director Anthony Minghella dies
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Original Article)
Tributes from all corners of the arts, including film, television and opera, poured in yesterday for Anthony Minghella, who has died from a hemorrhage in hospital - days after an operation was judged to have gone well.
Minghella, who was 54, will chiefly be remembered for his films, from Truly, Madly, Deeply to The English Patient - for which he won an Oscar - to The Talented Mr Ripley to Cold Mountain. But he was also an accomplished playwright and a significant influence in British television when he worked on shows such as Grange Hill, Boon and Inspector Morse. When he tried his hand at opera, with Madame Butterfly for the English National Opera in 2005, it was a sensation.
His death was all the more shocking because it was out of the blue. His American publicist Leslee Dart said doctors performed surgery on Minghella last week for cancer of the neck and tonsils. "The surgery had gone well and they were very optimistic," she said. "But he developed a hemorrhage and they were not able to stop it." He leaves a wife, Carolyn Choa, and two grown-up children.
The actor Ralph Fiennes, who starred in The English Patient, said: "He delighted in the contribution of everyone - he was a true collaborator. His films deal with extreme aloneness and the redemptive power of love, even at the moment of death. I will remember him as a man who always wanted to get to the heart of the matter."
Jude Law, who appeared in three of Minghella’s films, said he had come to regard him more as a friend than a colleague. "He was a brilliantly talented writer and director who wrote dialogue that was a joy to speak and then put it onto the screen in a way that always looked effortless."
The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who counted Minghella as a friend, called him "one of Britain’s greatest creative talents".
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