The tragic death of a cinema great, Oscar winning British director Anthony Minghella.
Anthony Minghella passed away on March 18th 2008, suffering a fatal haemorrhage after surgery on his neck due to cancer. The greatly admired director of Cold Mountain, The English Patient and The Talented Mr Ripley was 54.
Anthony was held in great esteem, not just as a great director but as a warm, generous, lovely man. Atonement director Joe Wright spoke with consumate fondness about his Godfatherly guidance in the Observer newspaper tribute to Minghella (23/3/08).
“He made me consider very carefully everything I was doing. He'd make me articulate the choices I was making in the script and clarify them. He had tremendous generosity of spirit...”
My personal favourite film of Minghella's was the heart wrenching Truly Madly Deeply. Although this feature debut was made for TV, the standard Minghella achieved with his brilliant writing and directing earned the film a proper cinematic release. A virtually unheard of turn of events.
I was greatly saddened to hear of his death.
