Film director Jean-Luc Godard, who spearheaded the revolutionary French New Wave of cinema, has died at the age of 91.
Godard burst onto the scene with 1960’s À bout de souffle (Breathless), which started a run of acclaimed releases that rewrote the rules of film.
His work brought a new verve and daring to cinema and influenced directors from Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Godard “had the vision of a genius”.
In a tribute on Twitter, Mr Macron wrote: “He was like an apparition in French cinema. Then he became a master of it.
“Jean-Luc Godard, the most iconoclastic of New Wave filmmakers, invented a resolutely modern, intensely free art. We have lost a national treasure, a man who had the vision of a genius.”
Godard’s rich seam of influential films in the 1960s also included Le Mépris (Contempt), Bande à Part (Band of Outsiders) and Alphaville.
