Before Jean-Luc Godard’s assisted suicide, on September 13, 2022—at his home in Rolle, Switzerland, where such a procedure is legal—the 91-year-old auteur had been in a remarkably prolific phase of his long career. “He was not sick, he was simply exhausted,” an unnamed family member said of his intention to end his life. “It was his decision and it was important for him that it be known.”
Godard entered the scene in the 1950s, writing about film for Cahiers du Cinéma, just like fellow French New Wave cinephilic iconoclasts François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Rivette. With Breathless, his 1960 directorial feature debut, he drew a line of demarcation for moviemaking. Martin Scorsese: “From Breathless on, Godard redefined the very idea of what a movie was and where it could go. No one was as daring as Godard.” Paul Schrader: “In cinema, there was before Godard and after Godard.”
