"The man who fell on Earth" The director was 90 years old – Variety

Renowned director and filmmaker Nicolas Roeg, whose offbeat films included "Performance", "Do not Look Now", "The Witches" and "The Man Who Falled to Earth" passed away. He was 90 years old.

His son Nicolas Roeg Jr. told the BBC that his father died on Friday night.

A daring and influential artisan, Idiosyncratic Roeg films have influenced filmmakers like Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh.

He worked from the beginning of the company and in the 1960s he was in great demand as a director of photography, responsible for the development of films like "Petulia", "Away from the crowd" and " Fahrenheit 451 ".

The controversial, strangely convincing "performance" that Roeg co-directed with Donald Cammell and starring Mick Jagger, was almost unpublished and was later recited by Warner Bros .; the studio's executives found this incomprehensible as a gangster thriller. It was eventually cross-checked, released in 1970 as a modest company and decades later, it received a favorable reception as a classic British film.

His fractured story shows the influence of Richard Lester, as well as Jean-Luc Godard and other European authors of the time, although Roeg works with an ever darker palette and a deeper psychological level.

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He also defined Roeg as a director to watch. His director appearances such as "Walkabout", "Do not look now" and "The man who fell on earth", starring David Bowie, testify to the strong development of his style. Each was a captivating and idiosyncratic tale with highly stylized performances – and a beautiful gloomy cinematography.

Roeg immediately resumed his saga of the Australian outback, "Walkabout", on which he played twice again. As in "Performance," the story was fractured and offered a certain mysticism that captivated audiences.

Two years later, in 1973, Roeg directs in the main role "Do not forget it", with two big stars, Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. This occult story taking place in Venice was perhaps his most realized and gloomiest thriller, even though it never reached a mass audience, as it was overshadowed by "The Exorcist" l & rsquo; Year of publication.

While exploiting Jagger's threatening call in "Performance," Roeg wisely used Bowie's extraterrestrial character in "The Man Who Landed on Earth," another strange but satisfying film about a visitor to another planet.

More recent films, such as the troubling romantic tragedy of the 1980s titled "Bad timing: a sensual obsession," are the first of his films with future wife Theresa Russell; "Insignificance", based on Terry Johnson's bold piece; and "Eureka," starring Gene Hackman, was less popular even as he told dramatic stories in a slightly simpler way.

His most successful recent film was perhaps the 1990s, "The Witches", a studio mission starring Anjelica Huston based on a strange tale by Roald Dahl.

"Castaway", in 1987, was best known for its beautiful cinematography. His selection "A ballo in maschera" from the 1988 "Aria" compilation film was impressive, but "Track 29", co-star of the future Oscar winner, Gary Oldman, was confusing for many critics . Among his many long-term projects that did not come to the screen, Roeg was the closest to financing "Kiss of Life", based on the enigmatic French novel "Mygale", which was then realized in the feature film "The Skin I Live". In "Pedro Almodovar.

Nicolas Jack Roeg was born in London. After his military service, during which he worked as a projectionist, he started in the film industry in 1947 as a desk boy and apprentice editor. In 1950, he worked at London Studios MGM and rose through the ranks, from assistant to assistant operator and then photographer of light. In the 1950s, he worked on such films as "Bhowani Junction" and "The Trials of Oscar Wilde". He was the director of photography for low budget films such as "Jazz Boat", "The Great Van Robbery" and "Information Received".

Roeg first impressed the profession as the second goal of the episode "Lawrence of Arabia" of 1962. His missions then go from the carefree "Just for Fun" to "Seaside" Swingers "to prestigious articles like" The Caretaker "and" Nothing but the best "and a wide variety of missions, including" The mask of the red death "by Roger Corman, Lester films" A funny thing is happening on the Chemin du Forum "and" Petulia "," Fahrenheit 451 "by François Truffaut and" Far From The Madding Crowd "by John Schlesinger. He was also director of the second unit of "Judith" (1965) and shot some scenes from 1966 for James Bond, referring to "Casino Royale".

When his first film "The Witches", "Cold Heaven", did not make an impression, he came back on television: "Heart of Darkness" in 1993, "Full Body Massage" of 1995 and "Samson and Delilah" of 1996 were cohesive . dramatically centered, while the television adaptation of "Sweet Bird of Youth" with Elizabeth Taylor in 1989 was an adequate representation of Tennessee Williams' melodrama. His soap opera "Two Deaths", produced in 1996 by BBC Films, about the Serbo-Croat conflict, was well received, even if it was not widely distributed.

His first film on screen for over 10 years, "Puffball: The Devil's Eyeball" of 2007, was not seen.

In 1994, Roeg was named a member of the British Film Institute, an award given to people "in recognition of their outstanding contribution to film or television culture". The London Film Critics Circle awarded Roeg its Dilys Powell Award for film excellence in 2011. Roeg published his memoirs, "The world is changing" (Faber and Faber) in 2013.

Roeg is survived by his third wife, actress Harriet Harper, as well as his four children with his first wife, actress Susan Stephen, who includes producer Nicolas Roeg Jr., Luc Roeg, first ad Sholto J. Roeg and first ad Waldo Roeg; and two children with his second wife, actress Russell, actor Max Roeg and cameraman Statten Roeg.