That Rare Bird, , by Chris Derrick – Sympathy for the Devil #21 | @MDWorld

July 16, 2012 Chris Derrick 0 Comments

Film auteur Nora Ephron passed away last Tuesday night; it was a sad day for pop culture entertainment, because even at 71 Ephron was a relevant filmmaker and writer. Her indelible mark was left on cinema with the Oscar-nominated screenplay for WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… the faux orgasm scene is a burned in the mind (and ears) scene that is quintessential ‘80s, yet it was transcendental; and the same goes with SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE.

As a film auteur in an art form-industry that doesn’t have too many A-list female filmmakers, let alone auteurs, Ephron’s body of work is substantial as it is important. Her screenplays for SILKWOOD and HEARTBURN broke new ground in terms of how women (and with SILKWOOD, humanized Meryl Streep to a great number of critics) are portrayed on film, and WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… ushered in a fresh, bold, revelatory and new way of how male-female relationship were portrayed on film and gave us a look inside the female psyche about heterosexual relationships that became cultural gold.

As a filmmaker who came to directing by way of writing OUTSIDE of film, she carried on the tradition of such cinematic luminaries as Billy Wilder and Sam Fuller (I’m not elevating her to their pantheon, yet she made characteristically person films), one has to give her her props for making the films that she was able to get made.
(Hanks)

Tom Hanks gave Ephron a wonderful obit in TIME the other week, and he made a curious point about how savvy she was to make the drive from Brooklyn to Manhattan geographically real on-screen (something that is rarely done, and in fact most filmmakers gleefully dismiss real-world geography for cinematic beauty). What I noticed in Ephron’s work is a heightened sense of verisimilitude in the details such that she could play with more exaggeration in her characters’ behavior – which wasn’t super stylized, but sometimes just neurotic enough to get us laughs they way Woody Allen masterfully does.

Filmmaking is a notoriously laborious and pernicious process that takes no prisoners; as someone once said there are on volunteers, not victims, in showbiz, and as a writer-director Ephron took on the challenge – that breaks more than it should – and successfully carved out a niche and a territory that perhaps only Nancy Meyers was an effective contemporary and kindred spirit in.

What I additionally impressed about Ephron was her stage efforts; it takes a lot of moxy for any established writer to venture into creative endeavors that involve the theatre – the original dramatic art form – as the scrutiny from the critics and public is perhaps higher that necessary, and yet Ephron succeeded in these endeavors with such plays as “Love, Loss and What I Wore”, “Imaginary Friends” and the upcoming “Lucky Guy” is sure to be a blast.

Her work will be missed, as we probably would have witnessed another three or four charming, unique and idiosyncratic films from her, before she hung it up.