French film-maker Straub dies aged 89, The Swiss National Film Archive reported that anti-establishment French filmmaker Jean-Marie Straub passed away peacefully on Sunday at his residence in Switzerland. He was 89. Straub received the lifetime achievement award from the Locarno Film Festival and was considered a peer of many greats from the French New Wave art film movement.
French film-maker Straub dies aged 89
“I spoke to Mrs Straub at midday; he died at 6:00 am this morning at his house in Rolle,” on Lake Geneva in western Switzerland, Cinematheque Suisse spokesman Christophe Bolli told AFP. “He died peacefully.” Born in 1933 in Metz in northeastern France, Straub started out as an assistant to some of the great French filmmakers of the age, including Jean Renoir, Jacques Rivette and Robert Bresson.
He was friendly with the leading lights of the New Wave, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. He moved from France to Germany in the 1960s, where he co-directed movies with his then-wife Daniele Huillet. Traditional narrative and aesthetic patterns were questioned by the couple. 2006 saw her passing. Their most well-known movies include “Sicilia” and “From the Clouds to the Resistance” (1979).
He eventually lived around the corner from Godard, who died in Rolle in September aged 91. “We were very, very close to him. He also donated some of his films to us,” Bolli said of Straub. “We had done a lot of screenings with him and he came many times between 2018 and 2019. Afterward, his health deteriorated.”
He joined other recipients of the Locarno Leopard of Honour, such as Rivette, Godard, Ennio Morricone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Paul Verhoeven, Ken Loach, Terry Gilliam, Werner Herzog, and John Landis, in receiving the honor in 2017. “Thank-you Jean-Marie for your generosity and your sharp outlook on the world, which is highly topical. We will watch over your legacy and make it shine,” Cinematheque Suisse director Frederic Maire said.