If thinking about your death is supposed to lead you to greater happiness, what of the ends of others? Of those you assumed were not of this planet and didn’t live by any rules familiar to the rest of us trudging along our very ordinary paths? Can we weep, then?
No, not for long. For they’re not gone. How can they be? Artists like David Bowie and Alan Rickman leave behind great troves of riches to dazzle us forever. We can ride forever on the music, listening to and watching incredible performances repeatedly.
So much has been written about Bowie. Everyone remembers a seminal moment attached permanently to some stage of Bowie’s career. I’m stuck at the end. Who writes their requiem? A genius, that’s who. The song Lazarus on his latest album Blackstar, released days before his death, is also the title song of the musical Bowie wrote (with Irish playwright Enda Walsh) that is currently playing in New York City’s East Village until next week. During his illness, Bowie wrote four new songs for the musical and was working until the very end. Phooey to all those pundits pondering the secrecy of his condition. Why didn’t he tell anyone? Why would he? This is a guy consumed with the very business of creation. His art was for all of us. How very strange and magnificent that his private struggles were just that-private. Instead, he left melancholy messaging all over his last work. I can’t give everything away: haunting, elegiac, utterly original.
For the ages.
I saw Alan Rickman at TIFF on stage in 2014 when he came out to introduce his cast for A Little Chaos starring Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts. I liked the film he directed enough, even though it meanders off for a good part of the story about a 17th-century landscape designer who falls in love on the job.
I liked listening to Alan Rickman a lot more. But, of course, I’m hardly alone.
His voice could suggest honey or a hidden stiletto blade, and the profile of a Roman Emperor.
-Helen Mirren
Rickman’s best work is a matter of passionate debate. Was it Hans Gruber in Die Hard, a film that holds up years later because of his brilliant performance? Professor Snape? Can any of us who devoured the Harry Potter books ever conjure a face other than his for that delicious role? Or Jamie, the ghost in Truly, Madly, Deeply? Of all his roles, I like to think of him in this bittersweet gem directed by another talent now gone, the brilliant Anthony Minghella.
Of the many tributes written this week, Emma Thompson’s poignant remembrance brought me to tears. I interviewed her years ago as a television journalist for a beautiful film called Remains of the Day. She was as charming in person as she was on camera. So it came as no surprise to hear her eloquence.
Alan was my friend and so this is hard to write because I have just kissed him goodbye.
What I remember most in this moment of painful leave-taking is his humour, intelligence, wisdom, and kindness. His capacity to fell you with a look or lift you with a word.
That intransigence which made him the great artist that he was — his inedible and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view. I learned a lot from him.
He was the finest of actors and directors. I couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do with his face next. I consider myself hugely privileged to have worked with him so many times and to have been directed by him.
He was the ultimate ally. In life, art and politics. I trusted him absolutely.
He was, above all things, a rare and unique human being and we shall not see his like again.
-Emma Thompson
In 2014, Rickman’s film was the festival’s closing night. Again, he introduced his film with characteristic panache.
Packrats like me cherish ticket stubs. This is a lovely reminder of that wondrous presence forever embedded in our cultural history.
