Influential French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard has died aged 91, according to a report in French newspaper Liberation.
The publication cites people close to the filmmaker as the source of the news.
UPDATE, 14/9: Godard’s lawyer Patrick Jeanneret said on Tuesday, September 13 that the filmmaker chose to end his life by assisted dying.
According to Jeanneret, Godard made the choice because he was ”stricken with multiple incapacitating illnesses”. He died ”peacefully at home” with his partner, Swiss filmmaker Anne-Marie Mieville.
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Born in Paris in 1930, Godard was a central figure in the French New Wave movement of the late 1950s and 60s. He worked as a critic for then newly-founded French magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1952, before making his first fiction short Une femme coquette in 1955.
The filmmaker’s first feature, 1960’s Breathless (French title: A Bout De Souffle) is among the key works of the New Wave movement, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg as a wandering criminal in Paris and his American girlfriend.
It was one of 15 features Godard directed between 1960 and 1967, which represents his most celebrated period as a filmmaker.
Titles the director made during this time include 1963 drama Contempt (French title: Le Mepris), 1965 neo-noir Alphaville and drama Pierrot le Fou, and 1967 black comedy Week-end.
While his output decreased in frequency, Godard continued to make films throughout his life, directing 44 features and multiple shorts.
His most recent film was The Image Book, which won a ‘special Palme d’Or’ in Competition at Cannes in 2018 – one of several works by the director to premiere at the festival.
Alongside fellow New Wave luminary Francois Truffaut, Godard was also a leader of the protests that shut down the 1968 edition of Cannes, inspired by the May 1968 riots in France earlier that month.
Godard received an honorary Academy Award in 2011, although did not attend the ceremony in-person to accept. He was never nominated for a competitive Oscar or Bafta.
Godard was married twice, to Anna Karina from 1961 to 1965, and Anne Wiazemsky from 1967 to 1979. Both ladies were leading actresses in his films. He lived with Mieville from 1978 until his death, and worked with her on many films.
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