Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard (1930–2022) was a French-Swiss director, critic, and essayist who helped define the French New Wave and remained a relentless innovator across seven decades. He began as a writer for Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s before turning to filmmaking with Breathless, whose jump cuts and improvisational street energy upended cinematic grammar. His later work moved through political collage, video experiments, and dense essay-film montage, always interrogating the politics of images and language. His acclaimed films include Breathless, Contempt, Vivre sa vie, Pierrot le Fou, Weekend, Goodbye to Language, and The Image Book.