Jean-Luc Godard has died, aged 91.
The pioneering French-Swiss film-maker, who is known for his French New Wave movies including the likes of “Contempt”, “My Life to Live” and “Breathless”, has left behind an amazing legacy.
Friends close to Godard revealed his death on Tuesday in French newspaper “Liberation”.
A cause of death is yet to be revealed.
During his career, he joined many of his contemporaries in criticising mainstream French cinema for its so-called “tradition of quality”.
He said it “emphasised craft over innovation, privileged established directors over new directors, and preferred the great works of the past to experimentation”.
He has been hailed as France’s most radical film-maker in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work inspired the likes of Quentin Tarantino.
Although he was given an Academy Honorary Award in 2010, he didn’t attend the ceremony to receive the prize.
In 2001, his film “In Praise of Love” focused on an elderly Jewish couple whose life rights are potentially being bought by Steven Spielberg, which was reportedly meant as a manner of condemning “Schindler’s List”.
He once explained: “Spielberg thinks black and white is more serious than colour.
“It’s phony thinking. To him it’s not phony, I think he’s honest to himself, but he’s not very intelligent, so it’s a phony result. … "(He) used (Oskar Schindler) and this story and all the Jewish tragedy as if it were a big orchestra, to make a stereophonic sound from a simple story.”
Film fans have flooded social media with tributes to the late director following the sad news of his death.
One person tweeted: “Sad to hear about Jean-Luc Goddard. My first viewing of ‘Breathless’ remains one of the most important moments for my love of French New Wave and cinema as a whole.”
Another added: “Sad to hear about the passing of Jean-Luc Goddard. A legend of the film industry.”
And a third wrote: “Jean-Luc Goddard passed away. While I would never claim to be an expert on the man’s filmography, if you have any interest in cinema as an art form at all, see ‘Week-End’.”