Last
night I finally got around to popping in The Criterion Collection’s new digital
remaster of Rob Reiner’s adaptation of screenwriter and author William Goldman’s
celebrated novel The Princess Bride. With its eclectic mixture of classical
Renaissance era fantasy elements, old fashioned swashbuckling adventure tinged
with romance and a snarky running commentary that would make Jean Shepherd
blush, William Goldman’s distinctive sense of humor took an otherwise generic
fantasy tale and elevated it into something timeless.
Come
around the following morning, the terrible news of the famed author and
screenwriter’s passing in his New York City home couldn’t have come at a worse
time. Leaving our world at the age of
87, the two-time Academy Award winning author won both Best Original Screenplay
for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
Best Adapted Screenplay for All the
President’s Men and adapted both of his novels Marathon Man and The Princess
Bride to the silver screen himself.
Described
by many as ‘one of the late twentieth century’s most popular storytellers’,
Goldman also went on to adapt a total of four Stephen King novels to the big
screen including Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Misery
and was working steadily through his final novel and picture Wild Card before settling into
retirement. One of the literary and film
world’s most prized assets, the late William Goldman is no longer with us yet
his enchanting, thrilling and frequently funny stories brought to the big
screen live forever and will be cherished as timeless works of art for years to
come.
- Andrew Kotwicki