Anthony Minghella

In his own words (reproduced from Tripod member site The Storyteller):

“Wisdom used to have it that only bad books made good movies. Such dispiriting theories stem from Hollywood’s fear of literature and literary figures because of course, the pillage I’ve described can only succeed in a climate of mutual suspicion. The studio view is that films which aspire to the conditions of art, the complexities of a really good book, the equivocations and debates, the edginess or complexities of a really good book, or worse still, the melancholy, will necessarily be limited in their appeal, consigning the to that circuit of dungeons known as the art house (a place which has always held a sneaking appeal, even in its name).

The English Patient is a prime example – a period story, thematically burdened, with a central character burnt beyond recognition, European, elegiac and tragic. It was impossible to find a backer. Successful movies aim low, is the studio mantra, aspiring to the atmosphere of the fairground not the salon, the fireworks display not the microscope. Even those who’ve asserted and achieved the poetic in cinema are at pains to distance themselves from books. Bergman insisted that movies had nothing to do with literature and that the character and substance of the two forms are generally in conflict.

Having written original material for most of my adult life I find myself in the middle of a trilogy of adaptations, which began with The English Patient, continues with my current project, Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and will end with Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. I must deduce, then, that I, too have fallen prey to the same desire to steal a march on the elusive process of getting a film made. It makes great sense, I think, to be the writer of the films I direct but the metabolism of film-making is slowed accordingly. Years can pass before I can walk back onto a film set. The English Patient took over four years to write and direct. If I want to make a film I have to have a subject. Starting with a book accelerates the process. I am afraid it may be as banal as that.”

British film director Anthony Minghella, best known for winning his Academy Award in 1997 for directing The English Patient, passed away on Tuesday (18 March 2008) in London at the age of 54.

The New York Times obituary can be found here.