Richard Roud was an American writer on film and co-founder, with Amos Vogel

Amos Vogel

Amos Vogel was one of the most influential cineasts in New York. He is best known for his bestselling book Film as a Subversive Art and as the founder of the New York City avantgarde ciné-club Cinema 16 , where he was the first programmer to present films by Roman Polanski, John Cassavetes,...

, and a former program director and latterly director of the New York Film Festival

New York Film Festival

The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...

 from 1963 to 1987.

Roud graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1950, and after spending a year in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship, undertook post-graduate study at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

. In the 1950s, Roud became the London correspondent of the French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma

Cahiers du cinéma

Cahiers du Cinéma is an influential French film magazine founded in 1951 by André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. It developed from the earlier magazine Revue du Cinéma involving members of two Paris film clubs — Objectif 49 and...

. From 1963 to 1969, he was film critic for The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

of London, and latterly a roving arts correspondent for the newspaper. He also wrote annual reports from the Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

, and other articles, for the British film publication Sight and Sound.

Richard Roud's books include Cinema - A Critical Dictionary - The Major Film-Makers (1980), a two-volume work which he edited; A Passion for Film (1983), a biography of Henri Langlois

Henri Langlois

Henri Langlois was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema...

, the former director of the Cinémathèque Française

Cinémathèque Française

The Cinémathèque Française holds one of the largest archives of films, movie documents and film-related objects in the world. Located in Paris, the Cinémathèque holds daily screenings of films from around the world.-History:...

; and two books on nouvelle vague

French New Wave

The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...

 directors Straub and Godard

Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....

.

External links

• Obituary, New York Times, 16 February 1989