Angelopoulos was rushed to an Athens hospital where he died hours later of head injuries. He was 76 years old. The motorcyclist was an off-duty policeman.
Angelopoulos was Greece's most honored contemporary director, winning numerous awards at European film festivals.
He is best known for his 1998 film, Eternity and a Day, which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
At the time of his death, he was directing The Other Sea, a film about the impact of Greece's economic crisis on its citizens.
Eva_Yojimbo said...
ReplyDeleteI was tremendously saddened by this. He was one of the last and greatest masters we had, and one of my Top 10 directors ever. Nobody made films like him. Nobody ever offered a similar perspective on the relationship between history and modern individuals. His sense of historic time in the context of cinematic time was extraordinary, and he created some of the most overpowering images the cinema has ever seen. If his films were so steeped in the history of Greece, so long in their running time, and so austere in the lack of dialogue, plot, conflict, and characterization, he'd probably be more appreciated. Along with Hou Hsiao-hsien I think he was far and away the best director of the last 40 years.