French New Wave film director Jean-Luc Godard dies at 91
Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century and the father of the French New Wave, died “peacefully at home” on Tuesday aged 91, his family said.
His legal counsel later confirmed he died by assisted suicide.
The legendary maverick blew up the conventions of cinema in the 1960s, shooting his gangster romance “Breathless” on the streets of Paris with a hand-held camera, using a shopping trolley for panning shots.
He continued to thumb his nose at Hollywood and an older generation of French filmmakers by breaking all the rules again in “Contempt” (1963) with Brigitte Bardot and “Pierrot le Fou” in 1965.