Just a quick post to note the passing of writer-director Anthony Minghella at the unbearably young age of 54.
Minghella wasn't a prolific filmmaker, and much of what he did--Cold Mountain, especially--smacked of middlebrow Oscar bait. But he directed a very fine adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, and his first film, Truly, Madly, Deeply, is both a lovely ghost story and one of the affecting meditations on love I've ever seen.
Fine as it is, though, I'll always think of Minghella as the writer for Jim Henson's extraordinary TV series The Storyteller. He wrote all episodes, even published an adaptation of his scripts, and despite the uniformly fine acting and impeccable physical production, it was the poetic nature of Minghella's writing that made the program such a treasure. As the title suggests, this show celebrated the very act of telling a story, something Minghella could do as well as anyone.
Here is one of my favorite episodes of The Storyteller, in three parts. If you're anything like me, you might want to have a tissue handy. "Because, you see, despite all that took place, a little boy once met a giant, and they became friends."
Part One:
Part Two:
Conclusion:
