Alain Robbe-Grillet has died at the age of 85. As a novelist, Robbe-Grillet was one of the key figures associated with the fractured, free-associative literary style known as the nouveau roman, typefied by his early books such as The Erasers and The Voyeur. He also taught at the University of New York for many years and was elected to the Académie française in 2004. Robbe-Grillet was one of those modernist Europeans who regarded film as just one more potential avenue for creative expression, and between books he turned out a number of films that he wrote and directed, including Trans-Europe Express (1966), The Man Who Lies, and The Beautiful Captive (1986). He also appeared onscreen in a small role in Raul Ruiz's 1999 Proust adaptation, Time Regained. But his most important and enduring contribution to movie history is almost certainly his original screenplay for Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad, a movie that set a new fashion for art cinema worldwide.