Biography
Raoul Coutard (16 September 1924 – 8 November 2016) was a French cinematographer. He is best known for his work on films of the French New Wave, particularly his long collaboration with director Jean-Luc Godard.
Coutard began as a photojournalist, serving in the French Indochina War from 1945 and later freelancing for magazines including Paris Match. He entered feature filmmaking in the late 1950s after being approached to shoot a film for Pierre Schoendoerffer. Producer Georges de Beauregard assigned him to Godard’s debut feature Breathless (1960), on which Coutard employed handheld camerawork and natural light.
He photographed nearly all of Godard’s New Wave films through 1967, as well as works by François Truffaut including Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and Jules and Jim (1962). Coutard shot more than 75 films over a career spanning nearly fifty years and also directed three features, beginning with Hoa Binh (1970).
