MUMBAI: French director Claude Chabrol, one of the founders of the New Wave movement, expired on Sunday. He was 80.

During his more than half-century-long career, Chabrol made more than 70 films and TV productions. His first movie, 1958‘s Le Beau Serge‘ won him considerable critical acclaim and was widely considered a sort of manifesto for the New Wave, that reinvented the codes of filmmaking and revolutionised cinema starting in the late 1950s.

Chabrol‘s films focused on the French bourgeoisie, lifting the facade of respectability to reveal the hypocrisy, violence and loathing simmering just below the surface. Often suspenseful, his work drew comparisons with that of Alfred Hitchcock.

Calling him a great producer, director and screenwriter, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a statement, " ‘With the death of Claude Chabrol, French cinema has lost one of its maestros.‘‘

Chabrol worked at a fast clip, churning out about a film every year. He wrote some original scripts, but also adapted classics of French literature, including Madame Bovary‘ (1991) and stories of Guy de Maupassant for cinema as well as for television.