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Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard, 1968
Personal information
Birth date3 December 1930(age 85)
Place of birthParis, France
CitizenshipSwiss
EducationLa Sorbonne
OccupationActor, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, editor, producer
Years active1950 � present
Influenced byAndre Bazin, Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Kenji Mizoguchi, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Nicholas Ray, Orson Welles, Max Ophuls, Howard Hawks, Fritz Lang, Henri Langlois, Jean Cocteau, existentialism
InfluencedRainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci, Quentin Tarantino, Arthur Penn, Hal Hartley, Steven Soderbergh, Jim Jarmusch, Brian De Palma, Wim Wenders, Serge Daney, Leos Carax, Gregg Araki
SpouseAnna Karina (1961 � 1967)
Anne Wiazemsky (1967 � 1979)
Anne-Marie Miéville (not official)
AwardsHonorary Academy Award (2010), Honorary César (1987, 1998), Prix Jean Vigo (1960)

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Jean-Luc Godard (-frʒɑ̃lyk ɡɔˈdaʁ; born 3 December 1930) is a Franco-Swiss film director, screen writer and critic. He is often identified with the group of filmmakers known as the French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave".

Many of Godard's films challenge the conventions of traditional Hollywood cinema as well as the French "tradition of quality" (prestigious films based on literary classics). He is often considered the most extreme or radical of the New Wave filmmakers. His films express his political ideologies as well as his knowledge of film history. In addition, Godard's films often cite existentialism as he was an avid reader of existential and Marxist philosophy. His radical approach in movie conventions, politics and philosophies made him the most influential filmmaker of the French New Wave, inspiring directors as diverse as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci, Paul Thomas Anderson, Arthur Penn, Hal Hartley, Richard Linklater, Gregg Araki, John Woo, Mike Figgis, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Richard Lester, Jim Jarmusch, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Brian De Palma, Wim Wenders, Oliver Stone and Ken Loach.

In the 2002 poll of the Sight and Sound publication, Godard ranked #3 in the critics' top ten directors of all time (which was put together by assembling the directors of the individual films for which the critics voted). In 2010, Godard received an Honorary Academy Award, but he did not attend the award ceremony.


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