Presentation of Anthony Minghella

Mister Vice Chancellor,

It is a pleasure and privilege to present Anthony Minghella, whose accomplishments across the related fields of film, theatre and television demonstrate exceptional creative endeavour and cultural leadership. He is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director, whose visual imagination is combined with a great skill in working closely with performers. He is most widely known for his international film successes, which offer complex and moving insights into human psychology and relationships. Furthermore, his leadership of the British Film

Institute, together with his association with this University as a scholar of Samuel Beckett’s work and patron of the Beckett

International Foundation, demonstrate his commitment to the highest standards of cultural achievement.

1 Anthony was born on the Isle of Wight in 1954, to a long- established family of ice cream makers. He studied drama at the

University of Hull, where he met his wife, the choreographer

Carolyn Choa, and encountered the playwright Alan Plater who encouraged him to write drama himself. Anthony began doctoral research on Samuel Beckett’s drama that involved visits here to

Reading’s unique archive of materials relating to the playwright, and he was a university teacher until he moved into writing for theatre, radio and television. His theatre writing began in 1978 with Child’s Play, followed by further scripts for the stage, some of which were also presented on radio. In 1986 Anthony was given the London Theatre Critics Best Play Award for Made in Bangkok.

His drama writing continued with work for television, including the multi award wining series Inspector Morse and The Storyteller.

His debut as a writer-director for film was the darkly comic Truly,

Madly, Deeply in 1990, originally made for BBC Television but released as a feature film. This showed his skill in exploring the inner lives of his protagonists, but with a highly visual and imaginative emphasis. The evocation of the central character’s joy

2 and also frustration at the ghostly return of her deceased lover, led to immense critical and popular acclaim for Truly, Madly, Deeply including a BAFTA award for best screenplay. The English Patient, which he adapted and directed in 1996, was a critical and commercial triumph, and won nine Oscars including Best Film and

Best Director. Based on Michael Ondaatje’s novel, set at the end of the Second World War, the film again focuses on psychological and personal relationships, in dialogue with the visual grandeur of

European and African settings.

He followed this with The Talented Mr. Ripley, his adaptation of

Patricia Highsmith’s novel, which marked his first collaboration with the actor Jude Law. More recently, he directed Play in 2000, a television adaptation of Beckett’s stage play, which is widely regarded among Beckett scholars as the most successful film version of any of Beckett’s theatre dramas. In 2003 he wrote and directed Cold Mountain making an extraordinarily moving and successful drama despite the fact that the two main characters, separated by the American Civil War at the start of the story, are only reunited in the film’s closing scene.

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Since 2000, Anthony Minghella has been joint-owner with Sydney

Pollack of Mirage Enterprises. The company has been involved in projects such as Iris, The Quiet American, The Interpreter and a co- production with Working Title To Catch A Fire which will be released at the end of the year. This year also sees the release of

Anthony’s latest film, from his own original screenplay, Breaking and Entering, a contemporary morality fable set in London which reunites him with Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Juliet Stevenson.

In 2005 he also found time to direct an acclaimed production of

Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly at the Coliseum in London, with his wife as choreographer and associate director. The opera received an Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production. This

September the opera will transfer to New York to open the new season at The Metropolitan Opera House.

Anthony is currently beginning his second three-year term as chairman of the British Film Institute, where he plays a crucial role in developing and leading film culture in this country. He was

4 awarded a CBE in 2001, to add to awards for writing and directing too numerous to mention. In Reading, we have seen Anthony most recently when he directed stars including Jude Law, Alan

Rickman, and Felicity Kendal in readings from Beckett’s work. The gala evening was held in April in aid of Macmillan Cancer Relief, and marked the 100th anniversary of Samuel Beckett’s birth.

Anthony is a patron of the Beckett International Foundation here at the University, and his continuing creative engagement with

Beckett was recognised when he was commissioned to write the radio play Eyes Down Looking for Beckett’s centenary this year.

Across the media of theatre, radio, television and film, Anthony is a leading figure in the arts nationally and internationally.

Mister Vice Chancellor, I present Anthony Minghella, CBE, for the

Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters of this University.

Professor Jonathan Bignell

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