Death of Michel Ciment, film critic and historian

The critic and historian of cinema, Michel Ciment, famous voice for more than half a century of the show “Le Masque et la Plume” on France Inter, has died at the age of 85, announced Monday, November 13 at evening radio.

This seventh art enthusiast had started writing about cinema during his studies before collaborating from 1963 on the magazine Positif, as a critic then director of the publication, France Inter recalled. Also a radio lover, Michel Ciment has participated since 1970 as a critic on “Masque et la Plume” – the oldest broadcast on the station – and was also a producer of “Projection Privée”, on France Culture, from 1990 to 2016.

“The entire Masque et la Plume family is losing one of its closest people,” reacted Jérôme Garcin, producer of the show. “It is perhaps the freest, most encyclopedic spirit that film criticism has ever produced,” continues the journalist writer who has hosted this show for 34 years. Michel Ciment, who had been president of the critics' union, participated one last time in the show on September 24.

Also read: Short biography of Michel Ciment

He has contributed to several collective works and written books, collections of interviews and biographies, notably on Stanley Kubrick and American cinema with The Conquerors of a New World. In 1994, he received the first Maurice Bessy prize at Cannes, rewarding “a personality exercising his activity or his talent in the fields of cinematographic writing”.

Gilles Jacob, former president of the Cannes Film Festival, expressed on ".