I was working on a script but I paused to distract myself with Twitter where I discovered that first Nora Ephron had died and then that she hadn't in fact died but that she was gravely ill with leukemia and not expected to live through the night. That's the weird thing about the internet, people can literally die and come back to life in a matter of minutes.
The truth is that Nora Ephron has passed away and that is very sad news.
Nora Ephron is one of the great comedy writers, one of the great movie makers, and one of my favorite ladies of all time.
There are those people whose performances, writing, directing, or work has shaken something inside of you. Who have woken up your inner child, left somewhere in the past watching You've Got Mail on TBS on a rainy Saturday at one's parents house, and who make you even today, ten years later, say.... "I want to do that too".
And by that I mean make wonderful hilarious movies, not find romance online... however... I've done A LOT more of that than the prior.
Nora Ephron is a legend. She is an icon. She is a trail blazer. And she is an awesome artist.
Her long going cinematic career spans as far back as writing Silkwood and as recent as Julie and Julia. Two iconic Meryl Streep movies, all from the imagination of Ms. Nora Ephron.
Nora Ephron has been the punch line of many a joke about a bob haircut or turtle neck sweater, because she wore both like no one else. She wrote a whole book on hating her neck and honestly, who else can say they did THAT? Her movies have been criticized and some have been flops (i.e. BeWitched with Nicole Kidman) but for me... there really isn't a bad Nora Ephron movie, because Nora Ephron knows what she likes and her perspective, her aesthetic, and her outlook on the world shines through her most successful and unsuccessful movies alike.
Nora Ephron's movies mastered what might seem easy but under closer inspection is revealed as one of the hardest things of all... comfort. She made the romantic comedy seem effortless, the boy meets girl story seem like a piece of cake, and made middle-aged lady characters seem consistently fabulous in every way. Pure and simple... she has, like no one else, made comfort an art form.
There is nothing quite like stumbling onto a Nora Ephron movie on a day when you're sick, or a day that you're sad, or a day that you just want to feel better about the world. Her brilliant artistic voice will be incredibly missed but more importantly... that voice will remain forever.
I suspect there will rarely ever be a weekend that Sleepless In Seattle isn't playing on someone's television somewhere. And I suspect that we'll never stop quoting "I'll have what she's having" from When Harry Met Sally at our local diners, and I doubt I'll ever remove Heartburn from my Netflix Instant Streaming Queue. And thats how it always should be.
Thanks Nora Ephron. For making the world a funnier, happier, sweeter, and more romantic place.