Irvin Kershner

BRUCE WEBER “Irvin Kershner, Hollywood Director, Dies at 87” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/movies/30kershner.html

映画監督のアーヴィン・カーシュナー死す。享年87歳。
やはり、彼は『スター・ウォーズ』第２作『帝国の逆襲』の監督ということで有名な名のだろうか。上掲の記事も『スター・ウォーズ』を巡るエピソードにかなりのスペースを割いている。因みに、ジョージ・ルーカスは南カリフォルニア大学にてカーシュナーの指導を受けた；

Mr. Kershner was the only person to direct both a “Star Wars” film and a James Bond film, but even he thought he was an unlikely choice to direct “Empire,” the now-highly regarded 1980 follow-up to “Star Wars” (1977), George Lucas’s colossally successful intergalactic shoot-’em-up. Mr. Lucas had been Mr. Kershner’s student at the University of Southern California film school, and the two had remained friends. Even so, Mr. Kershner turned down Mr. Lucas’s offer at first, until, as he recalled in a public interview at the Colorado Film School, Mr. Lucas told him the future of the series was at stake.

“ ‘Well, I want you to think about it,’ he says,” Mr. Kershner related, “ ‘because if the second one works, then I’ll make more.’ He says, ‘If it doesn’t work, that’s the end of “Star Wars.” ’ ”

After extracting a promise that Mr. Lucas would give him freedom to make his own picture, Mr. Kershner accepted. The result was a film that introduced the gnomish character Yoda, who supervises the Jedi training of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) while Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) and the villainous galactic empire pursue the spunky band of heroes including Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) from “Star Wars” as well as a new character, Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams. It is the film in which Darth Vader reveals he is Luke’s father, and in which Leia tells Han she loves him, only to be told in return, “I know.”

スター・ウォーズ エピソード5 帝国の逆襲 リミテッド・エディション [DVD]

あと、彼の作品で観た記憶があるのは、リチャード・ハリス主演の『サウス・ダコタの戦い（The Return of a Man Called Horse）』。これは〈インディアン〉の視点から描かれた稀有な西部劇の一つ。また、フェイ・ダナウェイ主演のサスペンス『アイズ（Eyes of Laura Mars）』。それから、〈非公式007〉の『ネヴァー・セイ・ネヴァー・アゲイン』

サウス・ダコタの戦い [VHS]

アイズ〓78米〓 [VHS]

ネバーセイ・ネバーアゲイン [DVD]

また、

MICHAEL ROSTON “Mario Monicelli, Italian Director, Dies at 95” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/movies/30monicelli.html

病院の窓から自ら飛び降りたという。
申し訳ないけれど、Mario Monicelliの映画は観た記憶なし。ただ、記事の中にウディ・アレンの『おいしい生活（Small Time Crooks）』*1は彼の映画にインスパイアされたものだという記述があり、あのノリねとくすくす笑ってしまった。『おいしい生活』はもう一度観たい。

おいしい生活 [DVD]

*1:See also http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20050808 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20090816/1250438039