Jean-Luc Godard, pioneer of French New Wave cinema, dies at 91

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - French-Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard, a pioneer of the French New Wave cinema, passed away on Tuesday, his family said. He was 91.

According to Swiss news agency ATS, he died peacefully and surrounded by his loved ones at his home in the Swiss town of Rolle.

In a tribute on Twitter, President Emmanuel Macron described him as a “national treasure" and "genius.”

"Jean-Luc Godard appeared as if by magic in the world of French cinema – and became a master of it," he said. "As the most revolutionary filmmaker of the New Wave, he invented a truly modern and intensely free art. We have lost a national treasure and the eye of a genius."

Godard's debut feature film Breathless, released in 1960, became a cult classic of the New Wave cinema with its striking filmmaking style. The movie also gifted French cinema with Jean-Paul Belmondo, who became a major star.

Belmondo was among Godard’s close circle of collaborating artists alongside French-Danish model Anna Karina, whom the director married in 1961. They divorced in 1965.

Filmmaker Anne-Marie Mieville became his partner after the breakdown of his second marriage to Anne Wiazemsky.

Godard further fortified his position in world cinema with notable works including The Little Soldier, My Life to Live, Contempt, A Woman is a Woman, Alphaville, The Chinese, Pierrot le Fou, and Band of Outsiders, among others.