Two Deaths

Yesterday morning the Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella died at the age of 54.
He was not an overly prolific director, having helmed only six features and his work ranged from brilliant ("The English Patient") to better-than-average ("Truly, Madly, Deeply", "The Talented Mr. Ripley") down to embarrassing ("Mr. Wonderful", "Breaking and Entering").
He was not one of my absolute favorite directors, but "The English Patient" played a pivotal role in my own decision to pursue a career in film making, so for that I owe eternal thanks to him (and to novelist Michael Ondaatje and producer Saul Zaentz and editor Walter Murch).

We also lost Arthur C. Clarke yesterday. He was not really a film maker himself, but along with Stanley Kubrick (who is one of my absolute favorite directors) he penned the screenplay to what is arguably the most important science fiction film of all time: "2001: A Space Odyssey."