Jean-Luc Godard, the European filmmaker and cinematic rule-breaker regarded as one of the most influential, uncompromising and at times befuddling artists of his era, has died.
Where a playfulness and exuberance pervaded his early films, Mr. Godard gradually became more politically dogmatic. His featurefilmed in 1968 and released in 1970, alternates scenes of Black power revolutionaries and Maoist agitprop with lengthy shots of the Rolling Stones recording the title song. Critics dubbed it nearly unwatchable.
In person, Mr. Godard hardly looked like an imposing movie director. He had a slight build, with a high forehead, unkempt hair, dark glasses and an air of shyness. But he was by many accounts a prickly, unnerving and aloof man bristling with contradictions. Born to an affluent Franco-Swiss family, he became a committed Maoist. He also made commercials for Nike shoes when he needed money for other projects.
Mr. Godard, despite a longtime antipathy to Hollywood commercialism, accepted the honor but did not come to Los Angeles for the ceremony.Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on Dec. 3, 1930, and was the second of four children of a Swiss doctor and a French banker’s daughter. He grew up in Nyon, Switzerland, where his father opened a clinic.
“He was an extraordinary critic, hurling down one dogma after another,” the film historian David Thomson wrote of Mr. Godard.After making short films, Mr. Godard vividly demonstrated the ideals of the New Wave with “Breathless,” about a gangster on the run and the American girlfriend who betrays him .Much of “Breathless,” made on a shoestring budget, was filmed by handheld camera on the streets of Paris. Jump cuts lent a jolting pace.
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