The Talented Mr Minghella

Anthony Minghella

Anthony Minghella’s sudden death from cancer, aged just 54 leaves the UK film industry bereaved of one of its foremost stalwarts.

Often compared to David Lean for his love of epic cinema – see The English Patient, the film that swept nine Oscars (including Best Director and Best Film) in 1996.
A choosey, long-sighted, non- prolific director, Minghella was born to an English-Italian family in 1954 on the Isle of Wight.
After attending Hull University he soon made a name for himself by writing plays, and received the London Theatre Critics Award in 1984 for Most Promising Playwright and in 1986 for Best Play with Made In Bangkok.
He then started working in TV, writing episodes of Grange Hill and directing episodes of Inspector Morse. 
His feature film debut came in 1990 with Truly, Madly, Deeply, a tale of lost love, grievance and ghosts starring Alan Rickman, Juliet Stevenson and his future wife Carolyn Choa.
The film received hot reviews and it was clear that a new, bright star of English cinema was born.
After the critically acclaimed but not so successful Mr. Wonderful (1993), Minghella rose to stardom with his magnus opus The English Patient (1996): a larger-than-life story of love, war and death illuminated by Ralph Fiennes in the title role, classy and passionate Kristin Scott-Thomas and French gem Juliette Binoche.
 It was a triumph that brought glory back to the English cinema.
Nevertheless, this writer  thinks that Minghella’s most accomplished, refined work was the following The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), from a novel by Patricia Highsmith: obsession, morbidity, murder and stolen identity blend together in an impeccable period drama set in 1960’s Italy.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon give brilliant performances, but most importantly, for the first time Minghella cast Jude Law: the two worked so well together that they pair up again in the director’s following (and sadly, last) films Cold Mountain (2003, a tearful romantic drama starring Nicole Kidman) and Breaking And Entering (2006, a deep examination of social, political and sentimental issues starring Law, Juliette Binoche and – London Town).
But cinema was not Minghella’s only interest: in 2005 he staged an extraordinarily beautiful version of Madam Butterfly at the ENO and later took it to New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
At the time of his death he was collaborating with composer Osvaldo Golijov on Daedalus, an opera he should have librettoed and directed in New York.
 2005 was also the year when Minghella directed a Labour Party election commercial and thus became friends with Tony Blair, who now mourns his death.
Along with his directing career, Anthony Minghella was appointed Chairman of the British Film Institute in 2003, taking over  from Alan Parker.
He saw and supervised the birth of the new BFI Southbank and his position was growing more and more pre-eminent in order to promote London as the European capital city of cinema.
And although this writer trusts that London will be up to the standards of importance set by him, his presence will  surely be missed. As many of his films show, there was a love story going on between him and the city.
Easter Sunday sees the British TV premiere of his final film, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: the last legacy of a generous and genial maestro.

Vera Brozzoni

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