15 January 2016 - Remembering Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman, giant of British screen and stage, dies at 69
Catherine Shoard (The Guardian, 14/01/2016)
Alan Rickman, one of the best-loved and most warmly admired British actors of the past 30 years, has died in London aged 69. His death was confirmed on Thursday by his family who said that he died “surrounded by family and friends”. Rickman had been suffering from cancer.
A star whose arch features and languid diction were recognisable across the generations, Rickman found a fresh legion of fans with his role as Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films.
Cast and crew on those movies were among the first to pay tribute to the actor. In a lengthy post, Daniel Radcliffe wrote that Rickman was “one of the greatest actors I will ever work with” as well as “one of the loyalest and most supportive people I’ve ever met in the film industry”.
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Hollywood's villain
Bob Mondello and David Greene (NPR, 14/01/2016)
Die Hard
Ian Crouch (The New Yorker, 14/01/2016)
Alan Rickman, who died on Thursday, at the age of sixty-nine, was a classically trained actor who did time in the Royal Shakespeare Company and made his name in modern theatrical productions, notably “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” which he starred in first in London, in 1985, and then on Broadway, in 1987. Despite being passed over for John Malkovich when that play was turned into the movie “Dangerous Liaisons,” Rickman would go on to play dozens of memorable characters onscreen, including Professor Severus Snape in all eight Harry Potter movies, as well as to write and perform for the stage. But, for philistines like me (and, it seems, for many others), Rickman was—and now always will be—Hans Gruber, the toothy, perfectly manicured, sphinxlike villain from the 1988 action movie “Die Hard.”
The plot of “Die Hard” barely matters, but quickly: Bruce Willis plays a New York cop visiting his estranged wife at her office in the fictional Nakatomi Plaza, in Los Angeles. Their reunion, during a Christmas party, is spoiled by the arrival of Gruber and his goons, who initially appear to be terrorists, but whose real motive is more simple: money, six hundred and forty million dollars of it. Gruber takes everyone hostage, and only Willis remains at large in the building, left to foil the bad guy’s plans.
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On stage
Ben Brantley (The New York Times, 14/01/2016)
No man, at least not since Noël Coward, wore a dressing gown with more slippery ease or dangerous intent. When the British actor Alan Rickman appeared on Broadway in Howard Davies’s 2002 revival of Coward’s “Private Lives,” he brought a refreshing, and slightly alarming, sexual frankness to the role of Elyot, that comedy’s fast-quipping, martini-sipping hero.
Here was a man who dressed as elegantly as he spoke. But whether in black tie or silk pajamas, Mr. Rickman’s Elyot knew that his bespoke clothes — like his impeccably tailored epigrams — could slide away at any minute to reveal a stark-naked lust.
Mr. Rickman, who died on Thursday at 69, is best known to the general public for his charismatic creepiness in “Die Hard” and the “Harry Potter” films. But onstage he was even more compelling as a serpentine seducer with a conscience — someone who lived for the pleasures of his flesh, while a faint voice was always whispering in his ear that one day the bill for such hedonism would have to be paid. When his Elyot in “Private Lives” said to his bedmate (and ex-wife), Amanda (Lindsay Duncan, his perfect partner), “We’re in love all right,” the words tolled with a rueful ring of doom.
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Severus Snape
For An Entire Generation, Alan Rickman Will Always Be Severus Snape
Claire Fallon (The Huffington Post, 14/01/2016)
The death of Alan Rickman at age 69, following a battle with cancer, has hit movie fans, both serious and casual, for innumerable reasons. He starred in "Die Hard," "Love Actually," "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," and "Sense and Sensibility"; he voiced iconic characters like Marvin the Paranoid Android in the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the caterpillar in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland."
All over my Facebook and Twitter feeds, however, I see how hard it is for fans to separate him from one particular role: Severus Snape, a character he played in all eight of the "Harry Potter" films.
Those movies bulged with acclaimed British actors, from Michael Gambon to Emma Thompson, yet it was Alan Rickman who immediately seemed like he'd lived within the dark corridors and looming turrets of Hogwarts long before the cameras started rolling. He embodied Snape so fully he seemed like part of the scenery -- a particularly unforgettable part.
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Tributes
Chris Wiegand, Nancy Groves and Ben Beaumont-Thomas (The Guardian, 14/01/2016)
Patrick Stewart
Alan was perhaps our most distinctive and unique stage and film performer, with a voice and phrasing that teased and taunted, mocked and despaired. I first worked with him at the RSC in Peter Brook’s 1978 production of Antony and Cleopatra, with Glenda Jackson. As the Major-Domo of Cleopatra’s court he was commanding, witty and cynical. His world-weary tolerance of those around him stays with me vividly. He is irreplaceable.
Kate Winslet
Alan was an exceptionally warm and giving man and an utterly phenomenal actor and gifted director. I remember being so intimidated by him when we worked together when I was 19 [in Sense and Sensibility], because he had such a powerful and commanding presence. And that voice! Oh, that voice … But the reality of course, was that he was the kindest and best of men. He had the patience of a saint. He was a warm-hearted puppy dog, who would do anything for anyone if it made them happy.
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15 January 2016 - Remembering Alan Rickman, La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), janvier 2016. Consulté le 13/12/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2016/15-january-2016-remembering-alan-rickman