The death of Claude Chabrol, the renowned director of French thrillers, has been announced today; he was 80. He was one of the originators of the French New Wave of the fifties and sixties, often concentrating on middle class characters going through crises that led to murder, and made around fifty of these films in his long career. Starting with Le Beau Serge in 1958, he went on to direct such respected efforts as Les Cousins, The Champagne Murders, Les Biches, This Man Must Die, Le Boucher, Blood Relatives, Poulet au Vinaigre, a version of Madame Bovary with frequent star Isabelle Huppert, L'enfer, La Cérémonie, A Girl Cut in Two with Ludivine Sagnier, and his final work for the cinema, Bellamy with Gérard Depardieu.
