French-Swiss film director and theorist Jean-Luc Godard died on Tuesday at the age of 91 after having resorted to assisted suicide. His first feature “A bout de souffle (1959)” was one of the founding films of the New Wave of cinema.
Jean-Luc Godard died “peacefully” and “surrounded by his loved ones” at his home in Rolle (VD) on Tuesday at the age of 91, announced his wife Anne-Marie Miéville and her producers. The filmmaker had recourse to assisted suicide, his family adviser confirmed.
>> All reactions to the death of Jean-Luc Godard: After the death of Jean-Luc Godard, the world honors an irreverent genius of cinema
“Mr. Godard had recourse to legal assistance in Switzerland for voluntary departure following multiple disabling pathologies, according to the terms of the medical report”, explained Patrick Jeanneret, confirming information published by the newspaper Liberation.
“The body was tired. It no longer followed”, explained this close friend of the Franco-Swiss filmmaker. “He could no longer live normally due to various pathologies. And I think that for a man who was so independent, so honest, it was a major obstacle not to be able to have his physical means like everyone else.”
>> To read, our complete file: Godard, intimidating cinema icon
“A bout de souffle”, a flagship work of the New Wave
Born in Paris in 1930 then immigrated to Switzerland with his family from the age of three, the filmmaker had been living for a long time in Rolle (VD), on the shores of Lake Geneva. With a career spanning sixty years and some 160 films, he was still working on two new feature films.
One of his best-known feature films, Breathless, was released in 1960. he made everything possible”, wrote François Truffaut about this cult film shot on the spot. With a guy (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a little thug who loves a girl (Jean Seberg) and would like to convince her to go to Rome with him, this film becomes the flagship work of the New Wave.
>> To see: the trailer for the film “A bout de souffle” by Godard:
Followed by “Le Contempt” (1963), “Pierrot le Fou” (1965), “La Chinoise” (1967), “Sauve qui peut (la vie)” in 1980, “Prénom Carmen” (1983) or the eight episodes of “History(ies) of cinema” (1988-1998). Among his muses are Anna Karina and Anne Waziemski whom he married successively, before becoming the companion of the Lausanne resident Anne-Marie Miéville.
His final feature film, “Le Livre d’image”, was released in 2018. It is a reflection on the Arab world of 2017 through a montage of film extracts, his own or those of others.
>> To read, our large format focused on this film: Jean-Luc Godard, on the contrary
An iconic and intimidating figure
Godard’s cinema has never stopped thinking about the world and seeking to explore different facets of its medium. A deliberately intimidating iconic figure, the filmmaker never stopped experimenting with new forms of narration and making iconoclastic use of new technologies.
Godard has always been there where we least expected him, ahead of several trains, undoing each decade what he had done before. He is an absolute reference for visual artists, perhaps even more so than for film buffs, always inspiring the young generation.
The filmmaker has also most often made his companions the heroines of his films. The best known are Anna Karina, muse of the New Wave, and Anne Wiazemsky. “I don’t have the feeling of making a difference between life and creation”, declared the Franco-Swiss director in 1965. “For me, directing an actress and speaking with his wife, it’s the same”.
His very first films, short films, Godard shoots with his first companion, Anne Colette. It will be “All the boys are called Patrick” (1957) and “Charlotte and her Jules” (1958) with Jean-Paul Belmondo, inspired by Jean Cocteau’s “Bel Indifferent”.
>> See also a documentary dedicated to Jean-Luc Godard directed by Fabrice Aragno in 2012
QA with agencies