French filmmaker, Betty Blue director Jean-Jacques Beineix passes away at 75

French director Jean-Jacques Beineix known for movies like Diva and Betty Blue passed away at his home in Paris. The 75-year-old succumbed to a long illness, his brother told the French media outlet Le Monde.

Beineix started his career as an assistant director and worked with filmmakers such as Claude Berri, Rene Clement and Jerry Lewis. He debuted with Diva in 1981 that went on to win four Cesar awards including one for the best first feature, reported Variety.

The plot of the movie was based on a young postman who falls for an American opera singer and ends up getting caught in “an international intrigue when he tries to make a bootleg recording of her performance.” The movie was widely celebrated for its filmmaking style.

“Movies that belong to the cinéma du look movement have often been said to value style over substance, but ’Diva’ manages to deliver both, at certain times flaunting its style for style’s sake and at others using the how as a means of truly highlighting the equally important what,” wrote NeoText about the movie’s influence.

Beineix then brought on screen his next titled The Moon in the Gutter that featured Gerard Depardieu and Nastassia Kinski in the lead. An adaptation of the novel by David Goodis, the movie was awaited in Cannes in 1983, however, it wasn’t received well and even flopped at the box office.

This did not stop the filmmaker. In 1986 he delivered Betty Blue starring Beatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade. The movie scored nominations for Golden Globe as well as Oscar for best foreign film and was successful in the US. Other movies by Beineix include IP5: The Island of Pachyderms, Mortal Transfer and several documentaries including Otaku and Loft Paradoxe.

Recently, the filmmaker took to writing and authoring a memoir and a novel.