It’s been a slow death, but Miramax dies on Thursday.
The New York and Los Angeles offices of the arthouse movie studio owned by Disney will close.
Eighty people will lose their jobs. The six movies waiting distribution -- "Last Night," "The Debt," "The Tempest” among them -- will be shelved, to gather dust, or win a tepid release.
It’s not clear that anyone at the studio will care.
But a lot of other people around the movie business mourned the impending loss of a label that once set the bar for taste and artistry. (Update Thursday: A Disney spokeswoman called to protest that Miramax is not 'dead.' "Miramax will consoldiate its operations within Walt Disney Studios, and will be releasing a smaller number of films than in previous years. But it will continue to operate within the Walt Disney Studios," she said.)
Over 31 years, the movie company that for most of its existence was led by founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein brought the public enduring stories that plumbed the depths of human emotion (“My Left Foot”) and pushed the boundaries of cultural barriers (“Reservoir Dogs”).
When we think of the movies that defined the latter part of the 20th century -- the movies that mattered, that stories that hit pop culture like a hammer and left a dent -- more often than not they came from Miramax.
“The Piano.” “Pulp Fiction.” “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” “Clerks.” “The English Patient.” (See slideshow.)
All too often, we may find ourselves saying: Why doesn’t Hollywood make those movies anymore?
Maybe the movie industry doesn’t know how to. Miramax, for well over a decade, was something special.
“Miramax wasn't just a bad-boy clubhouse, it was a 20th century Olympus,” filmmaker Kevin Smith wrote to TheWrap. “Throw a can of Diet Coke and you hit a modern-day deity. And for one brief, shining moment, it was an age of magic and wonders.” (Read Kevin Smith's full Hollyblog.)
With these in the vault: “Shakespeare in Love” (Oscar: Gwyneth Paltrow). “The Crying Game” (Oscar, Neil Jordan). “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (5 noms). “Chicago” (6 Oscar wins).
“If there was any company that contributed more to the shaping of a generation and a sensibility -- I don’t know it,” said veteran publicist Fredell Pogodin, lamenting the closure.
There were lots of overambitious flops, or movies that tried too hard -- “The Aviator.” “The Shipping News.” “The Four Feathers.” “Cold Mountain.”
But there was also lots of plain audacious filmmaking, movies that nobody else would dare make, much less ride to awards glory: “Kill Bill I and II.” “The Ciderhouse Rules.” “Good Will Hunting.” “Swingers.”
The story of Miramax has been told and retold: Scrappy New York brothers name the studio after their parents, wheel and deal to hold their movie company together, bully business partners, seduce filmmakers and spend loads of money on Oscar campaigns.
