French Cinema Legend Jean-Luc Godard Dies At 91

"No official (funeral) ceremony will take place," his family said

Jean-Luc Godard, the father of the French New Wave and one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, died "peacefully at home" Tuesday aged 91, his family said. The legendary maverick blew up the conventions of cinema in the 1960s, shooting his gangster romance Breathless on the streets of Paris with a hand-held camera, even using a shopping trolley for panning shots.

He continued to thumb his nose at Hollywood and an older generation of French filmmakers by breaking all the rules again in Contempt (1963) with Brigitte Bardot and Pierrot le Fou in 1965.

"No official (funeral) ceremony will take place," his family said. "He will be cremated... And it really must happen in private."

The secrecy - and choosing to disappear in a puff of smoke - is typical of Godard, who loved to surprise the world from his lair in the Swiss village of Rolle where he had lived as a virtual recluse for decades.