Director Anthony Minghella, Dead at 54
During my formative years as a film consumer, Anthony Minghella directed The Talented Mr. Ripley. I remember seeing the film with a group of friend who quickly disregarded it because of Tom Ripley’s apparent sexual orientation. To them it was a “gay” movie. But like all of Minghella’s work, Ripley was beyond such a simple descriptor.
Minghella directed some of the most thoughtful films about love and loss, Ripley included. The only comparable working director is Ang Lee. Though history may hold Minghella in the same regard as it does a Bergman or a Felinni, this former head of the British Film Institute will at least be considered one of the most important voices in British at turn of the 21st century.
Minghella directed such contemporary classics as Truly Madly Deeply and The English Patient (for which he won the Best Director Oscar). His other works included The Talented Mr. Ripley, Breaking and Entering and Cold Mountain. He had just completed a 90-minute pilot for HBO’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Though he was a known in recent years as director, his roots as a writer were apparent in his often passive, literary cinematic style.
The sudden loss of Minghella is shocking and sad. Still, I can’t help but think that, wherever he is now, Mighella is watching all of us who mourn and saying, “Thank you for missing me.” Because we do, and we will.
Now, in his own words:
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