Anthony Minghella, 1954-2008
We were sorry and very surprised to hear that Anthony Minghella, the director and screenwriter behind The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Cold Mountain, died today following cancer surgery at the age of 54. We'll leave it to our Movies colleagues to say more about him, but I did want to mention a favorite book of mine that's full of his spirit. It's one of those oddball books that fits no obvious category and likely missed a lot of attention: disguised as a technical guide but one of the most interesting books on filmmaking (a favorite subject) I've read recently. A few years ago, New Riders, a publisher mostly of computer manuals, released Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema (an unwieldy subtitle but total catnip to me). Murch is the legendary editor of such movies as The Conversation and Apocalypse Now (and The English Patient), and he's also perhaps the most fascinating writer on the inside of moviemaking (see In the Blink of an Eye and The Conversations, his book with Michael Ondaatje). He didn't write Behind the Seen (Charles Koppelman did) but you see the very modern process of digital moviemaking (in which tech support from Apple can be important as the key grip and the best boy) through his eyes. Full of interest in its own right (although it was a bit of an anticlimax for me to watch Cold Mountain after reading so much about its production and find I didn't think the final result was very good), but of note today for the side portrait it paints of Minghella (standing behind Murch in the photo above), who replaced Francis Ford Coppola as Murch's most frequent collaborator, and who comes off, as he does in every other account, as a complete prince of a guy: imaginative, open-minded, tireless, and wonderful company. --Tom
Charles Koppelman on March 21, 2008 at 01:04 PM
A sad day indeed. Writing this book was only possible because Anthony, in addition to Walter, had the trust and confidence to give me complete access to their creative process. Thank you for your kind words about my book. CK.