie who steers through the streets all night with a growing obsession for the need to clean up seedy New York.

Godard was not known to rest. Godard presented his last film `The Image Book`, a kaleidoscopic bulletin spanning 200 years of history, in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 and was celebrated with the Special Palme d`Or. Godard was also planning to adapt `The Image Book` into an exhibit in Paris, Madrid, New York and Singapore before the pandemic hit

The veteran filmmaker was born into a wealthy Franco-Swiss family on December 3, 1930 in Paris. His father was a doctor while his mother's father founded the Banque Paribas, then an illustrious investment bank.

(With agency inputs)