Stop press: looking back at a past article from Salut!, the quality and range of views expressed in the comments field made it an easy decision to give it another airing ... click here
Salut! is sad to note the death, at just 64, of Peter Postlethwaite, a first-class actor whose many admirers included Steven Spielberg.
It is well-known here that the Postlethwaite role that carved out a special notch in my heart was his portrayal of the pit village brass band leader in Brassed Off, one of very few films I could watch once every few months without become weary.
Of course, he did much more than that. He was nominated for best supporting actor in the 1993 Oscars for his performance in In the Name of the Father, about the men wrongly convicted of IRA crimes. It was his work on The Lost World: Jurassic Park that led Spielberg to call him "probably the best actor in the world”.
In my first mention of Brassed Off at Salut!, I wrote:
"In several decades of movie-watching, I have not enjoyed anything more than Brassed Off, which described a Yorkshire pit closure through its impact on the colliery brass band.
Peter Postlethwaite, who played the band leader, was quite magnificent; that emotional Albert Hall speech scene was recorded in one take, reducing many of the crew to tears."
Peter Postlethwaite was a warmly appreciated master of his craft, and by all accounts retained a modest view of his gifts and achievements. Bill Taylor, commenting below, may be right to suggest that he was sometimes shortchanged on the quality of parts offered to him, but I have enjoyed watching Postlethwaite in a number of roles (and it must not be forgotten that Bill utterly disagrees with me on the merits of Brassed Off in any case).
So I am happy to stick with that speech - a powerful, searing statement about the calculated and hardly fictional destruction of Britain's mining communities - as my abiding memory of a great British actor.
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