Passages

[Kirkinson]

Mshvidobit, Sofiko.

[gubbelsj]

What a bizarre bit of timing - only last November I recognised her in Mariya Saakyan's film Lighthouse, which was the first time I'd thought of her in years, and the first time ever that I'd seen her in a non-Paradjanov context.

RIP, indeed.

Yes, how sad. Just two nights ago, I was staring up at her on the big screen at LACMA's screening of The Color of Pomegranates.

[Adam]

Yes, how sad. Just two nights ago, I was staring up at her on the big screen at LACMA's screening of The Color of Pomegranates.

Me too. R.I.P.

[dadaistnun]

Leonard Roseman

[Dylan]

Like all of the golden age film composers, Rosenman was just brilliant. Rebel Without a Cause is one of the greatest scores ever written, I was just listening to it earlier today in fact (the glorious re-recording conducted by John Adams). Oddly enough, I was also listening to the Barry Lyndon soundtrack earlier today (it had been a few years since I'd given it a spin), which he orchestrated/conducted and won a "Best Adapted Score" Oscar for. Strange.

I like this:

his two Oscar-winning challenges, adapting Handel and Schubert for Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) and Woody Guthrie's folk songs for Bound for Glory (1976). (His acceptance speech for the second Oscar included the memorable quip, "I write original music, too, you know.")

Rebel certainly should've won Best Original Score Oscar for 1955. His last score credit is for a 2005 French film, Si je t'attrape.

[SalParadise]

Ledger's last portrait.

[tavernier]

A million forty-ish men will be crying into their Star Wars pillowcases tonight.

The Onion.

[fiddlesticks]

Malvin Wald, writer of The Naked City

[Caligula]

Vangelis Kazan, who acted in several films by Theo Angelopoulos including The Travelling Players, has died (obituary in Greek).

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens has died.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Akemi Negishi 1934-2008

[MichaelB]

Anthony Minghella.

I'll update when I know anything other than that he's just died.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Here's official confirmation from BBC's website:

Director Minghella dies aged 54

Minghella won an Oscar for directing The English Patient
British film director Anthony Minghella has died at the age of 54, his agent has said.

Minghella, whose films include Truly, Madly, Deeply and Cold Mountain, was chairman of the British Film Institute.

In 1996, he won an Oscar for directing The English Patient and was also Oscar-nominated for writing the screenplay for 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley.

He has also directed a TV episode of book The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, due to be screened this Easter.

[colinr0380]

Shocking news and a real shame especially as his career was going so well and he seemed to be making leaps with each new film.

[Oedipax]

Wow, that's a real shame. I didn't particularly care for his films outside of The Talented Mr. Ripley, but I liked that one quite a lot.

[ellipsis7]

Really awful news... Poor man!... He was one of the good guys...

Anthony Minghella dies, 54

Director suffers brain hemorrhage

By ADAM DAWTREY, ALI JAAFAR LONDON/VARIETY

Anthony Minghella, the Oscar-winning director and writer of “The English Patient,” has died suddenly. He was 54.

A spokesman said he suffered a brain hemorrhage at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning at Charing Cross Hospital in London, where he had undergone a routine operation on his neck.

Minghella most recently directed the BBC/HBO telepic “No 1 Ladies Detective Agency,” based on Alexander McCall Smith’s novel set in Botswana, which is due to premiere March 23 on BBC1.

His last movie was “Breaking and Entering.” His other credits include “Cold Mountain,” “The Talented Mr Ripley” and “Truly Madly Deeply.”

He recently stepped down as chairman of the British Film Institute. He was a partner with Sydney Pollack in Mirage Enterprises.

[HerrSchreck]

Akemi Negishi 1934-2008

Quite a bit of good work by her (even as the dancing mom in King Kong v Gojira)... but she's fantastic in one of my 2 or 3 favorite A Kurosawa films, Lower Depths (Donzoku... the film which closest matches his mentor Yamanaka, specifically Humanity and paper balloons..), also in Record of a Living Being.

[kinjitsu]

More from The Guardian, and this just in from The Independent: Oscar-winner Minghella dies after cancer op

[exte]

Anthony Minghella passing at 54 is really shocking for me right now. I can't believe it. I cannot believe that man is gone... What a sad fate.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Minghella was also chairman of the BFI until recently too.

[colinr0380]

Minghella was also chairman of the BFI until recently too.

Plus he was the only person to capture the eroticism of Blair and Brown's relationship! (More so since there have been strange recent parallels to The Talented Mr Ripley!) There's that (horrifying) possibility that in the silences after one of them makes an authoritative sounding comment that they will suddenly stand up, sweep everything from their desk and start to make out of top of it!

Perhaps the greatest achievement of that video is that it almost makes you believe what they are saying!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

but she's fantastic in one of my 2 or 3 favorite A Kurosawa films, Lower Depths (Donzoku... the film which closest matches his mentor Yamanaka, specifically Humanity and paper balloons..)

Kurosawa's mentor was Kajiro Yamamoto, not Sadao Yamanaka. Kurosawa was apprenticed at PCL - which would become Toho - while Yamanaka worked at Nikkatsu.

[Barmy]

Arthur C. Clarke.

[tavernier]

Barmy, did you update Clarke's Wikipedia bio?

[Barmy]

No. Is it an error? I was surprised he was alive.