According to a Reuters report, the legendary director Jean-Luc Godard passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91. The director’s partner, Anne-Marie Mieville, claimed in a statement sent to numerous French media sources that he “died peacefully at home” and “surrounded by loved ones.” Initial reports stated that there were no preparations for a formal memorial service and that Godard would likely be cremated.
The French-Swiss director was a key figure in the development of the New Wave movement in cinema during the 1960s, and assessments of the most significant and influential films in cinema frequently include his work, particularly well-known masterpieces like Breathless and Contempt.
His unique contribution to visual narrative has endured for decades, and can be observed in works as recent as Donald Glover’s Atlanta and as far back as early Spielberg classics.
Quentin Tarantino discussed the impact Godard had on his work, specifically the director’s 1964 New Wave entry Band of Outsiders (originally published as Bande à part), in the documentary What She Said about cinema critic Pauline Kael.
“[Kael] said it was as if a bunch of movie-mad young French boys had taken a banal American crime novel and had translated the poetry that they had read between the lines,” Tarantino said. “It was like, that is my aesthetic right there. That is what I hope I can do.”