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Above: Le film à venir (1997).

Notebook is unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz entitled Blind Man's Bluff: along with some previously published articles, here in English for the first time, the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. For more from Raúl Ruiz: Blind Man's Bluff see the Table of Contents.

The Golden Boat (1990)

A man follows a trail of beat-up shoes left discarded along a New York sidewalk. They lead him to an older man, who sits crouched on the street, crying. “This, my son, is not my place,” the older man proclaims—and then stabs himself. So begins The Golden Boat—“a game between soap opera and reality,” as Ruiz called it—his first film in America, made in exile over a few long weekends during a teaching stint at Harvard.

Above: La chouette aveugle (The Blind Owl, 1987)

Over the next couple weeks, Notebook will be unfurling a series of tributes to Raúl Ruiz: along with some previously published articles, here in English for the first time, the bulk a compilation of new, shorter pieces from a few generous critics and Ruizians on favorite moments from a vast, subterranean filmography. This small, mock-filmography shouldn’t be taken as anything like a comprehensive grip on Ruiz’s films or even incomprehensive grip: the Rouge annotated filmography remains the essential, critical card catalogue. Instead, something like this collection of close-readings can probably only show the ways Ruiz eludes chronology and anything but a kaleidoscopic perspective onto his work. Hopefully it can hint at the many phantom Ruizes unconsidered here while pin-pointing some pivotal moments in a pivoting career.

As we publish the pieces in batches by decade, the links below will be...

Revered Chilean filmmaker Raul Ruiz has died in Paris at the age of 70.

The director and film aficionado made over 100 movies including Mysteries of Lisbon, Klimt, Time Regained, Shattered Image and The Golden Boat.

He made his feature film debut in 1968 with the movie Tres tristes tigres, and he quickly became a leading figure in Chilean cinema.

Ruiz was forced to flee his homeland for political reasons in the mid-1970s and he spent the rest of his life living in exile in France.

Often described as a cinematic genius, Ruiz was also a theatre director and playwright, and he taught at Harvard University.

Among his many accolades, the director was awarded the title of Docteur Honoris Causa by the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon in 2005 and he also holds a Professorship at the University of Aberdeen and a Doctor Honoris Causa honour from the Universidad de Valparaiso, which he received earlier this year.

Ruiz was also presented with Chile's National Prize of Arts.

He is survived by his wife, Valeria Sarmiento, a Chilean writer-director.

Catherine Grant has tweeted a link to the shocking news as reported by El Mostrador: Raúl Ruiz, widely considered the most important filmmaker to have come from Chile, has died in Paris at the age of 70. The funeral will be held on Tuesday morning.

Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times' Ao Scott profiled Ruiz, director of more than "100 films in several languages and also, in his spare time, a theater director and film theorist of some renown in Europe and beyond. He has taught at Harvard, adapted the last volume of Proust into a feature film, transformed several of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tales into a dark, surrealist comedy starring Marcello Mastroianni and made the life of the Viennese painter Gustav Klimt into a fractured biopic starring John Malkovich. His forays into North America have included the twisty psychological thriller Shattered Image, starring William Baldwin and Anne Parillaud,...