Filmmaking legend and man of letters, Gilbert Adair, has died, age 66. Gilbert was a unique part of the psyche of our film industry, and there will undoubtedly be a distinct void where once this aberrant character flourished. He was everything from a novelist to screenwriter to translator and pasticheur. With final works being a series of detective story spoofs, satirical variants on Agatha Christie.

Gilbert Adair's publications would take up an entire shelf: 12 novels, extensive further essays and mountains of critical studies, including a translation of François Truffaut's letters. Though this legacy remains poignant, one can’t help but get the sense that this classical figure did not sit comfortably in today’s modern world of tweeting and i-laziness.

In another age, he might have been a conventional academic with a range of interests, but in the 20th and 21st centuries he was able to distil his brilliance and scholarly flair to the glorious new medium of cinema. Rest in peace Gilbert Adair, your legacy remains firmly intact.