Obituaries
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TIM HETHERINGTON, R.I.P.
While traveling today I heard the very sad news that photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Tim Hetherington, winner of the Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize, with Sebastian Junger, for their documentary, Restrepo, was killed while covering the conflict in Libya. Lauren Wissot interviewed Hetherington and Junger earlier this year for Filmmaker, and she began her piece like this: “Most documentary filmmakers attempt to see the world through the lens of the subjects they’re shooting, but few put their lives on the line to do so.” Of the film, which looked at the conflict in Afghanistan through the viewpoints of U.S. soldiers […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2011 -
R.I.P, SIDNEY LUMET
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 9, 2011
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ELIZABETH TAYLOR, R.I.P.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 23, 2011
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DON VAN VLIET, R.I.P.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 17, 2010 -
HARVEY PEKAR, R.I.P.
The comic book genius and working man’s philosopher Harvey Pekar died today of cancer at age 70. From William Grimes’ New York Times obituary. Harvey Pekar’s life was the subject of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s innovative bio-pic, American Splendor, in which Paul Giamatti played Pekar in the dramatic sections while Pekar appeared as himself in interview segments. The trailer is below. R.I.P., Harvey.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 13, 2010 -
VIC SKOLNICK, R.I.P.
I was saddened to hear of the death of Vic Skolnick, an influential co-founder of Long Island’s first major art house movie theater, The Cinema Arts Center, in Huntington, N.Y. Passing away at 81 on June 10th, Skolnick, along with his wife, Charlotte Sky, founded what was originally known as the New Community Cinema in 1973. Skolnick, a teacher for twenty years at N.Y. public schools, combined his passion for history with a lifelong love of films. His ambition was to show as many diverse films as possible and educate his loyal audience in innovative cinema. The cinema went through […]
by Melissa Silvestri on Jun 24, 2010 -
PETER BRUNETTE, R.I.P.
I was shocked and tremendously saddened to read at Indiewire this morning the news that film critic Peter Brunette died today of a heart attack while attending the Taorima Film Festival in Italy. Eugene Hernandez’s obituary recalls Brunette’s many accomplishments, including his books on Michelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar-wai and, most recently, Michael Haneke, as well as his work as director of film studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. From an excerpt from a Wake Forest publication quoted by Hernandez: “People should watch art films for the same reason they should read Virginia Woolf as well as Tom Clancy,” […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 16, 2010 -
DENNIS HOPPER, R.I.P.
Actor and director Dennis Hopper died today at 74. When I heard the news I started searching on YouTube for some of my favorite Hopper moments — not just Blue Velvet, Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now but also that scene from True Romance, his supporting work in Rebel without a Cause and Giant, the experimental abandon of his underrated The Last Movie, his haunted addition to River’s Edge, and the incredible, Linda Manz-starring Out of the Blue. But then I came across this video essay by Matt Zoller Seitz which is an excellent flashback to not only many of Hopper’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 29, 2010 -
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, 1962 – 2008
I was absolutely stunned to return home to New York tonight from a wedding in Massachusetts and read online that one of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace, died this weekend in Claremont, California. Wallace’s novels include Infinite Jest and The Broom of the System, and he is the author of several excellent books of essays, including A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster. From the obituary in the L.A. Times: Times book editor David Ulin was in New York City for a National Book Critics Circle Board meeting Saturday. “What was a party is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2008 -
MANNY FARBER, 1917 – 2008
Celebrated and influential film critic Manny Farber died yesterday at the age of 91. At Movie City Indie Ray Pride has a lovely, well-linked remembrance, which opens like this: Manny Farber, painter, brilliant writer, indelible critic and all-round original whom some aped and few grazed, died in his sleep last night at the age of 91. He had retired from writing and teacher and devoted himself to painting and drawing. To cite Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, which early Preston Sturges savant Farber would likely not frown upon, “What a life!” Glenn Kenny also has a long piece on […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2008
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