Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard dropped into the world in Paris, 1930, second kid out of four, all nestled in a family that had money—dad with a fancy clinic, mom with Swiss banking roots. The Second World War shuffled things up, and Godard switched to Swiss citizenship, did some schooling in Nyons, Switzerland. Parents split in ‘48, so he bounced back to Paris, hitting Lycée Rohmer, then the Sorbonne in ‘49. Supposed to study ethnology, but honestly, hanging with Truffaut, Rivette, and Rohmer was way more interesting. By 1950, he, Rivette, and Rohmer launched “Gazette du cinéma”, but it only lasted five issues. Godard scribbled for them under “Hans Lucas.” He pitched in on Rivette and Rohmer’s films—until his family cut the cash flow. So, he basically lived like a broke artist: stealing food, scraping by. In ‘52, he started writing for “Les cahiers du cinéma,” then zipped off to the Americas with his dad, tried to shoot a movie—managed a car shot, that’s about it. He did manual labor at a Swiss dam next, used that paycheck to make his first short, Opération 'Béton'. Tragedy hit when his mother died in a scooter crash in ‘54. Godard went back to film writing, then made his first real French film in ‘57. The late ‘50s were a blur of shorts, editing found footage, gossip columns, and dreaming up new scripts, all while helping kickstart the French New Wave. Then came Breathless in 1960—game changer, total smash hit, launched Belmondo, and honestly, shifted the whole cinema scene.