Anthony Minghella Appreciation in the WASHINGTON POST
March 19th, 2008 by Andre Soares
In the Washington Post, Desson Thomson’s Anthony Minghella appreciation, "Anthony Minghella, Bringing the Art House to the Mainstream":
"Minghella, famously bald, genial and perpetually clad in black, set his professional destiny with 1990’s critically lauded Truly Madly Deeply, a Ghost for the cinephile set, in which a bereaved wife (Juliet Stevenson) finds love after death with her late beloved (Alan Rickman). From that point, he set out to create stories that tested, but also enchanted, the audience.
"He accomplished this by tossing celebrities into the dramaturgical equivalent of white-water rapids. In Cold Mountain, that was star-licious Nicole Kidman playing a city woman forced to live a hardscrabble existence in the Confederate South. And Matt Damon, best known to audiences as the adorable townie in Good Will Hunting, was suddenly the coldly calculating manipulator in The Talented Mr. Ripley. With this intentional disconnect, Minghella led mainstream audiences into terrain they might otherwise never have explored. Moviegoing suddenly felt as risky as it was glamorous. And the stark definitions of art and entertainment no longer really mattered."
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Thomson then adds that Ang Lee achieved the same feat with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain, and that Minghella fared less well with his recent Breaking and Entering.
But he fails to mention that "star-licious" (say what??) Nicole Kidman may have played "a city woman forced to live a hardscrabble existence" but not for a moment did she look or act like one.
Technorati Tags: Anthony Minghella, Desson Thomson, Truly Madly Deeply, Breaking and Entering, Nicole Kidman, Ang Lee
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I loved The English Patient. I think it’s even better than Lawrence of Arabia. Beautiful scenery, beautiful direction and screenplay, beautiful actors, beautiful acting. A masterpiece.