Remembering Anthony Minghella
April 1st, 2008 | by Gautam |“I’d never thought of myself as a particularly creative person. I had one instinct, which was to find some escape route from wearing a yellow nylon jacket and selling Minghella’s Ice Cream for the rest of my life.” -Anthony Minghella in Creative Filmmaking from the Inside Out (2003, Simon & Schuster).
Anthony Minghella, the visionary director behind the masterpiece The English Patient (1995) passed away on Tuesday March 18th, 2008 in London. I did not find out about his passing till about a few days after and it is very sad. My first introduction to Minghella’s work was through his 2004 film Cold Mountain which I thought was brilliantly made. I’ve read about his great work The English Patient, the multi-oscar winning masterpiece, but I have not watched it so far. It is fantastic to know that a former theatre director like Minghella crossed over into cinema and made a masterpiece like the aforementioned film which also happens to be only his third film.
My favorite of all Minghella’s films is his powerful romantic drama Breaking and Entering (2006). Minghella brings out brilliant performances out of Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright-Penn and surprisingly Vera Farmiga in her short-but-memorable role. Breaking and Entering was also Minghella’s first original screenwriting effort since his first feature film Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991). What I love most about Minghella’s films (and especially Breaking and Entering) is that they have a sort of steady pace to them and they don’t seem to be under any sort of tasteless commercial obligations to be quick-paced. The three lead characters in Breaking and Entering (played by Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright-Penn) are very well developed and appear to be as ambiguous in their intentionas as they are lost. This sort of depth is a rare occurence when the director is under pressure from the studios to deliver what they want.
In closing, I would like to offer my deepest condolences to the Minghella family and his admirers the world over. The world will surely miss his presence in cinema.
