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The Treatment

Anthony Minghella

The Treatment

KCRW

Arts

4.836 Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2008

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The late writer-director Anthony Minghella (Michael Clayton, Cold Mountain, The English Patient, Truly, Madly, Deeply) focused on characters trying to come to terms with themselves and found drama in the misperceptions in films both epic and intimate. We use this sad occasion to revisit his thoughtful interview on his last film, Breaking and Entering. (This show originally aired February 7, 2007.)

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Elvis Mitchell, welcome to the treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

0:05.5

The late writer-director, Anthony Mangela, was a creator as comfortable working on the stage as he was in bringing his material to the big screen.

0:13.6

What may be comfortable is a wrong word to use because his Urvra dealt so often, almost exclusively,

0:20.0

with characters attempting to come to terms with themselves

0:22.5

and a chasm between their own perceptions and the world around them.

0:26.5

He achieved dramatizing this turmoil in both originals and adaptations,

0:31.4

and unlike many other filmmakers, disagreement with his execution wasn't grounds for dismissal.

0:36.9

It was a catalyst for further conversation.

0:39.6

He once stopped me for what became a lengthy chat about his version of the talented Mr. Ripley,

0:44.3

of which he knew me to be less than a fan.

0:46.8

He appeared on the treatment twice for the English patient and breaking and entering,

0:51.5

his last film.

0:52.9

We used this sad occasion to revisit the breaking and entering interview with Anthony Mangella.

0:58.2

From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

1:28.8

Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. The show can also be heard at KCRW.com. My guest, director, writer Anthony Mangala, has a talent, I think, for making movies that often deal with secrets. From truly madly deeply to Mr. Wonderful, the English patient, Cold Mountain, talented Mr. Ripley,

1:33.8

and his newest breaking and entering, secrets are kind of at the key of the way he dramatized his life for his characters. First of all, welcome. Thanks for coming back to the show again.

1:37.9

Thanks, Alfred. What is it about secrets that attract you to drama? Secrets and drama are almost

1:42.9

synonymous, aren't they? I mean, I think Peter Schaffer said an lecture gave in Oxford recently. He said there are only two things, really, that people have ever been obsessed with as human beings. One is love and one is murder. You know, why do we spend our lives looking for love and why do we ever find ourselves in a place we'd want to take somebody else's life? But oddly enough,

2:03.0

I would have said that the preoccupation of this movie is not to do with secrecy, but to do with

2:07.1

conciliation. And I think that something happened, which was that I met in the course of trying

2:15.5

to deal with some break-ins to our office in London.

2:18.3

I met a lot of agencies connected with crime in London.

...

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