Jean-Luc Godard was born on December 3 1930 in Paris, France. His mother, Odile, was the daughter of Julien Monod, a founder of the Banque Paribas, and the great granddaughter of theologian Adolphe Monod. In 1933 the family moved to Switzerland, from which Jean-Luc Godard's father, Paul Godard, came. As a child Jean-Luc Godard was athletic, and he enjoyed football, skiing, basketball, and tennis.
He was a teenager when he developed an interest in cinema, having read the essay "Outline of a Psychology of Cinema" by André Malraux and the magazine La Revue du cinéma. He studied at the Lycée Buffon in Paris, after which he studied for a time at the Sorbonne. He would soon desert his classes for ciné-clubs and cinemas of the Latin Quarter. It was there that he would meet such fellow cinephiles as François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette. In 1950 with Éric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette he founded the short-lived film journal Gazette du cinéma, which only lasted five issues. Jean-Luc Godard was first published in the legendary film journal Cahiers du Cinéma in 1952.
Jean-Luc Godard's first film was the short subject "Une femme coquette" in 1955, made using the name Hans Lucas. He would make several more short subjects before his first feature film Breathless (the French title was À bout de souffle) was released in 1960. In the Sixties, Jean-Luc Godard directed A Woman is a Woman (1961), the segment "La paresse" in the film Les sept péchés capitaux, My Life to Live (1962), The Little Soldier (1963), the segment "Il nuovo mondo' in the film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963), The Carabineers (1963), Contempt (1963), Band of Outsiders (1964), A Married Woman (1964), Alphaville (1965), the segment "Montparnasse-Levallois" in Paris vu par..., Pierrot le Fou (1965), Masculin féminin (1966), Made in the U.S.A. (1966), Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967), La Chinoise (1967), Week End (1967), A Film Like Any Other (1968), and Joy of Learning (1969). He began directing documentaries in the late Sixties, including the films One + One (1968) and British Sounds (1969).
In the Seventies Jean-Luc Godard directed the movies Struggle in Italy (1971), Tout va bien (1972), Comment ça va? (1976), and Every Man for Himself (1980). He directed the documentaries 1 P.M. (1971), Letter to Jane (1972), Number Two (1975), and Ici et ailleurs (1976). He directed the six part documentary television mini-series Six fois deux/Sur et sous la communication and the 12 part documentary television mini-series France/tour/détour/deux/enfants.
In the Eighties he directed the feature films Passion (1982), Prénom Carmen (1983), Je vous salue, Marie (1985), King Lear (1987), and Le rapport Darty (1989). He directed the documentaries Sauve la vie (qui peut) (1981), Scénario du film 'Passion' (1982), and Soft and Hard (1985). He directed an episodes of the TV shows Spécial cinéma and Série noire, and episodes of the mini-series Les Français vus par.
In the Nineties Jean-Luc Godard directed the movies Les enfants jouent à la Russie (1993) and For Ever Mozart (2003). He directed the documentaries JLG/JLG - autoportrait de décembre (1994) and The Old Place (2000). He directed the TV movie Allemagne 90 neuf zéro, and an episode of the TV show Century of Cinema and the 8-part cinema Histoire(s) du cinéma.
In the Naughts he directed the films Éloge de l'amour (2001), Notre musique (2004), and Film socialisme (2010). He directed the documentaries Moments choisis des histoire(s) du cinéma (2001), Vrai faux passeport (2006), and Vrai faux passeport (2006). In the Teens he directed the film Adieu au langage (2014).
Jean-Luc Godard also wrote, edited, and produced much of his work. He made several films with actress Anna Karina, to whom he was married for a time.
Jean-Luc Godard would have a lasting impact on cinema, both as a critic and as a director. His use of jump-cuts in Breathless was not unprecedented, but that film was largely responsible for its modern day usage. The metafictional elements of Breathless would also have a lasting impact on modern day cinema. Indeed, regardless of what story was played out in his movies, Jean-Luc Godard's films were largely about film itself. As a critic he wrote a good deal about montage, and in his later films he would put his theories to use. He was also a pioneer in low-budget cinema. Breathless was shot on a shoe-string budget. Jean-Luc Godard's most lasting legacy may be the fact that he was one of the earliest filmmakers to belong to the film movement known as La Nouvelle Vauge--the French New Wave. The French New Wave would have an impact on the British New Wave and kitchen sink realism, the Japanese New Wave, the Indian New Wave, and yet other film movements around the world. Jean-Luc Godard himself would have an influence on such diverse filmmakers as Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Brian De Palma, Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino. Jean-Luc Godard created such legendary films as Breathless, Band of Outsiders, and Alphaville, and in doing so changed cinema forever.
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