Jonathan Romney Obituaries

Few filmmakers genuinely merit the epithet ‘visionary’; among those who do, even fewer have the courage to pursue their vision to its extremes, challenging their viewers to revise their conceptions of what cinema could be. Béla Tarr, who has died aged 70, is one of those rare exceptions. His cinema evolved from a stark form of social realism to become something entirely different, a radical adventure in exploring sound and image, space and duration.

In the mythology of French cinema, Anouk Aimée was often identified with her role in one of the more dubious Cannes Palme d’Or winners: Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme, 1966).