Passages

[domino harvey]

Loved him on the West Wing-- "Tell me more about Jackie Robinson and breaking barriers"

[tenia]

Michel Blanc

[Aunt Peg]

Great actor and like so many French actors could switch between comedy and drama with such ease. Favourite performances of mind include The Witnesses, Monsieur Hire & Tenue de soiree. Grosse fatigue (1994) which Blanc co-wrote, directed and starred in is worthy seeking out. Big, big loss from French and world cinema.

[domino harvey]

Grosse fatigue (which won him a Cannes prize for best screenplay at the same festival as Pulp Fiction) and Tenue de soirée are my favorites as well. He’s also good in the Paul Meurisse role in the highly underrated Le Deuxieme souffle remake

[colinr0380]

Monsieur Hire (the remake of Panique) is a big one, since he has the starring role in that film, very movingly taking on the Michel Simon role. The late 80s to mid-90s seem like his big international period, since he also appears as one of a pair of police inspectors hovering around the action and unnerving the rest of the ensemble cast by their presence in Altman's Pret-a-Porter - part of a seeming tradition in Altman films of the time of people playing officers of the law being strangely marginalised and completely inconsequential to the actual action of the film, such as Whoopi Goldberg's policewoman in The Player, up to Stephen Fry's detective in Gosford Park. Plus he's in a mostly forgotten BBC Film that is randomly shipping Robert Lindsay and Molly Ringwald together(!) Strike It Rich; teamed up again with Strike It Rich co-star John Gielgud in Prospero's Books; and appears in domino's favourite director Betrand Blier's Merci, la vie! too!

It seems that his last film as director was 2018's Kiss & Tell, with Charlotte Rampling!

[domino harvey]

I think the most recent film I saw him in was Et soudain, tout le monde me manque, where he basically plays Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm - not a great movie, but he’s great in it. Blanc is also another fine example of the French letting anyone, regardless of their hairline, become a star, because I don’t know that there was ever a fishier attempt to hold onto a few strands than Blanc in the 80s!

[beamish14]

David Burnham, journalist whose works inspired the films Serpico and Silkwood

[thirtyframesasecond]

Monsieur Hire (the remake of Panique) is a big one, since he has the starring role in that film, very movingly taking on the Michel Simon role. The late 80s to mid-90s seem like his big international period, since he also appears as one of a pair of police inspectors hovering around the action and unnerving the rest of the ensemble cast by their presence in Altman's Pret-a-Porter - part of a seeming tradition in Altman films of the time of people playing officers of the law being strangely marginalised and completely inconsequential to the actual action of the film, such as Whoopi Goldberg's policewoman in The Player, up to Stephen Fry's detective in Gosford Park. Plus he's in a mostly forgotten BBC Film that is randomly shipping Robert Lindsay and Molly Ringwald together(!) Strike It Rich; teamed up again with Strike It Rich co-star John Gielgud in Prospero's Books; and appears in domino's favourite director Betrand Blier's Merci, la vie! too!

It seems that his last film as director was 2018's Kiss & Tell, with Charlotte Rampling!

Hollywood tried to make a movie star out of Robert Lindsay after he was in Me and My Girl on Broadway, which he won the Tony for Best Actor in. He was also in a Carl Reiner film, which sounded slightly more interesting. Still, after it didn't work out, he starred in GBH.

[colinr0380]

And after that another great Alan Bleasdale mini-series with Jake's Progress, as the father contemplating adultery and his contending with his young son becoming increasingly aggressive, which all builds up to the extremely blackly comic (major spoilers) ending which disposes of multiple generations of 'toxic masculinity' in one fell swoop! I often think that it was very ironic he went on to play the grumpy patriarch in the "My Family" sitcom after that!

[MichaelB]

Not sure what Robert Lindsay is doing in this thread, but after being momentarily startled I'm happy to reassure people that he is in fact still alive.

[GaryC]

Australian actor Peter Cummins, aged 93. No online obituaries yet, but confirmed via a Facebook group. He was in a lot of 70s Australian cinema, including Sunday Too Far Away, Storm Boy and a leading role in The Removalists.

[hearthesilence]

Novelist Robert Coover

[Mr Sausage]

Wow, Barth and Coover in the same year.

I guess that just leaves Pynchon.

[beamish14]

Wow, Barth and Coover in the same year.

I guess that just leaves Pynchon.

Joseph McElroy, too. Samuel R Delany is kind of in the same camp as well

[Mr Sausage]

McElroy's cult even for this bunch. I don't think he's ever had more than 2 books in print at any one time.

Delany's considered too sci-fi. He's never had the same cross over appeal as Ballard.

[Dr Amicus]

Delany’s Dahlgren was a crossover cult hit as I understand it. Also more recent work includes gay erotica, or porn as Delany himself described it!

[beamish14]

Delany’s Dahlgren was a crossover cult hit as I understand it. Also more recent work includes gay erotica, or porn as Delany himself described it!

It was a big success as a mass market paperback in the 70’s.

Alexander Theroux is in this class as well, but he’s even more niche

[flyonthewall2983]

Loved him on the West Wing-- "Tell me more about Jackie Robinson and breaking barriers"

His character in Die Hard 2 is great, and maybe saves the movie for me.

[beamish14]

Loved him on the West Wing-- "Tell me more about Jackie Robinson and breaking barriers"

His character in Die Hard 2 is great, and maybe saves the movie for me.

“Just the fax, ma’am.”

[Mr Sausage]

Delany’s Dahlgren was a crossover cult hit as I understand it. Also more recent work includes gay erotica, or porn as Delany himself described it!

Like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Dahlgren was a crossover hit amongst progressives and counter culture types. But neither Heinlein nor Delaney were able to turn that into a more literary reputation the way Vonnegut and especially Ballard were able to. Maybe if Delaney hadn't witheld Hogg from publication, he could've benefitted from the notoriety the way Ballard did with Crash and Burroughs Naked Lunch. Delaney tends to be classed with the other new wave sci fi authors rather than the big American postmodernists, rightly or wrongly.

The big American post modernist that I wish got more credit is Stephen Dixon. But he was/is consistently over looked within that group, maybe because his material was so resolutely quotidian despite the experimentalist techniques. I highly recommend his novel His Wife Leaves Him, a strange and moving examination of grief, loss, and the effects of long term disability. Fantagraphics publishes it as a beautiful hardcover.

[beamish14]

Delany’s Dahlgren was a crossover cult hit as I understand it. Also more recent work includes gay erotica, or porn as Delany himself described it!

Like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Dahlgren was a crossover hit amongst progressives and counter culture types. But neither Heinlein nor Delaney were able to turn that into a more literary reputation the way Vonnegut and especially Ballard were able to. Maybe if Delaney hadn't witheld Hogg from publication, he could've benefitted from the notoriety the way Ballard did with Crash and Burroughs Naked Lunch. Delaney tends to be classed with the other new wave sci fi authors rather than the big American postmodernists, rightly or wrongly.

The big American post modernist that I wish got more credit is Stephen Dixon. But he was/is consistently over looked within that group, maybe because his material was so resolutely quotidian despite the experimentalist techniques. I highly recommend his novel His Wife Leaves Him, a strange and moving examination of grief, loss, and the effects of long term disability. Fantagraphics publishes it as a beautiful hardcover.

Good call on Dixon. He was unbelievably prolific as a short story writer. Frog is great

[TechnicolorAcid]

Nell Smith of the Flaming Lips, Age 17

[knives]

Doc Harris is not a name many will know, but everyone of a certain age will remember his voice perfectly as narrator of DBZ.

[dadaistnun]

Seeing reports on Twitter that the great composer Jorge Arriagada has died. He scored multiple films by Barbet Schroeder, Philippe Le Guay, and Patricio Guzman (and one for Assayas, Winter's Child), but far and away his most frequent collaborator was Raul Ruiz (nearly 50 films based on a quick look at Wikipedia, but surely more that are not listed there). There are a number of digital-only compilations on Amazon.

[Saturnome]

Lillian Schwartz, who made some great computer animated films in the early 1970s.