It has been revealed that renowned filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard committed assisted suicide in Switzerland.
This morning, the famed Franco-Swiss filmmaker’s attorney revealed that Godard, 91, made the decision to terminate his life following a protracted fight with “many debilitating diseases.”
Godard passed away at his house in the Lake Geneva-adjacent Swiss town of Rolle, according to a statement from his family. It also said that there would be no formal service and that he would be cremated.
While physicians may prescribe a combination of medications that, when consumed or administered through an intravenous drip, enable a patient to end their own life, euthanasia is not permitted in Switzerland since it includes someone other than the patient actively participating in their demise.
According to a family friend quoted in the French newspaper Libération, “that was [Godard’s] choice and it was vital to him that everyone know about it.”
One of the most well-known filmmakers in the world, Godard is best known for the French New Wave films Breathless and Contempt, which served as inspiration for a generation of filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese.
His unconventional directing technique, which included handheld camera work, jump cuts, and existential dialogue, helped pave the way for a new approach to filmmaking.
In response to Godard’s death, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “We have lost a national treasure, the eye of a genius.”
Godard told Swiss broadcaster RTS at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival that he did not believe he would want to continue alive if he were in a desperate situation.
He said, “I don’t have any desire to be dragged about in a wheelbarrow if I’m too sick… not at all.”
He said, “Yes… for now,” when asked whether he would contemplate assisted suicide in Switzerland.
Godard was perhaps the most experimental director of the New Wave filmmakers who rewrote the rules for camera, sound, and narrative – rebelling against an older tradition of more conventional storytelling – throughout a lengthy career that started in the 1950s as a cinema critic.
Godard used a portable, lightweight camera for the low-budget film “Breathless” to record street sights and connect with viewers in a fresh manner.
One movie expert said that he did away with manufactured backgrounds and the “artifice” of that era’s Hollywood movies. The effect of “Breathless,” which debuted in 1960 like a cinematic thunderclap, was both instantaneous and long-lasting.
Godard and his Paris Left Bank contemporaries established a more recent generation of boundary-bending heritage, which is sometimes credited to Quentin Tarantino, the filmmaker of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs in the 1990s.
Godard was so beloved by Tarantino that he even chose the moniker A Band Apart for his production firm.
Godard, who was born in Paris in 1930, was raised and attended school in Nyon, a city on the shores of Lake Geneva.
After completing his education in 1949, he moved back to Paris where he quickly integrated himself into the post-war New Wave culture.
Prior to the release of his first full-length picture, Breathless, in 1960, which quickly drew the attention of reviewers, he started his career in cinema by penning articles for film publications.
Throughout the 1960s, Godard continued to produce groundbreaking films back-to-back, including Le Petit Soldat, a contentious film whose suggestion that the French government supported torture was outlawed until 1963.
The actresses Anna Karina and Anne Wiazemsky, both of whom appeared in numerous of Godard’s films, were his first and second wives.
Godard’s most notable on-screen collaborations were during his four-year marriage to Karina from 1961 to 1965, particularly in Vivre SA vie (1962), Bande à part (1964), and Pierrot Le Fou (1965).
He was wed to Wiazemsky from 1967 until 1979; she acted in two of his films, One Plus One (1967) and La Chinoise (1967). (1968).
In 1970, Godard first worked with Swiss director Anne-Marie Miéville, and the two soon started dating. Their relationship lasted until his death.
In 1968, he collaborated with the Rolling Stones on the movie Sympathy for the Devil.
Godard continued to be successful in his senior years.
In Praise of Love, his 2001 film, was chosen for the Cannes Film Festival.
The movie, which purportedly aimed to criticise Schindler’s List, centred on an elderly Jewish couple whose life writes Steven Spielberg maybe buying.
Godard’s marriage to Anna Karina, an actress, lasted from 1961 until 1965, during which time they produced some of his most enduringly memorable on-screen pairings.
Godard continued to be successful in his senior years. seen in 1998 receiving an honorary Cesar Award
Spielberg believes that black and white is more serious than colour, he reportedly said.
It’s false reasoning, Although I believe he is honest with himself, his perception of the situation is artificial; as a consequence, the outcome is also phoney. In order to create a stereophonic sound from a straightforward narrative, [he] exploited [Oskar Schindler], this tale, and the whole of the Jewish tragedy as if they were a large orchestra.
He won the jury prize at Cannes for his 2014 film Goodbye to Language, and the famous festival gave his 2018 picture Image Book a “special Palme d’Or.”
The director received an Academy Honorary Award in 2010, although he was not present for the presentation.