![]() Director: Anthony Minghella Year Of Release: 1996 Plot: In a crumbling Italian villa, a nurse looks after an unknown, hideously burned pilot. In flashback we learn he is Count Laszlo de Almásy, co-leader of a Royal Geographical Society archaeological and surveying expedition in Egypt and Libya. With World War II looming on the horizon, he embarks on an affair with the married Katherine Clifton, which eventually leads to tragedy. |
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Just a quick one today, to point out something I think is fairly interesting (and Im hoping Im not the only one). Although the British detective series Inspector Morse seemed to be on television forever, there were actually only 33 episodes made over the 13 years it ran (between 1987 and 2000). Nevertheless, the John Thaw starring, Oxford set police drama proved to be a pretty impressive, if unexpected, training ground for Best Picture Oscar winning directors, with several people going onto such success after working on the series.
Before writer/director Anthony Minghella started making movies such as Truly Madly Deeply, he wrote three of the early episodes of Inspector Morse, including the very first one, The Dead Of Jericho. A few years later he wrote and directed 1996s The English Patient, which won nine Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture, following it with The Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain and Breaking and Entering, before dying young of a haemorrhage following surgery in 2008.
However he wasnt the only person who went on from the early days of Inspector Morse to major Hollywood glory. Between 1990 and 1994, John Madden took on four episodes of the show (more than any other single director), then shortly afterwards directed Mrs. Brown. Although initially made as a TV movie, it was decided it was so good it should be shown around the world theatrically, leading to an Oscar nomination for Judi Dench. Madden followed Mrs Brown the next year with Shakespeare In Love, which, of course, beat Saving Private Ryan to the Best Picture Oscar.
Around the same time as Madden was making his Morse episodes, the producers hired a young, fairly inexperienced Mancunian to direct a couple of instalment, one in 1990 and one in 1992. Two years later the same director impressed the film world immensely with a movie called Shallow Grave. The director was, of course, Danny Boyle, whos since gone on to make Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later…, Sunshine and the multi-Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire.
And while perhaps not as coated in Oscar-winning glory, theres also the likes of Julian Mitchell, who wrote 10 of the 33 Morse episodes, and also handled the scripts for Wilde and Vincent & Theo. Meanwhile Morse writer Charles Wood penned the screenplays for An Awfully Big Adventure and received a BAFTA nomination for co-scripting Iris. Another director who went on to have great film success shortly after her work on Morse is Antonia Bird. She directed an episode in 1992, a couple years before she caught the movie worlds attention with the gay vicar movie, Priest. She then followed that with the Drew Barrymore and Chris ODonnell movie Mad Love and the odd Guy Pearce cannibal drama, Ravenous.
As perhaps might be expected for a show that needed an ever refreshing set of supporting actors, the series also provided before-they-were famous appearances for the likes of Mark Strong, Christopher Eccleston, Johnny Lee Miller, Steven Mackintosh, Jason Isaacs and Rachel Weisz (another Oscar winner).
Perhaps its all a coincidence, but there cant be that many British TV shows that can boast that nearly a third of the episodes made were either written or directed by a future Best Picture Oscar winner, but Inspector Morse can.
TIM ISAAC
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