Today, September 13, 2022, the seventh art mourns the loss of one of its last living legends. Jean-Luc Godard, a key player in the evolution and refinement of cinematographic language, the driving force behind the Nouvelle Vague and one of the most influential names not only in Europe, but also worldwide, has died at the age of 91 as reported by his relatives to the Gallic medium Libèration.
Godard, the revolutionary
Born in Paris on December 3, 1930, Godard grew up and did his first studies in Switzerland, only to return to the French capital and study ethnology at the prestigious Sorbonne University. It was during those years that his passion for the cinematographic medium began to emerge, becoming a recognized face in film clubs from the city.
His professional contact with the cinematographic medium was in the field of criticism, in which collaborated in the prestigious publication Cahiers du Cinéma along with its founder André Bazin and other critics converted into filmmakers such as Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut.
It was, precisely, together with these last two —Truffaut as screenwriter and Chabrol as collaborator—, with whom he shaped his first feature film, which premiered in 1960 under the title of ‘At the end of the escapade’ —’À bout de suffle’— and which starred Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. Thanks to him, Godard won the silver bear at the Berlin Festival, kicking off a career that is as prestigious as it is award-winning.
That same year, the Franco-Swiss author shot his second feature film, entitled ‘The little soldier’, in which he worked with Anna Karina, who would become his second wife; another of the many collaborations with members of the Nouvelle Vague that resulted in titles such as ‘Banda Aside’, ‘El contempto’, ‘Live your life’, ‘Alphavile’ or ‘Pierrot el loco’.
Godard’s career, which went through a period of strong political vindication at the end of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, resulted in countless awards and recognitions, including the 2011 honorary Oscar, numerous statuettes at competitions such as Berlin or Venice and, of course, the Jury Awards and the special Palme d’Or at Cannes 2014 and 2018 for ‘Goodbye to language ‘ and ‘The Book of Images’; his last two feature films.
Firing Jean-Luc Godard means doing it at a figure who radically changed the way of seeing, making and analyzing cinema, and a filmmaker whose work will last not only through his works, but also through his influence on contemporary prestigious filmmakers such as his faithful devotee Quentin Tarantino. Rest in peace.