Truly, Madly, Deeply
Since it’s the weekend, I want to put something non-political up here at the top of the blog.
After the death of Alan Rickman (and yes, I know about his politics; if I boycotted every artist whose politics I disagreed with, I’d have almost no one left), I started looking around for some my favorite scenes that featured him, and I found this one from “Truly, Madly, Deeply.” Here, Rickman plays the returned ghost of the dead husband of a grieving wife played by Juliet Stevenson, both of them musicians. This scene appears somewhat towards the end of the movie. The people you see briefly at the beginning of the scene are some fellow-ghosts he has brought and who have been hanging around her apartment. They’ve been starting to annoy her, although she originally had been overjoyed at the return of her husband:
Yes, “Truly, Madly, Deeply” is his best picture.
The villainous man I loved to hate the most – or at least played them the most memorably – is now well and truly gone. And gone too soon.
Some of life’s best, most meaningful dialogs are with the dead. Such a paradox – isn’t it? And turning the stuff of life like that into a rom-com was truly inspired.
Here are a couple of appropriate lines from “Truly”:
Jamie [Rickman]: I blame the government.
Nina: What?
Jamie: The government.
Nina: What’s the government got to do with anything?
Jamie: I hate the bastards.
_ _ _
Nina: You’re dead and you’re still into party politics?
There’s a good piece on him in the Telegraph, which says he “hailed from working-class roots”. That surprised me; I would have guessed an aristocratic lineage.
I think this tribute by Helen Mirren is just right: “He was utterly distinctive, with a voice that could suggest honey or a hidden stiletto blade, and the profile of a Roman Emperor.”
Ann:
I’d say “honey AND a hidden stiletto blade, both at once.”
Turner Classic Network is broadcasting “Sense and Sensibility” in his honor.
I LOVED him in Diehard.
I also loved it when he “cancelled Christmas.”
What a wonderful actor.
I expected very little from this particular film, but was pleasantly surprised. Rickman (and, to be fair, Helena Bonham-Carter) elevated this version of ‘Sweeney Todd’ and made it worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omD3m-xwBWk
I enjoyed Rickman best in Bottle Shock, which also features Pine, Farina, Pullman, and Sandoval.
Strange that poem, half Communist, half romantic.