Passages

[Swift]

Yes, definitely. If you grew up watching WWF in the 80s and 90s, he was a hugely memorable part of that experience. I remember being saddened when they replaced him in the early 2000s with younger, more polished and better looking people and wish they would've brought him back to do his iconic Royal Rumble intro every year, or played an audio recording of it into perpetuity.

I read earlier that apparently he was the one who came up with the WrestleMania name.

[DarkImbecile]

Cinematographer Allen Daviau (E.T., Empire of the Sun, Bugsy), of COVID-19

[beamish14]

Cinematographer Allen Daviau (E.T., Empire of the Sun, Bugsy), of COVID-19

Wow. He's the one who lensed Spielberg's most beautiful-looking films, and maybe Peter Weir's finest, Fearless. An amazing cinematographer.

[Reverend Drewcifer]

I wondered for a moment how he got the plum job on E.T., considering his limited experience on big features before 1982. But there it was, right at the beginning of his career, as cinematographer on Amblin'.

[MichaelB]

I wondered for a moment how he got the plum job on E.T., considering his limited experience on big features before 1982. But there it was, right at the beginning of his career, as cinematographer on Amblin'.

He got in touch with Spielberg out of the blue circa 1980 and basically went “Remember me? We worked together more than once in the late Sixties, since when I’ve shot a gazillion commercials”. Spielberg did indeed remember him, and promptly hired him for E.T. - which, it’s worth remembering, was his small, low-key project after the gigantism of CE3K, 1941, Raiders, etc., so he may have felt inclined to take a risk that he wouldn’t have done on something bigger.

[lzx]

Christophe, who last scored, and had a (singing!) cameo in, Bruno Dumont's Jeanne

[Dr Amicus]

Pip Baker, best remembered for writing (with his wife Jane) several Dr Who episodes - in one occasion from commission to submission in 5 days - which included the fondly remembered villain The Rani. Also several other SF tv series, and a credit on the gloriously silly Night of the Big Heat.

[flyonthewall2983]

Yes, definitely. If you grew up watching WWF in the 80s and 90s, he was a hugely memorable part of that experience. I remember being saddened when they replaced him in the early 2000s with younger, more polished and better looking people and wish they would've brought him back to do his iconic Royal Rumble intro every year, or played an audio recording of it into perpetuity.

I read earlier that apparently he was the one who came up with the WrestleMania name.

Yeah, Vince McMahon's suggestion was to call it the "Colossal Tussle". He was the longest tenured employee in a company that, if you've read the news lately, wouldn't think twice of getting rid of it's dead weight to save themselves. I've heard nothing but nice things, and yesterday was reminded that he accompanied Eddie Guerrero's body after his death to his home in Texas just so he wouldn't be alone.

Likely wasn't Corona but related to health problems he'd had over the last several years or so.

[beamish14]

I wondered for a moment how he got the plum job on E.T., considering his limited experience on big features before 1982. But there it was, right at the beginning of his career, as cinematographer on Amblin'.

He got in touch with Spielberg out of the blue circa 1980 and basically went “Remember me? We worked together more than once in the late Sixties, since when I’ve shot a gazillion commercials”. Spielberg did indeed remember him, and promptly hired him for E.T. - which, it’s worth remembering, was his small, low-key project after the gigantism of CE3K, 1941, Raiders, etc., so he may have felt inclined to take a risk that he wouldn’t have done on something bigger.

I don't think that's *quite* what happened, as Daviau did some second unit photography on Close Encounters. E.T. was supposed to
be a quicker, no-frills production because it was shot in near-total linear order, and he didn't employ his usual editor Michael Kahn on it, either.

[beamish14]

Gene Deitch, animation director famed for his modernist style, at the age of 95.

He was most famous for directing the Jules Feiffer-designed and written Oscar winner Munro

[knives]

He's also the only man to make me like Tom and Jerry (not even Chuck Jones could do that). Definitely one of the greatest even if he's no longer as well remembered. His children's book abridgments of Where the Wild Things Are and The Hobbit are also great.

[dadaistnun]

Henry Grimes, of COVID-19.

[hearthesilence]

Matthew Seligman, from complications arising from treatment for COVID-19. A great bassist for the Soft Boys, he later transitioned from music to law, practicing as a lawyer who specialized in human rights while also working as a mental health advocate.

Robyn Hitchcock wrote this beautiful remembrance on Instagram.

[fdm]

As mentioned in that Henry Grimes obituary, Giuseppe Logan has passed as well, of causes related to COVID-19.

[whaleallright]

There's something particularly wrenching about this disease picking off elderly African-American musicians, several of whom (like Grimes and particularly Logan) spent decades of their lives in penury, no doubt taking a toll on their health. It's one way the incredible racial disparities of the impact of COVID-19 in the U.S. are registering with me.

[hearthesilence]

There's something particularly wrenching about this disease picking off elderly African-American musicians, several of whom (like Grimes and particularly Logan) spent decades of their lives in penury, no doubt taking a toll on their health. It's one way the incredible racial disparities of the impact of COVID-19 in the U.S. are registering with me.

The class disparities (and sadly the racial disparities that come out of that) certainly have been discussed here in NYC. I'm stuck in the city myself - doing fine luckily - but I know quite a few people who were able to seek refuge in the Hamptons and more people who are in much worse situations elsewhere the city.

[DarkImbecile]

Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, director of Hausu

Nicely done NYT obituary

[bluesforyou]

Actor Philippe Nahon has passed away.

[colinr0380]

Actor Philippe Nahon has passed away.

I'm very sorry to hear that. He certainly made an impact on cinema with his role as the butcher in Gaspar Noé's films, with the constant voiceover ranting and unhealthy obsession with his daughter. That character gets his backstory delved into in the 40 minute short Carne, then he gets an entire feature film to himself with Seul Contre Tous / I Stand Alone (which gets a brief summary of Carne before the main feature). Finally Nahon appears, presumably playing the same character, espousing his nihilstic philosophies in a hotel room overlooking the club where a scuffle has occurred in the opening (ending) scene of Irreversible. That's the ultimate example of completely ignoring the general rule about not having too much voiceover in your film! An extreme which Noé took in entirely the opposite direction in Enter The Void.

He sort of became the face of 'French extreme cinema' for a while there in the late 90s up to the mid 2000s with the Noé films, but also in his role as the conjured up relentlessly brutal killer in Haute Tension / Switchblade Romance. And he's also in Fabrice du Welz's 2004 horror Calvaire along with Christophe Gan's sumptuous period horror Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Those are the roles that had most impact on me, but I see from imdb that he made his debut in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le doulos (and later appeared in the 2007 remake of Le deuxième souffle). And since then he has appeared in Luc Besson's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec and briefly turns up in Steven Spielberg's War Horse!

[ando]

Indeed. It's now reported that African saxophonist Manu Dibango has died from COVID-19.

The 86-year-old was best known for fusing jazz and funk music with traditional sounds from his home country, Cameroon. His biggest success was probably his 1972 hit "Soul Makossa" - originally quoted uncredited in Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," Dibango responded with a lawsuit and won.

Thanks. Hadn't realized that he had passed or that he successfully litigated for Copyright infringement against Jackson and Rihanna (Please Don't Stop The Music).

[Reverend Drewcifer]

Ronan O'Rahilly, creator of Radio Caroline, executive producer of Jack Cardiff's The Girl on a Motorcycle and Cy Endfield's Universal Soldier, and devil-on-the-shoulder of George Lazenby.

[hearthesilence]

Theodore Gaffney, from COVID-19. He was one of a handful of journalists who risked their lives chronicling the violence endured by the Freedom Riders as they challenged segregation in the South. He was 92.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Peter Beard https://fr.yahoo.com/news/mort-grand-ph ... 30527.html

[MichaelB]

Paradoxically, Beard's greatest contribution to cinema was to abandon his own project and let his former assistants David and Albert Maysles pick up the slack. Had he not done so, Grey Gardens might never have been made.

[neilist]

Peter Beard https://fr.yahoo.com/news/mort-grand-ph ... 30527.html

To mark this, Re:Voir has made Adolfas Mekas's 'Hallelujah the Hills' that stars Peter Beard free to rent online until this Sunday (26 April) by using the promo code 'STAYHOME'.